[Mr.Spider]

Excited about the changes and updates. I know the previous iteration of moving stuff to the wiki got complicated when it came to completion. The pack plans and props section and such all got jumbled and what not.

[AJ Quick]

Yeah. Despite the fact that we're moving back to a completely custom solution once again, I think this one will be fully featured and do the things we need it to do. I am hoping people once again contribute to this Wiki. I have plans to make it much better than it was.

I had taken a break over the weekend from working on things. I am back at it today, working on the full social aspect of the site. I am revamping all the previous existing features, but hopefully things will be a bit less Myspace-y.

If there are any features you would like to see please let me know. Right now we have things like: Events, Calendar, Franchises, Wall Posting, Blogs, YouTube video imports, Prop builds, Fan art, Fan fic. Commenting, liking, social feed, notifications.. etc.

[AJ Quick]

Progress has slowed down a bit. All sections of the site are probably around 90% complete, it is that last 10% that is the hardest as I track down bugs, test things and improve the appearance. I am wondering if I can get this new site up in a week or two at this point?

One cool feature I am working on adding for the shop is a loyalty program. Still trying to figure out all aspects, but if you give your friend's a link to the shop, you'll get 5% in rewards for whatever is purchased at the shop in the form of a shop credit. Similarly, if you are a franchise and you give out a link to your followers, you will get 5% of their purchase as a donation for your charity.

[timeware]

If we can get permission, one cool thing i'd like to see are games on the main page. Giving people a chance to compete for the high score and bragging rights. It would keep people on the main site if that's doable.

https://www.retrogames.cc/nes-games/gho ... s-usa.html

[AJ Quick]

If we can get permission, one cool thing i'd like to see are games on the main page. Giving people a chance to compete for the high score and bragging rights. It would keep people on the main site if that's doable.

https://www.retrogames.cc/nes-games/gho ... s-usa.html

That's actually pretty funny! I was thinking about re-creating that game and putting it in as an easter egg.

[AJ Quick]

While I thought the shop was the part that was the furthest along, it also is the one that is the most complicated. I have had to go back and make more changes to the shop. Right now I am just trying to get it to function the same as the current shop does as far as shipping and fulfilling orders. Fixing the shop has been the last few days and will likely take a few more days in itself.

[AJ Quick]

Yesterday was a solid 14-hour day. I have been back to hitting things hard.

The franchise section is taking shape. I am taking things that we used to have in place and greatly expanding upon them. I know franchises will love this new hub/anchor page for their franchises. You will have a place where you can show off your charity efforts, show off your team's equipment, post news/articles, events, and member lists, etc. Have links to your social media accounts and website. I may even look at taking that a bit further by having the ability to bring in Facebook page content automatically. You will have founders and you will have members, and depending on permissions, certain users can help with content and editing of their franchise page, while certain members can make larger changes. Basically, it will all be available to you with only minor site admin involvement.

Everything is capped with an awesome, live, interactive map that shows all the franchises with their logos. One cool feature I am hoping to add is the ability to find gaps in the franchise system. For example, if a state has franchises in multiple large cities but not in one, it will hopefully encourage people who live around that area to find others nearby and form a franchise.

And then there will be a lot of pages and information on how to start a franchise, what is required, and what is important... how to work with charities, how to screen your members, how to set up a 501(c)(3), etc.

I have also spent a considerable amount of time getting the fan/community pages going. You will have your own profile page much like we used to have around 2008. You can add friends, chat, post on profiles, and post your props, videos, art, and other content. There will also be content feeds so you can check out the latest additions to the site, including from your friends. There will be active notifications so you also know immediately when someone has left you a comment, sent you a message, or other things. This is all going to be very awesome.

[AJ Quick]

Yesterday was another 12 hours, spent focusing almost entirely on the franchises and fan maps. I'm really liking how those sections are coming along!

[AJ Quick]

Yesterday was yet another 15-hour day with about a 3-hour break in the middle. I spent the day making it easier for fans in underserved areas to start their own local Ghostbusters franchise. If you live somewhere that doesn't have an active franchise yet, the site now helps you find that out and guides you through getting one off the ground. This includes a new library of guides covering how to run a chapter, what to think about for events, and practical safety and legal pointers.

Franchise pages themselves got a major upgrade: you'll see news, upcoming events, members, and equipment all in one place, plus a dedicated feed for franchise happenings across the whole community. The advertising side of the house also started coming together. You'll begin seeing some ads tested on the site, but supporting members will get a (mostly) ad-free experience as a thank-you.

A huge focus was on friendships and community. Over the years, I've heard from so many people that they met their best friends, their fellow franchise members, and even their partners through GBFans.com, so the fan directory, friends page, and profile pages all got rebuilt to make finding and connecting with other fans much easier. You can filter by location, see mutual friends, spot who's near you, and discover people you'd probably get along with.

I also rolled out a brand-new contribution system that spans almost everything you can do on the site, such as wiki edits, forum posts, photos, fiction, franchise activity, and more. The more active and varied your contributions, the more you're recognized. Each month the top contributors earn Gold, Silver, and Bronze distinctions, with badges for other top members too; the top contributors will even receive a free supporting membership as a thank-you for keeping the community alive.

[AJ Quick]

I had to take some time off from working on this to give myself a bit of time to reset. Sometimes we need to step back and take a bit of time to think things over before continuing.

I am back to working on the prop and art sections. I am happy with how the new system will work. You will have the ability to dump your photos into a gallery much like it used to work, but also have the ability to do real build logs. There will be a tagging and categorization system so when you upload a Proton Pack, it won't just let you say it is a Proton Pack. It now asks guiding questions like how was it made, what movie or show is it based upon? This will help people who are looking for very specific things like: Show me all heavily modified Spirit Halloween Proton Packs then you can focus on those builds specifically. There will also be generated linking so if you say you used XYZ part, it will try to automatically link to that product.

Fan Art will work similarly though with a bit less specificity. There will be more tags and importantly an AI filter. If you use AI to make your images, that is OK, but you must indicate that you used AI and users will need to opt in to specifically see that type of content.

I also encountered the first problem that many had mentioned about services costing a lot of money randomly. I found that the forum software does not play nicely with our database software. Basically the forum software always keeps the database alive, so our service that is supposed to scale down to zero (and not cost any money) is just not capable of doing so with Discourse. I will need to shift to a different hosting service for that particular database.

[AJ Quick]

While there are definitely several areas that still need work, testing and fixing.. I have officially shifted to working on the polish and design. Improving upon the design is important as it will help dictate some of the features and integrations that still need to be made. The changes now will help unify the design across the pages. I am also working on dark mode which I know a lot of you will be happy to see. I believe the changes, even minute are going to look great.