Post by G on Jan 6, 2010 23:20:28 GMT -5
Once again, I have decided to do the ridiculous and put down on screen the state of Comic Crack as I've seen it for the past year. As the years go by (hopefully), it allows me to easily see the peaks and valleys of trying to run this message board. If nothing else, I'm amusing myself.
2009 started with this message board still known under it's original name "Gotta Start Somewhere" under a dark cloud of uncertainty. The previous year had seen the board reach it's highest levels of activity around mid year, only to see it come screeching to a near halt by year's end. By time 2009 started, the message board was as slow as it ever had been and seemingly growing further stagnant. There was literally no 2 posts speaking to each other and visitors had slowed to a trickle. After numerous attempts to drum up some kind of participation had failed, I began contemplating whether I wanted to even continue doing this. I wrestled with it for awhile and finally decided the board either needed to shut down or find a way to change.
So, at the stroke of midnight on the morning of February 18th, I put the board on hiatus and placed it in a pseudo shut down mode. The site was no longer accessible to members. Only myself and Underdog was able to be in. I knew if I closed the board down, in no time at all I would miss it. So therefore, rather than shut the board down, I decided it was a good time to step away, regroup and rethink ideas for the board. I decided that not only did I need to change the appearance of the board, but more importantly, I needed to change my attitude towards it. Furthermore, I decided I needed to change the name to make it more in line with the primary focus of what the board was about.
I would spent the next few days thinking of names and running them through google, to see if anyone else had them. Finally I thought "Comic Crack" and ran it through. I found a site that had made a recurring column called Comic Crack a couple of years ago, but they were no longer doing so. There was no sites named Comic Crack. And most references was for a Crack in a video game about Comics. It was settled. I would name the site Comic Crack.
Furthermore, I decided to change the look of my newly named board. 1 thing I loved about Gotta Start Somewhere was the "Comic Backgrounds of the Day". It generally found ways to be a conversation piece and continual message generator, but I have to admit after doing it for over 400 consecutive days (yes every morning it was the 1st thing I did), I was growing tired of changing the cover every day. When I found a new template for the new site, there was no way to keep the Comic Background of the Day going. It was kind of bittersweet. I wouldn't miss having to put a comic cover up everyday, but I did miss having the background there for all to see and talk about.
After settling on the new template, I began piecing it together myself. Towards the end, I was growing in a hurry to reopen the board. Underdog had more or less helped me complete the original template. I put the original one up, but there was mistakes in it. He helped me correct them when I had no experience. This time since I already had experience, I put this one up without a hitch.
I changed some thread areas and dropped a few. A few of the new additions was "The Local Comic Store News and Review", "Hollywood and Comics", "What's the story now"? and a few others.
Finally I reopened the doors on March 2nd and "Gotta Start Somewhere" no longer existed. Instead March 2nd would be the birth of what is now known as Comic Crack.
Not wanting to stop there, I secured the name "comiccrack.com" by purchasing the domain name at godaddy.com. "comiccrack.com presented me with new challenges. To say I enjoyed putting together that page would be a outright lie. The page editor at godaddy had to be one of the most cumbersome pieces of software I ever tried to use. Furthermore, any changes that you wanted to make beside their lame layouts and upgrades they gave you had to be added using CSS code. To put it mildly, I was only beginning to get to where I could manipulate HTML. Not that I could write any of it. I just got to the point where I could maybe work with it. CSS, was something I had no clue how to work with. Luckily Underdog pointed me towards a great site that gave me an easy to use overview on any subjects I wanted. So I studied that just enough and made the crude opening page that we still see today. On March 6th comiccrack.com was an official website.
The original intent was to have it be a gateway to this messageboard and when time and knowledge allowed, to tinker with and slowly make it into something more. Other than some extremely minor tweaks, it has remain virtually the same since the day it has opened. Which is still crude and unfinished in appearance, but workable nonetheless.
The message board appeared to have opened with just a bit of curiosity. There was an initial blip in attendees, followed with a complete death of visitors even worse than what I had before I shut down. April marked the lowest post count in the history of the board with 19 posts during the month which included over half being my very own.
I had heard that my attitude towards the end of Gotta Start Somewhere had turned more than 1 person away. Knowing this, I knew during the shutdown that I had to change my attitude towards how I felt about the board. I felt I always tried to please others and do for them the best that I could and I still do to this day and I believe I always will. I want to make this a decent enjoyable board. But I've learned you better love doing this on your own or you're very likely going to be disappointed with how frustrating this experience can be when things don't go the way you had hoped. My new attitude was to just let the site exist and keep plugging away at it no matter what the outcome or no matter what it lacked. I needed to learn to look at the board as my own collection of work and look at everyone's post as a contribution benefiting all and just enjoy it when it happens and at least know you've created a chance for it to happen. In short, I think I found peace with myself and the board. The board has a life of its own and will have it's own ups and down. The best I could do is to steer it.
