General Community Goals for 2024

[Cedric]

Not long now until we start 2024 so it's an opportune time to cast our gaze forward and envision the path we want our community to tread in 2024. It's a year brimming with potential, and your input matters greatly. But more importantly, you need to have some goals. Proactive work.

So, let's talk about it. What are your community goals for 2024? What aspirations, improvements, or transformations would you like to see within your forum in the coming year? Whether big or small, specific or broad.

Perhaps you have plans to enhance user engagement, introduce new features, or create a more inclusive and vibrant community. Maybe you aim to grow your membership, forge strategic partnerships, or explore innovative ways to keep your discussions fresh and exciting.

By sharing your goals, you not only inspire others but also help shape your community's roadmap for the year ahead. Your ideas can serve as a source of motivation and collaboration as we work together to make 2024 a remarkable year for every community.

 

[Sinistra]

Anime-Insight
To reach 1,000 members with a completely active community. I am in dev mode now trying to get some cool new features ready for next year. such as a Tutorials section for our graphics community. an updated Reviews section with some well-needed template modifications. and an "Otaku Dictionary" basically a place where people can post commonly used words that get thrown around the anime community to help people just getting into anime what they are talking about lol

Sinistra Designs
Getting an IPS license will not cost an arm and a leg so I can use it for my mod and theme design community for Invison Community. hopefully, I get that off the ground so I can make some money quit my day job, and watch more Anime!

Otaku's Rant
I am hoping to make some more blog posts before the end of the year. if not I will work on that as well come the first of the year. I have a lot to talk about what happened this past year and what to expect in the future!

Sinistra Gaming
I am so hoping I can get some time to get my streaming site off the ground. And set a schedule each week with my day job to be able to have some fun with friends and maybe make some new ones!

Geek-Nexus
This definitely will not start till maybe after the first of the year. Here I plan on getting Star Trek Star Wars and other geekdoms to come together and have a bit of fun. from talking Star Trek Lore to comic books, trading card games, and other cool things!

Sinistra Media
This site will be the hub for the previously listed sites, here news and updates will be posted for all the sites I run. Hopefully, I have a lot to post here in the coming year!

 

[Darth Cognus]

One community is transitioning in upper management at the turn of the year (it better, the old management won't have a term past the 31st unless they renew and leave it high and dry). At that point a new management will come in, 99% likely overturn my ban and invite me back to help reconstruct its damaged community side while figuring out a stagnant and difficult technical side. It's as messy as it sounds.

Another is a very old forum on the decline which I don't expect to reverse, but I do expect to account for its dated systems and simplify so it can build upwards a little over the coming year. Since around the turn of the decade it has been in steady decline expecting to operate as a staff of over a dozen people instead of the effective 3-4 people it can count on day to day now. I'm not expecting the owner to return but maybe if the setup is more manageable he'll be incentivized to throw it a bone.

The rest I'll putter on in my various capacities, a couple winding down and a few remaining level.

You'll notice I don't own any of these places, I simply get involved and I seem to be drawn towards particularly difficult ones.

Tentatively considering if I want to get into a proper comanagement position on a site in its early days or not - nothing specific, just in general. Working with something more new and hopeful without baggage is appealing but the potential niches I will get all into are few and the balance is tricky. I never seem to have luck trying to help start a new enterprise but then, I've had enough lessons to have a mental codebook at least.

Finally I might continue to see how a fledgling cafe works out. If nothing else this side of the internet is newer to me and I'll probably continue looking at AJ as a hub to find others and maybe post from time to time...

 

[Empire]

We have goals every year and topics like this that end up being the same results. I do not set goals up anymore since they end up failing and worse off. So many options and ideas that I want to do but lack in terms of knowledge money and worse of all support. An intelligent person can find it hard to get anything done, well, takes more time but the results end up being good or a waste of time.

I was going to open up my own VA I started it however what made me not continue is the support from the members or people that are based and into those things, I might end up opening it up for just two people to use and that's it

My own Poilit Life VA for members to join as a community and fly and log their flights and earn awards and badges and share their routes and so much more - like this https://flyuk.aero/ but my own after awhile might end up costing time and money for what? nothing. There are so many VAs out there that would make me standout not to mention getting people to join.

