One of the topics that came up in the meeting was expanding the team. Some of us might want help, so I thought I’d open this topic up for discussion as was requested last night.
I would welcome another addition to the team so long as that person is not working on another ThunderCats-related website. I have nothing against Angie, she’s awesome – but I’d rather we keep our team focused on our site and not have other sites know what we are discussing in our team forum.
As for how many, I’d suggest adding one additional person, two at the most. Those are my two cents.
FWIW, I think we may benefit from the addition of another team member - the reason why I say this is because, as was discussed last night, we have several team members now who are very stretched with their spare time and getting material online can be a bit of a pressure. I wonder if we had one more member of the team whether it would just ease a psychological burden, so to speak?
For my way of thinking, the two areas we actually need help with are:
[ul]
[li]HTML[/li][li]Writing[/ul]The reason why I cite those two areas is because, firstly, HTML is perhaps the most time-consuming area of working on the site - whilst several of us have a degree of HTML skill (even I’m improving! :D), nonetheless it would still be good to have someone to help. The reason why I cite the issue of writing is because, being completely honest, in the vast majority of instances, if something on the site needs writing, it’s me who ends up writing it. The quality of Martin’s work is second-to-none, but he himself has stated that he finds it hard to contribute large amounts of written content to the site because of the outside pressures of his University work, Angie came onto the site as a writer and never actually wrote anything (although she contributed in many other ways, and just having her on the team completely changed the way the online ThunderCats community perceives this site), Celesta used to write for the site but resigned over a year ago - you get the idea. So, IMO these are the two areas we really need help with. :)[/li]
I have to be honest and say if you were to ask me to come up with a name I really don’t have a clue who to suggest - the only person I can think of from our forums with the passion to take on ThunderCats writing would be Catspat - however, being honest, whilst Patricia can be a fantastic lady (and is also one of the oldest ThunderCats fans you’ll ever meet - she’s only a few years younger than my mother!!), she can also be slightly “dramatic”, for want of a better word, in her interaction with other people and I would worry slightly about how she would interact with the rest of the team.
Any more thoughts, suggestions, anybody? I think having one more team member would be a good thing, but I’m drawing a bit of a blank! :?
I thought about Catspat myself but Im not sure if it would be good to bring her on for the reasons that Chris stated. Someone that can do writing is great but we need someone that can do both writing and HTML. I think our best bet is to post a wanted ad like we did last time and see were this goes. We certainly would have to do some screening as to the best candidates but at least it will give us an idea of potential team members
Given that this has had 20+ viewings and only two replies, I think it’s safe to say that no one objects to the concept of expanding the team, LOL! My suggestion would be that you post a request up on the front page as suggested, MannyF - we got Kyle out of doing that, which is one of the best things ever to happen to this site, so hopefully lightning can strike twice!
Just to reiterate, we’re looking for writers and someone who can help HTML wise, right? I’ll probably also add someone who can help out with content management systems and CSS.
I’ll be writing up something for the front page by the end of the weekend.
Yeah, really I think those are the areas we need help with - I think we also need to be prepared to have to reject some applications, for example if board member optimusprime (a.k.a. “manny” on the He-Man.Org forums) were to offer to write for the Encyclopedia! But, if we can find someone who gels with the team like Kyle did, I think it would be good to have one more person!
Yeah, I saw you’d started a draft post when I updated the front page myself the other day! It was sounding good, looking forward to seeing it out there!
Two people were interested. Not sure if either one fit the criteria of what we wanted though. I’ll post the emails that were sent to me when I get home from work.
Should I bump the post on the top of the front page and try again?
Hey Manny, I’d love to read those e-mails, please could you post them up? And, I’d say maybe delete the old post and re-post it so it gets bumped up to the top of the front page again like you suggest.
Also, I think MannyC and Mark make some good suggestions - if they came to us via the forums on He-Man.Org, chances are we’d know a bit about these folks (and let’s face it, that’s how we originally came together anyway!), likewise it sounds like Facebook would grant a lot of exposure!
I’ll check into that. Thanks for the suggestion Mark.
