1) How long have you been running this forum for ?
2) Are you satisfied of the current results considering the time invested ?
3) Is your plan to make this the 2nd home for the NF users ? Like WG is for ( most/some of) the former OJ users ? ( i don't know much about NF but i saw it's rumored it's not in a good condition )
4) I feel that because of platforms like Reddit / Discord , building a successfull forum in 2022 it's a very hard task to accomplish , i feel that if you want to succeed you really need to do something crazy, and offer something that other communities don't, do you plan on doing something that will make OLF stand out ?
( i might have other questionts that i'll ask later :P )
Although I am a VERY lazy person, I will answer all of these questions to the best of my LFS (lazy fingers syndrome) issues (this is not real).
1). OLF opened officially some time last year (Sep-October), but
@Trinity made the initial push to launch what we had then, and then the whole NF/FV shit happened because
@Nep Nep sent out a mega PM to recruit people, given that Mbitch removed/hid the Konoha Ad Board. PM advertisement was not in the rules at the time and Yoffry considers everything "spam" with the addition of clear paranoia of being overthrown constantly for some reason.
2). Of course! I spent my entire first quarterly bonus at my new employer on purchasing our license renewal and add-on's before a bunch of wonderful members graciously donated back to the cause (I probably spent more than $600 up until now and have to update the donation wall thread when I have free time). Forums take time to grow, especially when I answer more about that in your third question. I've done many forums before OLF and even took over ownership of one in the past due to the owner not giving a shit anymore (RoyalCreed forums). Alas, all of those projects didn't last long because NF was still at it's prime and although activity blew up initially just as OLF did, it dwindled to the point where everyone went back to NF, and I went on a break. As long as you have time, leadership skills, and good heart, anything you invest in will thrive, and especially when you have goals in mind with a solid strategy.
3). We don't want to be anyone's second home, if anything, we are trying to save those who are suffering from the tyranny of a moronic acclaimed Führer who has been slowly killing NF with his drastic and unnecessary changes. Most who are left there are trolls and people who won't let the ship sink. I also see that WG suffers from growth in terms of providing some direction for it's future, so I already suspected that it's a home to members from other dead or slowly dying communities given that I know a handful of people from each, especially that of OJ. I also don't see much activity from it's admins as if they are pushing away any room for extended growth. Forgive me if I'm wrong for perceiving it this way, but only being a few days since joining have I noticed a few questions that I have yet to receive answers for (such as the domain name situation). Ultimately, we want OLF to be a permanent home to many, without having to think about going back to that shit show over at NF/FV.
4). Indeed those platforms really did a number on forums, especially since at the time, forums were the go-to before social media evolved. Forums still serve their use, especially for those who are more comfortable with them over the likes of Discord. They hold a ton of memories and I feel platforms such as Discord evolved to take out it's competitors such as forum software providers because even Cintron didn't even predict how much it would blow up. Some things I had in mind to make us stand out will require tons of hours of development, which I can't really provide to begin with because I work 9-5 daily like most people, and have other commitments after work. That's why building a team and having a game plan is crucial and idea creations are one of my highlighted abilities as a human. One thing I'm working on now is creating an add-on, that doesn't exist in the XenForo ecosystem, which will show the top 5-10 posters in a thread, which can be useful for Mafia games. Some other stuff to look into is finding some writers to create reviews for games and whatnot (we have an unused review system here).
