Welcome to the Weekly* Monday** Discussion!
* Not actually weekly.
** Not actually on Monday.
Staff Changes
We have a few staff changes taking place.
I. Regarding my involvement going forward:
I’ve been considering this for a long time and I’ve decided to step down as Admin and Owner of Fortress of Lies. I’ve had a bad case of burnout since launching the new site, and, along with all my school responsibilities, I find it hard to manage the forum and also take care of myself. I’ll remain owner of the Breadbox Discord server, and I’ll still be a moderator on the site, but I won’t be around as much.
There are too many people who deserve thanks and recognition that I can’t name all of them, and it wouldn’t be fair to those I don’t mention; I love all of you, and thanks for making these past two years some of the best of my life.
II. Who will be taking my place?
In my stead, @orangeandblack5 will be taking over ownership and administration duties for Fortress of Lies, effective today. This has been in the works for over two months now, and we’re confident this transition will go smoothly. Orange has already been working on preparing things (several of which you’ll hear about below) and the moderation team has been working closely with him to prepare for this shift. He’ll be taking over the rest of this post, and I’m confident he’ll do a fantastic job leading you all going forward.
III. A note from orange:
Hi everybody! I just wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for putting up with our old site getting snapped and needing to pack up and move here. It’s been a lot of work to get to this point, but you all have made it so incredibly worth it. Much like the rest of you, I’ll really miss working hand-in-hand with Chloe going forward, but she’ll still be around to chat with, and will both retain a position as a moderator and remain in charge of the Breadbox Discord server. Please join me in thanking her for her service to this community - without her, we literally would not still exist today. With that said, I’ve been working on some exciting changes going forward, and I’m so happy that I can finally share them all with you today!
Site Name And Logo
I. What are the issues with the current site name?
The current site name, while it does keep the FoL acronym, is unfortunately really bad for search engine optimization (SEO), which has resulted in a much lower number of new people finding the site by means other than direct word-of-mouth. In order to help improve site visibility, and therefore increase its longevity, we’ve been planning to change the site name to Forum of Liars, which was originally suggested by @Marshal and, unlike Fortress of Lies, has zero exact title matches currently on the internet.
II. What about our logo?
Our current logo was always meant to be a placeholder anyways, and so with the name change we’re finally looking to replace it. However, we’re still debating the best way to go about this process, and would like your input on how we should decide on a new logo. We see a few main paths forward - either the mod team can, like the current logo, come up with something they feel fits, or we can hire somebody to make a few example logos and then pick one for them to refine, or we can host a community challenge to design a logo for us. Please let us know which of these methods you like!
This poll is not anonymous. Results are shown. You can select multiple answers.
- Mod team creates a new logo
- Hire a professional
- Community design challenge
0 voters
Themes and Interface
I. What is happening to the site themes?
With Chloe stepping down, the themes that she supports will be shuttered. As such, Dark and Vaporwave have been disabled, and Light will be the new site default. People looking for a dark theme are welcomed to use Legacy Dark and Grey Amber, both of which will not take more of my time to maintain, allowing me to focus on Light Theme.
II. What’s new in Light theme?
Over the past two months, I’ve been working on a lot of small updates to Light theme that add up to smooth out many of the rough edges that have been present on both the Light and Dark themes since the start of the year. You’ll note many visual bugs and glitches that were present have finally been addressed, and we now believe Light theme to be the definitive theme by which to experience Forum of Liars. Please, give us your feedback, and let me know if there are any spots I missed that need further tweaking.
Site Monetization
There will be a few changes to how Forum of Liars will be funded going forward.
I. How is the site doing financially?
As we had mentioned last Monday Discussion, our site finances are currently stable, but not for super long - at the current rate things are progressing, we expect the site will need to go offline before the end of the year. While we continue to expect our Patreon to be a solid source of support for the site, we can clearly see that there is need for additional revenue streams if Forum of Liars hopes to stay afloat in the long term.
II. What will be changing?
Over the past few months, I’ve been working closely with two people, one who co-founded a Discourse consulting firm and one who founded a self-financing Mafia community, and they have been able to provide some very valuable insights into the ways a Mafia-focused website can make enough money to stay afloat. With their help, I believe I’ve come up with a plan that should maximize the benefits of a monetization system to the site, without affecting game balance or becoming pay-to-win.
I’ve been running limited tests over the past month or so, offering game hosts small amounts of money to change trivial things about their games. This has served two purposes - one, to ensure that our regular members are okay with monetary transactions surrounding operating Mafia games, and two, to figure out what methods we’re going to use to manage our transactions. Although we had some rough going (I even needed to resort to Venmo on one occasion), we’ve finally worked out the kinks and are happy to announce our newest project: Forum of Liars Official Joycat NFTs!
We’ve worked with our own @Trochilidae to create a series of 50 NFTs that will be available for purchase on OpenSea starting later this month. We’re revealing the first six that will be available today, and the rest will be revealed over the coming weeks, along with our official whitepaper (which is undergoing final review).
Forum of Liars Joycats will start at 0.05 ETH, with higher prices for Joycats with more special designs, such as the original Pleading Joycat that serves as the crown jewel of the collection. Users who register their NFT ownership with the site will receive a hexagonal avatar. Ownership of a Forum of Liars Joycat NFT will be required in order to join or host any games on Forum of Liars effective June 1st, 2022.
III. What’s in it for me?
The main advantage we see in this method is that it doesn’t only provide for our site, but it also provides for our users. Because the value of each Joycat NFT will only go up with time, each Joycat is not a paywall to enter, but instead an investment in the site. If, at some point down the road, you have determined you need a break from Forum Mafia, you can sell off your Joycat to somebody else, netting yourself a profit for your time spent on the site. Furthermore, anybody who owns at least 5 Joycats will be given say in site moderation decisions, providing a new level of democratic input that no other FM site on the internet has attained. We’re incredibly excited to be the first Forum Mafia website embracing Web 3.0, and we look forward to a long and prosperous future alongside all of you.
Please keep replies constructive and on topic.
