Shawn Gossman

I typically won't entertain the idea of letting them come back. You would have to do something really bad to get me to "fire" you from the team. If I do fire you, then don't expect me to trust you thereafter, There have only been a few people I've "let go" from moderator positions. All the ones I have on my forums now are great! :)

Yeah, it finally did after like 12-15 hours. 2008 and 2009 were bad years for Southern Illinois as well. We got thunderstorms during the ice storm the other night, it would have heavier freezing rain showers, too. Hearing thunder with ice falling is pretty sketchy LOL Glad there wasn't an ice tornado :P

We got the ice here in Southern Illinois. Maybe about a half-inch. No power for about 12 hours. Quite a few tree limbs down. I have a short trail in my woods. I'll have to get the chainsaw out to make the trail passable again.

Dark Chocolate :D

I been a member of FP for like 15 years or so. I feel like I remember when it was using phpBB... Am I right about that? Anyways, great place :)

Sure - here and there. I typically just respond to as much as I can when I can. I try not to get too excited these days over stuff like this. If folks truly love the community, they'll come back and you'll keep having these boosts :) But what's important is that you actively respond.

Wasn't there a Forumansion long time ago?

Welcome Cam :) Good to see you here!

I think AI can be used as a resourceful tool for community admins. But I think once you use it to create your content or members, then you kill what a community is altogether. I think if forums owners jump on a trend of really using AI for all the content and membership of their forums - that might be the one thing that kills forums for good. I have a Facebook group with nearly 50,000 members. It's super active and popular. FB and me had a secret Zoom meeting LOL about AI bots in groups. After it got officially released, I asked my audience if they wanted me to utilize it and even the social media crowd was against it. I think more people are against AI that what everyone thinks.

I jumped on board with DIVI lifetime, so I've not had to choose any sort of WP theme in ages.

I'm keeping my metric goals simple and easily achievable. Membership Goal: 100 members Most of the forums I have are over halfway to it. AAF is taking its time though :D As for a main goal - just build a community of friends. I really don't want to have a goal beyond that because that goal keeps forums fun.

I've had a few in the past and my host has always been straight up with me. I probably should jump on the Cloudflare boat. I have it on my outdoor blog.

Beautiful theme!

I usually pick up a paid theme. I use PixelExit for XenForo and Sultan Themes for vBulletin. Most of the time, you can customize premium themes easier and make them feel like your own. I considered getting a custom theme by PixelExit. It starts at $1,500 a theme, and that's not the amount I wish to pay. But I'm not knocking them. I'm sure it's worth that but I just don't want to invest that much into a forum when their regular premium themes are good enough. I'd love to learn how to make a theme myself. I need to do that.

Skywarn Forum (2010 to 2017) I started the forum in 2010. There was another bigger competitor (Skywarn Online) who sent me a message asking why I needed to reinvent the wheel. I kept going anyway. I got it to several thousand posts and members by 2016. The following year, I acquired Skywarn Online (for over $1,000) because the former owner wanted to quit forums but not see his creation get wasted. I merged it into mine, which resulted in a forum with over 7,000 members, over 100,000 topics, and nearly 200,000 posts. Good content, too! Back then, I didn't back up like I should have. A database error occurred, and I lost everything in the process. It never recovered. I've recently started another Storm Spotter Forum. It's not as big, haha. Here's a screenshot of the forum before I lost it all. Thanks to Wayback. [ATTACH type=full" width="802px" size="1165x847]1131[/ATTACH]

I like this response. If the complaints are legit, they might be the best thing for your community. If they're just negative Nancy about everything, it's best to cut them out because they're going to eventually turn the community into a toxic cesspool. I have even implemented rules against being constantly negative. Some people are miserable and that's just who they are.

Homeboy by Eric Church.

Another Admin Forum https://anotheradminforum.com/ Just another forum admin forum. :P

I've been using VPS for years. I actually went to a dedicated server and had a lot of issues, I went back to a VPS, and that really was my best option to begin with. I'd love to do a home server just for the experience. Maybe I'll try it one day. I need to find a good smaller learner one. Any suggestions? I haven't used shared in quite some time. I remember back when I used WebTV to host my first website which was about WebTV tricks and secrets. Then, I used Tripod, Lycos, and Angelfire for a long time. Eventually, I bought an account on Freepgs.com, which is no longer functional. It was low cost but gave you ad-free space and MySQL features.

Dreamhost has its own custom control panel. They recently upgraded it, and it took some getting used to. I didn't like the new one at first, but it has grown on me. It's really easy to find everything.

I remember when you used Linode. I've always used Dreamhost myself. More than 15 years. They get a lot of flack but have always treated me right. They're also quick to give me support and they even explain to me what happened if I get downtime.

House shoes. My first pair. My wife doesn't like my cold feet to accidentally touch her in bed. Is it really an accident? Nope LOL

Gaming is probably the most saturated niche of all for all website types and entities. General forums could be one as well. Either way, it's important to try to "narrow" or "niche down" if you choose these topics. How can you make yours unique from the rest? I have a general forum (Off Topic Forum), and I have yet to figure out how to make mine unique, but I'm working on it. It takes time and research. But don't let saturation stop you. If you can build a community with a saturated niche, that's really all that matters.

I offer the default feature that XenForo has added. I use PixilExit themes, so they have a good setup on their themes for members to choose from. For my two vBulletin forums, I have to have two different themes. I need to see if anyone has suggested a light/dark theme feature on VB6 yet. I feel like that's a feature they would be quick to implement. I used to be strictly light themes, but it seems like people are choosing themes that are so light that I can hardly find buttons and text areas, LOL. So, I switch to dark a lot of times. Probably a sign of the times - that my eyes are old.

Happy 2025 from AAF! https://www.anotheradminforum.com/ Our #3 Forum of the Month competition is in full swing. You can submit until the last week of January. Prizes include a posting package from me, advertising, and even a cash prize. Hope to see you there this year!