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August 31st, 2009
invidereliana
| 07:15 pm - TBC Referral Challenge
As most of you will have already seen from the mass-mail that went out to all members
in the last couple of days, we're opening a new membership referral program for
the month of September, as a celebration of our recent move to a multi-fandom community.
We've been in a state of transition over the past few weeks, with a lot of changes
made to both the forums and the main website since the announcement was first made,
and while we're not quite finished upgrading and polishing the new incarnation of
the site, we now feel like we're now close enough to throw the doors open wide to
members from across the multi-fandom spectrum, from both our 'featured' fandoms
and any other realms of fiction that they may be a fan of. We'll also be launching
our first multi-fandom contest in the coming weeks, which will also see new series
begin for two of our new fandoms, Heroes and Supernatural.
In addition to exploring the usual ways of getting the site's name out there
to a wider audience, we've decided to open this reward-driven referral program as
a way to get you, our members, involved as well. The reasons we're hoping you'll
help us with this are simple; we feel like we have a great (if small) community
here already, and that our members are a huge part of that - as such, we can't think
of anyone better to help us to recruit new members who will both enjoy the atmosphere
of the Cafe and enhance it further. At the same time, we're sure you've sometimes
held back from introducing non-HP-reading friends to the Cafe, so hopefully this
will help to make that a thing of the past.
There are, of course, rewards available for those who help us to get the word
out too, and this time around the prizes are provided by our
Paid Account
service, which we launched earlier this year. The member who brings in the most
referrals over the course of the month will receive three months of free paid account
time for our 'Platinum Basilisk' tier account, while two runners-up will receive
free Silver and Bronze account time for the same period. (All prize accounts will
be opened on the 1st of October, and the paid time will expire on the 31st of December.)
In the event of a tie, the total number of posts for each member's referrals will
be used as a tiebreaker - so, if two members each have 10 referrals, the member
whose 10 referrals have been most active will be placed first.
Referring a member to the Cafe couldn't be easier - simply get them to sign up
for an account at either the forums or the fanwork archive, and make sure they put
your member name in the 'Referrer' field when they complete their profile. And...
that's it. The detailed rules are simple, and are posted below - if you have any
questions, feel free to ask us by PM or just as a reply to this post.
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CONTEST RULES
- Referrals must include your TBC username (either from the message board
or the fanworks archive) upon registration. If they forget, the referral does
not count.
- Referrals must make 10 "real" posts. (Corinthian Casino posts do not count.)
- The closing date for the contest is Wednesday 30th September, 2009. Registrations
and posts must be complete before midnight on that day. (Board Time/Central
US)
- Entry is open to anyone who is a registered member of the TBC message
board or fanworks archive before August 28th, 2009.
- Winners will be announced on October 1st, 2009.
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~ The TBC Crew ~
(Posted by Sapphire)
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July 24th, 2009
invidereliana
| 11:41 am - TBC's Seventh, and Biggest, Anniversary!
Today, The Basilisk Cafe celebrates the seventh anniversary of it's founding, which - as a few of us will remember - began as a small, dedicated gathering of Tom Riddle fans at the erstwhile Gryffindor Tower's forums, back in the summer of 2002. Since then, we've grown from a single thread to an LJ Community, to our own forums and eventually to our own domain, and watched as the series that brought us all together has come to an end. An end that's now two years in the past, and ever since then the activity levels in the HP fandom have slowed to a trickle. So, in a fitting parallel with our favourite school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it seems that after seven years, now would be a good time to bring this phase of our lives to an end, and to look to a new beginning.
After long discussions between the members of the TBC Crew, we've decided that over the course of the coming weeks, The Basilisk Cafe will cease operating as a dedicated Harry Potter fansite - and for anyone having flashbacks to our 2008 April Fools' joke, we are serious this time. Our plan is to become a more wide-reaching, multi-fandom site, while still focussing on those dark and brooding characters on the fringes of the fandom. In many ways, this seems to be a natural evolution of the site's original goals, as we will remain a place for fans with a taste for characters with a darker side to them - we'll just be adding characters like Heroes' Sylar or Star Wars' Anakin Skywalker, alongside the Slytherin ranks we've represented for so long.
As the first part of this new expansion, we've expanded the ranks of the TBC Crew with two new Moderators, so please give your congratulations to long-time members blackfaerie11 and Scheherazade - we may look to enlarge the Crew further as the process goes on. We've also upgraded our forum software, as the old forums were starting to creak slightly with age, and started the process of updating our site's content to reflect our new multi-fandom status, and will be rolling out modified versions of many site areas over the coming weeks while the forums and fanwork archives are reorganised. As you'd expect, we'll also be having one of our contests shortly after the transition to our new multi-fandom incarnation is complete, to celebrate our re-opening.
Now, for the part where we'd like your input - while we'll be opening our doors to all fandoms great and small, we're planning to select a few fandoms to examine in detail, rather than just throwing everything into a melting pot together. Obviously, Harry Potter will remain a focus for us, and we've already re-opened the 'Bookshelves & Broomsticks' forum as first of these 'featured fandoms' - you'll notice that all book and movie discussions are now held in the one forum, with a separate subforum, 'The House of Gaunt', for discussions of Tom Riddle and his Slytherin allies. We'll also be looking to have a similar setup for 3-4 other key fandoms when the relaunch is complete, each of which will have a dedicated forum and fanwork category of their own. There's also a general fandom category already in place, 'The Melting Pot', where discussions for any other fandoms will be kept.
You've probably already guessed what's coming next - we'd like to get the input of our members before we make a decision on which fandoms to select as our initial offering. Please make any suggestions - anything at all, no matter how out-of-the-box - either at the LJ Community, on this post's twin over on the forums, or even by dropping the Crew an email. We'll be looking at everyone's suggestions, and selecting a few of the most popular to be our first main fandoms. If your favourite isn't selected as one of the initial few, don't be disheartened, as these 'featured' fandoms are not, and will never be, fixed - we'll add additional forums as time goes on for fandoms who generate enough discussion to warrant one of their own, so there's always a chance for new fandoms to come to prominence.
Any thoughts, reactions, or (hopefully) excited squealing regarding today's announcement can also be sent in the same way, and we'd love to hear what you think about the change in general, as well as your opinions on the fandoms you'd like to see selected. So, GTDEs one and all, it's over to you...
~ The TBC Crew ~
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August 18th, 2007
invidereliana
| 05:01 pm - Update-o-rama...
So, the dust from Deathly Hallows' release is finally beginning to settle, and so we're getting back to normal around the Cafe - well, as close as we ever get to that particular state, anyway. That being the case, we're back in the natural rhythm of updates. (ie. We're running late again.)
> First off the bat, we've got a new poll up on the homepage, and for the first time, it's one that requires a mild spoiler warning. (It's asking for your favourite character from the DH epilogue, so obviously it lists said characters.)
> We have, as a result, updated the Previous Polls page accordingly, and the Wizard of the Month page has been similarly tinkered with.
> The Dark Lord's Downfall is our current Featured Discussion, as you'd expect given our pro-Tom leanings... ;)
> We currently have two members signed up for the latest round of TBC Clue, but we obviously need more to get a good game going, so anyone who's interested should go check out the sign-up thread post haste!
> Finally, a reminder that voting closes this Sunday for the Golden Basilisk Awards, so this is your last chance to get your vote sent in! Voting has been tight all the way, and we're sure a couple of the results-so-far would cause a bit of a surprise, so keep your eyes peeled for the results late next week!
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