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

Thanks to Ash for her donation!

Ash, one of RAF's oldest members has donated. Ash will now enjoy all the benefits that donors have; including that additional 50 karma.

As usual, we thank Ash for her donation, and encourage others to.

DYK 4: Did You Know?

That Richard created 'Richard's Harry Potter', and 'Unofficial Evanescence Forum' communities after RAF?

Now you do.

Richard's Animorphs Forum - The Ultimate Animorphs Forum

Thanks to Cody for his donation!

This note is to thank CODY for his donation to RAF. Of course without donations like these RAF's survival would rest solely on advertisement revenue and when that falls short; Richard's pockets.

So again, thanks to Cody. He now enjoys all these things.

RAF: Basically an alien embassy cleverly disguised as a forum...

Today's article is just for fun, folks. We'll call it a thought-prompt. ;)
We tend to joke about the different 'species' on RAF, and if someone says he or she is an alien, a star, a faerie, a seal, an Ellimist, et cetera, we go along with it, neh?
What if at least one of those was true?
Mind you, I'm a star, but I'm not going to press the issue here today. Just think on it, my dears. What if just one of these crazy-fun sci-fi enthusiasts actually is from someplace out-of-this-world? RAF would be the equivalent of a micro-embassy on behalf of open-minded Earthlings everywhere.



I bet you this hypothetical five dollar bill that this article left at least four RAFians seriously paranoid about the aliens in the boards. :)
My job here is done for the day, I think.

All my love to you, dearest RAFians.
-Estelore

Michael Grant's Book Signing tour

Hey all!

I'm not sure if you all follow Michael Grant's YA Literature blog, Stupid Blog Name, shared by many other YA writers, such as Carol Snow and Alistair Spalding, but Michael Grant was on a tour in England signing books and being interviewed. You can read about it here: Crack and Stack This, and here: London. Warning: language is kinda uncensored.

Enjoy!!

Adam

AKA Ell¡m¡st

RAF-lationships

Do you have a RAFcrush yet?

Do you know what a RAFcrush is?

Well see, a RAFcrush is a crush on someone who is a member of RAF. Sounds simple, but is actually very complex. This is because if you have a RAFcrush on someone who has a RAFcrush on you, that means that there is some RAFchemistry going on!! My next suggestion would be to start RAFdating.

RAFdating is also very complex, and should be carefully researched by asking current RAFdaters for their advice. Such RAFdaters are, for examples: Claire and Mike, or Estelore and Tyler.

After you and your RAFpartner have been dating for a while, one of you may want to move on to the next step, RAFengagement! One example of a RAFengaged couple, would be Russell and Dameg. They have been trying to move onto their next step for a while, which is to be....

RAFmarried!!! This is the biggest step in RAFcrushing, as this is the ultimate level of RAFcommitment. It's also a very big RAFcelebration that EVERYONE can have a part in (stags, stagettes, etc.). Only two RAFcouples have gotten married in the past. They would be Anna and Ken, or Touquie and Charlie. Only the latter are still together, which brings me to an optional, but sometimes unfortunate RAFcrush stage.

RAFdivorce. Just ask Ken or Anna for the explanation...

RAFchildren are very rare on RAF, seeing as how this is a children's book-forum, and must stay PG-13 or lower in the ratings. But, one RAFchild has been concieved throughout RAF's history. I'm not going to mention it's "dirty"name, but it starts with a P and ends with ootang.

Also, don't stab someone in the back, not very pleasant. Trust me, I've experienced it. And broken hearts are not fun.

So, if you are thinking of starting a RAFcrush, please, reference this topic, and find all the help you need. Just don't start too much RAFdrama.

Also, RAFipedia has a page here, which needs some updating.

Sincerely,

Adam

P.S. I would like to thank Gaz and Faerie in helping me with this post!! Thank you!!

DYK 3: Did You Know?

That Anna actually won the "Last person to post wins" game in the Bored Board on RAF Classic two years after the thread started?

Now you do.

Richard's Animorphs Forum - The Ultimate Animorphs Forum

May Approaches...

Know what that means, RAF?
Well, I'll tell you, anyway.
It means that all the high school seniors on the boards are going to be graduating, and the majority will be university-bound by autumn, if not sooner. We're looking forward to a wave of new college freshmen in RAF, which forbodes either MUCH more free time for those people... or much LESS free time, depending on their majors. I'm in architecture, so I fall into the latter category.
I really do hope that this doesn't mean a huge drop in forum attendance. :P
Let's be optimistic, though: May also means that next fall there will be grade-schoolers on the boards going to high school....

-Estelore

Russell has made a FOURTH donation!

Not to be out-done, (or maybe he just likes to ensure RAF's survival) our admin Russell (or In the recovery room..) has donated for a fourth time.

He has now got +50; firmly securing his position as #1 on the Karma List with 459 applauds. He has also moved up one spot to #2 on the Donation Leader-Board. 

So I would like to thank him for his continued monetary contributions to RAF.

Help RAF, by donating!

What Generation are YOU?

I'm compiling a list of popular members past, and present on RAF, and placing them in generations.

Currently there are 10 Generations.

See where you fall; if you're not placed: just post in the thread: don't forget to give your RAF Classic user-name (if you were on RAF Classic of course), and give a list of persons who you remember were posting when you came on RAF.

RAF GENERATIONS / READ ->
image source

Thanks to Kelly for her third donation!

Third time's the charm for long-time member Kelly who just donated. This post is to thank her and remind everyone that I alone can't foot the bill; you can help too.

Kelly now enjoys an additional 50 karma points.

To donate, and see the top 5 donors, visit RAF Donate at: http://animorphsforum.com/donate

DYK 2: Did You Know?

That the Totally Random Thoughts thread is not only the 6th thread created on new RAF, but 10% of the posts made on RAF are in that thread?

Now you do.

Richard's Animorphs Forum - The Ultimate Animorphs Forum

RAFparty #7 Day 1

If I had to describe this weekend's first RAFparty in 10 words or less, I'd say, "What RAFparty?"
This is by far, the worst RAFparty day ever. My name is Morfowt and I will be your blogger for this devastating day.

The first sign that says we have a problem this weekend, would be the lack of enthusiasm and reminder of the upcoming RAFparty. Usually, quite a few veteran members would post reminders in the RAFparty thread at least 24 hours before it started. This week there has been no such thing. I've also noticed that the RAFparty thread has been buried deep under many topics, possibly caused by the recent merging of the General Board and Life Board.
The second sign was when the party had already started for an hour, and no increase in post frequency occured in the Bored Board. In fact, about 2 hours in, I had a Skype chat with a few members and found some didn't even know today was the day.

Stats of that day also support this. On the day of the RAFparty:
6 New Topics - That is our second lowest amount this month so far, beating only 5 topics on April 8th. Previous parties made over 20 new topics a day, once reaching over 40.
492 new posts - The third lowest amount this month so far (the other two days, 473 and 413), and last out of all RAFparties by a long shot. Previous parties made well over 1000 new posts, and usually even over 4000 new posts.
48529 hits - while that day did have the most page view this month, it was only by about 4000 hits. We made about 44000 hits on April 2nd.

RAFparties are a day for everyone to come onto the forum, post, break RAF records, and have a blast. As not one of these has been accomplished in any way, I believe it's safe to say this RAFparty day was epic fail in every definition.
But, luckily, RAFparty lasts 2 days. Everyone out there, let's make up for this with the 2nd day.

As this post comes to a close, I can't help but notice the possible connection between this, the slight drop in last month's RAFparty, and the recent rise in leaving veteran RAFians...

