Hi, I'm new here, but seeing as this forum doesn't seem to be used much, it hardly matters.

I'd like to get a discussion going on how we can make this group more of a community. At the moment this amounts to a general call for information, if anyone has a direct line to the vanished founding member, please use it to tell them to come back. In order to make this page a bit more pallatable, we need someone with administrative privelages and right now, all the privleages are with the founder and they haven't ( according to the site) logged in for almost 20 weeks.

Again if anyone has some way of getting in touch with him/her, it would be much appreciated if they would do so. We have an opportunity to come together and create a group environment here, I'd just like to see it used.

Thoughts? Suggestions? I don't know, maybe it's not possible. What I do know is that I won't be satisfied until I can say that I tried to get something going here.

I sent him a PM a few days ago, there was no reply.
So I guess that's not a way to reach him.

Unless anyone has a real-life connection, there is no way I can think of to reach him. I do like the idea of the group becoming more of a community, although there is not much we can do without the founding member...

543643

Aside from contacting knighty to see if there's any other way to reach site users, or starting a more active spinoff group. The latter is most certainly an option.

I was hoping he had set (or not disabled, as it is the default) an e-mail alert on receiving PMs.
Contacting knighty might be a good idea although he will not simply give away further contact-data he might relay a message via mail or promote someone else to founder status.

Edit: I just sent knighty a message, describing our situation.

544228 Awesome. It would be great to see this group become more than just a dumping ground of all Flutterdash fics.

I'm glad to have a few more concerned citizens to work with. I'm sorry I haven't ben back sooner, I only just found out that I don't get notified when someone posts within a topic, only when a topic is created. Right now that's all we have to work with.

544228
Good thinking. If Knighty can promote someone else to admin, that would nicely solve most of the issues we have and the work can begin in earnest.

Here's hoping we can become something more.

543688

I considered a new group as an option before posting, but I quickly realised trying to get some control over this one is a better option. The existing membership and archive are going to be a vital asset if we want to get a thriving community going.

Knighty is now a member of our group. However I didn't get any reply yet.
Still I'd say that there is hope.

565524
I would too, thanks for writing to him. With a bit of luck something will hopefully get done shortly.

It has been almost one month now since I wrote Knighty about our missing founder.
There hasn´t been a reaction of any form yet (none that I´m aware of).
Because I can´t tell the reasons for this (no time, forgotten, ignored...) I find it difficult to decide on the further course of action. (Write another mod or co-Admin (no time, ignored?), write again (forgotten), give up / try to start new group (ignored)).
What are your opinions on this?

here the wording of my PM to knighty

Hello knighty,

I'm writing on behalf of the Flutterdash-Group.

Since the recent update to the site there are some new possibilities for customizing and managing groups.

Our problem is, that these features are only accessible to the founder of the group (or members with raised permissions).

Within the Flutterdash-Group however, there is only one member with such permissions: the founder Twinkiey. He hasn't been logged in for over 19 weeks now, and there seems to be no way for us to contact this user.

I've tried sending a PM hoping for him to be notified by email, but a week has passed without any reaction.

With 211 members and counting, moving to a newly founded group is almost impossible, and letting it vegetate without anyone having the capabilities to manage it would be a shame. Although there is another group for the same purpose, with 43 members and no visible management that isn't a real alternative, either.

I know this might be a difficult situation, but that is why I am writing to you directly.

Would it be possible for you to send or relay a message to Twinkiey, or if that fails, raise the status of someone else high enough to manage the group?

Possibly you have a better idea.

Hoping for your help,

Sincerely, Utruiwe

So much for shortly, heh.

Alright. My personal feeling is that I'm going to give it another shot and see if I can get a response. That said, given the time we've already spent waiting, we could try something a little more active. We've gone through the preliminary work which means we've got a little more freedom to get more active in our pursuit of actual moderation.

As I'd rather that we didn't have to risk the current user base or name-space in a transition, the first option is a more wide-spectrum appeal to the powers that be. If we write to enough of the mods one of them is bound to take notice or at least give us some indication of what they can or can't do for us. I'd rather pursue that then try to get another group going at this stage.

So I'm going to write to Knighty. After that I'm going to give it a week. If nothing's happened by next Sunday, I'm going to start writing to every mod I can lay my purely metaphorical, digital hands on. If we make enough noise someone's bound to hear it. If you or anyone else wants to helo they can do exactly the same.

Another option to pursue could be trying to get someone's attention in the IRC channel, though that could be difficult so I'm not going to try it just yet.

I don't think you were actively ignored, I think it's more likely that something went wrong in the proccess of communication either on the way there or on the way back. The details should come out if we pursue this furthe. If it turns out there's nothing they can do for us, then we'll look into a new group.

I absolutely agree we should try all to save this existing group first (thats why I paired the 'start new group' option with 'give up').
I think it´s great that you wrote to Knighty, that (aside to letting the rest of you know what is or isn´t going on) was the main purose of my post. It shouldn´t look like there is only one person behind it, and I didn´t want to come across as nagging. So even If it has been 3 weeks and 5 days it´s better if someone else repeats our plea.
So thank you.

And another week has passed... I assume no replys from anywhere?
617524 (inluded so you get a notation)

640193

Yep, no reply. Time to move to phase two. Write to everyone i can get my hands on that might be able to help.

640397
To whom exactly have you written? I´m asking, so that I maybe can fill in the blanks
(We should try everything we can now, because if this endeavor is doomed, we should try to not let it drag on for months but realize it quickly and search for alternatives. (Lest´s hope it won´t come to this...) )

642484

Alright, truth be told I haven't actually made a move yet, but the next step of my plan was to hit the moderation team and see if I can get anything from them. The mod team consists of Wanderer D, Poultron, Wlah and NTSTS. So if I write to two of them and you write to the other two, we should be able to be get some kind of response, Hopefully.

In the interest of brevity, if I write to Wlah and NTSTS, and you write to Wanderer D and Poultron we should be able to at least get some kind of idea as to what they can and can't do for us pretty quickly.

Okay?

642537
Yes I´ll do that.
What about Xaquseg, the 2nd Admin?
edit: I wrote him,too.

642554

From what I understand he mainly handles the server, though I could be completely wrong. He could be worth a shot as well. I'll leave it up to you.