Ravenfreak

I never heard of this hosting company before, that really sucks. It's never a good thing whenever hosting companies get breached.

I'll ignore it like I have been. :P Alright I'll admit I've used AI to make artwork for fun but I never used it for any of my websites or Youtube channel and I really don't want to use it for any of my projects. I just used it to make some funny images and to generate a Kentucky Derby hat for a contest on Forum Promotion.

I'm also thinking about doing something with a domain I have. It's a Sonic related one, I was going to see if the people in charge of the Sonic Hacking Contest wanted the domain name but since they don't want to make a forum for the hacking contest, I figured I would just keep it and maybe make one. I'm currently using it for a wiki, but I really don't want to have two wikis. Plus I would need to delete all the spam accounts that joined so I figured I would nuke the wiki.

I can see why people think Discord has taken the activity from Forums. Lots of big gaming companies that used to have forums shut them down for Discord servers. Facebook groups are more of a threat, and have been for years.

I would love to make something unique for my forums someday. The only thing I've done in the past was edit the header to a Teen Titans Go forum to display the upcoming new episode. I kind of wish I promoted that forum more, but honestly I made it when I liked Go but now I hate it so I wouldn't want to have a community for something I didn't like. I'd like to make a unique theme someday, not really sure if I would want to make a plugin.

I enjoy eating apples and bananas by themselves, not really mixed in a smoothie. I also honestly prefer applesauce to real apples lol.

Currently listening to this album, I'm on the first track titled Why?

Heroes again, though I'm in the last season currently. It's been okay, not as good as the earlier seasons but one of my coworkers mentioned it would get a bit bad towards the end of the series so I was honestly expecting a bit worse.

Another thing people like about Reddit is the log in system. You get one global account and can easily join a bunch of different subreddits. Proboards has a global log in system which is great and one of the few things I like about the platform. I know we shouldn't compare our communities to Reddit, but it might be worth it if more forum software can integrate what Proboards does or simply integrate into the Fediverse via Activity Pub.

I currently only have one but I plan on making a clan for different subjects such as the challenge corner that was left over from VG Challenges. I only have a Pokemon clan currently to test things out.

I've installed the clans plugin on Thee Zone! I still need to get a feel for it but I do plan on getting the forums plugin for clans so I see if I can move existing forums to a clan. Clans are Woltlab Suite's version of groups or clubs. I think it'll help declutter my forum. :)

I wanted to go to Chicago last week but that didn't happen. I'm not sure if I'll plan another vacation or not, I have a few days scheduled off but this past week was the only full week I had scheduled off. I do want to check out my state's capital soon however, maybe I'll do that next weekend.

I went down a rabbit hole once looking into Vertical Scope and it's sad really what they've done to a good number of communities. This is just making it worse too. Heck it's on par with what Tapatalk did with a lot of free forum hosts too, so many people were forced to use a downgraded platform of what they've had in the past.

You're right and it sucks because soon I have a feeling all those communities they have control over will cease to exist. To think all those admins throughout the years sold their communities to a company that one day might not even bother continue to host them. Google really isn't that great of a company, but which mega internet corporation is? You've got Google wanting to control everything and likewise with Meta. Google owns youtube, and Youtube has been going down the gutter for years.

Best of luck to everyone who applies!

I've never got much luck with social media. I've made Facebook pages for a few of my websites, posted updates on the pages but never really got much engagement from them. Maybe I'm doing things wrong. I feel if you have a bigger presence on social media it could help your sites, but I don't have a big social media presence myself.

I have Pokemon pet peeves does that count lol. One real life pet peeve of mine is when people's noses start whistling. I know they can't help it but it annoys the heck out of me. As for the Pokemon pet peeves, I don't like when people mispronounce Rattata. If they pronounce it like frittata they're wrong, it's rat-tah-tah. I also don't like when people use lower case letters for their Pokemon nicknames in the earlier games because all the names are in capital letters. Another pet peeve of mine is when reproduction cartridges of games use the K-A logo colored in when it was never colored in. The ESRB replaced that rating when they started coloring in their ratings on video games with E for everyone.

Have you tried promoting on Lemmy yet? Most people on Lemmy like to stray away from the bigger platforms like Reddit and other social media platforms. Heck even promoting on Reddit could possibly help bring members in.

I could have sworn they've had this feature in the past but maybe I'm thinking of the Reddit results? Anyways it doesn't surprise me that Google wants to try their best to have dominance over every platform.

These are some good tips! I'm not going to lie, I'm one of those people who kind of just wing things and see what sticks. Maybe it's time I start planning things instead of just winging it...

If they truly believe that niche communities are the future, I can only hope we'll see a rise in forums again. Maybe people will finally wake up and realize that platforms such as Discord can shut down at any moment and they will lose access to their niche communities. I still think Discord is only good for gamers, and Youtubers who want to keep in touch with their subscribers in a more personal way. It's not a good replacement for forums when it comes to research and documenting.

This is kind of concerning, seeing AI climb to the top makes me a bit uneasy about the future. We're already seeing AI take jobs from people, I suppose it's only a matter of time before more and more people rely on ChatGPT's search engine over Google. Is it as reliable as Google? Probably not in it's current state which means people might be lead down a path where they get false information.

For now you could get a free demo of Xenforo to get a feel for it. I know you mentioned about starting from scratch but if you don't truly wish to lose all the content on your forum you don't have to worry about it since there is a converter for SMF available for free when you purchase a license. You also have to remember that in order to have updates for any paid software, you'll need to renew your license in the future too so while you're paying over $200 at first for the plugins you want you'll need to have the money for renewal fees in the future. (Of course they're not as expensive as the first time purchase.)

I've placed my vote, best of luck to everyone!

It's always a good idea to have real people reviewing your products or communities. Places like Temu usually have bots review their products because they usually have the same dialogue throughout each review and it looks sketchy IMO.