Smileys

Hello, RAFians!
I don't know if everyone has been paying attention to the growing list of animated "smileys" that are now at our disposal, so I'm going to point them out here. I tend to use only the emoticons that I can quickly type, so I did not even notice that we had Animorphs-themed animations until I saw somebody post an Hork-Bajir in one of my threads.
Goom and DinoNothlit have been doing a brilliant job designing animated images of the main characters' primary morphs, and it sounds like the next morph on the agenda is Aximili becoming human. (If I'm wrong, please, someone, correct me.)
Anyway, folks, please do just check it out, there is some seriously fawesome stuff happening in the smiley-making thread.
Thanks, Dino and Goom, for doing such a great job on all of these!

-Estelore

TIP: Determine if there are new posts

If you ever wondered what these icons are all about (forgetting that they are the SMF logo [[note to self, change to RAF logo]]) this is the post for you.

The first icon means that there are no new posts in the board. The second icon means that there are. Take for example:

The icons are telling me that in the General Board there are new posts that I haven't read. In the Media Area, I have visited that board, and no one posted after I visited it.

Additionally to telling you if there are new posts in a board, you are able to click on the icon, and you will be shown all the unread posts in that board.

DYK 1: Did You Know?

That the current Animorphs Role-Playing board is bigger and more active than the one on RAF Classic ever was?

Now you do.

Richard's Animorphs Forum - The Ultimate Animorphs Forum

RAFChat

Hey everyone,

I know this has been touched on before in the RAFBlog, but I thought I would bring it up again. Everyone should go on RAFChat when they are on the forum. I mean, it's not that hard to open it up, sign up, and log in. It's just another window (or tab, depending on your browser) that makes a funny sound every once in a while (it might get annoying, but i got used to it!).

What really bugs the heck out of me is when I see that, for example, 24 people are online on the forum, yet only 8 people are online in chat (admit it, it happens). What the heck??

I understand that some people can't be on chat, for reasons such as your country doesn't allow it, or your cell phone doesn't support it, or your Playstation 3 doesn't open it (like me) and I'm not mad at you. Its the people who choose not to go on chat, for whatever reason, that I'm talking to.

Chat is useful because it allows you to talk to your favorite forum members in Real Time. This is neat because you are probably used to only talking to the members in the topics, where you might have to wait a whole day for the response, maybe longer! With RAFChat you ask a question, and you get an answer (if anyone wants to answer it) within seconds! Also, very notable things happen in RAFChat that, if you aren't there, might be missing out from. Examples of things like this that have happened in the past are:

1. Ken and Anna's RAFWedding
2. Pootang's Miraculous Birth
3. Various RAFParties
4. Many of the quotes in the Quotable Quotes thread
5. and many more...

If you don't know what #2 is about, then that's the exact reason why you should be in RAFChat!

And hey! I'm not the only one who thinks so! Here's a quote from a member of RAF, when asked what has happened in RAFChat that they can remember:

"Not much really... RAFchat is dieing kinda... With the more talky people leaving or lurking more, less and less is happening..."

So please people, go on RAFChat!! I'll most likely see you there!

Sincerely,

Adam
AKA Ell¡m¡st

6,000,000 Hits

So, since I normally note when RAF Forum passes a million hits, and today that happened, there is this post. 6 Million now.

Spring Break!

Hello, RAF!
Well, it's spring break over here, over a week without classes. This means more online time, in general, except on specific busy-days. The weather is simply gorgeous, and I'm leaving for awhile to visit family.
Who else here is enjoying a lovely break, and who has interesting plans for their vacation time?

Comment!!

I'll see you all on my return. Much love to all of you.
-Estelore

Today is Ash's Birthday!

LONG-time member... and by that I mean approaching 6 years, Ash is celebrating her () birthday today! To our current longest active member: hope you have a fun and stress free day!

2 Boards Removed

The Life & The General Fan-Fiction & Art Boards have been removed. Posts in these boards have been moved to the newly renamed General Board (was General v2).

Nostalgia

While looking at the Member list in order of Date Registered, I realized that only Mike (Phoenix004) and I were the ones who registered in 2003 (on RAFclassic of course), followed by two people from 2005 (Kelly and Tyler). At first, i was surprised and astounded that we had the rest register in 2008 and onward, most re-registering after the move from RAFClassic, and not asking for their original Registration date back.

This is my friendly reminder that if you registered on RAF Classic and haven't asked for your original registration date yet, please do!! Nostalgia on a forum like RAF is greatly appreciated!! It also sets up a sort-of seniority. That way, if someone has a question and are afraid to go to the Staff (they are pretty scary to newbs!), they can just ask a more senior member.

I was looking on RAFclassic for some of our oldest members, but there was no option to sort by registration date. So i looked up the Top 20 Posters, and found some members that had been very active, but didn't stay with us.

• Sarah Connor
• Xandria Nirvana
• Meanders
• Jordan
• Sarah Naeem

That's just to name a few. Also, I was wondering why so many people are leaving, and I decided to determine which of the more active members of the new RAF have left, or are very inactive.

• Anna
• Leigh
• Skye
• mrlarry
• Venomwiththelongname

If people wouldn't leave, there wouldn't be another reason for other people to leave. So please, people: End the Trend. Stay with RAF, and quit leaving.

Please leave comments.

Sincerely, Adam.

Russell's Animorphs Forum

In case you haven't noticed, RAF is now Russell's Animorphs Forum.
This change was made when Richard decided to retire just short of RAF's 6th birthday.

This will be my final post on the RAF Blog in my current capacity.

April 2 Update: Guys... if you fell for that one.... [shakes head]

Back for some more Blogging Action!!

Hey guys!! It's the manager of your space-time continuum, The Ellimist!!

...But you can call me Adam. Most of you know me already, but in case you don't, here's a quick re-cap of some stuff i've done on RAF:

1. Joined way back when... (a long time ago)
2. Became a staff member on RAF Classic
3. Subsequently became a Co-Admin on RAF Classic (helping Richard out with a few things)
4. Brought Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant to RAF (to answer some of our questions)
5. Donated money to RAF (its a good investment)
6. Posted on RAFBlog! (right now)

But enough about me. More about what my blog posts will include. My blog posts will most likely include updates from Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant, as I am in contact with them regularly via e-mail. Actually, i'm trying figure out a new way of asking them questions, like maybe ask everyone for their questions, RAF's Staff sort them out (get rid of the silly ones), and then I e-mail the completed list to KA & MG. I don't know!! Haha! Just an idea, i've got tons more too!!

If you have any ideas, please either tell me in comments (Estelore would probably like that), or PM me. Either way i'll read it and consider it, and maybe even reply. But Please... Don't give me questions. I'm not ready for them yet.

Thanks for reading!!!

My regards,
Adam, A.K.A. Ell¡m¡st

A Proposal: RAF Silence Day #2

Right, well, folks... I'm still uber-curious about Richard's appearance, in all honesty, and this blog post is already a day late, so let's get to business.

I suggest we re-attempt RAFSilence Day. I suggest that we try to do this next Tuesday, since Tuesdays seem to be our non-busy days.

Commentary, if you please?

Richard, if we can pull it off, even belatedly, will you still agree to post a picture?

*shrug* I think it's worth another shot.

-Estelore

Animorphs Trivia Game

Have you ever wanted to test out your knowledge of the Animorphs book series against your fellow RAFians? If you're interested and wanted to discuss the idea further, click on the title of this blog post and you can post in the thread I made in the Animorphs Board!

