I want to give a little recap of how this started, where it's going, and what you might have missed.
How it started?
Friday last week, I was streaming old instructional videos on Twitch and one of them was "How to use the Internet" from 1996. We started talking about how we missed forums and I asked if people would actually be interested in having one. Enough people (like 3 or 4) said yes so I roped in Lolo De Puzlo and Necrotext to help set all of this up.
Problem Uno: forum readability
The default theme wasn't exactly the most readable with the font and the 1996 theme was a bit overwhelming (understatement) for a lot of folks. While we'll be uncompromising in our plans to make this look like a 90s/00s place in look and feel, accessibility is something we want to accommodate. So we updated the font of 1982 and we also added a non-default alternative to make it EVEN MORE readable at the expense of authenticity. We also updated the icons for the threads in the 1982 themes to make it easier to understand.
Problem Zwei: who's who what's going on
This was absolutely my fault because I wasn't clear enough in the Manifesto Thread. We have TWO parts of Critter Time, the Forums and the Twitch Team. All the people listed in the manifesto are members of the Twitch Team. They're not mods or admins on this forum and have no obligation to do so. The staff of the forums is (as of writing this):
- Enbyeon - That's me! I'm the facilitator/coordinator/enabler of this project. If there's moderation issues or site layout issues, please speak to me either here or on BSky (link in my profile)
- Lolo De Puzlo - Lolo is the person who sets up all the technical things, does hosting, and is basically a lovely person who has done this much faster than I imagined.
- Necrotext - Necro is there to help edit and make visuals where she can, as well as help identify what's fine and what isn't with the overall presentation.
Re-iterating: what this place is
This is a space for queer and/or retro and/or furry people to hang out, post, talk, make friends, be goobers (positive). We have a zero tolerance policy for hearing "both sides," debating people's existence or accommodating everyone. If you dislike any of the aforementioned groups, this place is probably not for you. If you hate all the forum visuals, we'll not be making a default phpBB Microsoft Aero theme. The weirdness is there to charm folks who like it and to filter out people who don't.
Re-iterating: what this place is not
We're not here to replace social media, we're not here to fix social media, we're not here to be the place you gotta be. We don't have any activity goals or milestones or things that we need to achieve to be a success. If there's one topic a week or seven topics a day, it's all the same to us. We opened our house to you and we hope you enjoy your stay and get what you'd like to get out of it.
Future Plans?
We are currently trying to catch things we missed, like making a dedicated Music forum, or a general Tech forum. If you have any suggestions, drop them in this thread. If you also want us to add some smilies, you can do so in this thread.
Outside of that, we don't have anything major in the works. Like we said, this caught us a smidge off-guard and we don't have a "roadmap" or "content drops" planned (and I don't think we ever will), but we're gonna play it by ear for now.
THANK YOU
Thank you for reading through this and thank you all for joining. We're very humbled that you decided to take the time out of your busy schedules to put in Critter Time. Remember, what you put into a forum is what you get out of it. Make threads, make friends, talk about things you're passionate about and even if you don't get many responses, those are your threads you can link wherever you want.