If we don’t get anymore responses, I’ll try He-Man.org. I know this is going to sound weird because I know most of us came from that forum, but I kind of want to stray away from them just a little bit. I don’t want it to seem like we’re relying on them for everything. May be it’s just me being selfish, but I really want to have our own community that doesn’t have to leech off of their forums. Besides, I think we’ve “pimped” our site a lot over there…I feel like I should be paying advertisement or something.
May be I’ll just donate to their cause instead.
Anyhow, that’s how I feel about that. Facebook sounds like a better opportunity to get new people into our forum community.
Here are the two messages I received from the front page post:
[I]Hey there Manny. I actually learned about you a while back when I like many other people was on a mad hunt to locate a Mad Bubbler and saw your post in one of the action figure site forums about Jordan possibly getting you some pics which never surfaced. Hopefully the one he’s got now that sells you can get ahold of. Anyhow I saw you’re looking for new members to your team. I don’t really have any HTML experience but I’m a halfway decent writer and would like an opportunity to contribute to the site. I work 8:30-5 M-F and I stare at a computer screen all day so I’m not really excited about looking at one again when I come home, but on the bright side at least you know I’m not expecting to get paid I’d mostly probably be able to help you out on the weekends writing stuff for the encyclopedia and for the cartoons. Thundercats has and continues to be my number 1 all time favorite show of any kind and I’m extremely passionate about them still at the age of 25. I lived through that time in the 80’s as a child and I actually pity those today who don’t have the pleasure of what we children of the 80’s had the pleasure of (I’m not just speaking of Thundercats, but also Transformers, Bravestarr, Inhumanoids, C.O.P.S., Silverhawks, and others come to mind that we probably will never see the likes of again). I would be looking at being a part time contributor for the time being, some hours on the weekend writing anything pertaining to the figures or the cartoons. Anything I could do to further the cause of Thundercats I would gladly give all but my soul (and possibly my 50" flat panel Panasonic) for. I look forward to hearing back from you and I hope my talents and love for would be useful to the team.
Brandon[/I]
[I]Greeting,
first of all you might consider it wierd for me to answer to you offer on that marvelous HP of yours due to the fact IŽm actually from Germany, yet nonetheless I am a devoted Thundercat Fan since years AND working for a german Webpage that next to MotU works on a Thundercat Database. Maybe you even heared of the site called Planeteternia.de. This site contains a huge Encyclopidia itself not only for MotU but Thundercats themself. I myself added a lot of Data and Information to this Thundercat Encyclopidia and would like to offer my help for you TŽCat site aswell. If you want me to. I guess my english is good enough to write reviews and the kind and even if you comsider it ainŽt I guess I can still offer some information on the toyline the page might benefit from. Well so far if youŽd like to know more abut me or what other projects iŽve been working on feel free to email me. WeŽll also see ourselfŽs on you TŽCats board
So far from here, all the best
regards, yours truly Andy (aka King of Crows)[/I]
My two cents…I like Brandon, so that might be a toss-up. I’m not too sure yet though.
Andy seems cool, but I think we’ve got a lot of Toy/Merchandise gurus already on the team. We can have him as a contributor, but we’re looking for help in other areas of the site. I’m afraid it’s going to be difficult to get him to write for the encyclopedia since English isn’t his primary language.
So yeah, those are the two responses thus far. I’m going to go check out the Facebook group right now.
I agree 100% with everything that you say - I too like Brandon, Andy I think may throw up a language barrier and I really don’t think is what we’re looking for by way of a writer. The hunt continues!
Also, on the subject of contributors rather than new team members, here’s something that occured to me earlier and I thought I’d throw out there - I know all of you guys will be familiar with Queen Lynxana, former EOT co-owner and one of the most, shall we say, notorious members of the online TCats community! I believe she’s a recovering alcoholic, and caused an embarrassing rumpus over at EOT due to a series of racist remarks she made whilst “under the influence”. She is definitely not team member material for any site, let alone this one.