Recent Email Sent + Rank Changes

As I said on Twitter, I sent out an email to every member who has no posts: just to remind them that we exist. Below is the screen-shot of that image for all you guys who are not newbies:


Oh and to facilitate this new email reminders I have changed the member groups/ member ranks a bit. "Newbie" are now members who have only 0 posts. The new group "Non-N00b" are for those who have 1-9 post.
See here for more information.

Warm Feeling Inside

First, I want to preface by saying I don't actually use Yahoo! Search. I was just going there to see how we are fearing on their search engine. To be fair though, 12% of those who come to RAF in the last month came from Yahoo! (versus 83% from Google).

Anyhow, when I started to type "animorphs forum", this is what popped up:



And I got a warm feeling inside. So I wondered, would the same thing happen on Google?


Apparently not :(

Get your act together Google! :)

The A is for...umm...something about Animals right?

Hey guys, I’m back with another random post about nothing really all that important. Sorry about this. Don’t worry it will be over soon, you can just leave a reply saying hey good point and pretend like you read it. I would honestly never know.

So anyway; Richards ANIMORPHS Forum. I think most of us notice that the Animorph’s board is one of the least active boards on the forum. The common trend is for new members to start in the Animorph’s board and gradually move over to the general categories. The veteran members are rarely seen actually talking about what brought us all together; Animorphs!

Some people find it hard to believe that an Animorphs forum is active after almost 10 years. You can really only talk about Animorphs for so long right? After a certain point the discussions start to repeat themselves. The newer members will bring up a great point that you talked about seven months ago. After awhile they’ll start to feel the repeat of the discussions and they’ll drift away from the Animorph’s board too.

But just because most of the discussions of the board have been done in one form or another, that doesn’t mean we should give up on them. There will always be fresh perspectives on the books that we all love. For every “Thoughts about book #54” and “What would be your battle morph” threads, there will be a unique idea out there that makes the Animorphs board worth checking out every once in awhile. (I just read “The wall between Jake and Cassie” and thought Hylian Dan made some great perspectives on their relationship.)

So to sum up what I’m trying to say (because my posts are never clear enough to pull the message out without an idiot proof conclusion) we should try to bring back the Animorphs discussion to the forum! Check out a few of the new discussions and try to see if you can get some new perspectives on the series. Reassess the points of the series you love or that you questioned and maybe you’ll find some new discussion topics too. Terenia should be commended for organizing the group reread; a weekly reread of the series in order. Not a bad idea. Revisiting what brought us to the forum in the first place might bring us closer than ever.

But we should be proud that if the Animorphs discussion isn’t what has kept us together for so long, it means that e have survived solely on the community we have created. RAF FTW!

Bending Life Around RAF...

...and not the other way around...

I wonder how many of us actually adjust our schedules specifically to be able to access RAF.
I, for instance, wake about fifteen minutes earlier than necessary for that specific purpose.

Does anyone else here do this? Do you stay up a bit later than you might, or put off any meals, or avoid IRL conversations for RAF?

Or does RAF have to conform to your life?

Please do comment. :)

-Estelore

Blog & Chat back up

After 24 hours of being down, both the RAF Chat and Blog are now up, and online. The reason why they were down is that XEHost, our service provider for both the Blog and Chat upgraded, and changed the IP address for the server.

Long story short, I also changed the IP, and now you're able to read this, and enjoy our chat room. If you were following me on Twitter, you would have seen a tweet saying I will move from them because of this downtime; I have decided to, because they did not go down, keep their services until it expires in a few months.

Edit: They apparently moved servers, and I failed to get the email, so some files have been lost. I'm definitely not renewing my plan with them. XEHost, you suck.

27 Days, 1 Million hits

While RAF Parties may be less populated these days, RAF is nowhere near slowing down. It was only 27 days ago that I blogged about RAF passing 4 million hits.

Today, the RAF Statistic Center total hits passed 5 million. The counter now stands at 5,008,725.

Continue to RAF; continue to Party!

Problem with RSS feeds

Hey RAFians and others. The RAF Blog RSS feed is down, not sure why, but I am looking into it.

March 5 update: Things seem to be up now. It was apparently a bug with Blogger.

Are You Ready to PARTY?

The monthly RAF Party starts at 12AM EST Saturday and ends at 12AM
Monday.

Don't Forget RAFSilence Day!!

Hey, folks! For this week's article, I'm just going to remind you all:


DON'T POST THIS TUESDAY!!!!

(or Wednesday, if you're in the Eastern Hemisphere)


If you want to see Richard's face, do NOT post on Tuesday/Wednesday of the coming week.
If you DON'T want to see his face... then please just don't spoil it for everyone else. :)

Happy Weekend, RAF! See you all Monday!
-Estelore

RAF Staff

I have recently noticed that sometimes all the staff members, with the exception of Ricard, get little to no respect. This has been going on for a while, some of the staff feel they get no respect and I myself don't feel like I get as much as I should have earned by now. I've been signed in almost 30 days of my life (thats only on new RAF). I've donated plenty time and hard earned money to make this forum what people love.

How is it that I feel like when I tell people to stay on topic its taken as a joke?
How come when I tell people maybe things are getting a little to heated or disrespectful to a singular member people ignore me?

Some of us have given up on trying to keep things tidy or under control because no one listens.

This is the start of something new, a new RAF staff. Disrespect will not be tolerated, warning will be fewer and punishments will be given out to people who don't listen.

By the way, 99% of RAFians are nice and discuss/argue politely. There really isn't much to do as a staff memeber here, we aren't tyrants, we dont tell you what to do.

All we do is try and keep things in order. Why not respect us? Why not treat us with respect?

Everyone from Richard, the CREATOR of RAF, to goom our jr. staff.

You have to listen to all of us, maybe you dont like it, but you have to. All we do is enforce simple rules and keep things organized. Is that so bad?

-russell/esplin-

What RAF really looks like...

We all know that inside the body is nothing like the familiar outside... so bad analogy aside, this is how RAF looks from inside.



Those familiar with SQL, you know what you're seeing... others, think about it as a big MICROSOFT EXCEL spreadsheet. It's the RAF Forum's Database.

Dusting Off an Old (kinda) Gem

Okay, so maybe it's not that old, but it's old by internet standards!

This is just a little poke in the side to ye olde RAFians that RAFipedia is still out there! To the newbie RAFians, allow me to introduce you to RAFipedia.

RAFipedia is a wiki about RAF, the RAFians and Animorphs. Please, check it out! http://rafipedia.wetpaint.com/

There, you can register, add information to the wiki and even add your own page to the Notable Members section. Let RAF know who you are! Check out some of the other pages and learn more about your fellow RAFians. Didn't know that one of Ken's favourite movies is The Matrix? Didn't know that Gaz loves The Count of Monte Cristo? Can't keep up with the latest RAFrelationships? Want to know more about the history of RAF? Well you can find all this information and more at http://rafipedia.wetpaint.com/!

Once again, that's http://rafipedia.wetpaint.com/.

C'mon, test out that nice, shiney left click button by clicking on THIS!

Or THIS!

And believe it or not, even THIS!

...Are you there yet?

Adam... now top Donator with 3rd donation!

"RAF Elder", Adam has once again decided he will not be outdone.
After claiming the #1 spot earlier in the year with his second donation... he has joined the exclusive club of those who have donated over 2 times.

Russell have donated 3 times. But he is now RAF's top donator.

Of course, this post is to thank Adam for his monetary contributions to RAF. After all, it's through these donations (and ad-revenue (which is meh if you ask me) that you're able to enjoy the RAFperience!

Feel free to use our PAYPAL system to contribute whatever you can & learn more about what you get from donating by clicking here.

