~ Adding new members to the team - read and contribute please

Site Discussion Team Discussion
21

Chris, as its your section and the team as a whole approved the idea of adding team mates I’d say why don’t you go ahead and make the offer to Mikey. It’d be great to have someone you’d trust with the write ups helping out.

Maybe Mikey could work on some writeups and you could handle some of the compilation of screenshots, morals and html / uploading? It might be better to limit new members ftp access to avoid accidental over writes or deletions.

Before I make the offer to Spideristic to help with the Merchandise section I just want to make sure I’m not stepping on toes here. Has anyone talked to Matt lately, is he for sure not going to be working on this section going forward? Does anyone else feel an ownership on this section and would like to have a say in this before I ask Spideristic to help?

Should I wait on this for the team meeting perhaps?

22

Chris here…

That would be exactly how I’d want to work - I’ll fire him an e-mail over the next couple of days and pray he says yes! :wink: Thanks for giving me the authority to go ahead with that, like yourself Mark I’m most eager always not to tread on anyone’s toes! :slight_smile:

I think perhaps the thing that needs to happen is that someone contacts Matt directly and has a word with him about it - I don’t think it’s unreasonable for us to assume that he’s not able to contribute further at the present time, due to the fact that (with apols for being blunt, it’s not meant nastily) he’s never around here anymore - but, at the same time it would probably be good courtesy to try and contact him before moving forward. :slight_smile:

So, my own $0.02 would be that I don’t think this is something that necessarily needs leaving for a team meeting, as I think the primary thing that will come out of the meeting would be that somebody needs to have a word with Matt (unless someone already has), but IMO it would be best if someone did contact Matt before moving forward on the Merchandise Section. :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

23

Good idea Chris, I will send Matt an e-mail at his thundercatslair.org account (the only one I have). Does anybody have his he-man.org ID or his personal e-mail address? I’d like to try and make sure he gets my message
Merged Post:
Looks like this e-mail bounced, will need Matt’s contact details, does anybody have these handy?

Mark

Hey Matt,

Hope you’re keeping well. I’m contacting you to see if you still have an interest in continuing your work on the site. As you know most of the team members struggle to find time to work on the site so we started looking at the idea of adding a few new team members to help with the work load.

One area that I’ve just recently put some work into is the Merchandise section which by all rights is your own section and I know you did a bunch of work collecting images of T-Cat merchandise and getting content ready for the section.

I know that like most of the team you’ve not managed to get onto the site as much as you’d like. But I’m wondering if you’d like to step back in and work on the section some more, or if at this point you’d be okay with me recruiting some new help to take your work further.

Could you let myself (and if you feel like it, the rest of the team) know what you’d like to do?

We’ve been discussing these ideas here in the forums:
http://thundercatslair.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3163

Cheers,
Mark
aka Grizz

24

Chris here…

Re: Matt, to be honest, if his e-mail bounced because of his ThunderCats Lair mailbox being full (which is the only reason I can think of as to why it would), then there’s your answer really! :wink: However, I still think it’s a good idea to at least look as though you’ve/we’ve tried to contact him… :slight_smile:

I think you’ll find that this is his He-Man.Org forum ID: http://www.he-man.org/forums/boards/member.php?u=21668 . :slight_smile:

I’ve e-mailed Mikey - I’ll let you know what he says! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

25

Chris, I sent the same message to Matt via his he-man.org account.

I also contacted Vivek (Spideristic) with the following message. I thought it would be best to ask him to help with a one off article rather than make a commitment about a team member role until we’ve heard back from Matt, or at least given him enough time to respond:

Hey Vivek,

I’ve noticed that you seem to know quite a lot about the statue collecting world. Would I be correct in guessing that you’re a bit of a collector?

I’m hoping you could help the TCL.org team with an idea we’ve had. What is quite clear is that many T-Cat fans have never owned or considered buying a high quality statue until the Hard Hero T-Cat line came out. What I think would really help everyone out would be if a guy who has shown so much interest and knowledge would write up a little article as sort of a guide on statue collecting and how it all works.

