Community Interview: Oblivion Knight
@Oblivion Knight is founder of a really cool forum called Umbrella Online - A forum dedicated to discussing Resident Evil. Definitely worth a visit if you have interest in this game franchise. I had the pleasure to send him a few questions about himself and his forum. These are his responses.
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 ?
Hello! Thank you for asking me. I certainly can - I'm Andy, 37, Male, and currently live in Rotherham, England. I live with my Partner, and I also have a 4-year-old daughter from a previous relationship who stays with us 2-3 nights every week.
What is your greatest strength being a webmaster ?
I have a keen eye for detail and user interface. I make a number of small tweaks to existing add-ons in order for them to fit better with the overall implementation. Occasionally I also share them with the XenForo community if I'm asked.
What is your greatest accomplishment ?
That's a really difficult question to answer.. I can't take all of the credit, but I studied my University degree part-time for six years whilst maintaining full-time employment throughout. I studied 'IT and Organisations' which was essentially a mix of IT subject areas including Databases. Website Design & Maintenance, Programming, Law, and Security. I successfully graduated with first class honours in 2017, but without the support of my family I'd have most likely dropped out before doing so.
How long have you been on forums in general? What's the history behind you?
I've been involved with the forum scene since late 1999. The very first community I joined was Gaming Update, which ultimately shut down as I knew it back in 2010.. It spurred me on to get involved with designing and creating communities from the early 2000's, starting out on ezboard and eventually moving on to 'premium' software; UBB, vBulletin, and now XenForo.
I was a moderator on vBulletin.org for a short spell, during what I would describe as a 'transitional period'. The general atmosphere of that community quickly went south and I made the prompt decision to leave my position there, as well as the forum scene itself for several years until I learned of Kier and Mike creating XenForo.
What's the most successful forum you ever owned?
I've never felt any of my projects have reached the success that I aspired to, but my current project is a revival of my most successful forum, Umbrella Online. I even managed to (eventually) reacquire the original domain that I used.
What has inspired you to start your forum?
As mentioned, I've had an interest in designing and creating communities from the early years of being involved with Gaming Update. In the early 2000's I was a huge fan of the Resident Evil and Final Fantasy series' of games, but the Final Fantasy scene was already very heavily represented in the way of fansites and communities.
Why the revival? I'd decided to close my previous project some months previous, and it felt like good timing with the remakes of Resident Evil 2 & 3, and Resident Evil VII: Biohazard being well received as well as the upcoming (at the time) sequel of Resident Evil Village, as well as a Netflix series and a reboot of the films.
Can you tell us more about the software your site is running and why you have chosen that software
In case you hadn't guessed with my previous answers, it is running XenForo with a number of add-ons. I never really considered the 'main' opposition, which perhaps goes back to my days with vBulletin and its rivalry with the same company.
Where do you see your forum heading in a couple of years? What are your goals?
Another difficult question to answer. The forum hasn't enjoyed the successes I'd anticipated, which has been quite tough to deal with, on top of other things going on in my personal life. I've just recently started working on things again, and plan to try and create new content over the coming weeks/months and get a bit of a buzz happening again. The main goal for the next couple of years is to not just survive, but start thriving.
How often do you work on your forum, creating new content, adding news, doing back-end stuff?
As my previous answer touches on, it largely depends on my state of mind. Last year, I largely left the forum dormant and have been fortunate that my co-administrator didn't follow suit and continued to write some really good content for our Wiki.
When I'm on form, I can be tweaking back-end stuff on an almost daily basis - which is probably the part of creating and running a forum that I enjoy most. Unfortunately, I've never been great at content creation and the same has proved true so far this time around.. It's not that I can't do it - but it's not something that I particularly enjoy. Report card reads: Must do better.
Do you consider yourself an expert webmaster? Are there aspects that you'd like to know better ?
No, far from it - and in many respects I'm stuck in my ways.. I've always wanted to be able to write code more fluently and confidently, but have never progressed that desire.. I really ought to learn other basic webmaster things too, though I'm almost too embarrassed to confess what I don't actually know. Let's put it this way, I continue to treat my production environment like a test environment, which I know isn't the way to do things..
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?
Generally speaking, I like to have each detail setup the way I want it and for everything to go perfect. Sometimes with the reality of adult responsibilities and other commitments on my time, it simply isn't possible and so I will happily let other things just fall into place on their own, and review them as the need to do so arises.
Do you pick staff according to their popularity on forums, or their personality?
I only pick staff that I trust, and aren't in it for the 'title' or other trivial things. Staff also have to pull their weight, otherwise I may as well do everything myself..
How do you advertise?
Right now, simply word of mouth. I've tried a couple Facebook campaigns in the past and they didn't really work. I've done a few post exchanges previously, but with my absence these have also been knocked on the head until I have the time to commit to reviving them.
How do you maintain your traffic/income and keep members entertained?
I'm definitely the wrong person to be answering this! Thus far Umbrella Online has been almost entirely funded by myself, with our most recent XenForo renewal being generously paid for by my co-administrator.
I don't actively monitor traffic, and simply go by the numbers provided by the the forum software; Posts and Members. As already discussed, things aren't where I'd like them to be right now, but I hope to be able to start turning that around again.