PS: On the topic of RAF Donations, as I told Adam eariler, the system will be tweaked a bit in the near future

Year one: RAF eBooks - Stats

Your original source for Animorphs eBooks, made by members of RAF; RAF eBooks is now over 1 year old. Statistics show that from February 14 2008 to February 14 2009:

104,934 persons visited, &
363,730 hits were recorded.

In case you didn't know, since late last year, we have been working on Everworld and Remnants ebooks; the latter is complete. To get involved in Everworld ebooks, go here.

RAF Chat Smilies Codes Changed

On the RAF Chat, you don't have to remember some lame codes to get the emoticons (smilies), see the list below:

is now ;)
is now :lol:
is now :P
is now =)
is now :s
is now :Oo:
is now :D
is now =D
is now 8)

Thanks to Goom for the suggestions.

If you don't know what the RAF Chat is... then here we go: The RAF Chat is the area of RAF (Richard's Animorphs Forum) which allows you to chat directly with members and non-members in an instant message format.

If you haven't registered yet... what are you waiting for?

I hate blind conformity...

Conformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people. This influence occurs in both small groups and society as a whole, and it may be the result of subtle unconscious influences, or direct and overt social pressure.

Source: The Most Reliable Source on The Internets

Well, I don't know where this post is coming from... well, maybe I do. The thoughts came to my mind after reading this post (more on that thread later). I know some have speculated that ChimichangaChupacabra is indeed old-time member Venom(sic). Maybe he is, maybe he isn't; that's not the point, but like his old profile, it is, for a new member replete with smites.

This isn't a venom/ C4 post, rather one which I'm just using him as an example. He clearly doesn't care what we think about his opinion; he gives it to us... hard. I'm personally all for that. After all RAF is a forum... a place where persons communicate with each other and discuss whatever they want: not a place where opinions get shot down, and discarded.

But the same must also go for the dissenter. One who doesn't agree with the general consensus shouldn't be quick to shut up the person they don't agree with. Well, on RAF I try to promote openness and community; so I would ask that we not be quick to discard the ideas of those who we don't agree. I can't tell you how you live your life... not even on RAF.

IRL (in real life) I am one of the biggest dissenters out there; that part of my personality though cannot merge with my RAF life simply don't join real discussions for fear of loosing what little objectivity we possess. It's a pity, because I really love debates.

Anyway, this is probably the longest personal note I've written here, so I should start hitting the "PUBLISH POST" button pretty soon, and get back to the mountain of work I have to do.

Purpose of this post? I'm not sure, but I just want to commend the dissenters out there who don't just do it to be not one of the 'cool guys', but those who actually think outside the box.

Daylight Savings Time - Update your RAF Forum Time

See here to learn how to change the forum's time.

Happy Spring!

Spring is finally arriving in the northern hemisphere of this lovely planet, and it means different things to each of us. Some of us are getting ready for spring dances, concerts, musicals, and other school events. Some of us are eager for the sports season to begin, and March Madness is about to hit the U.S. I'm very eager to get my garden and my private music lessons re-started. Just today we had our local music contest, for which I've practised all week with the kids I accompany on piano, and that's only the beginning of my 'busy season'. Graduation approaches for high school seniors. Final tests are coming up for kids in school and university. Life is getting to be very busy and down-to-the-minute for most of us.

Whatever spring means to you, it generally means that RAF will be seeing less daytime activity from many of its members.

That's the problem with having a life: you have to live it.

Well, happy living, folks. If you can blend IRL with RAF, then more power to you. You have more free time than I have, and I admire your dedication.

Bliss to you, my dears.
Yours Always,
-Estelore

Kanye West - Welcome to Heartbreak Video

So, to liven up the blog a bit, I'm going to open up, and begin detailing more about my life.

First up is Kanye West (the rapper's) music video. I think that because it's so innovative it's has risen to #3 on my favourite music videos of all time list.

See the links below:

Here is a the YouTube link. |

Onto the Bandwagon

It seems that RAFian waves is the theme of the week. Time to add my two cents.

I completely agree with what Duff and Estelore have already said. It's a sad but true fact of forums.

Why is this the hot topic of the week? Estelore, Duff and I are of the past generation. We're old school now. We have all been watching while our friends disappear from the RAFmap. We have been feeling the drift away from RAF.

I believe that the constantly changing list of dedicated members is one of the main reasons why RAF projects struggle. There is always a few commited members to a project, but within a few months people's priorities shift and RAF is no longer an important factor to life.

While this is a somewhat sombre topic, it's simply a part of a forum's life. When I joined, I was a part of the new generation wave. I saw members with seniority slowly fade away from existance.

To the new members, this is what I have to share: Take all that you can from RAF. Make friends, party and most of all, have fun. One day, you will likely take your leave, but remember what you've learned at RAF. Keep those memories close, no matter how far you drift away.



Til the day I die, I shall not forget RAF.

Comment! Please, for the love of Asimov, COMMENT!!

Hi, folks. I'm just about to disappear-for-the-remainder-of-the-weekend, but I felt I oughtta' get this post out there before I depart.

Okey, I know quite a few of you read the blog, and that's lovely. Thanks. Please, could you post comments in the blog once in awhile? I know we have readers, but who are the readers?
Which of you follow this blog and actually pay attention to the posts?

If you really do check this blog at least once weekly, please post a comment to this post. I'd love to know who watches the RAFLocal News, so to speak. Also, if you feel like having opinions, please post comments for the other posts. We like to know what you think! Pleeeeeease??!

Well, have a great weekend, all!
All my love.

-Estelore

They come, they eat, they leave

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the people who frequent RAF, and the people who have left us. Estelore plays a role in this for her great blog post not long ago. I’ve also noticed that a lot of the people who couldn’t be seen off the forums, are now nowhere to be seen. I’ve been thinking about this topic specifically because I’m feeling myself drifting away from RAF. At one point I posted 50-100 times a day every day, now I might only post 10 times. I hope I’m still a presence on RAF, but I can’t deny that I just don’t RAF like I used to.

This isn’t an uncommon thing with a lot of RAFians. Tyler (getting another ego boosting mention in the blogs) was our fastest member (you know…with posts, not…haha) and now he’s awol. Leigh, who I never knew personally, has something like 1100 posts. Now he’ll pop up for a few days here and there, but its undeniable that his time with RAF is done. And then there’s the select few like Mike aka Phoenix004 who have been with the board for years, and still manage to get on regularly.

So does RAF have a shelf life? Do people get bored or sick of it after awhile and just stop caring? I think, as sad as it seems, that they’ve just moved on. Nobody is meant to spend their entire life posting on RAF every day (except Richard; if you ever leave I swear to God…). RAF is like anything else, merely a chapter in a very long life. Sometimes people need RAF to get them through a tough time in their life. I know I did.

I’m not saying this so that everyone will just up and leave the forums. (although that way I could win the last person to post wins thread…again) And don’t worry, this isn’t my farewell speech. (I’m still working on that one, What rhymes with “wanted for murder”?) But I hope it will kind of help people understand why some of us have felt the need to leave. I hope all of you stick around and continue to be as active for as long as I’m here, but if you do have to go, good luck in whatever chapter you’re off to now. And although you may not have time or feel the same connection to the forum, don’t forget the connections you made with the members. I know I wont be on RAF forever, but I like to think some of you will be friends for life.

Dude…this post is just depressing…

RAFMoney - the image

New member Chace/ CDJV in the RAF Private Detective -- Open For Business thread posted $50 worth of RAFdollars... or RAFmoney or RAFmoleons.

