Community Interview: Kyng
You may know Kyng aka CJ from The Coffee House - A very laid back and honestly great person. Below you'll be able to read his answers on a few questions I asked him. I have enjoyed reading them and learning more about Kyng and his forum TCH. Enjoy!
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 ?
You're welcome !
Online, you'll probably know me as either 'Kyng' or 'CJ', but my real-life name is Chris. I'm 32 years old, and I live in the United Kingdom (indeed, I've lived there all my life). I work as a software developer, so I spend an awful lot of time sat behind a desk (probably more than I should, but I do enjoy it, at least!)
I've always had quite varied interests: I've been into trains ever since I was a small boy watching Thomas the Tank Engine, and I've been a Formula One fan for 25 years now (though I've never actually attended a race: that's something I'll have to do at some point!). I also enjoyed playing chess as child, and I recently got back into it: I've spent the last four months finding new and creative ways to lose all my pieces
2. What is your greatest strength being a webmaster ?
This was honestly the hardest question to answer, because I still feel like I'm always learning new things as I go!
However, I guess it's the level of dedication I have to the role. Always making sure plenty of new content is posted, upgrades are done in good time, and doing my best to fix bugs (even if it keeps me up all night )
3. What is your greatest accomplishment ?
Probably the sheer length of time that my forum has been running for. My current community recently celebrated its 13th anniversary!
Of course, it hasn't always been easy: there have been periods of inactivity, as well as the odd time when the community was consumed by drama. The biggest challenge of all, however, was moving the community away from ZetaBoards when that service closed in 2018. This meant losing over 300,000 posts that had been made over the course of eight and a half years, but it was an easy decision to make: lose our history, or lose our future.
4. How long have you been on forums in general? What's the history behind you?
I joined my first forum in late 2000 . The first series of Digimon had been taken off air partway through the series - and I was so furious that I went onto the channel's forums to complain (under the name "Cross Greymon"). In the end, I enjoyed it, and stuck around... the only annoyance was that all posts had to be pre-approved by moderators (although I suppose that was a necessity on a forum populated mostly by kids!)
I first got into forum administration in late 2004. After four years of using these forums, I decided to create one of my own, which was themed around chess. This was reasonably successful, apart from the fact that nobody talked about chess! Out of a total of 60,000 posts, fewer than 1,000 were made in the chess-related forums.
5. What has inspired you to start TCH ?
It sort of just happened organically! As I mentioned in my previous answer, I already ran a chess forum, but people were using it as more of a general forum. By late 2009, that forum was declining - and so was my then-girlfriend's animal forum. So, we decided to join forces, and created a general forum. Initially, this was named "Imperial Forum" - but after a few months, it was decided that this name sounded too uptight, and we need something that sounded friendlier. I invited suggestions from the rest of the members - and the winning entry was "The Coffee House", which has been in use ever since.
6. Can you tell us more about the software your site is running and why you have chosen that software over a more popular one like IPS or XenForo?
As I mentioned previously, our community spent eight and a half years on ZetaBoards - from our founding in 2009 to that service's closure in 2018. From there, we migrated to MyBB - which is much more powerful and customisable than ZetaBoards ever was. Probably the main downside of MyBB is that the default theme looks pretty dated (and is mobile-unfriendly), but there's a decent selection of free mobile themes to choose from!
There are two main reasons why we chose MyBB over IPS or XenForo. First of all: because our community had already been established for nearly a decade, we had a very long list of requirements - and I didn't want to spend $140 on XenForo (or even more on IPS), only to discover halfway through rebuilding the community that the software wasn't going to meet all of those needs. Secondly, my co-admin Nilla knew how to make MyBB themes, but she had no familiarity with XenForo, so we decided to stick with what she knew.
7. Where do you see your forum heading in a couple of years? What are your goals?
My immediate short-term goal is to improve the skins/themes that are available on the forum. A couple of weeks ago, I released "Dark Energy III", which I believe to be my best responsive theme to date - and now, I'd like to upgrade my older themes to meet the same standard.
I'd also like to expand the creative side of the forum, because that's something that quite a few of our members are interested in, and I believe it to be undeserved by our current layout. As for the next two years... hitting 500,000 posts would be nice, but rather ambitious: I think three years might be a more realistic time frame for that goal .
