VOTE: custom domain name

You may have been following the discussion about domain names in the Ideas and Suggestions forum lately, and while that thread has drifted off-topic (to the surprise of no one ) a number of people raised interesting points about various possibilities. I've selected three that I think are decent, but I can't let the Daily Purist keep accusing me of tyranny, so I'm opening it up for a vote (which I'm sure the Archet Bugle will also love). I've tried to be affair in assessing the pros and cons of each option.

1. forumshire.com
PRO: It reflects our unique identity as more than just a forum about The Hobbit and is distinctive.
CON: It's less likely to be something that people would search for on Google.

2. hobbitmovieforum.com
PRO: It's something people are likely to search for and may help increase traffic to the forum.
CON: It's rather generic and doesn't say much about us.

3. hobbitmovierefugees.com
PRO: It reflects our history, going back to the Old Forum, as well as our "free spirit" identity.
CON: It might give the impression that the forum is intended just for the old posters.

The poll is set to run for a week, so let your voice be heard. In about seven days we'll see where we stand in terms of the poll and in terms of donations and go from there!

NOTE: To those who have sockpuppets (you know who you are) please only vote in the poll once, regardless of how many accounts you have.

Are their other choices we might discuss? (I have voted though). Hobbit.forumshire? Hobbitmovie.madness?

Voted. (Good warm up this for the big election-to Mayor!)

odo banks wrote:Are their other choices we might discuss? (I have voted though). Hobbit.forumshire? Hobbitmovie.madness?

Do you mean those as subdomains? I don't believe those are possible if purchasing the domain name through Forumotion, which I had planned to do, since otherwise it's more expensive.

I guess I'm a big fan of being searchable on the web.

Well I've always liked the refugees tag, gives the place a certain sense of historic character (very Tolkien) and I figured as its HobbitMovieRefugees then two of the words were the same anyway as far as a search is concerned. I suppose it comes down to whether people tend to get to film forums by googling the film name or if they get to them by delibrately googling for forums realated to the film name. I shouldnt think the difference is huge, but I could be wrong.
We could always merge the two and have HobbitMovieRefugeesForum.com Bit long but covers all potentialities!

Ah, but Forumshire sounds so wonderful

But if we want new members, perhaps we should go with either hobbitmovieforum or hobbitmovierefugees.com. My vote then goes to hobbitmovierefugees.com ((((I haven't changed my mind yet, however! I'm still in love with the Forumshire )

I like Forumshire too! But I fear we might be impossible to find. And if we are not doing it to try and be found then is it worth doing at all?

Hmm, that is a good point. But don't you just love the sound of it? I keep thinking about your video whenever I read the name - so harmonic and peaceful

It is a wonderful name for the place and sums it up better than the others but I think I have to stick with my choice and force myself to go with my head on this one and not my heart. I doubt if I was looking for news about the hobbit film or even a hobbit forum that I would think to search for forumshire. Sadly.

You are quite right, of course. I will have to sleep on it, we do want new members to find us after all.

Admittedly, I went with the head too. Forumshire is my favorite. And I too love the youtube thingee.... I think I'll go off and watch it again right now in fact...

Pettytyrant101 wrote: I suppose it comes down to whether people tend to get to film forums by googling the film name or if they get to them by delibrately googling for forums realated to the film name. I shouldnt think the difference is huge, but I could be wrong.

If we just want to be found, then I think hobbitmovieforum.com is better than hobbitmovierefugees.com (though I haven't voted yet since I have mixed feelings -- I too love the name Forumshire ). I'm sure that HMR would pick up traffic, but HMF casts a wider net, and we tend to have better standing in searches for forums specifically, particularly since more generalized searches are going to bury us under the mass of links to TORn, IMDb, and the like.

For example, currently searches for "hobbit movie" turn up links to blogs about The Hobbit, to massive media sites like IMDb, and to news articles about The Hobbit. It's pretty hard to find us or any of the other forums specifically about The Hobbit (aside from TORn, which is a unique case because it's attached to a very popular news blog) unless you are searching for forums, so I think we are best served by emphasizing our searchability in that field.

In any event, I think that hobbitmovieforumrefugees.com and hobbitmovierefugeesforum.com are just too long and unwieldy.

Here's an idea!

