Sonic World isn't dead. Its just hibernating during the winter..

Sonic World's current state.

Hey there. I'm Kapus. You probably remember me. I was the first member to join this site, and the member who made this site what it is today. I came and "fixed" the site, although not on my own. Sonic World was(and still is) a pretty small site. Back then, I dreamed of turning it into a big, popular Sonic fan site booming with activity. Pretty naive of me, no?
Still, I was very enthusiastic about it and put my whole heart into making this site. It is still my home away from home. Of course, looking at the site now, its obvious to me that wouldn't ever happen. Sonic World would never reach that state. Sonic World is a Sonic fan forum. Its just that. Sure, there are plenty of other Sonic Fan sites out there that are extremely popular and well known, but they have other things going for them. Some of them are big communities that host things such as fan games, sprite rips, sprite comics, music rips, etc. Others cover a specific topic like fan games or ROM hacks. Forums are just an add on..

So of course Sonic World couldn't reach that state with just a forum. I became aware of that and tried to do other things to attract popularity. The only things I ever tried were the Arcade and Art Gallery. Neither of those two really worked, obviously. They can't stand up to the stuff others have. Still, though, I looked at the future expecting the site to be very popular and active in a few years. Guess what? Its the complete opposite.

Of course, by now, I'm not trying to make Sonic World into such a thing. I have accepted Sonic World for what it REALLY is: A small, cute little site where my friends get together and act silly. It doesn't need to be any more than that.

Sure, if I really wanted to, I could probably turn this into a site for Sonic Fan games and advertise Splice the Hedgehog a lot. If Splice was successful, Smash and I could work together to make other fan games and the site would probably be pretty active. that actually sounds pretty good.. But I didn't.

The site, as it stands now, IS very inactive. I stated in the topic title that SW was hibernating during the winter. Its most definitely spring now, and things haven't really picked up.I am part to blame for this, actually. I took a long break from Sonic World to go do other things. I didn't do the SW yearly awards OR the fancharacter contest. Even the February banner was just barely on time. Being what is essentially the backbone of SW, of course things didn't recover.
I don't things will ever recover unless we actually take some specific action.

So you must be thinking, "What are you trying to say here?" I'm asking myself the same question, actually. No, I'm not giving up on SW or anything. Well, maybe sort of. I've given up on trying to make it a big, booming site. But I gave up on that months ago. But, as I stated above with the fan game thing as an example, there are a few things we can do here. Heck, we could turn this site into anything we really want. Its pretty clear by now that the interests of this site's members exceed just Sonic. Sonic is actually the topic we discuss the least. Whether it be a site for fangames wide(not just Sonic fan games), artwork, or even sprite comics. Where there's a will there's a way..
I like this site and it's people too much to let it drown like this.

Sorry if I'm making you all nervous with this big post. I guess the main thing I want to ask is this: What do you all REALLY want to do with this site? I'm not just talking to the staff here. I'm talking to everyone. You're all part of the community(as tiny as it is) so you still matter. So yes, I'm really calling you all back here to see if you still care..

Now and forever,

Sonic World isn't dead. Its just hibernating during the winter.. Kapussignature-1

Sonic World isn't dead. Its just hibernating during the winter.. Kapussignature-1

EELS FOREVER

And of course, I'll be the first to reply. (surprisingly not second to Joe.)

What I really want to do with this site? That's hard to tell. I don't even know what I want to do with my own forum. (I think I'll probably just use it as a sort of archives place for me, and a little get-together spot for my other friends who aren't here. But that's besides the point.)

The fangames thing seems to be a pretty good idea. A few people are skilled at making games, such as SuperLightning. But, many other people here lack skill. So I'm not sure if we should turn the whole site into something like that. But having a group project to work on could be cool...

I'm really not sure what we should do with this place. I'd say just hang out and do whatever like we have been, but this place is dying. Back in the day I had several topics to go through to look at new posts and whatnot. Sometimes there were so many, I didn't even bother to look at them all.
And now, days go by with so much as two posts, At most. So it's pretty evident that we need to do something, like you said.

And by the way, Since you didn't hold the contests, Maybe I could take charge of them? At least the Fan character contest, if you don't feel comfortable with me in charge of the Yearly Awards.

If people still want me to do the contests, I might as well.

The snow is just starting to melt here if at all, so I'll ignore the hibernation lie
there are at least 100 sonic forums out there and other than annoying fanboys there isn't a really big reason not to go to the Sega forums
if you were to change the site into just fangames, artwork, etc. you would probably have less activity seeing how more people would have no interest and wouldn't post.

Summer usually is the high point of the year for forums but if my horrible memory recalls correctly last summer wasn't that active either.

many of the members are ~~pedophiles~~ much older now and many as hard as it is to believe have lives

and that's all I really have to say

I still care about the site even if I have been inactive at times lately...^^;; couldn't be helped at times when I get so busy. I honestly don't know what to do about this site or even my own forum for that matter. During the summer I'm going to be more busy once we get a boat to go out on the lake with so I don't know how much help I can be in bring some activity here during that season. A lot of forums from what I've seen have been dying and it isn't just Sonic fan forums either. I still care and love this site as if it was my second home but I haven't gotten any ideas right this minute on how to help or keep SW from dying. I know I'm repeating myself a little ^^;; bare with me. Been a very....very busy couple of weeks/days...but posting to show I care and have been here watching at the least.