8. How often do you work on your forum, creating new content, adding news, doing back-end stuff?
Usually, I spend at least an hour and a half a day posting new content (unless I'm completely tied up with offline stuff). Adding new features and doing back-end stuff tends to happen in bursts: there will be periods where I do a couple of hours of that each day, followed by long stretches where I do none!
9. Do you consider yourself an expert webmaster? Are there aspects that you'd like to know better ?
Certainly not . Indeed, back when ZetaBoards got its 'upgrade' to TapaTalk, I was initially very resistant to the idea of self-hosting, because I didn't have very much experience with that side of forum administration. Thus, my original plan was to jump to a MyBB forum hosted on IcyBoards. However, three weeks into that, IcyBoards announced that they too were closing - and thus, my hand was forced into self-hosting. Fortunately, Megan was already experienced with self-hosting forums, and she had plenty of unused space on her hosting plan, so I simply moved over there. She's been a very valuable asset to the team: without her, the move would have been a real struggle!
10. 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?
Definitely the former... it's probably one of my main weaknesses. I've had themes that were 90% done and then sat around for months, because I couldn't figure out the last 10% that would make the difference between a good theme and a great one! But on the plus side, this mindset does mean that bug fixes and upgrades tend to be done at the earliest available opportunity.
11. Do you pick staff according to their popularity on forums, or their personality?
I mostly just pick staff as and when I need them. But when the time does come to pick a new staff member... I'll opt for someone I know to be trustworthy, but also will be able to work constructively with me. That's difficult to pin down, but ideally, I'd want someone who's similar enough to me to share my goals and overall mindset - but different enough from me to recognize when I have bad ideas, and shoot them down before I implement them .
12. How do you advertise?
Usually just in signatures and the occasional post in advertising sections - although, I think we've gained as many members from word of mouth as from my advertising efforts!
13. How do you maintain your traffic/income and keep members entertained?
I have absolutely zero income: I don't even have a system for accepting donations . (But, since the hosting and the domain cost less than $100 per year combined, it's not like I'd need any!)
As for how we keep members entertained... I try my best to ensure that there's always a variety of things to talk about, and there are regular events (such as contests and giveaways). And over on the Discord, Nilla has her regular gaming streams... which are always entertaining, no matter whether she's drunk or sober!
You may know Kyng aka CJ from The Coffee House - A very laid back and honestly great person. Below you'll be able to read his answers on a few questions I asked him. I have enjoyed reading them and learning more about Kyng and his forum TCH. Enjoy!
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 ?
You're welcome
!Online, you'll probably know me as either 'Kyng' or 'CJ', but my real-life name is Chris. I'm 32 years old, and I live in the United Kingdom (indeed, I've lived there all my life). I work as a software developer, so I spend an awful lot of time sat behind a desk (probably more than I should, but I do enjoy it, at least!)
I've always had quite varied interests: I've been into trains ever since I was a small boy watching Thomas the Tank Engine, and I've been a Formula One fan for 25 years now (though I've never actually attended a race: that's something I'll have to do at some point!). I also enjoyed playing chess as child, and I recently got back into it: I've spent the last four months finding new and creative ways to lose all my pieces
2. What is your greatest strength being a webmaster ?
This was honestly the hardest question to answer, because I still feel like I'm always learning new things as I go!
However, I guess it's the level of dedication I have to the role. Always making sure plenty of new content is posted, upgrades are done in good time, and doing my best to fix bugs (even if it keeps me up all night
)3. What is your greatest accomplishment ?
Probably the sheer length of time that my forum has been running for. My current community recently celebrated its 13th anniversary!
Of course, it hasn't always been easy: there have been periods of inactivity, as well as the odd time when the community was consumed by drama. The biggest challenge of all, however, was moving the community away from ZetaBoards when that service closed in 2018. This meant losing over 300,000 posts that had been made over the course of eight and a half years, but it was an easy decision to make: lose our history, or lose our future.
4. How long have you been on forums in general? What's the history behind you?
I joined my first forum in late 2000
. The first series of Digimon had been taken off air partway through the series - and I was so furious that I went onto the channel's forums to complain (under the name "Cross Greymon"). In the end, I enjoyed it, and stuck around... the only annoyance was that all posts had to be pre-approved by moderators (although I suppose that was a necessity on a forum populated mostly by kids!)I first got into forum administration in late 2004. After four years of using these forums, I decided to create one of my own, which was themed around chess. This was reasonably successful, apart from the fact that nobody talked about chess! Out of a total of 60,000 posts, fewer than 1,000 were made in the chess-related forums.