Anyway, just wanted to say lol @ the money; it's everything RAF is... EPIC coolness... +1 to Chace.

RAFgenerations: Defining the Passage of Time

The other day, Broken asked me if I had seen passing generations of RAFians, and it gave me pause for thought. Sure, we've nearly all of us seen wave after wave of newbies arrive and build their own positions in our tight little society, but what defines where one wave, one generation begins and where it ends?
Perhaps we should be watching not only those who join but also those who leave us, even if they only leave temporarily. There was a time when RAF was startled to see both Tyler and me gone for more than a day at a time, and now it seems almost commonplace for us to be absent. There was a time when Zues, Ellimist, Toomin, Touquie, Ash, and Terenia frequented the board with great consistency, and now we hardly hear from them. It seems that for every two or three waves of newbies that arrive, two or three of our longest-standing veteran members drop off the map a little bit.

Let's just hope that this trend is not a permanent thing, neh? I don't know about you, but I miss all my old Classic RAF buddies. Sure, I love newbies, but RAF sorta' loses its RAFishness without the Classic members.

4 Million Hits on RAF Forum

When I started blogging about each time RAF Forum hits 1 million hits I had no idea that we would be hitting the milestone every month/ few weeks.

Today, after 3 weeks (and a day) of hitting 3 million the counter passed 4 million.
I probably will continue blogging about each millionth hit, just to keep a record of when it happened.

So expect 1 more million in 1 month? I hope so ^_^

100+ Members Online Today!

This is the most I've seen it since we moved to SMF in May/ June 2008. As of 10:56PM 103 members have logged into RAF Forum today.

RAFparty #5 day 1

Yep, it's that time of the month again...

Today was the first day of the fifth RAFparty (or as I like to call it RAFparty 09.02.01). My name is morfowt, and I will be your author today.

The party started at midnight (like usual), with people counting down the minutes left, hours before it even started. This RAFparty wasn't quite as active or crazy as previous ones, most likely because it was also valentine's day, so some people were spending it with their dates. Others, were probably busy with work and other things.

As the first day draws to a close, let's look back at some of the highlights...

1. Top Poster: Esplin 9466, now an admin, has beaten Leigh, and is now the top poster, with 11245 posts total.
2. New Gods: Congratulations Azguard and Mirienne for achieving God status! Azguard, especially, because he is the first new member (a member that wasn't from RAFclassic) who achieved God status
3. 10000+ posts: Superclaire, recently promoted to Sr. Staff, has made over 10000 posts, and is the 4th member on RAF to do so.
   

Other Stats include:

1. Top Poster Today: Esplin 9466 has made 800+ posts today. Not as high as previous parties, but still pretty high, nonetheless.
2. New Topics Today: The first day, we've created 36 new topics. That places it in second place (first place goes to the first day of the RAFparty in January, with 46 new topics).
3. Page Views Today: Not much happy news here. Although we've made 60440 hits (which is a high number, and the second most on RAFparty days), it's not even the most number of hits this month. On February sixth, we made over 61000 hits.
4. New Posts Today: Alas, we've only made 4188 new posts today. That's lower than the last 4 RAFparties (1 day counts as 1 party).

To summarize, not the best RAFparty ever, but a successful one, with goals achieved...

And remember: the RAFparty lasts 2 days, so if you missed the first day, there's still the second...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Whether you think it's a day to celebrate your romance with your significant other, or just an excuse for the big corporations to steal people's money while making fun of all the single people, I hope you all have a great day!

As it happens, I am single and so will obviously not be spending the day with a girl. In fact, it's actually my sister Zoe's 4th birthday so I will have plenty to keep me busy. However, I do think it's quite hilarious that many of my friends at work think I have a hot date since I booked the day off work... (In my defence, I did tell them it was my sister's birthday!)

So, feel free to post your comments about this special day on the forum. I'd like to know what opinions people have on this sometimes sensitive subject.

http://animorphsforum.com/forum/index.php/topic,2320.msg151421.html#msg151421

Goom - New Jr. Staff Member

That's right.. get used to the purple from relative new-comer goom. He has been promoted to Jr. Staff. We welcome him... right?

Oh and Claire is no longer a Jr. Staff member... she has also been promoted: she now holds the Senior Staff position.

Why do YOU RAFparty?

Well, folks, we all know that another RAFparty begins tonight, and I know that most of us are very much looking forward to it. I like the increased activity, and I like when most of the members are online at once so that I can watch the lovely ways they interact. Sometimes I take advantage of the chance to raise my post count, I'll admit, but I RAFparty mostly for the social interaction.
Not everyone shares my reasons for RAFpartying. Some of you like to spam the boards just for the halibut. Others take the opportunity to post as fast as they can all at once, using many windows of the same forum. Some of you make your choicest posts or start new topics for the karma-boosts they bring.

Why do you RAFparty?

Russell = Admin

In case you were wondering what's with Russell's / Esplin 9466's red text colour... he has been promoted to Administrator. He is RAF's second administrator (excluding myself) in our almost six years of existence.

RAFian Commonalities

Hallo, all!
I've been noticing lately how many similarities there are between RAFians with vastly different personalities, and it baffles and amuses me to no end. Not only do we all have Animorphs in common, but the vast majority of us share at least one other RAF-common trait with other members. I'll post some of those traits I've noticed, and you all please do feel free to comment and add any that I've missed.

1. Addiction to "Pinky and the Brain"
2. Musical ability, especially on piano
3. INTJ or similar personality type (Myers-Briggs Typology... I walk the fine line between INTJ and INFJ, for instance.)
4. A certain fondness for crazy
5. Another certain fondness for argument-for-argument's-sake
6. Belief in the existence of extraterrestrial aliens
7. Either very intense religion or no religion at all
8. A solid and fierce opinion on anything at all political, or else an absolute apathy for politics
9. Intense love of books
10. Arcane pop-culture, movie, musical theatre, and literary knowledge

What else, folks? Help me out, here. :)

Thanks to wildweathel for his donation!

New, but seasoned member of RAF, wildweathel has added to the keep RAF alive fund, aka donated. I'd like to thank him for his contribution; he now stands at #1 on the leader-board (along with Russell).

Veteran RAFians: Remember the Newbies!

Hello again, dearest RAF!
For this week's article, I'd like to address a subject that has been at the heart of many of our discussions over the past few days.
More than one of my RAFfriends has noted that lately the veteran RAFians and the RAFpantheon have been acting 'clique-ish' towards the newer and younger members of the forum.
As a veteran RAFian myself, I cannot claim much objectivity on this subject, and I'm certainly not pretending that I'm immune to clique-forming-tendencies. After all, I'm a female with the ability to speak and type. Cliques are hardwired into my genetic makeup.
*ba-dum-pssht! ...yeah... stand-up comedy is not for me...*

I joined RAF nearly a year ago, and I can still very clearly and easily remember what it felt like to be a newbie here. People were nice and helpful, and they were willing to listen and let me have my own opinions. Sure, they argued with me as often as they agreed, but they accepted that my opinions were VALID.
Nowadays... I'm not so sure about us, as a forum. Not to say that I don't consider us still the best forum on the web, because RAF is still RAF, no matter what, but... we've lost a little bit of that tolerance-and-acceptance-and-lovingkindness-for-everyone feeling that we had just a few months ago.

Folks, all I'm asking is that you think back to what RAF was like when YOU were a newbie, and try to treat our current newbies the way you'd've wanted to be treated. The mods can't be expected to do all the work for you, guys.

G'day!

