Community Interview: Nebulous
Today we've got @Nebulous - He is the owner of ex-Wober which disappeared from the internet unexpectedly years ago. A couple of months ago, Nebulous came back with his forum re-branded, OffTopix - ready for a promising future. Read below what he had to say.
#1 Hello! Thank you for accepting my interview request. Can you tell me and the community more about yourself? Who are you, what's your age, gender, where are you from ?
Hi Cedric, my pleasure.
I live in California, been there all my life. I am in my late 30's and I'm just an average dude for the most part. I work 40 hours a week and in my free time I frequent the forum world.
#2 - What is your greatest strength being a webmaster ?
Hard to say. I'd say my ability to keep a level head and be calm in any situation. I am also very persistent. If I set a goal, I will make sure to accomplish it.
#3 - What is your greatest accomplishment ?
As far as the forum goes? I'd say reaching half a million posts! We also celebrated a 13th birthday recently which is pretty amazing!
#4 - How long have you been on forums in general? What's the history behind you?
I have been using forums since around 2006. I thought they were a fun way to pass the time. Back in the day I was really immersed in the forum world at the height of their popularity. I could be found on forums from just about any platform. Free or paid softwares, it didn't matter to me, I didn't discriminate. As long as there was people around to chat with, I was probably there. You could say I am still doing that nowadays as well, just on a smaller scale. The forum world is a lot smaller than it used to be.
#5 - What's the most successful forum you ever owned?
The one I am running as we speak, Off Topix.
Off Topix is a well established general discussion forum that originally opened to the public way back in 2009! We cover all sorts of topics, there's literally something for everyone there.
I look forward to logging in everyday and interacting with the community. It's a great place to be.
#6 - What has inspired you to start Wober back in the day and after a long offline time re-brand it to OffTopix?
My first legit forum was a promotion forum called Forum Advertiser and it became pretty active, it was a direct competitor to ForumPromotion.net (friendly competition, of course). After a couple years I found that it wasn’t really fulfilling running a promotion forum so I closed it and created my current general discussion forum in its place. I’d rather chat with people and form real bonds & relationships, you know… have a real community type of place to call home. A promotion forum is just a forum.
The rebrand from Wober to Off Topix was out of necessity. When it came time to bring the forum back online I discovered that old wober.net domain was owned by someone else. I figured that was the perfect opportunity to rebrand and relaunch the community using an amazing domain name I acquired: offtopix.com. Of course I could have registered a similar domain incorporating the name “Wober” but I thought a rebrand was due because it’s been so long since we were last online. The name “Wober” doesn’t have the same brand recognition it once had. Our new name is much more fitting for a general discussion community.
#7 - Did you expect the grand reopening to be so successful?
I didn't know what to expect. I figured a few people would come back but I had no idea that it would take off in the way that it did. Since relaunching in June of 2022 we've seen nearly 250 members (old and new) login to the forum. We've also been averaging 10,000 posts a month, so we've been extremely chatty! I am also proud to say that we've cultivated a laid back and down to earth atmosphere where all members feel comfortable expressing themselves. A couple people have told me that there was a void in the forum world since we've been gone and us returning to the internet has filled that void.
#8- Can you tell us more about the software your site is running and why you have chosen that software?
We are using XenForo which is a commercial internet forum software package written in the PHP programming language. The software is developed by former vBulletin lead developers Kier Darby and Mike Sullivan. The first public beta release of XenForo was released in October 2010, the stable version on March 8, 2011. I pulled that little blurb of info from their Wikipedia page. I have been following them from the start and really fell in love with their software. I couldn't imagine using anything else at this point.
#9- Where do you see your forum heading in a couple of years? What are your goals?
Off Topix has far surpassed any goals I have set for it so anything that happens now is just icing on the cake. Like I mentioned earlier we did reach half a million posts so I suppose the next goal is to reach 1 million. The numbers and stats aren't as important as interacting with my friends on the forum. My real goal is continuing to provide a fun and engaging place for them to call home.
#10 - How often do you work on your forum, creating new content, adding news, doing back-end stuff?
