[admin (no pm's please)]

It is actually three years and a day since the support forums first post

So it is time to review the last year.

We have continued to make the forums system the most advanced with the portals gaining more abilities. So you can easily code in post reporting and modding capabilities

We have of course launched our phpbb3 forums system, and a means to "upgrade" to phpBB3.

Meanwhile we have updated the core phpbb2 forums to match or exceed some of the phpBB3 features with improved subforums and "moderated" forums capabilities.

Other features like ecommerce have also continued to improve.

We also launched the alpha of myfreefriends a form of social networking, though the take up on this has been very low so far.

Recently we also simplified the business of running a forum on your own domain

I believe our reliability rate in the last year has continued to be very good despite a severe attack on the servers.

It is in this area where unseen work also goes on, improving firewalls and backup procedures etc.

On the support side Symon has continued to do sterling work on howtodoit creating phpbb3 guides in record time, Nick has continued his portal site, and Bravo has stunned us all with his support videos

So what now?

Things never stand still, not least the forums we run, now up to over 26,000  

The next thing in the pipe line has been edging closer to release for some weeks now, and is not directly forums related. It is a free dns management and domain testing service that will integrate tightly with the forums system further helping those with their own domains whilst being a seperate and useful service in its own right.

Following on from that the next stage in to revisit the myfreefriends arena, one of the aims of myfreefriends was to bring a web2.0 chatbox to peoples forums in a portal, the hope was that there would be enough take up and therefore feedback to get the technology to a point where this would happen, since it didn't a rework will take place shaking more bugs out of the myfreefriends system and seeking to create a great chatbox system people can put directly on their forums.

Phpbb3 will also be on the agenda in the next year. As a new system it has had to be handled carefully, we have endeavored to make some of the core myff features like web pages, portals and template editing work, but phpbb3 is new and rapidly changing all by itself! The 3.01 release contained some quite drastic code changes. As such at this stage it makes no sense for us to be changing the core code much ourselves. Over the next year we will continue to keep on top of the official updates and hopefully be able to make some of our own.

[Louise]

Happy Birthday MYFF from all of us at The LazyLounge . . . Here's to many More.xxx

[Symon]

I remember my first trip here on the support forum, there was not a lot of posts, no moderators and Admin did it all by himself.

As said before in the early days he even had to change each logo himself.

The support forum has grown mainly thought the hard work of all the helpful people that do give some back to the system.

And of course those annoying mods,, we have seen a few come and go, i think i,m the last regular poster from the beginning days , when mods where first introduced. Nick and Bravo being the new kids on the block (what a great decision that was to bring them ob board)

Does not feel like 3 years at all, ive ripped my hair out at some people as they do not wish to learn, but i have left the office so to speak happy that so many have asked for help then did it themselves, learning at the same time.

But got to be a big Hats off to Admin for his daily hard work and dedication, and all the upgrades, and extra features, and at

Zero Cost

to you the customer.

Cheers.

[admin (no pm's please)]

I'm proud as to how we have managed to stick to our principles whilst also increasing the level of service and going from a single small leased servers to three of our own RAID5 servers that when bought were pretty top of the range.

I have said it many times before that one of the reasons for getting into the forums business is that it was and for that matter still is a fields where the general standard of service is so awful I thought we could not fail to do better for our customers. No one can reasonably say that we have not achieved that.

Forums do remain a challenging business, there are just too many fools and rogues trying their luck. It gives the genre a bad reputation whilst leaving the good players struggling to pick up adequate business We have 26,000 forums but that still leaves us having to run a very tight ship currently, especially when we have to look to replacing servers in the next year or two.

[scottish-jim]

[kellie]

Happy birthday MYFF, may there be many more to come

[Nick(NR)]

In my two years(23 days ago symon), it has been a lot of fun learning what is needed to edit a template enough to make a forum look unique, in doing so has pushed me to go further with designs and I'm close to having a final design for wordpress, which is a rather awkward cms to design for and all this is down to me joining myff on may 6th 2006, had a I gone elsewhere based on what I've seen from other hosts, I feel It would have taken a lot longer for me to get where I am now.

A little present for members to help them get better with some code and design, I made a template back in march for amelia and filled it with some short guides to help with the most basic things, all the css styling is in the header of the page and comes with the images.

Click to download file

This template is created by ME and is provided for free use to aid in building skills in web design.
however the use of this template on any given site without prior permission of the creator is forbidden, as this is for educational purposes only.

[Symon]

[Bravo]

Happy birthday to the best forum provider around!

(12th March 2006 where does the time go)

[CodyT07]

Hard to believe I been visiting these forums for 2 years now. Forums weren't really my thing, I never ran a 'successful' forum (one time my ancient Link Exchange was going good, and there was Ziddy's You Decided forum). Admin spiked me more into server side things (e.g Php (never got good at, doubt I will any time soon) and Server administration(CentOs5 FTW)).

[Viper]

Great stuff.

I've learnt a lot since I've been here and most of the credit goes to admin.

[Sapp]

Been a Myff member since June 2006.
So happy 3rd bday!
Hopefully by the 4th bday, Creation Resort 603 will be the top forum carrying MyFF's legacy around.

[Louise]

I must say I cannot Believe How Much I've learned in the year(almost) That I have been a member here, Mostly Thanks To the Help of Admin and Symon . . . When I started here, I could barely shut down my laptop.  

It took me a long time to learn what I have in order to make My previous Forum Look as I wanted it to but this time i was able to put it all into Practice and have a fully Functioning forum in two days.

Thanks Guys, I hope you're around for a long time yet.  

[admin (no pm's please)]

I guess the typical lifetime for a free forums system is less than a year. We have seen some some last mere weeks  

We started out knowing it would take years to succeed and started out with the money needed to buy the servers and spend the time creating the service. e.g. with the expectation that this was a long term proposition and not a money spinner.

Three years in, we do have a sustainable and marginally profitable service that will therefore be around indefinitely. I really hate the fly by nights that don't care about the forum communities they run, as they start things they have no understanding of or ability to maintain.

[Louise]

[admin (no pm's please)]

I don't mean forums created on a free forums system. I mean the systems themselves.

[Louise]

Oh Right, Sorry, My Bad.x

[Symon]

[admin (no pm's please)]

It certainly is tough. I will admit I myself ran a pretty unsuccessful product support forum once, it did do its job, but people came asked a question and went away again, despite not inconsiderable effort to make other threads a community was never established
This is why a niche that people will want to contribute on themselves is vital, find a topic where people have an opinion and want to voice it.

[Louise]

Which Is Why I'm Pretty Confident that the Lazylounge has something for Most.

Where else Can you dicuss the Paranormal world in the Same Place as Wrestling and Music etc?

[xXx BR3W3R xXx]

I have the feeling your trying to advertise your forum haha lol.

[Louise]

Oooops, sorry, I suppose it was a bit.    But I was merely trying to say (not very well...lol) that it's because of all that I have learned from a Past experience of Running a Forum That I feel I'm More Confident with the Product that I have now.
And that's Thanks to the help I've had from this place.

[Symon]