At 84 members, Scootabelle Empire is the only established group for the ship (there are two others, one of which has a single story added to it, seven members, and THAT solitary admin has been offline for 21 weeks, and the other has one member and no stories—might as well make my own, which is what I'm attempting to avoid). The solitary admin, CluelessFilly, has been offline for 29 weeks, 3 days, and in digging through older threads, appears to have been unresponsive when contacted by other groups during that time. I sent a PM about maybe handing the group over, so it can get some sprucing up and other adminy goodness, but I'm not hopeful about a response.

Any steps I'm missing here, before I attempt to pester site folks about getting made an admin? Figure I'd give Clueless a courtesy week at least to respond before trying to make any noise.

1780914

Well, there's checking for other accounts: e-mail, steam, deviantart, so on, or people that might know them. I'm pretty sure it'll just be a courtesy check, though. You see, when I took over the Scootaloo group from an inactive admin, both me and CluelessFilly were given admin rights.

So between 20-26 weeks ago, I personally PM'ed CluelessFilly three times without a response. I'm still rather wondering what happened to her, really. I brought on more admins, and listed her as an inactive admin on that group at that point.

Wanderer D was the one that managed to get SweetAI Belle admin access on the Sweetie Belle group, and otherwise, pretty much knighty or Xaquseg would be the admins you'd want to get in touch with.

Given that knighty's following you, maybe you'll have better luck getting in touch with him then I generally do. I'm still futzing with admin rights on the Cutie Mark Crusaders group.

--arcum42

1782272

I noticed that that happened when digging through the forum threads (I also noticed the comment you left on Clueless' user page saying 'you've been gone for weeks' or somesuch), so that's the main reason I'm not optimistic.

I don't know that I have much of any pull with knighty—while he follows me, it was as a result of a story I'd written, not my charming personality, and I have exchanged maybe ten sentences back and forth with him at all: once over something really nice he did concerning one of my stories, and a second time when I was targeted witha phishing attempt, before the Report functionality was added back into the site.

I do, however, personally know a few of the proofreaders, so I'll probably start my quest with them after the courtesy week.

1782457

Worth a try. Wlah specifically told SweetAI Belle at one point that he had no control over groups and that the only ones who would be able to help were xaquseq or knighty, so that's why I mentioned them. Wanderer D did manage to get her admin access on the Sweetie Belle group somehow, though.

Hopefully the ones you know personally can at least talk to knighty on your behalf. And things could have changed. Xaquseq theoretically was talking with knighty about making a group admin policy about this type of situation, because it was happening a lot, but that was 18 weeks ago.

--arcum42

1782457

Poking through Ryanchopper12's blogs, I did find out that CluelessFilly was having computer problems two weeks before he disappeared. CluelessFilly was Ryanchopper12's editor.

You could always try contacting him, and see if he knows any other ways to get in touch with CluelessFilly...

--arcum42

1782572

Huh, good info, thank you.

1782573

np. He switched editors before CluelessFilly disappeared, so he might not know anything, but it's worth a try. The way I ended up getting ahold of MysticalBrownie for the Scootaloo group was a combination of PM'ing him, and having someone that knew him in real life turning up and bugging him to answer his PM...

--arcum42

1782578

So I got ahold of Ryanchopper12, and he told me that CluelessFilly has been without a computer due to breakage and seriously doubts that Clueless will ever return. I have my doubts, too, because even if you're computerless, it's not like checking into the site is impossible inside of thirty weeks. Even if it's just to say 'my comp's broke!' Probably moved on, rather than got locked out of a previous account.

1788252

Yeah, I'd think CluelessFilly'd be able to stop in a public library and drop on the internet, at least.

Posting a thread on the group itself might be a good idea. It's possible someone might know CluelessFilly IRL, and be able to get them to log in one more time and assign admin rights.

It also shows that you've made the attempt, and usually gives you an idea what other members are willing to help you run the place once you have admin rights. You'll want to assign at least one other admin, after all.

Doing things like having a banner and icon ready for taking over a group also shows you are ready to run it, though I don't really know how much they take these things into account.

--arcum42

1788252

Just at a mention, rebuilding is possible. The founder of the Twist group dropped offline, and after a few weeks of us trying to get ahold of her, last weekend, Elric recreated the group himself as the Twist! group with my help, advertised it all over the place, and it now has 57 members and is trending, where the original group only has 50. Not the easiest of paths, but it is feasible, if you don't get anywhere talking to admins...

--arcum42

1972000

Yeah...probably gonna end up going in that direction pretty soon.

1972003

If you go that route, the main thing really is planning ahead of time. Have a banner and icon ready, know the folder structure you want, which stories you are going to bring over, and preferably what your policies on clop and such are.

Also, start looking at what groups to advertise it in. The Shameless Self Promotion group, Cuteness Overload, the House of D'Awww, the Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle groups, etc. Lining up people who are willing to be admins ahead of time isn't a bad idea, blog about it when you have it ready, and get others to blog about it.

Look at the number of members on the site when you create it, and try to get it to trend. And, of course, post here about it, and I think I can guarantee at least me and SweetAI Belle joining...

--arcum42

1972017

You got it. I've already got a lot of that stuff planned, so it's just a matter of crossing ts and dotting is.

1972017

So I built the new group:

ScootaBelle.

Advertising now, and I've also lined up a writing contest that I'll send to Wanderer D to advertise at the start of the month to try and draw in more interest.

I very much appreciate the advice you gave over the weeks leading up to this ().

Also, I'd like to make you a back-up, in-case-either-me-or-my-co-admin-disappear-off-the-face-of-the-earth admin, if you're willing.

2010359

No problem. I've joined, and I'm willing to act as a backup admin. I'm backup admin on a few groups anyways.

Also, given that Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle are cute fillies, you could probably advertise in Cuteness Overload and the House of D'Aww as well...

--arcum42

2010837

Alright, done and done.

2010924

Alright, cool. And they're good groups to be in if you like pictures of cute fillies, anyways. Just "Cuteness Overload" is only for cute fillies, and "House of D'Aww" was created because people also wanted to post cute colts, cute pets from mlp, cute mares, etc, and couldn't there.

Cuteness Overload has cute storywriting contests, anyways...

-arcum42