@Oblivion Knight is founder of a really cool forum called Umbrella Online - A forum dedicated to discussing Resident Evil. Definitely worth a visit if you have interest in this game franchise. I had the pleasure to send him a few questions about himself and his forum. These are his responses.
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 ?
Hello! Thank you for asking me. I certainly can - I'm Andy, 37, Male, and currently live in Rotherham, England. I live with my Partner, and I also have a 4-year-old daughter from a previous relationship who stays with us 2-3 nights every week.
What is your greatest strength being a webmaster ?
I have a keen eye for detail and user interface. I make a number of small tweaks to existing add-ons in order for them to fit better with the overall implementation. Occasionally I also share them with the XenForo community if I'm asked.
What is your greatest accomplishment ?
That's a really difficult question to answer.. I can't take all of the credit, but I studied my University degree part-time for six years whilst maintaining full-time employment throughout. I studied 'IT and Organisations' which was essentially a mix of IT subject areas including Databases. Website Design & Maintenance, Programming, Law, and Security. I successfully graduated with first class honours in 2017, but without the support of my family I'd have most likely dropped out before doing so.
How long have you been on forums in general? What's the history behind you?
I've been involved with the forum scene since late 1999. The very first community I joined was Gaming Update, which ultimately shut down as I knew it back in 2010.. It spurred me on to get involved with designing and creating communities from the early 2000's, starting out on ezboard and eventually moving on to 'premium' software; UBB, vBulletin, and now XenForo.
I was a moderator on vBulletin.org for a short spell, during what I would describe as a 'transitional period'. The general atmosphere of that community quickly went south and I made the prompt decision to leave my position there, as well as the forum scene itself for several years until I learned of Kier and Mike creating XenForo.
What's the most successful forum you ever owned?
I've never felt any of my projects have reached the success that I aspired to, but my current project is a revival of my most successful forum, Umbrella Online. I even managed to (eventually) reacquire the original domain that I used.
What has inspired you to start your forum?
As mentioned, I've had an interest in designing and creating communities from the early years of being involved with Gaming Update. In the early 2000's I was a huge fan of the Resident Evil and Final Fantasy series' of games, but the Final Fantasy scene was already very heavily represented in the way of fansites and communities.
Why the revival? I'd decided to close my previous project some months previous, and it felt like good timing with the remakes of Resident Evil 2 & 3, and Resident Evil VII: Biohazard being well received as well as the upcoming (at the time) sequel of Resident Evil Village, as well as a Netflix series and a reboot of the films.
Can you tell us more about the software your site is running and why you have chosen that software
In case you hadn't guessed with my previous answers, it is running XenForo with a number of add-ons. I never really considered the 'main' opposition, which perhaps goes back to my days with vBulletin and its rivalry with the same company.
Where do you see your forum heading in a couple of years? What are your goals?
Another difficult question to answer. The forum hasn't enjoyed the successes I'd anticipated, which has been quite tough to deal with, on top of other things going on in my personal life. I've just recently started working on things again, and plan to try and create new content over the coming weeks/months and get a bit of a buzz happening again. The main goal for the next couple of years is to not just survive, but start thriving.
How often do you work on your forum, creating new content, adding news, doing back-end stuff?
As my previous answer touches on, it largely depends on my state of mind. Last year, I largely left the forum dormant and have been fortunate that my co-administrator didn't follow suit and continued to write some really good content for our Wiki.
When I'm on form, I can be tweaking back-end stuff on an almost daily basis - which is probably the part of creating and running a forum that I enjoy most. Unfortunately, I've never been great at content creation and the same has proved true so far this time around.. It's not that I can't do it - but it's not something that I particularly enjoy. Report card reads: Must do better.
Do you consider yourself an expert webmaster? Are there aspects that you'd like to know better ?
No, far from it - and in many respects I'm stuck in my ways.. I've always wanted to be able to write code more fluently and confidently, but have never progressed that desire.. I really ought to learn other basic webmaster things too, though I'm almost too embarrassed to confess what I don't actually know. Let's put it this way, I continue to treat my production environment like a test environment, which I know isn't the way to do things..
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?
Generally speaking, I like to have each detail setup the way I want it and for everything to go perfect. Sometimes with the reality of adult responsibilities and other commitments on my time, it simply isn't possible and so I will happily let other things just fall into place on their own, and review them as the need to do so arises.
Do you pick staff according to their popularity on forums, or their personality?
I only pick staff that I trust, and aren't in it for the 'title' or other trivial things. Staff also have to pull their weight, otherwise I may as well do everything myself..
How do you advertise?
Right now, simply word of mouth. I've tried a couple Facebook campaigns in the past and they didn't really work. I've done a few post exchanges previously, but with my absence these have also been knocked on the head until I have the time to commit to reviving them.
How do you maintain your traffic/income and keep members entertained?
I'm definitely the wrong person to be answering this! Thus far Umbrella Online has been almost entirely funded by myself, with our most recent XenForo renewal being generously paid for by my co-administrator.
I don't actively monitor traffic, and simply go by the numbers provided by the the forum software; Posts and Members. As already discussed, things aren't where I'd like them to be right now, but I hope to be able to start turning that around again.