-Estelore

3,000,000 Hits on RAF Forum

Richard's Animorphs Forum's actual forum just recorded its 3 millionth hit. We recorded our 2nd millionth hit back on December 30, 2008, meaning we gained a million hits in exactly 4 weeks.

January may/ will be the first month in RAF history, that the forum was viewed 1 million times.

What is a hit?
It's also called pageview... each time the page is loaded it counts as a hit. Because RAF is a forum, this number tends to be high.

Update 1: 10PM. RAF Forum passes 1 million hits in January alone:

Put a limit on the Life & General boards?

Go to this thread; vote, and if you wish: give us a reason why you think that there should or should not be a n00b limit on the Life and General boards.

RAF: Why we really ARE the best forum on the Internet

Hello, RAFians!

If I know this forum and its denizens as well as I think I do, then I am correct in the assumption that the vast majority of us consider RAF to be the best thing to happen to the internet since the invention of the hyperlink. Most of us consider RAF to be our "Home Forum", and even if we visit other forums sporadically, RAF always receives the greatest devotion of our online free time.

Why?

Why should this website, of all the websites available for our use, be the one that draws us most powerfully?

I've been doing some thinking on the matter, and I've managed to narrow it down to the ten biggest factors that, for me, at least, are why I can't stay away from RAF.

10. It is centred on books. As much time as we may collectively spend on the Bored Board, it was the Animorphs books (and to a lesser extent, Everworld, Remnants, and now GONE) that brought us together in the first place. Let's not forget that. Many other forums so easily lose track of what brought the members together, until only the newbies have a clue. The great thing about this: it means that we all love to read, at least to some extent. When many literate people of similar tastes meet as friends, amazing things happen.

9. The site has interests and conversation to offer for a wide range of age-groups. Whether you were born at the dawn of time or in 2000 Anno Domini, there is a place for you on this forum. Whether you're 26 or 10, there is someone here who'll be happy to talk with you. This is a rule without exception.

8. The background is a most soothing shade of blue. Oh, come on! I know you were thinking it! It's easy-on-the-eyes, which is conducive to posting more here than in other sites, where red letters on a black background give you a headache in three minutes.

7. RAF has supporting pages. Even when you aren't posting actively, you can still stay up-to-date with RAFian goings-on by visiting the blog, the chat, or the wiki. Even when life gets in your way, you can still maintain contact with your old online friends. It's a very user-friendly and real-life-tolerant forum.

6. The staff actually know what they are doing. Richard and the other RAFstaff are attentive, active, and fair-minded. When we need help, they are there. When we need to shut up or change the subject, they tell us in a nice way. When they make rules, they enforce them. They treat newbies with a kindness that isn't often seen in other forums.

5. The forum allows for freedom of expression while maintaining a fun, safe, and kid-friendly atmosphere. We all have opinions, and thanks to the open-mindedness of RAF's members, none of us is afraid to express those opinions. We know that there is a limit to what RAFians consider 'acceptable behaviours', and we respect those limits to the point that some of our members even invite their younger siblings and friends to join, knowing that the site won't offend them or scare them away. RAF isn't OCD about preventing heated discussions, and it isn't one big cuss-fest, either.

4. The members treat each other like family. Anyone who spends more than five minutes in RAF knows that the members genuinely care about each other. We can playfully rib each other, and nobody takes offence. We are there for each other during hard times.

3. Even beyond the books, the members share a wide range of common interests. Some of us write music, poetry, and fan-fictions. Some of us play in RPG's or haunt the Bored Board's games. Pinky and The Brain, H2G2, and the works of Orson Scott Card and Scott Westerfeld are just a few of the things that interest many of us.

2. It's a fairly 'small' community. Of our 400-or-so members, fewer than 80 are highly active at any given time. This allows us all to know each other on a username-basis, and we recognise each other and follow each others' posts. It encourages a strong sense of unity that cannot exist in sites where you might never see two posts from the same person in one thread. RAF does not NEED to be a 'large' forum. As the forum grows, all active newbies are welcomed with open arms, and the veteran members notice them and remember their names, which simply does not happen in a huge website.

1. We have Richard. Seriously, folks! Where else are you going to find an administrator like Richard? Anywhere else, the admins get in your face and 'put you in your place' before you've had a chance to post. Anywhere else, the guys in charge get an unfair high off of exerting control over others. Richard delegates his power and uses it fairly. Newbie or Veteran, you get his full attention when you bring him your questions. He gets his point across to you with a single sentence, instead of making a two-page lecture illustrating every last mistake you've made in an argument. The books brought us together, but Richard and his forum are what kept us together.
Well, those were my reasons for liking RAF more than any other forum. Why don't you all tell me your reasons? Thanks to Touquie, we now know why you STAYED, but why have you stayed LOYAL?
In your opinion, why is RAF the best?

Michael Grant's Gone Interview

If you don't know who Michael Grant is, he is the co-author of Animorphs, and K.A. Applegate's husband. His recent book series is titled Gone (view forum). Here he is giving an interview.

Source

Downsizing Coming March 2009

At this rate of 3 hosts, and 5 domains, there would be no more money left in my bank account. So in an effort to save some mulah, I'm going to discontinue the Blog host (which used to host the RAF Chat also, until I moved it to XEHOST).

This would mean that in March 2009, I will stop paying for that server. Blog will be moved to XEHOST's server the the coming days.

This server drop will leave us with 2 shared hosts.

Avatars: What does your user image say about you?

Hello again, RAFians! I apologise for not getting last week's article up when I intended it, but life has been rather hectic on this side of things. Let's get down to business, neh?

Avatars. Most of us have them, some of us change them like we change clothes, some of us could not care less. Regardless of how you feel about those cute, funny, or quirky little icons beneath our usernames, you rather must admit that they say something rather distinct about the person that uses them. Sure, we can all use our signatures to SAY things, very deliberately those are designed for textual statements, and we are all free to psychoanalyze each others' siggies to our hearts' content. Avatars, though, are a direct representation of the person who is speaking in each post.

I, for instance, use Wakko Warner of the Animaniacs as my avatar. It has been this way since I joined RAF last February. Of course, I am not some strange-looking male dog-cat-skunk-creature wearing a red hat, blue turtleneck sweater, and no pants. I do not belch publicly nor speak with a Scouse accent. I don't sing about the state capitals to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw".
Why, then, should I choose Wakko to be my avvy?
To be honest, I just am terribly fond of the Animaniacs, and as a fan of Animorphs, you might consider me an Ani-maniac, after a fashion. When I first joined RAF, the image of Wakko was the first one to catch my attention, so I went with it, and I have never had any desire to change it.

Richard, on the other hand, simply uses an understated red letter "R" for his avatar. Short, sweet, simple, and very easy to understand, this avatar tells much less about Richard than Wakko tells about me. The most we can gather is that he holds an affinity for the colour red and that he doesn't feel the need to project his personality at all times.

Others, like Claire, show a fondness for an actor or a television programme. Phoenix uses an image of a supernova, and Anna changes her username and avatar with almost dizzying frequency. Touquie uses a scrolling image of the four elements and their Japanese names. Qwerty uses the avatars of various RAFians, scrolling according to the alphabetical order of the members' usernames.

Tell us, RAF: why did YOU choose YOUR avatar? What does it tell us about you, as a person?

Russell has made a 3rd donation

That's right. Our Sr. Staff member, 2nd most posted member, and as of
now RAF's biggest donor Russell has donated a THIRD time.

We thank him as usual for his contributions to RAF.

In addition, he will be given the now customary +50 karma; which will
also cement his position as the most Karma'd member.

Thanks to Kelly for her SECOND donation!