5. What has inspired you to start TCH ?
It sort of just happened organically! As I mentioned in my previous answer, I already ran a chess forum, but people were using it as more of a general forum. By late 2009, that forum was declining - and so was my then-girlfriend's animal forum. So, we decided to join forces, and created a general forum. Initially, this was named "Imperial Forum" - but after a few months, it was decided that this name sounded too uptight, and we need something that sounded friendlier. I invited suggestions from the rest of the members - and the winning entry was "The Coffee House", which has been in use ever since.
6. Can you tell us more about the software your site is running and why you have chosen that software over a more popular one like IPS or XenForo?
As I mentioned previously, our community spent eight and a half years on ZetaBoards - from our founding in 2009 to that service's closure in 2018. From there, we migrated to MyBB - which is much more powerful and customisable than ZetaBoards ever was. Probably the main downside of MyBB is that the default theme looks pretty dated (and is mobile-unfriendly), but there's a decent selection of free mobile themes to choose from!
There are two main reasons why we chose MyBB over IPS or XenForo. First of all: because our community had already been established for nearly a decade, we had a very long list of requirements - and I didn't want to spend $140 on XenForo (or even more on IPS), only to discover halfway through rebuilding the community that the software wasn't going to meet all of those needs. Secondly, my co-admin Nilla knew how to make MyBB themes, but she had no familiarity with XenForo, so we decided to stick with what she knew.
7. Where do you see your forum heading in a couple of years? What are your goals?
My immediate short-term goal is to improve the skins/themes that are available on the forum. A couple of weeks ago, I released "Dark Energy III", which I believe to be my best responsive theme to date - and now, I'd like to upgrade my older themes to meet the same standard.
I'd also like to expand the creative side of the forum, because that's something that quite a few of our members are interested in, and I believe it to be undeserved by our current layout. As for the next two years... hitting 500,000 posts would be nice, but rather ambitious: I think three years might be a more realistic time frame for that goal
.8. How often do you work on your forum, creating new content, adding news, doing back-end stuff?
Usually, I spend at least an hour and a half a day posting new content (unless I'm completely tied up with offline stuff). Adding new features and doing back-end stuff tends to happen in bursts: there will be periods where I do a couple of hours of that each day, followed by long stretches where I do none!
9. Do you consider yourself an expert webmaster? Are there aspects that you'd like to know better ?
Certainly not
. Indeed, back when ZetaBoards got its 'upgrade' to TapaTalk, I was initially very resistant to the idea of self-hosting, because I didn't have very much experience with that side of forum administration. Thus, my original plan was to jump to a MyBB forum hosted on IcyBoards. However, three weeks into that, IcyBoards announced that they too were closing - and thus, my hand was forced into self-hosting. Fortunately, Megan was already experienced with self-hosting forums, and she had plenty of unused space on her hosting plan, so I simply moved over there. She's been a very valuable asset to the team: without her, the move would have been a real struggle!10. 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?
Definitely the former... it's probably one of my main weaknesses. I've had themes that were 90% done and then sat around for months, because I couldn't figure out the last 10% that would make the difference between a good theme and a great one! But on the plus side, this mindset does mean that bug fixes and upgrades tend to be done at the earliest available opportunity.
11. Do you pick staff according to their popularity on forums, or their personality?
I mostly just pick staff as and when I need them. But when the time does come to pick a new staff member... I'll opt for someone I know to be trustworthy, but also will be able to work constructively with me. That's difficult to pin down, but ideally, I'd want someone who's similar enough to me to share my goals and overall mindset - but different enough from me to recognize when I have bad ideas, and shoot them down before I implement them
.12. How do you advertise?
Usually just in signatures and the occasional post in advertising sections - although, I think we've gained as many members from word of mouth as from my advertising efforts!
13. How do you maintain your traffic/income and keep members entertained?
I have absolutely zero income: I don't even have a system for accepting donations
. (But, since the hosting and the domain cost less than $100 per year combined, it's not like I'd need any!)As for how we keep members entertained... I try my best to ensure that there's always a variety of things to talk about, and there are regular events (such as contests and giveaways). And over on the Discord, Nilla has her regular gaming streams... which are always entertaining, no matter whether she's drunk or sober!
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