During the work week I can maybe squeeze in an hour a day in the evenings to sit down at my computer and focus on content creation or doing any maintenance tasks that need to be done. Otherwise I am usually accessing the forum from my phone in between doing stuff throughout the day (working, spending time with my partner or my daughter, etc). If I don't have any plans on the weekends then I can devote more time then.
#11 - Do you consider yourself an expert webmaster? Are there aspects that you'd like to know better ?
An expert? Nah, I would just say that I am experienced. I have been doing this for a very long time and I enjoy it.
I suppose I would like to get a better understanding of coding languages and become an add-on developer. Sometimes I think of a feature or function that would be great to have on the forum, I go searching for an add-on and there is nothing. It would be cool to be able to create my own. Alas I don't have the skills to do that at this point in time. Maybe one day.
#12 - Do you like to have each detail set-up the way you want it and have everything go perfect? Or are you more laid back and fix a couple settings and let things fall into place on their own?
I am very meticulous when it comes to having everything just right on my forum. When I was setting up the forum up before the relaunch I spent a couple weeks going through every single setting, every page in the ACP seeing what each thing does. Going through all the permissions to make sure they are set correctly for each usergroup, then testing everything repeatedly until I was confident that things were the way they were supposed to be.
#13 - Do you pick staff according to their popularity on forums, or their personality?
A little bit of both. When looking at a potential staff member, I make sure they are good fit for me and the community. Are they friendly? Do they mesh well with everyone? Are they well liked amongst the general population? Do they seem like they would have good judgment? If they check all the boxes, then I'll shoot them a PM and ask if they'd like to be on the staff team.
#14 - How do you advertise?
I post advert threads on forums that have a section for that. If a forum allows me to have a link in my signature then I'll put one there. We have social media pages for the forum too. That's pretty much it. That's all you can do really. I haven't really looked into paid advertising, but that is another option.
#15 - How do you maintain your traffic/income and keep members entertained?
If you build it, they will come! I try my best to engage the members and I also have a couple amazing staff members who are good at that as well. We also create new threads on a regular basis to give returning members something fresh to reply to. Other than that I try to get out there and promote the forum elsewhere on the internet as much as I can.
Thank you for selecting me for an interview. These were some great questions and I enjoyed answering them.
Today we've got @Nebulous - He is the owner of ex-Wober which disappeared from the internet unexpectedly years ago. A couple of months ago, Nebulous came back with his forum re-branded, OffTopix - ready for a promising future. Read below what he had to say.
#1 Hello! Thank you for accepting my interview request. Can you tell me and the community more about yourself? Who are you, what's your age, gender, where are you from ?
Hi Cedric, my pleasure.
I live in California, been there all my life. I am in my late 30's and I'm just an average dude for the most part. I work 40 hours a week and in my free time I frequent the forum world.
#2 - What is your greatest strength being a webmaster ?
Hard to say. I'd say my ability to keep a level head and be calm in any situation. I am also very persistent. If I set a goal, I will make sure to accomplish it.
#3 - What is your greatest accomplishment ?
As far as the forum goes? I'd say reaching half a million posts! We also celebrated a 13th birthday recently which is pretty amazing!
#4 - How long have you been on forums in general? What's the history behind you?
I have been using forums since around 2006. I thought they were a fun way to pass the time. Back in the day I was really immersed in the forum world at the height of their popularity. I could be found on forums from just about any platform. Free or paid softwares, it didn't matter to me, I didn't discriminate. As long as there was people around to chat with, I was probably there. You could say I am still doing that nowadays as well, just on a smaller scale. The forum world is a lot smaller than it used to be.
#5 - What's the most successful forum you ever owned?
The one I am running as we speak, Off Topix.
Off Topix is a well established general discussion forum that originally opened to the public way back in 2009! We cover all sorts of topics, there's literally something for everyone there.
I look forward to logging in everyday and interacting with the community. It's a great place to be.
#6 - What has inspired you to start Wober back in the day and after a long offline time re-brand it to OffTopix?
My first legit forum was a promotion forum called Forum Advertiser and it became pretty active, it was a direct competitor to ForumPromotion.net (friendly competition, of course). After a couple years I found that it wasn’t really fulfilling running a promotion forum so I closed it and created my current general discussion forum in its place. I’d rather chat with people and form real bonds & relationships, you know… have a real community type of place to call home. A promotion forum is just a forum.