You’d be free to approach the article however you see fit but perhaps it could cover some of the following points:

  • How the statues are made
  • How many typically get made
  • The dimensions like 1/8 or 1/6 and what that all means (in a glossary section)
  • Artist Proofs, and what that means (in a glossary section)
  • What normally happens with prices after the statues are released: ie: do they get cheaper or more expensive on subsequent ebay sales
  • How to take care of your statues
  • Anything else you think is noteworthy

We like our articles to be quite short and to the point, you could reference my article on collecting animation art when writing this (if you’re willing, which I hope you are).

http://www.thundercatslair.org/cartoon/animationart/about.html

It’d be really appreciated if you could help us with this. If you’re able to take up this task we’re ideally hoping to have it by Monday 24th August or sooner because that’s when I’m scheduled to upload the Hard Hero interview. I’d like to put your article up in the Merchandise area as a sub-section.

Please let me know that you’ll be up for this, I think you’d do a great job on it.

Cheers,
Mark aka Grizz

26

Chris here…

Mikey said yes! :thumbsup:

Now we’re talking!! Mikey’s writing I think is of a very high standard and this, I think, is awesome news! :thumbsup:

Before I reply to Mikey, can you guys tell me where we go from here? I’d really ultimately like to give Mikey TCL team member status so that he can have access to this Team Board and can easily access the status list of what needs doing, and keep myself and the rest of the team updated - if I’m being honest too, it would make things quicker and easier for me without having to keep messing around with e-mails but keep it all contained within one place… :slight_smile:

I trust Mikey implicitly and am very confident that he wouldn’t divulge any of the “sensitive content” that gets posted here, particularly if I specifically asked him not to. :slight_smile:

Obviously with his current schedule there’s no urgency, but if you guys could LMK if this would be OK before I get back to him, that would be awesome! Many thanks! :slight_smile:

EDIT: Just to add that I’m not proposing to give Mikey FTP access to the site at this stage, I think it’d be best if I handled that - just realised I hadn’t mentioned it! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

27

Good news Chris! Excited to hear we’ll have some help on this. I’m personally cool with giving Mikey full team member status with the understanding that the Cartoon section is still ultimately yours to direct and manage and that Mike contributes content that you ultimately approve and want included in the section. If Mikey would like to contribute other ideas I’m sure we’d welcome them with open arms as I think the more content we can put up that is fresh, the better that is for the site.

What say the rest of the team?

From Vivek in response to my request:

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your kind words , really took me by surprise. I would love to write an article on statue collecting for TCL. Though I have to say I barely have couple of statues to be considered a statue collector. But yeah I have indeed been reading a lot about the hobby and craft of sculpting past a year now, thanks to the collectors and talented statue industry people who frequently post and share their knowledge on statueforum.com

Your specified bullet points pretty much covers the overall aspect of statue collecting and they will be very helpful to frame my article. I will once again go through your “Collecting Animation Art” article to use as a reference point.

I might have to check few other sites to get accurate information for the glossary terms and description, but I will try my best to jot down all the statue information for the article in my own words.

It’s quite a coincidence that this has come my way. Past couple of weeks I been planning to write a personal article on how I got into the hobby of collecting. Right from my childhood days of collecting He-Man figures during the 80s to my recent fascination and appreciation for statues. Now after writing a guide about statues for TCL readers, maybe I’ll finally get to my own writing which I been procrastinating for a while now.

Also wanted to mention that I was very glad to see the new merchandise section up and running, good job .

I won’t be able to get to writing this article until the weekend as I am busy with work through the week. But I do my usual daily browsing for an hour or two after I get back from work, so during that time I will try to gather all the info I will need for the article and will finish it up by Sunday. I will likely submit this to you on Sunday night after 9 pm (PST).

As G.I. Joe is finally getting released here this Friday, I have made plans to head out this weekend on Saturday for the movie with my friends, among other things. So Sunday is the only day I will actually get to writing the article.

I hope I can deliver the quality in writing and provide information that will be helpful and appealing to the fans.

Cheers
Vivek

28

Chris here…

Mikey’s just doing some work on the music magazine he works for and then I’ll need to have a chat with him about this - so, is everyone cool with him having full team member status? I don’t want to put my foot in it by offering it to him and then having to go back on it… :slight_smile:

If you guys could LMK, that would be awesome - many thanks! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

29

Chris, I say go ahead and ask him. We both posted the question ages ago and you would remain in overall control of the section. We seem to have lost Martin and a few other team members so there is definitely space for Mikey on the team. I can’t imagine that there could be a possible reason to reverse the decision on adding him. If nobody disagrees by this time tomorrow I say just go ahead and ask Mikey.

Do you have access to the forums control panel or would you like me to add him to team member status?

Cheers,
Mark