My personal life outside of the site was in turmoil as well. Being unemployed, I decided to go to school and learn more about a subject I have learned to enjoy since creating my own site. I decided to further my education in web design. I would like to thank defiant1 for getting me started down this road. Perhaps unknowingly on how it would shape my path. I have to say, the pursuit of knowledge in this field is challenging, fascinating and rewarding. I'm even unsure at this point if I will even get to finish. But let me say if I'm still at it at address time next year, I'll be almost done. So, I'm going to stick with it for as long as I possibly can.
After only 1 semester and 2 completed classes, I took the CIW Certification Exams and passed all 3 required tests. I was the only 1 in my class to do so. I can now say I am CIW Certified. Which doesn't really mean much at all because I still have way more to learn than what knowledge I do have which at this point is still very small. But I do feel it was an achievement directly related to running this board and a lot of reading, studying and taking a ton of practice tests. And one I feel at the very least, is a feather in my cap that needs more feathers.
In August, I made a minor logo change and changed the sidebars of the site to the collage that is currently in place and continued my education and a new part time job throughout the remainder of the year.
The site had 2 banner months of decent participation. The 1st was in August. I attribute that month to the major news in comics surrounding the announcement that Jim Shooter was returning to Valiant characters through Dark Horse, as well as the merger of Disney with Marvel. The site seemed to have a bit to talk about during this time.
The 2nd was here at the end in December. I don't really know why that month was good, but perhaps being the end of the year, there was a bit more to talk about and reflect on.
The number of posts for 2008 was 3207.
The number of posts for 2009 was 1552.
This was a drop of 52% from the previous year. Even with such a drop, there was still enough reasons for me to be optimistic going forward. The board seems to me healthier leaving the year than when it began. And the dark clouds that I felt were raining down on my board have now given way to cautious optimism and me just amusing myself with what takes place on the board.
Looking forward, I would hope that 2010 continues an improvement in appearance, quality and overall health. One area I would like to improve would be the comiccrack website. Not quite sure at the moment how I will do that, but I'll try and do something with it eventually.
In the meantime, I'm wishing everyone here the best and I hope to write another one of these stupid addresses next year!
With Highest Regards,
Tommy
-gowaltrip
2009 started with this message board still known under it's original name "Gotta Start Somewhere" under a dark cloud of uncertainty. The previous year had seen the board reach it's highest levels of activity around mid year, only to see it come screeching to a near halt by year's end. By time 2009 started, the message board was as slow as it ever had been and seemingly growing further stagnant. There was literally no 2 posts speaking to each other and visitors had slowed to a trickle. After numerous attempts to drum up some kind of participation had failed, I began contemplating whether I wanted to even continue doing this. I wrestled with it for awhile and finally decided the board either needed to shut down or find a way to change.
So, at the stroke of midnight on the morning of February 18th, I put the board on hiatus and placed it in a pseudo shut down mode. The site was no longer accessible to members. Only myself and Underdog was able to be in. I knew if I closed the board down, in no time at all I would miss it. So therefore, rather than shut the board down, I decided it was a good time to step away, regroup and rethink ideas for the board. I decided that not only did I need to change the appearance of the board, but more importantly, I needed to change my attitude towards it. Furthermore, I decided I needed to change the name to make it more in line with the primary focus of what the board was about.
I would spent the next few days thinking of names and running them through google, to see if anyone else had them. Finally I thought "Comic Crack" and ran it through. I found a site that had made a recurring column called Comic Crack a couple of years ago, but they were no longer doing so. There was no sites named Comic Crack. And most references was for a Crack in a video game about Comics. It was settled. I would name the site Comic Crack.
Furthermore, I decided to change the look of my newly named board. 1 thing I loved about Gotta Start Somewhere was the "Comic Backgrounds of the Day". It generally found ways to be a conversation piece and continual message generator, but I have to admit after doing it for over 400 consecutive days (yes every morning it was the 1st thing I did), I was growing tired of changing the cover every day. When I found a new template for the new site, there was no way to keep the Comic Background of the Day going. It was kind of bittersweet. I wouldn't miss having to put a comic cover up everyday, but I did miss having the background there for all to see and talk about.
After settling on the new template, I began piecing it together myself. Towards the end, I was growing in a hurry to reopen the board. Underdog had more or less helped me complete the original template. I put the original one up, but there was mistakes in it. He helped me correct them when I had no experience. This time since I already had experience, I put this one up without a hitch.
