Spoilers = NO, please.

I know Michael Grant's Hunger was just published. I own it. I've read it. Not everyone else has, and I'm going deliberately to keep elements of it out of my fan-fic RAFGone.

Spoilers suck; please let's not ruin the books for everybody else, okey? :D

Sorry for the short blog post. :P Early weekend begins now.


All my love,
Estelore

Thanks to Myitt for her donation!

Longtime member Myitt has joined the growing list of persons contributing to the keep RAF alive fund; also known as donating.

You too can help off-set the cost of running RAF, by clicking here, and paying via PayPal.

Thanks again to Myitt for her donation, she will now enjoy the benefits donators enjoy.

Hunger

The Second book in MG's Gone series: Hunger, is out!! Make sure to pick yourselves up a copy! I'm 3/4 through it, so i'm not done yet! But i'm almost there! haha. It's pretty sweet so far, but i'm not going to ruin it for you guys.

-Adam

DYK 8: Did You Know?

That the advertisements you see on RAF go into paying for RAF's expenses?

Now you do.

Richard's Animorphs Forum - The Ultimate Animorphs Forum

Catching Up

Summer has finally hit, and I think you'll notice more activity on the boards from our recently-busy members. Tyler and I are both posting much more often, for instance, and I've seen a couple other familiar faces pop up in their usual places.

Now that I have time to post, I have some catching up to do on all the conversations I have been missing and all the RPG's and fanfictions in which I'm involved. I also need to get back into RAFchat. I suspect this applies also to the rest of the RAFians who were inactive over the past few months.

It pleases me to see that things are starting to come back to life, showing more names from older generations in the Users Online Now section.
Let's keep up the activity, neh? It's nice. :)

-Estelore

RAFparty Reminder

I'm pretty sure no one forgot this time (seeing as how it's RAF's birthday), but just in case, a little reminder that this weekend is the RAFparty celebrating RAF's sixth (it is sixth, right?) birthday. Hope to see you there.

1 000 Members... all over again.

RAF has yet again reached the 1000 member mark.

Adam, 4th time donating!

Adam has donated again!. He is now firmly #1 on the donator leader-board, and will enjoy the additional +50 karma for his donation.

Thanks Adam!

DYK 7: Did You Know?

That whenever you move a thread you get Karma?

Now you do.

Richard's Animorphs Forum - The Ultimate Animorphs Forum

RAFChat... Again.

I certainly hope that everytime RAF Chat gets unused, that I don't have to make a Blog Post, but today I noticed something pretty annoying. So, I opened up RAF Chat, after noticing that Zero people were online. But i noticed that there were also 17 users online on RAForum. I was like: WTF? Especially since half the people online on RAF, are frequent RAFchat users. Its the WEEKEND people, a time when we should have tons of people on RAFchat. I know that some of you are doing your finals, but some of you are in High School, and i know that in Canada, High School exams aren't until June. I don't know if its the same in the USA. Here, I took a screen shot:

So please people, GO ON RAFCHAT. It's just an extra tab to have on your browser. It's there for a reason, and if people stop using it, it's not going to be useful. I don't want to have to make a post like this, just to remind people that it's there. Ok? Thank you.

-Adam
A.K.A. Ell¡m¡st

Thanks to Jess! for her donation!

It is customary to thank those who contribute by donating, but Jess! deserves a special applaud because she has made the single biggest donation to RAF so far.

As usual, she would enjoy all the privileges given to donators, and that warm feeling inside when you know you've done good.

Again, thanks to Jess! for her contributions to keeping RAF alive and kicking...and rocking!

Take it easy!

Moumentai! Hakuna Matata! No worries, no problem, chillax, peace, take it easy, calm down... there must be a dozen ways of telling people to ice it down, but they never seem to take you seriously when you say it, do they?

Let's all take this opportunity to take it easy. Pause for a few moments of your busy day, and just take a deep breath and enjoy living.

While you're at it, have a gorgeous weekend. :)

-Estelore

Thanks to Slushie Man for his second donation!

Jeff has yet again donated. He now will enjoy an additional +50 karma, and a bump into the top 5 on the donator leaderboard.

Thanks Jeff! 

200000 Posts

Michael Grant in Chicago, and other things he said...

So Michael Grant has stated on his YA Lit blog that he will be in Chicago for a book signing at the end of May. Those of you in the Illinois area should go meet him!! lol. I'm pretty sure he's a nice guy, and maybe K.A. will be there too!! Check out the blog post! (click the name of this post)

DYK 6: Did You Know?

That RAF has a Facebook page?

Now you do.

Richard's Animorphs Forum - The Ultimate Animorphs Forum

RAFMerchadise

Hey Everyone!!

A few member are making merchandise (t-shirts, to be specific) in this thread. We are coming up with some funny quotes to put on the shirts, and i'm coming up with a logo comprised of members names. One problem though, the names are too long! If you have a shorter version of your name that i can put on it, that would be greatly appreciated!! But i'm trying to make it work with the names i got.

So go to that thread and share your funny quotes/slogans for the Forum!!

-Adam
A.k.a. Ell¡m¡st

HUGE Siggys

Ok, ok, I know, we like to show of our gifs and other images we've created/had made for us.

But when is it enough?

With 3 or 4 images in one signature and after adding some text it creates a huge block of space on the screen.

Creating a rule saying that siggys can only be this big is kinda hard. There is a 3 image/text limit but theres no actual size limit.

So people!

Please judge for yourselves, don't make your siggys so big.

-Esplin

It's almost summer!