Clearly a lot of love the name Forumshire, and I think it's a wonderful name and description for our community, so I was thinking about it. If we end up going with hobbitmovieforum.com or hobbitmovierefugees.com, we could still incorporate the name "Forumshire" by changing the forum title (that appears at the top of every page), regardless of what the URL is. For instance, I could change it from "The Hobbit Movie Forum" to "Forumshire: The Hobbit Movie Forum" or something similar. Perhaps that would give us the best of both worlds.

Just something to think about.

I think that's a great idea!! I like the name forumshire, but I also want us to still be "in the game" so to speak
We're climbing ranks on google. When I search hobbit movie forum, we're either 4th or 5th!

Sounds good to me. I withdraw my vote for Hobbitmovierefugees and now go for Forumshire:the Hobbit Movie Forum.

As a side issue, we often used to talk on the Old Forum about getting Newbies on board, but we always managed get a trickle come our way and survived. Yes, a few more coming is excellent, but getting TOO big would hold it's own problems. There is an intimacy - even friendship - here (except between Petty and Odo, but that's more a Feud than a Hateship) which might be lost if we get TOO big.

That Dark Planet is sooo BIG it's intimidating. I'm sure the folk are great there - but there're soooo many folk there!

Mmm perhaps we should have a Council of Elders? Set a post limit, or a time one, anyone who qualfies becomes a member of the Council and if any newbies seem overly disruptive or unpleasant they can be banned on a vote (I assume Eldo has the power to ban folks but seems a bit unfair to put it all on him to do so if it needs doing). Just a thought.

It's an idea, but do we really want to start banning people? We would have to have a very good reason for doing so at least.

Eldo - Awesome idea, my vote goes to Forumshire:the Hobbit Movie Forum as well

Want to certainly not- might have to is another matter. Hopefully its an issue that would never arise- but might be best to have a contingency plan already in place just in case it does.

True. I guess neither we nor new members want complete a**holes around. Is it possible to IP-ban people from forums, though? Don't want them coming back under different usernames all the time

No idea need a more technical head than mine for that one.

I like Forumshire:The Hobbit Movie forum too- can I change my vote? How? Or is the vote count at the top now a right-off if we all change our minds in favour of new options? (I hope the Mayoral elections go better than this or the NotP will have a feild day!)

Just a quick question for those voting for "Forumshire: The Hobbit Movie Forum". Are you guys changing your votes to the URL hobbitmovieforum.com as well? I don't know how to delete or alter votes in the poll, but I have been keeping a running tally of who voted for what, so with the adjustment then the tally is:

• forumshire.com: 2
  
• hobbitmovieforum.com: 6
  
• hobbitmovierefugees.com: 0

Technically the poll still has 5-6 more days to go, but I will at the very least wait to see if there are any more thoughts and to make sure I understand what the vote-switchers want.

On the issue of newbies and Councils and forum government, that might be a topic for a different thread, but I think it's a worthwhile one. We've certainly been bigger in the past (all the downtime and the long periods when registration was impossible on the old forum cost us a lot of activity that we're only just now recovering from), so I think an influx of newbies has the potential to be a good thing, though I hope that we would have more of a steady stream than a massive flood all at once.

I have talked about the issue of moderators in private in the past. Obviously, the only two moderators right now are myself and Gandalf's Beard, and ol' GB hasn't been on much lately. I have a shortlist of potential mods and since the number of posts per day lately is regularly over 100 I feel a bit overwhelmed sometimes. I think it might be worthwhile to have another moderator, but I'm interested what you guys think.

I like the idea of a Council (though I'd rather call it something else, since PT already has a "Council" ). I think that having 3-5 experienced members (with the possibility of growing that number as the forum grows) who can be available to help newbies, to consider matters of forum policy, and review moderator decisions such as bans would be a good thing. If there is interest in either of these ideas I think we should have another thread dedicated to discussion of that.

As for bans, it is currently possible for moderators to ban individual users. It is also possible for the Admin to ban IP addresses to stop people from coming back, though there are unfortunately ways around that for dedicated troublemakers.

Quick response to both,

Haven't voted yet, for the same reason as everyone else, Love forumshire, but recognise the value of being the hobbitmoiveforum so love the new idea - Name being Forumshire with URL of hobbitmovieforum.

Second, I think a discussion of what we might need to do if we grow would be a good idea, best before an issue than after (My own personal one being that I think we may need to try resist going too far off topic on the Tolkien threads if newcomers are to make sense of things. There is nothing worse than wanting to get into conversation with new folk, but finding you can't start because it seems like your butting in on a semi-private converstion!) And happy to help in any way I can