However! She does have a great deal of knowledge and passion for ThunderCats comics, and, for some reason, she really likes me - probably the influence of the alcohol! It did occur to me that if I were to turn on the charm she might be talked into writing up some much-needed synopsies (and I mean just the synopsies - I still want to do the reviews and notes of interest) for the comics we need - she did, in fact, offer to help me out before, a couple of years ago now. I have cover scans for literally dozens of TCats comics that we don’t have hosted on this site, but with everything I have to do for the Cartoon Section (especially the Episode Guide) I won’t be able to even make a start on writing the rest up until 2009 at the earliest…
I don’t know how you guys would feel about me asking her to help me out - I’m pretty sure some of you would think it was a bad idea. Heck, part of me even thinks it’s a bad idea - but, I just thought I’d throw it out there whilst I thought of it! LMK what you think!
Another email…this one from a person we might like…
i have been looking at your ebsite Thundercats Lair and I’d really like to help
I was and still am a huge fan of the show, if able to i would love to help write reviews and synopsis for the episodes and character review, anything like that and anywhere I can help i would love to, if you could email me back and let me know which areas i could help out in
Many thanks
Martyn Davidson
I live in the UK by the way
Another UK fan…he’ll fit right in…
EDIT: Also, as a side note, Nick Mills sent me a PM inquiring about wanting to be on the podcast…as a regular. He has his own podcast (not ThunderCats related), so he says he could help us out. I told him we weren’t really looking to expand the podcast, but would contact him in the future if we decide to.
Sounds good i think and it should help speed up the episodes section quite a bit. You know I really dont think we need more than 2 writers at this time. However I do think that perhaps we should do something like a Contributors group. I guess we could essentially offer a few extra perks visible on the forum like bigger PM size, custom name maybe a cool banner like we all have that says Team Member but instead say something like TCL Contributor. Something to identify them from the rest. I dont think they should be allowed in the Team area but as a contributor they can submit their reviews and articles to Chris for him to revise it or accept.
I ould even take Queen Lynxana as a regular contributor being that she has a good amount of knowledge. Again they dont necessarily have to have access to the tema area but we can perhaps give them their own personal thundercatslair email address as an added perk. I’d say lets see what kind of material they can produce with writing and anything else and then decide if we should make them permanent contributors.
On the podcast subject we dont need regulars on the podcast but perhaps every so often we can suggest if some members would like to participate
I have to say, maybe I’m giving a knee-jerk reaction, maybe it’s because he’s from the UK, but I am really liking the sound of this guy! I’d like to keep doing the Reviews and Notes of Interest for the Episode Guide myself, but I don’t know how many synopsies the other team members completed for season 2, he could definitely come in handy there. And, if he was able to pick up some of the writing for the Encyclopedia, and also maybe write some other articles for the Cartoon Section (i.e., ones such as Martin & I have contributed already) that would certainly help me out a great deal, as it would speed up my work on other areas!
Re: the podcast - yeah, at the moment I think we’re fine as we are, I think you need a degree of personal rapport when doing something like a podcast and having a relative stranger as a new regular I think would throw that balance off. So, good call Manny!
Now, I have to say I really like this idea - I think there are lots of folks who would be able to contribute terrific material and knowledge to this site but who are folks we won’t necessarily like on the team - Craig (Lord Anubis over at He-Man.Org) is one such individual, Queen Lynxana for me would be another. I’d be all over that in fact, since really all we’d be giving them is a banner and they’d be doing all the work!
What do the rest of you think? On a knee-jerk reaction I think MannyC has come up with a great idea right here!
I kind of already accepted Brandon…he’s just waiting on me for some stuff. Not sure how many writers we need. We have two other people interested. Do we want 2 writers or more? I’m kind of concerned that we may have too many people…regardless of if they are correspondents or actual team members.
Also in regards to the “tier” system, if we don’t give correspondents access to this forum, we might want to have another private team forum so that we can have an active conversation with them.
I’m not against having correspondents…but if we go with that system, I’d like to have a concrete line for who is and is not a correspondent. I don’t want anyone pointing fingers as to why one person is a full fledged team member and another isn’t. I just want it to be clear.
My suggestion would be that you post a request up on the front page as suggested, MannyF - we got Kyle out of doing that, which is one of the best things ever to happen to this site, so hopefully lightning can strike twice! 