I can ask all my online mates to join but once they join they end up not using the systems and never log into it again. Always a back wall, makes me laugh that I do so much for them and yet they do not want to do shit all for me Xd

what makes people do what they love is the great support form other people, and I do not get tthat.

 

[Al]

My goals for 2024 are to ensure I am still (slowly) making progress as we edge towards 2025.

 

[Arantor]

Getting Fabularna built and replacing StoryBB as the forum system on the one site. (With any luck this can also turn into replacing out MediaWiki too)

 

[Ravenfreak]

I want to purchase the clanz plugin for Woltlab, it's basically the group plugin for the software. I have a few ideas on what I want to do with this, and I think it'll help clean up my board a bit since I need to organize it better. I also want to work on getting a better banner made for Thee Zone, and possibly look into installing other themes alongside the ones we have now. I'm also going to write more articles for the CMS I have too, still need to brainstorm what I'm going to write about though. Haven't thought about what I want to do with Gex Forums yet though, or my other projects.

 

[joelr]

I do not set goals up anymore since they end up failing and worse off. So many options and ideas that I want to do but lack in terms of knowledge money and worse of all support

Some real talk.

Have you thought about focusing on what you can do, not just what you would like? Draw a line between what you would like to do (but can't because of time / money / custom development) and what you can do yourself. You'll find, as you investigate your list of things you can do, that there are lots of things that you can do.

What I hear from your response is not that you don't want to put out goals, but that you struggle with defining realistic ones.

 

[Gemma]

For me, I guess everything will hinge on XF 2.3 and XF 3.0. I'll have to weigh up the pros and cons of upgrading...what I'll gain and lose and whether it is worthwhile for my community. If I'm going to lose X amount of features that are popular but will no longer be compatible, is it really worth it?

Once that small dilemma is out the way I'll just continue trying to grow my community through membership and content and provide my members with the features they want - I've got numerous things I'm working on that have just failed to make it into the 2023 edition.

 

[Cedric]

For me, I guess everything will hinge on XF 2.3 and XF 3.0. I'll have to weigh up the pros and cons of upgrading...what I'll gain and lose and whether it is worthwhile for my community. If I'm going to lose X amount of features that are popular but will no longer be compatible, is it really worth it?

Once that small dilemma is out the way I'll just continue trying to grow my community through membership and content and provide my members with the features they want - I've got numerous things I'm working on that have just failed to make it into the 2023 edition.

There's shouldn't be much difference between 2.2 and 2.3. So upgrading is not really worth it so far in my opinion. Most add on's will work without much updates between 2.2 and 2.3 - so for any more sophisticated add on's, they will likely be updated quickly within the first 2-3 months. I wouldn't worry much.

XenForo is also running 2.3 and I haven't noticed any difference, lol. And then you have 3.0 which is more going to be a new style than any groundbreaking updates.

 

[Gemma]

And then you have 3.0 which is more going to be a new style than any groundbreaking updates.

This bit worries me the most. As you know, I've ripped my forum layout apart and I think my idea of innovative will differ very much from what the new style offers.

As for XF 2.3, I'll be honest, I've not really read through the "HYS" posts but I expect some things to break even though they claim otherwise. The only things I'm looking forward to in 2.3 are WebP and webhooks.

 

[Cedric]

This bit worries me the most. As you know, I've ripped my forum layout apart and I think my idea of innovative will differ very much from what the new style offers.

As for XF 2.3, I'll be honest, I've not really read through the "HYS" posts but I expect some things to break even though they claim otherwise. The only things I'm looking forward to in 2.3 are WebP and webhooks.

Honestly, there is nothing worth upgrading for. Sure, it will be nice to run the latest version but I would ONLY upgrade when 1. all add ons are updated by their dev. 2. When nothing else breaks or has to be removed.

So, whenever it's released, take some time to test and duplicate your community to see if all goes well on the new version. But really, there is no reason imo to update yet. I know I'm not waiting for 2.3 to drop anyway. Perfectly happy to keep running 2.2 for another 6 months or longer. Or just wait for 3.0 to drop and see if by then it's worth the hassle.

 

[Empire]

Maybe get to work on things that I have not completed hahaha