Supersonic84 wrote:: The snow is just starting to melt here if at all, so I'll ignore the hibernation lie
there are at least 100 sonic forums out there and other than annoying fanboys there isn't a really big reason not to go to the Sega forums
if you were to change the site into just fangames, artwork, etc. you would probably have less activity seeing how more people would have no interest and wouldn't post.

Summer usually is the high point of the year for forums but if my horrible memory recalls correctly last summer wasn't that active either.

many of the members are ~~pedophiles~~ much older now and many as hard as it is to believe have lives

and that's all I really have to say

Well, this is what I'm trying to say. There are a zillion Sonic forums out there. This one isn't much different. The members of this forum have varying interests, so that's why I'm asking you all what you want to do.

Wow. This is serious, isn't it?

Since I don't have any immediate ideas, I intend to sleep on it. If I think of anything, I'll let you guys know.

Though I never seem to be able to recall a time when this site was booming, (though I don't have much to say on such a matter, considering I've only been a member on this site for a year and a half), I do believe that you, Kapus, and all the other staff members here should not feel a single bit of disappointment. This site WAS successful, and it DID get very active. Unfortunately, it's not that way anymore. It may just be too soon to make assumptions, however, considering school still continues on in Spring. For now, all we can do is keep the site by its threads until Summer, and see if some of the regular users return. But as I said before, this site indeed showed success. Do not say that it never did, that you never achieved it, or that there's no hope that Sonic World can grow once more. Because it CAN. I apologize for my long post with many big words, but I simply felt the need to prove a point.

Well, I'd hate to see Sonic World die down too. I apologize for not being active lately. If we could still get people to come back, would you plan to still do the Sonic World Awards?

I suppose. If things pick up during the Summer, then I guess we'll be alright.

I agree. But how could we keep the forum active and bring the members back?

Send a newsletter reminding them of this site.

Alright, I'll do the best I can.

Well we are a small community, we're bound to have moments like this. Maybe what we need is some new ideas and whatnot. We can make success if we don't let moments like this bring us down.The whole inviting people obviously won't work because we don't invite the right people. Most if not all times someone may invite someone its just to join, make their intro post then leave. I'm not so sure how to fix that its not really preventable.

Maybe we should have people review us, not just one but hopefully many to see an outsiders opinion and what we should focus on. Advertising the forum isn't a bad idea, it helps a lot especially if you have a pretty epic looking mini banner in your sig, people will click it. A lot of places if not all get all those members solely on advertising everywhere. Affiliates also help but they do not help if you affiliate with places bigger than you.

Now, if enough of us get together and work together we can achieve something. I'm not necessarily pushing for more members but there has to be at least a couple of people that would come here and be a regular we just have to find them. Because it won't work all the time if we only have the same people, we might as well have a private wiki type thing for just us.

Me, I feel bad, I feel as though I have neglected this place when I love it so much. So whatever it is we're going to do, I'll be here. If we're not giving up yet then I won't either. Also with the contests and everything, we can have other people run them, when we have more activity of course. Its hard to run events like that by yourself. Maybe some of us should run some of them or help you run them.

Well, thats just my opinion and it doesn't have to happen exactly like that but we have to do something. Just somethings I think about from what I've seen others do to be successful. And sorry for the long post thingy. =P

A long but agreeable post Bella. And if other members work on contests or anything else, would that mean for more mods or admins?

...
Was that Isabella.

Doodle wrote:: ...
Was that Isabella.

Yes Bella made that long post.

I think you're missing what he meant...

LSD wrote:: I think you're missing what he meant...

...... Never mind.

lolwut
I know, I came back from the dead.

I suppose you have. Any thoughts or help with some new ideas Kapus?

This is

black text to separate the links from the time stamps and so on, so it looks less cluttered.
Thanks OCD!

*cough* *hack* *sniffle, sniffle* *sneeze* pthxxt*

Ugh, goodness me, what was that?

It was fun while it lasted. And it lasted pretty long. 50,000 messages from 250 users is not bad at all for a fanmade forum that pretty much came from nowhere.

Heyy, Sykog. It's been a while. So sorry to meet back up in this state of the forum. It's sad how it looks now. This place used to be my most active site I've ever been on. Like my online home. And now, nothing. Nobody's ever on here. I haven't seen any admins online aside from myself and the occasional Kapus, in months.

It's quite depressing, isn't it? I'd like to help revive it, but I have no ideas, no motivation, and honestly, I don't think the site can turn back into what it used to be.

» Reason why we are still hibernating for the winter!
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» 24/10/09 Sonic World...Comic?
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» 1 year on Sonic World

Sonic World isn't dead. Its just hibernating during the winter..

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Sonic World isn't dead. Its just hibernating during the winter..

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