Optic

Hi @Digimon_Sommelier now that’s a name I haven’t seen for awhile, they went down around 2014? No I didn’t manage it, iMon did a long time ago. Probably best we take this conversation elsewhere as it’s not related to the main topic in hand.

Hi everyone, I would like to formally announce @Myouya as our new Community Manager for AF. In the coming days we will be looking at focusing heavily on rejuvenating the core forum discussion sections, features, as well as reviewing Clubs and Blogs. To achieve this the extra features such as the Gallery and Anime Database have been disabled, they may come back at a later revamp but for now the main focus is on the main discussion topics. It's obvious AF has had a slump in activity and a big part of that is due to my absence arising from personal and work circumstances within the last 3 years, I sincerely apologise for this. I'm happy to report that those circumstances have changed this year and I am excited to help rejuvenate AF. In the coming days a new Moderator team will also be recruited. Thank you, for your ongoing support to AF.

Hi everyone, It has been hard reading this topic, I accept full responsibility for the current state of the community and issues that have occured due to my long absence. Back in 2019 I started a role at a mine site doing FIFO (fly in fly out). This is quite a strong industry here in Australia where personnel are flown in to remote mine sites to do a work roster (typically 12 hour days), then you fly back home to have days off at home. It depends on the company and your contract but some example rosters include: 2:2 (2 weeks on-site, 2 weeks break), 8:6. The intention of the Community Manager role that appeared around this was to give me an opportunity to take a step back from the Admin daily duties as I felt I didn't have as much spare time to commit to AF. I would continue to keep the server and software platform up to date and assist with any escalations and general guidance on the platform. By around Mid 2020 onwards it became apparant I was becoming more and more distant from AF due to the increasing demands and rigours of the job. Even on my rostered days off I was feeling disillusioned and seemed to have lost that creative spark I had prior to commencing that role. I was no longer engaging with AF at all except for just the usual server and software maintennace (and escalations via Discord). In October 2022, I resigned from my FIFO job. I was completely burned out in the role. I took two months off, clearing through my personal backlogs and catching up with friends and hobbies that I missed out on for so long. before deciding to finally return to the workforce looking for a new job. I recenetly found a new job with a much better work life balance and finally started to review AF in more detail to catch up when I came across this topic. Regarding the statements about my "intentions" This forum has always been a personal hobby, with the vision to unite like minded anime fans. To offer a fun alternative to the other forums that were out there at the time (with perhaps some nostalgia as forums were really popular back in the early 2000s). It was originally founded back in late 2012 under a different name "AN Community". In late 2014 I paid a considerable amount for the animeforums.net domain as it was an opportunity to help make it easier to find. Interestingly enough around this time we had other visitors confuse us with the preivous animeforums.com ... There are ongoing expenses including the software license and web server hosting fees (a VPS currently hosted in the US in Atlanta). Back in 2012 we started with MyBB (free open-source platform) but the features were lacking, so we migrated to XenForo. Then finally Invision Community. I don't have any intention of selling the domain or the website, especially after having paid expenses for so long to keep AF online. Next steps I have applied the changes to the Moderator team for those that want to move on, and you have my sincerest apologies for the ridiculous amount of time it took for me to reach this topic. I thank you wholeheatedy for your previous contributions. I am currently reviewing all the logs and recent activity feeds, if there are any outstanding issues please don't hesitate to reach out to me or @Myouya and it will be addressed promptly. I am reviewing the state of the platform and associcated add-ons and themes. I will be looking at putting together a new team to help revitialise AF. As I am now back in a typical job with normal working hours I will be able to step up and engage with the community. Again I am really sorry for my long absence and the state of AF, I make no excuses for that.

Hi @matsu, this has been adjusted so you can update your email address now. We had to temporarily disable that ability due to a previous SPAM incident.

Hi @Blazinfry, welcome to AF.

Hi everyone, A vacancy exists for a Community Manager for AF. This position is perfect for those that are passionate about anime and wanting to share that passion to other fans using their previous community administration experience. Duties Engage with members regularly throughout AF including Forum discussion topics, Clubs, Blogs and the Gallery. Organising seasonal community events. Implementing and maintaining Achievements and Trophies within the platform. Upkeep and addition of new themes. Assisting moderators as an escalation point for community queries and resolving member disputes that may arise. Mentor moderators in line with Community Guidelines and adjusting the guidelines as required. Selection Criteria Previous experience with community engagement is required. This experience can be from managing a guild, server or social networking site. Experience with the Invision Community platform or similar forum platforms would be desirable but not essential. Friendly and courteous manner with good written English. Benefits This is a volunteer position - I will provide technical mentoring with you for this platform and you will gain full Admin CP access to help mould the community to meet a shared vision to better unite anime fans from around the world. You are also encouraged to restructure the structure of the platform as you see fit, within scope of the above duties. There is a 1 month probation period for this role to assess suitability. If you are interested in this position, please send me a message directly outlining your experience and what interested you in applying for this role.

The updates have now been completed.

Hi everyone, The forum will be undergoing a major core update which will result in some downtime whilst the update is applied. The updates will include some UI improvements as well as significantly improved performance with the themes, particularly for mobile users. Also please note, we are suspending the Member Shop and Trophies/Medals features due to lack of developer support. We are looking at bringing these back in a new form sometime in the near future. Thank you for your ongoing support.

Hello @HanaApril , thank you for your kind comments. Yes, you can of course approach me with any issues, certainly the other staff here can also assist too. I myself have been taking care of mostly the technical back-end of things since the founding of AF.

Hello everyone, Due to some personal reasons @ArchieKun has decided to step down as Community Manager. He is pursuing a few opportunities that will take a good amount of his time. He will still be around to hang out when he can, but will no longer be serving on AF staff. I sincerely thank him for the contributions he has made to AF. A vacancy for this role will be advertised in future.

Hi @Illusion of Terra Thanks for the feedback. Our main focus is on the forum discussion areas. So at this time we're not considering any official live chat groups / chat boxes. We did have a few in the past but they drastically increased our moderation workload and also split the community between the forum posters and chatters - not an inherently bad thing but currently we are a rather small community. We're not completely ruling it out, they might return as the community grows.