On behalf of everyone who uses RAF, I would like to thank veteran
member Kelly for her donation.

This is Kelly's 2nd donation.

The RAF Obsession

Over my year at RAF, I've seen many members join. Many will hang around for a month or so, then disappear without notice. Some, the select few, stick around. Staying online for hours at a time.

It's no secret that people become obsessed with RAF. Without the obsession, would RAF be alive today? Perhaps, but it wouldn't be nearly as cool as it is.

Signs of The RAF Obsession

1. You're going through your regular daily activities and you think, "I wonder what [RAFian] is doing right now."
   
2. You have RAF dreams.


3. You no longer picture Richard as a mighty deity, but as a cool guy that has a cool forum.


4. You know the secret of Pie.


5. You know Orsino so well, he could be your pet.
   
6. You have a RAF significant other


7. Whenever RAF is down you go through withdrawal

We all know there is the RAF obsession. What I want to know is why.

All members come to RAF for the same general reason. The Animorphs. Is that why everyone stays? For some, maybe. However for many more, I highly doubt that is the reason.

Why do I stay? The answer is simple. The people! Where else can you find such a diverse community who have the similar tastes? RAFians are awesome. They all have a great sense of humour, are good hearted and love The Animorphs.

So my question for the table is

Why do you stay?

Best (Statistical) Day in RAF History

Date: January 11, 2009
Place: RAF Forum & RAF eBooks

The January RAF Party is done; the place is a mess, hung-over members litter the grounds, and records lay tattered, smashed... destroyed.

What happened on January 11, 2009 is quite spectacular. First the forum experienced activity like never before.

8,156 new posts were created
77,318 hits were recorded

Both these statistics are new RAF Records!

Tallying the two days of the RAF Party, we see 13,424 new posts created (that is more than the individual months of August, September and October 2008). As for hits, the two days accumulated 112,349 hits on the forum alone.

The image below shows us the comparisons between RAF Parties... The last 3 spikes are the RAF Parties. The last spike is January's.

Now I'd like to turn your attention to the following graph You see that Burj Dubai like structure?:

Here is where RAF eBooks comes in (you know, the place which houses all the Animorphs eBooks, and now includes Remnants & Everworld?).

Yesterday, January 11, saw thousands of users from all over the world coming from StumbleUpon; a social bookmarking website. This accounted for the unprecedented (according to Google) 3,284 visitors, according to StatCounter 3,969 visitors which visited yesterday.
The RAF average prior to yesterday was 583.

TIP: Jump to New Post!

Click on the "NEW" icon and the Forum will jump to the newst post... one that hasn't been read.

Russell @ 10 000 Posts!

The RAF Party has alllowed many RAFians to achieve their post count goals. This includes Sr. Staff Russell, who got to ten thousand posts before the last night of the RAF Party ended.

Congrats to Russell, who according to our stats, made over 1,000 posts on Sunday, and 1,941 in two days!

Richard: Do we know ANYTHING about this guy?

Hello again, RAFians! For the second installment of my hopefully-weekly blog series, I'd like for all of us to take a moment to think about the guy that brought all of us together over our love of Animorphs. You know who I mean; that's right: Richard. The guy that made the forum, runs the forum, and so kindly allows me to write in his forum blog.

Okey, so we know exactly four things with certainty about our dear friend Richard.
1. He lives in Jamaica.
2. He likes Animorphs.
3. He listens to a tonne of music.
4. He has a very interesting accent, which can be heard on his YouTube video.

While it doesn't take more than this to instantly like and respect him, it rather makes you wonder...will we ever know ANYTHING about this guy?

Now, I'm not going to be a hypocrite here. I'm more tight-lipped about my Real Life than most currently-active RAFians, and I'm content to keep it that way. I'm not about to start nosing into Richard's personal life. However, I am still just as curious as the next RAFian.

Something tells me that I should follow the lesson taught by Orpheus and Pandora, and just leave well enough alone. Let the mystery live on.
Something Else tells me that I'm being totally ridiculous, and that mystery is for the uninquisitive and the lazy. The only way to know anything is to go out and find the answers!
I think that, for the mean time, I'll just continue to walk the fine balance between curiosity and mystery, and let Richard tell us what he wants, if and when he feels like it. He's been awfully good to the lot of us, keeping RAF active and functional for all our sakes.

Thanks, Richard, for everything.
Sincerely,
Estelore

P.S. - I fully expect to see you, Richard, and everyone else currently on RAF, at the projected RAFconvention in 2015!! Identifying you, however, will present an interesting challenge....

RAF Chat Upgraded

The RAF Chat (the chat-room) has been upgraded again.

If you have any problems accessing it, check this thread.

500 Members - Again

After moving from RAF Classic, we have yet again crossed the 500 members mark.

Thanks to Adam for his second donation!

Adam has donated a second time. He is now #1 on the donator leader-board. 

An Actual Scheduled Downtime

I was just contacted by HostGator; they're willing to look into my problem further.

The forum will be turned off anytime in the very near future, and I hope to have it back up soon. This will facilitate the move back to HostGator.

Update: move complete.

TIP: Change Time on RAF Forum

Is the forum time on RAF wrong?

Simple solution:

You can try clicking on Auto detect; if that doesn't work input the difference between what your time is now, and what the forum is saying. Say for example the time is 7pm where you are, and the forum is saying 6pm. In the box, type -1.

Richard Joins Twitter

That's right. This is for all those who use Twitter. Follow me here.
I will use twitter to update mostly on downtimes, and statuses.

Animorphs Audiobook Project - rising from the dead

I was just informed by mrguy36 that the Animorphs Audiobook Project is looking to get going again.

Have a look at their production plan, and if you want to join, or assist in any way, just see the board.

Top Donators of 2008

1. Esplin 9466 aka Russell (->)
2. Vivi9087 (->)
3. Kelly (->)
4. The Ellimist aka Adam (->)
5. Almighty Queen (->)

I would like to thank, again, the above top 5 donors; those who contributed most (monetary value) to Richard's Animorphs Forum.

RAFcouples: A Rising Trend

It all started with Esplin9466's "RAF Crush" thread, back in Classic RAF: RAFcouples. Members of RAF announced their jesting interest in other RAFians, and these tentative RAFpairings took on lives of their own. They grew slowly at first, with RAFdating and RAF-PDA during the chats, culminating with RAFengagements, when each member of a RAFcouple would place an announcement in their signature, for lack of an engagement ring. Sometimes RAFships end in RAFdivorce, and sometimes strange offspring like Pootang and Ender would result from these RAFunions, but as a whole, most early RAFbonds have remained solid. The ultimate sign that a RAFcouple had been accepted by the forum? A 'ship nickname, naturally!

First AnnaKen established itself as a notable RAFrelationship, receiving its "official name", and then Estyler, Chouquie, and the short-lived Clanker followed it in close succession.
Other names were not so easy to decide. Teach9466 is rather awkward-sounding, some seem to believe. How do you combine Yrkd88 with ANYTHING?
I'm not slamming anyone's username, of course, but it is worth consideration when you choose your RAFpartner.

After all, while Dunna sounds interesting, Esteloomin, Estanker, Jorsinuff, and Esplouquie don't really roll off the tongue so very well, do they?

It seems like there is a new RAFcouple rising into the spotlight every time I turn my head. The wikians at RAFipedia are in a hurry to keep up with the tempestuous waves of RAFlove and affection. Since AnnaKen's separation, the collective RAFian consciousness has been spinning. How can something as permanent and sacred as a RAFmarriage be so easily broken? What is wrong with the world? What will happen to the rest of us?
These are powerful questions for us to consider. In the mean time, I'm just going to cling tightly to my sanity, Tyler, while I try like Heck to keep up with it all. Now that January has arrived, my free time is waxing longer, and I shall have more energy and time to commit to RAF and its wonderful, unpredictable, lovable, crazy denizens.

