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View Full Version : Merging GW forums with another forum site



Animeniax
Sun, 03-25-2012, 09:18 PM
I like this place, but it's seen more traffic and interest in its better days. Instead of having the site go offline from lack of use and input, maybe the owners could merge it with another fan site. The site could be anime based or just general geek based. Maybe my lack of activity in the anime sections is giving me the wrong idea about the future of the forums, but even then I think it could use some new blood.

darkshadow
Sun, 03-25-2012, 11:53 PM
Hahaha...oh you.

Kraco
Mon, 03-26-2012, 03:13 AM
This thought occurred to me as well back when Sapphi hadn't yet started the fansubbing project. It didn't bring us new people nearly as much as everybody hoped, but it means, nevertheless, we are again the forum of a legit subbing group. In my opinion that prevents us from haphazardly merging with another such forum. Assuming there was a site who would like to merge with an ancient one like Gotwoot with its elitist members... Typically a forum is meant to serve the purposes of its owners, not the purposes of outsiders, which would mean, in practice, that either the other forum's members would feel uncomfortable under our rules or we would lose our rules and feel uncomfortable under theirs. Not that merging two dying forums would make a new virile one, in the first place, so we would need to merge with a vigorous forum and lose our own identity entirely.

I deem this a difficult solution to our problems.

Buffalobiian
Mon, 03-26-2012, 07:05 AM
Not that merging two dying forums would make a new virile one, in the first place

Merging two slow forums would make a faster one - at least in theory. It won't change or slow their rate of decay though, which seems to be what you're suggesting.

The whole identity thing is one to think about as well. Will the change drive members away who were previously comfortable with either ours or the other forum?..

Finally.. what about the technical aspects?

This would be a lot easier if we were approached by an actual forum wanting to merge actually..

I'm sounding a bit negative, but I can see where Ani's coming from. If worst comes down to worst and we're at the stage of shutting down, merging would at the very least save everybody having to re-establish themselves. Half of us will know each other at least.

@Ani: yeah..missing out on the anime/manga section easily accounts for half (if not more) of the activity by my estimates.

Death BOO Z
Mon, 03-26-2012, 12:53 PM
if we were to theoretically merge the forum with another, what would that require?
creating the same users at the new forum.
moving the big threads into their system, or, if possible, all the threads (if there's a possbility to export all the forum history into another).
getting to know a bunch of new people.

probably possible, but technically difficult.

Carnage
Tue, 03-27-2012, 05:43 PM
OR.....we could turn this into a porno site. Would be 100x more efficient than merging.

We're starting to sound like a Board of Directors.

dragonrage
Wed, 03-28-2012, 07:53 PM
Gotwoot forum is fine the way it is, at least that is what I think. If you want to increase activity you need to link it with a popular distro of manga and anime. Take a lesson from Gotwoot's beginning, if not all certainly most of us joined because it was a place to get Naruto that was subbed by AONE; one of the best fansubbing team at the time. Gotwoot existed before Naruto came out but because you could have gotten AONE subs here people joined and discussions started and from there the forums grew.

Maybe merging it with a decent group that has been subbing One Piece and is in need of a place for discussion to be had, or Mangatraders where manga is downloaded, I haven't been there is years but there are certainly strong ties there right Yuki. This way Gotwoot wouldn't loose it's identity and there wouldn't be a lot of technical problems.

I don't think Gotwoot is dying, it just matured a lot for it's immature days, and it's original members has moved on or has other things that take up their time. As it is Gotwoot has nothing to offer new members other than a place with huge egos and personalities that enjoy manga, anime and things in life (bitching and moaning included). But you can get that from any forum today especially from forums that sub and distribute anime and manga.

Maybe there can be a auto feed of manga and anime groups on the front page to inform people when they are out so they can get them so we wouldn't be depend as heavily on Marik bot.


edit: grammar and content, sorry was working at the same time this was first written.

Carnage
Wed, 03-28-2012, 10:53 PM
We could become the next manga scanlation group to do Onepiece, Naruto, etc. I remember when i joined a couple of other Gotwooters to make #bloodscans, which eventually turned into Mangashare and then I think that eventually became Mangastream. Just a suggestion, although I dont know how long it would be before we get a C&D.

Buffalobiian
Thu, 03-29-2012, 01:27 AM
This thought occurred to me as well back when Sapphi hadn't yet started the fansubbing project. It didn't bring us new people nearly as much as everybody hoped, but it means, nevertheless, we are again the forum of a legit subbing group. In my opinion that prevents us from haphazardly merging with another such forum.

^ that's my response to Dragonrage's suggestion about merging with other groups and their forums. Last time I checked we've still got a link as an affiliate on Mangatrader's site, but since they're neither a subbing group nor lacking a discussion space, I can't visualise how that would turn out.

Starting a scanlation group was something that happened recently as well.. but it died out before it got started (I think we released 1 chapter of something?)

