My goals for SF-O in 2016

[DZComposer]

Here is what I hope I can accomplish this year for SF-O:

1. Start a social media presence for SF-O. As much as I hate modern social media, I have to admit that SF-O will not grow without the exposure. At somepoint there will be an SF-O Twitter account, a Facebook account, and possibly a Tumblr. The exact content of these channels is TBD at this time. I will also look to find more content for SF-O's YouTube channel that hasn't had anything new posed on it in years. I will also look into finding ways for more SF-O content to pop-up on Reddit, particularly on /r/starfox and /r/nintendo.
2. New Jukebox system for playing music. Unfortunately, this will have to be custom code of some sort. I want HTML5 playback because Flash needs to die and I want mobile users to be able to use the Jukebox replacement.
3. New system for displaying comic and book scans. This will be a custom IPS app I am writing called Comic Engine. More details once I have something to show, but it will be a proper webcomic system with pages, navigation, indexes, etc. This is for two reasons: 1. Gallery sucks for comics. 2: The small PHP script I wrote won't run on f.starfox-online.net anymore and it didn't do proper thumbnailing. Plus, it wasn't integrated with IPS.
4. Upload the German comic, Farewell Beloved Falco, the Itoh Comic (once I get all the scans I need), and the guide scans into Comic Engine
5. Complete the articles for the main characters and planets.
6. SFOCast revival as a video podcast (Note: SFOCast Theater is a different thing)
7. Finish Itoh Comic SFOCast Theater

I will probably add more to this list. If you guys have any suggestions, feel free to bring them up.

[That Ain't Falco]

Will we be able to download the comics in a .cbr or .cbz format? Just wondering.

And to comment, social media presence would work wonders for this site, particularly a tumblr page. Tumblr has some pretty decent chunks of the fanbase, there.

[DZComposer]

That entirely depends on how easy it is to make those files and whether or not I can automate it.

EDIT: Apparently they're just standard archive files, so yeah, implementing .cbx formats is trivial. "Download a Zip file" was one of the things I was planning on anyway.

[Dr. Orange]

6 hours ago, DZComposer said:

Here is what I hope I can accomplish this year for SF-O:

1. Start a social media presence for SF-O. As much ... exposure. At somepoint there will be an SF-O Twitter account, a Facebook account, and possibly a Tumblr. 

No tumblr. Don't even think. Twitter is ok and Facebook is whatever fuck it but you be wasting time with a tumblr.

Other than that it's all good. I'd do comics first before articles and SFOcast though. 

[Clearwater]

Are those goals of yours organized in order of priority or are just in no particular order at all?

EDIT: Oh yeah, maybe we should try and promote our Steam group a little more as well. Maybe organize TF2 server invasions and gamenights on certain dates? You don't have to get another server for us to play on DZ, just a pub server we can all agree on.

[Sideways]

I have experience running Facebook Pages, and I'm willing to help out in that aspect.  I have a page that "roleplays" specific Transformers characters, and interact with other Transformers pages. We post TF content, comment on it and so on.

 

[DZComposer]

On 1/20/2016 at 7:10 PM, Dr. Orange said:

No tumblr. Don't even think. Twitter is ok and Facebook is whatever fuck it but you be wasting time with a tumblr.

What's wrong with Tumblr? It is my understanding that there are Star Fox fans there so why not?

[The VGM Lover]

What I could suggest is having the Jukebox as a separate tab via link or play button on the Welcome and Forums page. Also, see if you can include not only the original tunes from the games, but remixes from dedicated fans and artists such as yours:

 

Or this guy's:

 

 

 

[DZComposer]

While I do post my works on the forums, I don't generally feature them on the main site unless I have sheet music with it.

As far as works by others, I don't want to just vacuum-up other people's fan works.

Though I do post an occasional Fanstuff article that features a work, but it always links to the creator's posting. I never upload them to SF-O.

[Sideways]

Tumblr is known for having "rabid" fanbases. And crybabies. And getting offended at anything.

[Dr. Orange]

18 hours ago, DZComposer said:

What's wrong with Tumblr? It is my understanding that there are Star Fox fans there so why not?

 

2 hours ago, Sideways said:

Tumblr is known for having "rabid" fanbases. And crybabies. And getting offended at anything.

^ That ^

But hey, if you want to make a Tumblr that doesn't have:

• hurtful pronouns
• Oppressive Statements
• Intimidating Pictures
• Unpopular Opinions

Really a jolly place.