Well, I hope all my RAFian darlings have a marvelous weekend. Good-night, all!

Yours Truly,
Estelore

RAF's Main Host Down... (updated)

RAF's main host has been down from 12pm today January 2, 2009. One hour later I decided to flip the switch so to speak on the host we recently acquired.

I am feverishly working to bring the website up-to-date.

Update 5pm: Updating complete. Attachments which were uploaded after the 27th of December will not work. In addition, attaching files, and uploading avatars have been disabled.

Update 8am January 3: XEHost is back up. I'm in the process of bringing back all the avatars and attachments that were uploaded after the 27th.

Update 840am: Old attachments are now back. Will be moving back to the old host; nothing will change, and no downtime will be experienced. Attachments and avatar uploading will be re-enabled.

Thanks to Desperado Newfie for his Donation!

That's right; Jeff, Desperado Newfie, or Slushie Man has been promoted to the Donator group. He becomes the first member to get the +50 karma points under the new system.

His donation comes at a time when we'll be needing to pay some bills, so if you have some extra cash lying around (figuratively of course), then please head on down to RAF Donate. Or click on the DONATE on the right of this page.

Donator Rewards Updated

In addition to their placement on the Donator Leader Board (which is shown across RAF), the gold username, the lack of advertisements on RAF Forum, the 10 stars, the unlimited PM space, the ability to move and lock their own posts, edit their custom title, and name; Donators now will get +50 karma. This is effective immediately (January 1 2009).

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009 to all; RAFians, and visitors. 

How did you ring in the new year? Discuss here!

2008 Winners Reveiled

The 2008 RAF Award winners have been reveiled. 

Remnants eBooks Complete

Thanks to members of RAF, all REMNANTS books written by K.A. Applegate are available in PDF and ZIP formats.

These books may have errors. If found, please visit this forum.

2 Million Hits on RAF Forum

Just 3 months after getting to 1 million hits, RAF Forum recorded its 2,000,000th hit today.

Duff Welcomes Himself to RAFblog

Wow. Thank you Richard; for allowing me to contribute to this blog, and for giving me such a cool entrance. “Popular, and active member, Duff” I swear, I did not tell him to say that. I’ve been itching to put out a little introduction to you guys, mainly thanking Richard for letting me do this, and tell you a little bit about what I planned to write about. To be honest, I really don’t have a plan, I have no idea what I’m going to write about, “I’m like a dog chasing after cars, I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it.” But when I saw the post looking for new bloggers I knew I had to jump at the opportunity, because as Richard said, I like to be very active around here. So that is what I will be talking about in my first blog post.

What draws us all into this community? For me, it was the Audiobook project, which is always looking for new contributors. (plug #1) I’ve always been interested in being a part of something, being active in a community. I think that is what really changed things for a lot of the members of THIS forum, THIS community. For some of us (myself included) this was your first ever forum, for others, it was your hundredth. What kept many of us here is a sense of belonging, of camaraderie. If you ask my fellow RAFcasters, the first episode of which can be listened to on our youtube site (plug #2), this was just another forum until we started working together, sharing our ideas and putting out something that we are really proud of. The members of our old roleplay, Operation MAAS (no plug, this has been dead for quite awhile), will agree that they were just a part of a faceless forum until we all became truly good friends through the experience.

What I’m trying to say is this; this forum, this community, can be so much more than an internet site if you get out there and be as active as possible. Still trying to find your place around here? Join a roleplay, the audiobooks, the video project, wikiraf, the ebooks, or start up a project of your own, but GET ACTIVE. You’ll meet some great friends that will stay with you for as long as you’re here at RAF, and you’ll have a great time.

TIP: Hide Signatures

If you're ever annoyed with the amount of images in member's signatures, don't sweat it; just disable them. Simply tick the "Don't show users' signatures".

Pages will now load much faster, so if you're on dial-up this is tip should be great for you.

Duff Joins the RAF Blog

Popular, and active member, Duff, has joined the authoring team here on the RAF Blog. Member of the RAFCast (the Animorphs Podcast) and the RAF Audiobook Project, he will hopefully have some nice blog posts for us in the near future.

The R is back in RAF

After a bit of deliberation, I've decided to put back the R in RAF. No matter how I try to escape people calling our Animorphs community Richard's Animorphs Forum, it keeps haunting me.

So I've come to the conclusion that RAF is inextricably linked with my name. So I have regressed on my October 2007 decision to rename us The Animorphs Forum.

It's Richard's Animorphs Forum... or RAF for short.

I honestly intended to purchase richardsanimorphs.com & richardsanimorphsforum.com on my birthday; January 1, but I already went ahead and did so, right in time for the name change. I don't want people to get confused, so I won't publicize the new domains; their only purpose is to secure the names.

All pages have been renamed Richard's Animorphs Forum.

introducing me

Hello everyone! My name's morfowt, as many of you might already know. I'm one of the youngest members of RAF, but I've spent more time on RAF than almost any other RAFian.

I'll mostly post stats and updates on the RAFparties (if you don't know what they are, you seriously need to attend one). If you have some of your own stats or things that, you believe, deserve to be noted, and that I've possibly missed, you can either PM them or email them to me at morfowt@gmail.com , and yes i'll most likely miss some because the second day of an RAFparty occurs when I'm at school (because I'm currently living in china).

Your New Blogger

Hello my fellow RAFians!

I hope your winter break is going well. As some of you already know, I'm Touquie. I've been an active member on RAF for just over a year now and I intend on staying for as long as possible.

I'll be bringing you some RAFlicious news now and then to keep you informed on what's happening. If you have any suggestions, or just want to contact me you can shoot me an e-mail at Touquie.RAF@gmail.com

Sakae/ morfowt / lezduet joins the RAF Blog

Another member has decided to join the authoring team here on the RAF Blog. None other than God lezduet. Keep an eye out for him in the coming weeks.

Doing a database host switch...

That's why the Forum is down. It should be back up in no time.

Move only took 10 minutes.

The connection problems should be reduced now.

Massive downtime caused by expired domains

CEO of XeSolutions Sean Frank indicated that the reason for RAF being down was nothing more than miscommunication. The name servers, or computers that point you to the respective host that RAF is on, apparently expired. The members of staff at the company were not informed, which led to the extended day downtime, which lasted from Thursday December 18 to Sunday December 21.

So in light of this situation I have vowed to prevent this type of downtime from occurring again; if downtime does occur (which is unavoidable), it happens smoothly. I don't want to bore you with server and domain talk, but let's just say that steps are being taken to prevent a complete loss of RAF for such a long period. Chief among the improvements is the acquiring of another host (bringing our total hosts to 3), this more expensive and expansive host will provide us with redundancy. If our main host (who admittedly was performed well prior to this month) XEhost dies on us again, there will be a full usable backup available for me to use, and point you guys to.

Talking about backups, prior to this event I only backed up the forum's database on my hard-drive; now I will begin backing up the entire website (over 4 gigabytes of data) on external devices each week. This copy of RAF will be uploaded to our newly acquired secondary host.

Let's just hope we don't run into more problems. But if we do, we should be better prepared this time around.

Details of RAF Downtime - will wait

I need to sleep or just back away from the computers. I'll give you all the details of what happened, and what will be done. But right now, I'm going to rest. As I type, the entire website is being backed up independently of our host.