The End of Summer
This may be somewhat of a longer blog post, so please approach it in your own time.
Art by Simpelplant on twitter Commissioned for the site
Site Development
I have been in contact with someone who offers extension development for a fee, however he is too busy at this time. So any extensions may have further delays. I have gotten busier at work and am not able to develop them directly myself at this time. I want some of the new features as much as you!
Tags!
Many of you will not have even been on the site the last time this page worked right, shameful on my part for sure. I did however sit down and really work to resolve it and now both the Tags Page and the Categories Page now function as intended. Annoyingly the Categories page has some issues with font colour on the tags, making some names and descriptions hard to see. This is something that the Tag page resolves itself, but I cannot (at the moment) resolve that issue for the categories page. For that reason the Tag page is probably more ideal to use. The link is available on the sidebar and on the header of the site.
Resources Tag
There is a new tag. Resources. This tag is almost entirely informational and the kind of thing i'd like to think people would link to those resources outside the site.
The Free Games InfoThread
There is a cynical element to it, better for us to have said resources here than on another site, but also I think it has a place on the forum and may strike some inspiration for threads of your own.
Flags!
Just a quick reminder you can flag posts you deem to be breaking ToS or Post Etiquette, or generally do not fit the tone of the site. It is the first option under the "..." and I will receive a notification of it and will take a look.
Stats
The past 3 months have been a consistently fairly busy time on the forum, we did not hit any peaks for posts or even discussions on a singular day, however it has been consistent on both metrics.
This is great and I hope we can build on that as more people discover the site.
As we have experienced consistently busy times its good to remember that there will also be quiet times. If we do have a period of quiet please don't forget us!
Mobile and Desktop Experience
I primarily use the site on desktop, although I have used it on mobile a good bit when i'm not at home. The mobile experience is pretty complete for the most part, but I can see why some users do certain things or don't do other things that seem obvious to me via the desktop view. The layout does not indicate some things in the same way. I will look to see what I can address myself or worst case, write another page showing usage of the site on both mobile and desktop and the equivalents and missing elements so that we can all at least have the chance to be aware.
Sharing is caring
This wont likely matter to many, but there is now a Share button on each thread. i'm unsure exactly how desired it is but some might like it. I may remove it if it isn't wanted. So if you want to share a link to the site you can use that button. Personally i'm someone who always just copies from the URL bar but for now its an option.
Social Media
The forum has a Twitter Account where updates are posted and even content related to the site. In the event of TOTAL SITE DEATH for whatever reason, whether my fault or not, the Twitter account will be handy to view messages about it. So if you would like to I would advise following it, or otherwise checking it when the site is down.
There is also a Fediverse account. that you can follow if you use Mastodon, Misskey, or any other fediverse platform.
Friends of the Forum
There is a new page which can be found in the header and footer, available Here is a page where the Friends of the Forum will be located. I think it is good for smaller sites like ours to have friendly relations and linking to each other is a good way to do that. As of time of writing, there is Wapchan.org. Wapchan is a lovely little image board focused on retro anime and games. Their admin has done a great job slowly creating a site identity over time and improving it. Their user-base is a lovely bunch too. Feel free to check them out if that sounds good to you.
I think it'd be nice to aim for 3 or 4 sites that we have good ties to eventually but we shall add stuff as we go.
Please continue to raise awareness of the site to those whom may be interested.
Thanks
Please let me know if you have any ideas or comments and as always, thank you for taking the time to read this update post, as well as using the forum. we've had a good run so far and I hope to be of service for far longer.
Track Forum Progress
Forum page archive (old ToS and PP)
Donation information, donations are greatly appreciated