[Gestalt]

With reservations, a handful of that behavior is observable independent of platform. The potential return from Tumblr need only reasonably level-headed management, for which I have no reason to believe that the provision will be suspect.

 

[Guest]

All of this sounds awesome! Feel free to contact me if you need help!

[CrypticQuery]

A twitter feed for updates is a great idea IMO.  I look forward to seeing where the other options go as well.

[CrypticQuery]

Apologies for the double-post, but here's a quick suggestion.  What do you think about the Community tab being renamed to Forums?  I visited the main page earlier while re-configuring my browser and it just didn't seem like the forums had a prominent placement.   The categories within Community would match with the forum title designation as well.

[Dr. Orange]

1 hour ago, OneUnder said:

Apologies for the double-post, but here's a quick suggestion.  What do you think about the Community tab being renamed to Forums?  I visited the main page earlier while re-configuring my browser and it just didn't seem like the forums had a prominent placement.   The categories within Community would match with the forum title designation as well.

Yes.

VERY YES.

[DZComposer]

I'm not sure I like that idea, to be honest. The big issue is that IPS added way too many things to the main nav in 4.1, so they all either have to go somewhere there or I have to right custom code to show them elsewhere.

I do still have work to do on the theme, too, so some of that may help.

[Robert Monroe]

On 1/20/2016 at 5:10 PM, Dr. Orange said:

No tumblr. Don't even think. Twitter is ok and Facebook is whatever fuck it but you be wasting time with a tumblr.

Other than that it's all good. I'd do comics first before articles and SFOcast though. 

As much as Tumblrettes can be shitheels, with careful level headed management we use it quite effeciently. The bad side of tumblr is generally a minority anyhow and it isn't like Starfox is a bastion for discussing social politics.

[The VGM Lover]

On 2/10/2016 at 4:27 PM, Robert Monroe said:

As much as Tumblrettes can be shitheels, with careful level headed management we use it quite effeciently. The bad side of tumblr is generally a minority anyhow and it isn't like Starfox is a bastion for discussing social politics.

Plus, again, awesome Star Fox content:

[Redeemer]

If we can somehow assemble a crew I can represent SFO at GamesCom this year. That in itself would get me VIP access to things and it would surely boost the site. I don't know how possible it is but I'm just saying that I'm willing to book the vacation from work in order to do it.

[Dr. Orange]

oh shit if we are doing cons I can get a position at some big NWUSA cons.

[DZComposer]

That would be awesome. I would love to go, too, but I can't afford a ticket to Europe.

I could probably swing a trip to LA for E3 (20 hour each way road trip woohoo!) if I started making plans like now. The question is how would I get a pass since it isn't open to the public.

[The VGM Lover]

I did a status update on this, but I thought I might reiterate here, too.

Searched Star Fox on twitter, and found nothing at ALL that was dedicated to Star Fox! Just regular tweets that mention it! 

I'm pretty sure that if we got our site on it, we'd the FIRST OFFICIAL dedicated Star Fox site that has a twitter account. We could probably gain traffic based on that fact alone!

[Redeemer]

On 23/02/2016 at 5:02 PM, DZComposer said:

That would be awesome. I would love to go, too, but I can't afford a ticket to Europe.

It would of course be a hell of a lot better if you were there and a lot more fun as well. Well if you're interested in having some SFO represent at GamesCom we should talk about it some time in advance. With SFO and my membership here I'm pretty darn sure I'd get a lot of access everywhere so I'd just need someone to follow me around with a camera. We could arrange a lot of things depending on the plans for each day of the con and other members can make a suggestion of stuff I could report on or show. The admins of a Zelda site got access to everything so I think we have a good chance at this.

[DZComposer]

Some Updates:

• SF-O is now on Twitter. Due to Facebook's requirements, an SF-O facebook page will not happen
• I discovered a 3rd-party app for IPS 4 called Music Box. I have to buy it, but it will do a better job than anything I could do.
• Comic Engine is on the back-burner due to lack of API documentation.
• Comic and book scans - Waiting for Comic Engine
• Articles - Still coming, but slowly.
• SFOCast - I really want to get serious about this. At the very least, we need to make an SFZ episode. Also, no one has volunteered thus far to finishing SFOCast Theater, so that continues to be on-hold until I can get all the lines.