If you have already started your summer break, then you're awfully lucky. The rest of us, however, fortunately don't have too long to wait. My summer starts for real in about a week and a half.

Comment and tell us: when do your summers start? What are you planning to do during this time? Sorry, Aussies, I know it's going to winter for you. :P

I'm planning to get my garden started, catch up on some karate practises, read as much as possible, clean up fan-fictions and poetry, RAF it up, spend time with IRL dearlings, and play music. :)

RAF Social - Make your thread you.

In case you didn't get that memo, RAF created boards to accommodate what we term RAF Social.

What is RAF Social you ask? Well it's not only the coolest place to catch up on your RAF Crush, or your favourite RAFian, but it's that place you can share your own life's journeys.

Think of it as your personal RAF Blog, or RAF Twitter, or RAF Facebook.

Each member has the ability to create a personal thread in the Member Profiles board, and chat to others about whatever they like. So if you're having a bad day, just post in your thread how crappy it was, and no doubt other RAFians will offer their shoulder. Or did you just go to Disney Land? Post pictures and share the moments.

Just get to know each other & Make your thread you.

http://animorphsforum.com/social

Thanks to Anna for her donation!

Hey guys, me again.
I just want to thank Anna for her donation! She not only enjoys the perks of donating, but she now enjoys that warm feeling inside when you help out.

Thanks Anna!

RAF's Perceived Strictness - Explained

A member recently expressed that he thought RAF was strict. This is the first time in recent memory that someone has categorized this awesome Animorphs forum as such.

The reason why one of our members got this impression is the recent feature that prevented guests from viewing the forum. Let me preface by saying that many other communities require one to join before you can partake. I won't justify this move by the notion that others do it: so RAF should.

On the other hand the intent to force guests to register was one of a privacy issue, and one of an administrative one also. The latter reason will not be expounded on further, but the outcome of this essentially boils down to a better RAF.

As for the privacy issue, any active RAFian is able to identify with this.

Those who publish private information about themselves on our community do not expect malicious individuals to mine their information and publish it elsewhere, or use it in whatever fashion. As admin, I believe I have a duty to protect, as best as I can, the users of RAF.

Presently guests do not have to register to view certain parts of the forum, but don't expect this to stay in effect perpetually.

The member who is of the opinion that RAF is one of the stricter communities then goes on to mention those banned. Personally, I am not sure who he is referring to, but the few members that have been banned warranted it. I am notoriously lenient. In fact each year the ban list is cleared. Those who have been banned from the forum had to be; again to maintain a civil community.

If anyone requires more information on a specific banned individual, feel free to send me a personal message, or if you prefer emails: richardatanimorphsforum.com.

The final issue raised pertains to the RAF Chat. You have to register again in order to access the chat-room.

At one point in time, registration was not needed. Those who were active during this period know the story behind the enactment of a registration system. Firstly, people begain abusing the open system and started to impersonate popular RAFians. Not cool.

The second reason for registration/ login on the RAF Chat was the cases if trolls, and lurkers. Persons began flaming the chat room, and posting random nonsense. Also, because of the openness of the community, members willingly discussed intimate aspects of their personal lives in the real-time chat environment. Anyone could view these discussions.

Now people (I know I do) generally feel more secure as a result of the more moderated environment. Persons can be banned from the chat room if they are being disruptive or otherwise.

The other reason for the member's frustration with RAF is that your RAF username cannot automatically be used to login to the chat room. Indeed this is undoubtedly an inconvenience. The reason for this is that the chat room is located on an entirely different server. The result of this, is that your forum credentials are not on the RAF Chat server.

While the chat room can point to the forum's server, I have decided not to because if the main/ forum host goes down, then the chat would also go down.

With the way things are currently set up, the forum can stay alive if the chat goes down, and vice versa. Better for you, really.

Chat registration is done in 2 clicks. If anyone has problems getting the email that should activate your account, I would be happy to activate for you.

I hope this post has cleared up some issues regarding our perceived strictness. I also applaud the member who brought up these issues.

How I spend my day...

It's Sunday April 19:

7am: Wake up early to watch the Monte Carlo Masters (tennis). At the moment of returning to consciousness I reach for my phone which is alarming. Disable alarm, checks email, Adsense, Analytics and twitter.
During match:

12pm: turn off malfunctioning computer and listens to the audiobook 'The End of Faith'

2pm: finally finished the book. Back to the computer. I then surf the net reading and watching documentations for my own purposes. At the same time I Facebook, RAF and email.

7pm: a friend comes over. We chat we laugh.

9pm: I leave for some Wendy's (only thing I like that's open)

10pm: at that friends; I watch news and eat.

I lose track of time.

There you have it. That's my Sunday. Not really typical, since it is a weekend.

-------

This was supposed to be published on the day after, but forgot to do so.

DYK 5: Did You Know?

That the Animorphs eBooks that now every Animorphs website has, and thousands of persons have read, began when Dace decided to do some scanning?

Now you do.

Richard's Animorphs Forum - The Ultimate Animorphs Forum

Help me out here, please?

Hallo, RAF!
This week's article has to be short; I'm to be away for the remainder of the weekend.

Y'know, I absolutely love this blog, but it's not always easy to come up with ideas for my next article. This is where you dearlings come into play:
Tell me what you want me to write. PM me, email me, post in my blog thread, or comment here with what you'd like me to address in future RAFblog articles. I may not do every topic suggested, necessarily, but I'd really like to know what RAFians like to read/hear when they check the blog.

Please and thank-you, everyone! Well, I've got to be away now. Be safe, well, and blessed, my dears.

All my love to you.
-Estelore