Toad's Castle turns five years old

[supertoad]

Actually, the official birthday was a week ago, but the last month has been crazy for me--in both good and bad ways--and I'm sorry to say it slipped my mind at the time.

This last year has in many ways been the least successful the site has seen. It started out well last summer with the TCG project, but following the disaster that washed away all those weeks of effort, I lost much of the will to update the main site and didn't really start to recover it until a few months ago. In the darkest hour of TC's history I actually considered changing the site to be something entirely different, but stepped back from that brink. I am still convinced that TC could be a great and popular Mario fan site.

In May I laid out some thoughts and plans for the summer. So far they haven't gone as well as I would've hoped. I got the video section up, but due to technical limitations I wasn't able to make uploading easy, and I haven't received a single submission yet. While I still believe the video section would be great for the site, I realize video creation isn't a skill I've yet developed, and probably isn't for other members either. For now we should play to our strengths. In the next month I am going to dedicate myself to rebuilding the main site experience.

I will be working from the following principles in the new design:

• Make the site more visually appealing.
• Add more flexibility and interactivity to our existing content.
• Fully integrate members' forum accounts into the main site so they could be easily accessed from future web applications.
• Make the submission process for all content as automated as possible.
• Improve flow to and from the forum.

I hope this effort will revitalize the spirit of Toad's Castle and mark the beginning of a new age of growth for the site. Some may be skeptical. After all, it was only a month and a half ago that I made a similarly ambitious plan that fell far short of its goals. Only time will tell which way this path will lead, but the day I decide to settle for less in this project will be the day it stops being worth whatever effort I can allocate to it. If anyone wants to help out let me know.

Thanks everyone for coming here and contributing to our community. This forum is the reason I am still dedicated to the endeavor I started five long years ago when I was in many ways a very different person living under different circumstances. Here's to another five years.

[Narudog]

Happy Birthday TC...

Oh, and I was wondering, I have a web cam, and myspace/youtube I think has a direct 20 minute uploader, so if I were to make videos there would I be able to submit them that way?

[supertoad]

I could probably get that to work. There must be a way to download those videos.

[Nightmare]

I has been a pretty dull year. But you have some really good ideas in store, and if all goes well, the main site will improve quite a bit.

[Mr.Nose]

5 Years already? Jeez, I still remember looking at that 2nd birthday banner.

[Goombachi]

Happy birthday TC. For the forum, maybe we can set up a badge system. Just award badges to a member who has done something in particular. Also give them away to members that are moderators (with a special one for you, supertoad, as the admin) and to members that can use wifi on the Wii/DS. It'd be a neat thing to earn and it'd be useful too for new members to get acquainted with the site.

[Narudog]

Happy birthday TC. For the forum, maybe we can set up a badge system. Just award badges to a member who has done something in particular. Also give them away to members that are moderators (with a special one for you, supertoad, as the admin) and to members that can use wifi on the Wii/DS. It'd be a neat thing to earn and it'd be useful too for new members to get acquainted with the site.

That's not that bad of an idea, and they could go under our avatars or in our signatures, whichever works.

[Goombachi]

I was thinking with our avatars.

(But don't think it's my idea because it's not)

[Narudog]

I've seen it done before, but your suggested it be done here...so... I guess half credit would go to you then?

[Goombachi]

I suppose.

[Poisentoad]

Happy Birthday TC. I wanted to upload a video but the screen cam thing sucks. The sound quality comes out terrible and the screen is laggy.

[Goombachi]

Here's some images we could use for badges:

[mushroom_mage]

Hey, five years is a pretty big milestone. The first big anniversary after year one, really. And the new ideas sound good. Updated visuals and navigation is a good way to, like you said, being back some spirit and make the site feel "new" in a way, like getting a car wash or something.

[Poisentoad]

That was weird.

[mushroom_mage]

Sorry.