I changed some thread areas and dropped a few. A few of the new additions was "The Local Comic Store News and Review", "Hollywood and Comics", "What's the story now"? and a few others.
Finally I reopened the doors on March 2nd and "Gotta Start Somewhere" no longer existed. Instead March 2nd would be the birth of what is now known as Comic Crack.
Not wanting to stop there, I secured the name "comiccrack.com" by purchasing the domain name at godaddy.com. "comiccrack.com presented me with new challenges. To say I enjoyed putting together that page would be a outright lie. The page editor at godaddy had to be one of the most cumbersome pieces of software I ever tried to use. Furthermore, any changes that you wanted to make beside their lame layouts and upgrades they gave you had to be added using CSS code. To put it mildly, I was only beginning to get to where I could manipulate HTML. Not that I could write any of it. I just got to the point where I could maybe work with it. CSS, was something I had no clue how to work with. Luckily Underdog pointed me towards a great site that gave me an easy to use overview on any subjects I wanted. So I studied that just enough and made the crude opening page that we still see today. On March 6th comiccrack.com was an official website.
The original intent was to have it be a gateway to this messageboard and when time and knowledge allowed, to tinker with and slowly make it into something more. Other than some extremely minor tweaks, it has remain virtually the same since the day it has opened. Which is still crude and unfinished in appearance, but workable nonetheless.
The message board appeared to have opened with just a bit of curiosity. There was an initial blip in attendees, followed with a complete death of visitors even worse than what I had before I shut down. April marked the lowest post count in the history of the board with 19 posts during the month which included over half being my very own.
I had heard that my attitude towards the end of Gotta Start Somewhere had turned more than 1 person away. Knowing this, I knew during the shutdown that I had to change my attitude towards how I felt about the board. I felt I always tried to please others and do for them the best that I could and I still do to this day and I believe I always will. I want to make this a decent enjoyable board. But I've learned you better love doing this on your own or you're very likely going to be disappointed with how frustrating this experience can be when things don't go the way you had hoped. My new attitude was to just let the site exist and keep plugging away at it no matter what the outcome or no matter what it lacked. I needed to learn to look at the board as my own collection of work and look at everyone's post as a contribution benefiting all and just enjoy it when it happens and at least know you've created a chance for it to happen. In short, I think I found peace with myself and the board. The board has a life of its own and will have it's own ups and down. The best I could do is to steer it.
My personal life outside of the site was in turmoil as well. Being unemployed, I decided to go to school and learn more about a subject I have learned to enjoy since creating my own site. I decided to further my education in web design. I would like to thank defiant1 for getting me started down this road. Perhaps unknowingly on how it would shape my path. I have to say, the pursuit of knowledge in this field is challenging, fascinating and rewarding. I'm even unsure at this point if I will even get to finish. But let me say if I'm still at it at address time next year, I'll be almost done. So, I'm going to stick with it for as long as I possibly can.
After only 1 semester and 2 completed classes, I took the CIW Certification Exams and passed all 3 required tests. I was the only 1 in my class to do so. I can now say I am CIW Certified. Which doesn't really mean much at all because I still have way more to learn than what knowledge I do have which at this point is still very small. But I do feel it was an achievement directly related to running this board and a lot of reading, studying and taking a ton of practice tests. And one I feel at the very least, is a feather in my cap that needs more feathers.
In August, I made a minor logo change and changed the sidebars of the site to the collage that is currently in place and continued my education and a new part time job throughout the remainder of the year.
The site had 2 banner months of decent participation. The 1st was in August. I attribute that month to the major news in comics surrounding the announcement that Jim Shooter was returning to Valiant characters through Dark Horse, as well as the merger of Disney with Marvel. The site seemed to have a bit to talk about during this time.
The 2nd was here at the end in December. I don't really know why that month was good, but perhaps being the end of the year, there was a bit more to talk about and reflect on.
The number of posts for 2008 was 3207.
The number of posts for 2009 was 1552.
This was a drop of 52% from the previous year. Even with such a drop, there was still enough reasons for me to be optimistic going forward. The board seems to me healthier leaving the year than when it began. And the dark clouds that I felt were raining down on my board have now given way to cautious optimism and me just amusing myself with what takes place on the board.
Looking forward, I would hope that 2010 continues an improvement in appearance, quality and overall health. One area I would like to improve would be the comiccrack website. Not quite sure at the moment how I will do that, but I'll try and do something with it eventually.
In the meantime, I'm wishing everyone here the best and I hope to write another one of these stupid addresses next year!
With Highest Regards,
Tommy
-gowaltrip