Carnage
Thu, 03-29-2012, 12:26 PM
^ that's my response to Dragonrage's suggestion about merging with other groups and their forums. Last time I checked we've still got a link as an affiliate on Mangatrader's site, but since they're neither a subbing group nor lacking a discussion space, I can't visualise how that would turn out.

Starting a scanlation group was something that happened recently as well.. but it died out before it got started (I think we released 1 chapter of something?)

Its not really that hard to maintain once you've got something going. Try to get around 7 - 8 members in the beginning to make your life easy. Divide them into 2 teams of 4 people: 2 cleaners, 2 typesetters. Make sure you have a good batch file that cleans up the RAW real well (does most the work), and then the cleaners mind the details. All in all shouldn't take more than an hour or two per chapter. With two or three sub-groups you could easily have the big 3 released on Wednesday. Gotwoot's front page could be the release page.

Buffalobiian
Thu, 03-29-2012, 12:29 PM
This was what happened last time.

http://www.gotwoot.net/2010/08/07/gotwoot-scans/

Dunno how those guys feel about it now.

dragonrage
Thu, 03-29-2012, 12:54 PM
@Buff, a word censored by the Office of Propaganda, you should at least have an original response and read the whole thing to formulate a response instead of paraphrasing like you normally do.

When I said link with a popular anime and manga distro. I meant one that didn't have or have a forum that is not as well put together as this one. There are tons of anime subbers that just have direct downloads or irc bots. You can have the bots idle in gotwoot.irc and gotwoot rizon. If you team up with however many subbers of different anime, the fans will have a place to get anime and manga and gotwoot provides a place for them to discuss it. They sub and Gotwoot traffic discussions. If one goes away you can get another one. Gotwoot takes on the burden of handling the discussions.

The mangatrader idea is a stretch i'll give you that. The forums are powered by two different software and since I am not a coder I don't know how it will work if it is even possible. But if it is possible I was saying that Gotwoot takes over the forums since it is in my opinion a better integrated forum and they continue to do there thing. All it means in adding a few more main manga sub forums. Since most of us were the original testers for the site I was thinking instead of splitting our time between two sites you just have one as well as more members to the mix. Again I am not a coder so I don't know how that will work if even.

Using the front page as a feed for manga and anime that are released will bring people to the site, if you give people ONE place where they can get the lates links to download anime or manga like what is generally done here will give people a one stop source type of thing and if they get it here even if it is just a link chances are they will discuss it here.

These could be all invalids point but just a thought.

dragonrage
Thu, 03-29-2012, 05:31 PM
*Sighhhhh* out of everything I had written everyone focused on one word. Now it just seem like a waste of time and effort.

I'm an ass, I know am an ass. But that doesn't necessarily makes me wrong. I'm always going to call an ass an ass, a prick a prick and a "censored word" a "censored word".

Funny thing is for a person that loves to instigate people to fight amongst themselves, when it comes to him personally, he runs away and you all jump to his rescue like he's a damsel in distress.

Anyways good luck with the ongoing effort to improve the forums, it is a nice place and worth keeping around.

The double post is intentional to retain the mod edit, do whatever you wish.

-peace-

Buffalobiian
Thu, 03-29-2012, 08:04 PM
When I said link with a popular anime and manga distro. I meant one that didn't have or have a forum that is not as well put together as this one. There are tons of anime subbers that just have direct downloads or irc bots. You can have the bots idle in gotwoot.irc and gotwoot rizon. If you team up with however many subbers of different anime, the fans will have a place to get anime and manga and gotwoot provides a place for them to discuss it. They sub and Gotwoot traffic discussions. If one goes away you can get another one. Gotwoot takes on the burden of handling the discussions.

I feel that that's something best considered when a group decides they want to use our forum instead (which is unlikely however since I don't expect it to be common practice, so perhaps pre-emptively approaching them may be the better option), but since we're attached to Gotwoot-subs, what does that mean to them? I feel that a forum's attachment to a fansub group (even if just in name) goes deeper than just a discussion space that you rent.

Further into the identity thing, a proper partnership relationship (rather than just renting out some space/bw) would mean that the other group would have access to "do their own thing", such as using the front page or having admin/special rights to the forums for some of their communication (GW has a hidden section for fansub staff I'm pretty sure. I can't see it though since I'm not part of that usergroup).

Or were you talking about just letting them use our front-page as a release page like how Fakku does on theirs? That would be pretty easy to do I guess. We still should ask Gotwoot-subs of their opinion though. The main point from Kraco's post was the word haphazardly.

Carnage
Thu, 03-29-2012, 08:56 PM
So none of you read the whole "create our own scanlation team" idea huh?

Buffalobiian
Thu, 03-29-2012, 09:38 PM
So none of you read the whole "create our own scanlation team" idea huh?

I commented on that in post #9 and #11.

Archangel
Thu, 04-05-2012, 09:34 PM
Yeah we got chapter out but then the typesetter died ( seriously ) and masa stopped showing up. After a dude died i was kinda turned off for the whole thing.