The rebrand from Wober to Off Topix was out of necessity. When it came time to bring the forum back online I discovered that old wober.net domain was owned by someone else. I figured that was the perfect opportunity to rebrand and relaunch the community using an amazing domain name I acquired: offtopix.com. Of course I could have registered a similar domain incorporating the name “Wober” but I thought a rebrand was due because it’s been so long since we were last online. The name “Wober” doesn’t have the same brand recognition it once had. Our new name is much more fitting for a general discussion community.
#7 - Did you expect the grand reopening to be so successful?
I didn't know what to expect. I figured a few people would come back but I had no idea that it would take off in the way that it did. Since relaunching in June of 2022 we've seen nearly 250 members (old and new) login to the forum. We've also been averaging 10,000 posts a month, so we've been extremely chatty! I am also proud to say that we've cultivated a laid back and down to earth atmosphere where all members feel comfortable expressing themselves. A couple people have told me that there was a void in the forum world since we've been gone and us returning to the internet has filled that void.
#8- Can you tell us more about the software your site is running and why you have chosen that software?
We are using XenForo which is a commercial internet forum software package written in the PHP programming language. The software is developed by former vBulletin lead developers Kier Darby and Mike Sullivan. The first public beta release of XenForo was released in October 2010, the stable version on March 8, 2011. I pulled that little blurb of info from their Wikipedia page. I have been following them from the start and really fell in love with their software. I couldn't imagine using anything else at this point.
#9- Where do you see your forum heading in a couple of years? What are your goals?
Off Topix has far surpassed any goals I have set for it so anything that happens now is just icing on the cake. Like I mentioned earlier we did reach half a million posts so I suppose the next goal is to reach 1 million. The numbers and stats aren't as important as interacting with my friends on the forum. My real goal is continuing to provide a fun and engaging place for them to call home.
#10 - How often do you work on your forum, creating new content, adding news, doing back-end stuff?
During the work week I can maybe squeeze in an hour a day in the evenings to sit down at my computer and focus on content creation or doing any maintenance tasks that need to be done. Otherwise I am usually accessing the forum from my phone in between doing stuff throughout the day (working, spending time with my partner or my daughter, etc). If I don't have any plans on the weekends then I can devote more time then.
#11 - Do you consider yourself an expert webmaster? Are there aspects that you'd like to know better ?
An expert? Nah, I would just say that I am experienced. I have been doing this for a very long time and I enjoy it.
I suppose I would like to get a better understanding of coding languages and become an add-on developer. Sometimes I think of a feature or function that would be great to have on the forum, I go searching for an add-on and there is nothing. It would be cool to be able to create my own. Alas I don't have the skills to do that at this point in time. Maybe one day.
#12 - Do you like to have each detail set-up the way you want it and have everything go perfect? Or are you more laid back and fix a couple settings and let things fall into place on their own?
I am very meticulous when it comes to having everything just right on my forum. When I was setting up the forum up before the relaunch I spent a couple weeks going through every single setting, every page in the ACP seeing what each thing does. Going through all the permissions to make sure they are set correctly for each usergroup, then testing everything repeatedly until I was confident that things were the way they were supposed to be.
#13 - Do you pick staff according to their popularity on forums, or their personality?
A little bit of both. When looking at a potential staff member, I make sure they are good fit for me and the community. Are they friendly? Do they mesh well with everyone? Are they well liked amongst the general population? Do they seem like they would have good judgment? If they check all the boxes, then I'll shoot them a PM and ask if they'd like to be on the staff team.
#14 - How do you advertise?
I post advert threads on forums that have a section for that. If a forum allows me to have a link in my signature then I'll put one there. We have social media pages for the forum too. That's pretty much it. That's all you can do really. I haven't really looked into paid advertising, but that is another option.
#15 - How do you maintain your traffic/income and keep members entertained?
If you build it, they will come! I try my best to engage the members and I also have a couple amazing staff members who are good at that as well. We also create new threads on a regular basis to give returning members something fresh to reply to. Other than that I try to get out there and promote the forum elsewhere on the internet as much as I can.
Thank you for selecting me for an interview. These were some great questions and I enjoyed answering them.
