A draft.. comments and additions are welcome.
Dear Arwen,
Congratulations! Arwen-undomiel.com has now welcomed its 26,000th member! Good job and well done!
But alas, if only it was so. It is true that we now have 26,000+ members and probaly more already, however, more than 99 percent (or 97 or 95 percent... I'm not entirely sure of the maths!) of the accounts are fake and created by spambots.
And this is only one example of the current situation on the forum. Many places could need a holiday cleaning, fresh flowers, and the occasional update. But A-U is far from a dead place, on the contrary, it is still a thriving community with very dedicated members.
A group of those dedicated members has taken action to breathe life into A-U again. We're brainstorming ideas, creating new threads and discussions, and reaching out to old members to return to A-U. We're on facebook with a new chat group and word has already spread to many oldies. We're already well on our way but we can not do this alone.
We need our beloved webmaster, we need you!!!
We have discussed it back and forth and we are fully aware that you are mighty busy. Many of us are in the same situation so we completely understand. But we wish to involve you in our talks and hear your opinion on it.
The main issues that we, the members, cannot address are alone are:
- New layout
- Management and maintenance
- Updates on the main page
Aaand we have suggestions to the solutions!
LAYOUT
We have many talented graphics makers amongst us and we have talked about the possibility to make a contest or a selection of layouts that you can chose from. A new layout would signal a revival of the boards, like having your room re-decorated and you feel like spending a lot more time there. Despite our love for the blue wintery A-U we would love to see Arwen dress up in other colours too.
MANAGEMENT AND MAINTENANCE
We miss the staff, we miss our lovely moderators and we miss you! In fact, it looks like only Kitoky and the occasional Sidawethiel and sometimes a couple of others post on the forum. Naturally, we can't know if they still lurk around or do modding behind the scenes but our impression is that they are busy and have faded from A-U.
However, since we might not get you guys back, we need to address the situation. Somehow, we need new staff members. We know the decision is entirely yours to make but the lack of maintenance has become a serious problem. I think a lot of us would feel strange about having new moderators but we are in desperate need of people who can tidy the board, step up and take responsibility and so on.
UPDATES ON THE MAIN PAGE
The main page is A-U's face to the world. If the site could be updated we might attract new members in search of a LotR board to discuss The Hobbit with like-minded Ringers! An update of the main page can be everything from a complete make-over to just a short announcement that we're kickstarting the forum and this is the place to go! Many members here would be willing to help out with for example writing the texts or do other stuff.
In fact, our main point here is that a lot of these things can be done by members. All you have to do is let us know how we can help. We want A-U to live again and be a fun-filled, action-packed place to be!!
Thank you for listening and we're looking very much forward to your reply!
With much love from the members of A-U
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