Castle Roland Forum re-boot

[Emperor Roland]

hey all!

Yes, contrary to some nasty rumors, i am still around.  It's been a hell of a year so far hasn't it?  Well, a little about what has been going on with me.  

 

Some of you may know that I was a truck driver, and then an instructor at a prominent Truck Driving School in Denver Colorado.  I was even privileged enough to be one of Colorado State CDL Examiners, meaning i tested people to make sure they should receive a commercial driver's licence.   Well in June that all can to a screeching halt.  My mother developed a rather aggressive head and neck cancer that had already spread to her lungs.  To make matters even worse, she was the caregiver for my father who suffered an anoxic brain injury 6 years ago.  needless to say they needed help.  They both ended up moving to Denver from upstate New York, and I am now caregiver for both.  

Things have finally settled down a bit, and hopefully I will be able to help Al run the Castle again.  Many thanks to all those whop had stepped up to keep the Castle running while I was otherwise occupied.  Now I have a personal favor to ask of all of your Forum members.  I would really like to see this Forum go back to being something more than just a place to see what stories have been updated.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to make that happen, or would like to be involved in it, please feel free to email me at either Roland@castleroland.net, or admin@castleroland.net.

Thank you to all, and I hope to get to know many of you through this forum.

Roland

[Talo Segura]

On 12/14/2020 at 2:32 AM, Emperor Roland said:

I would really like to see this Forum go back to being something more than just a place to see what stories have been updated.

Me too! I come here often, but find very little activity. I don't think that is any reflection on the forum, it is pretty much the same everywhere, on other forums.

First thing I would do, if it is available, is publish numbers, member and guests visiting each day, week, or month, how long they stay, what they look at.

If those numbers warrant the effort, I would think you need to tidy it up. Which means cut it down. I would start with the list of authors who each have their own thread. Considering the lack of comments that is unnecessary. However, you would need to redirect those threads to the new author threads, because, I think, you have clickable links on the story site to comment on stories.

The new author threads would be limited to: current authors (whose stories are posting) titled Comments on Current Stories. Next thread, Comments on Old or Other stories. That should be enough, two threads for comments.

What do you do with any of those old comments? I think you junk them. I'm not sure you even need comments on Old stories, where is the relevance? Reviews and information are different. I do think you need to keep story, author, reviews and maybe a thread on author info. It would be good to have an author bio, to know if they are still writing, stopped, disappeared, contact email doesn't work, they never reply, they're dead!

A forum for me serves two purposes, it's a place to get/give info, ask questions, and it's a place to talk, oops... is that three! 😁 Although it really only serves as a place to talk between time zones, otherwise it's maybe better live on Discord. But still when you've got a lot to say, like me... lol! Then a forum is a good place to do it, even if it feels a bit like talking to yourself. Kinda like writing really!

Good luck and hope everything works out 🤗