Happy 3rd Birthday ToonForum!

[Cal]

Happy Birthday

6 Months Thread - http://www.toonforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2898" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
1st Birthday Thread - http://www.toonforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4124" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
2nd Birthday Thread - http://www.toonforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6030" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

On Sunday ToonForum turned three, unfortunately I was neglectful and forgot about it (although I've not seen any of you lot bring it up ).

ToonForum's third year wasn't as eventful as the first two, the only major changes being an overhaul of the site's theme, including slightly better support for mobile devices, and the spinning off of the blog to its own domain and name, ToonBlog, rather than the cumbersome ToonForumBlog. I suppose another fairly big change is in our anti-spam policy, rather than manually vetting/activating new members, we implemented a bunch of automatic anti-spam measures, including restricting what new members can do for a while, and opened up registrations to all again, as well as enabling guest posting. Otherwise the main developments of the site have been continued minor improvements to existing features.

This coming summer I'm thinking of porting the forum to the newly released phpBB 3.1, unfortunately this will mean dedicating a good chunk of time to rebuilding our modifications, so I can't make any promises there.

With the end of the 13/14 season came the conclusion of the first season of the relaunched and active blog, which has since seen over 200 new articles published on it. A big thank you to all who have wrote for it. That first season was very much a learning experience, but we quickly found our feet and established a few regular articles to consistently put out; the match preview, Yacob's opposition interviews, and the TFI reports. For this season I wanted to try to establish a team of writers and to give them better credit than we had previously, so I asked those who had been the most active for the blog in 13/14 if they'd like something like that. A big thank you in particular to Yacob, TJR and COT for their extensive help on the blog this season. If anyone else wants to be involved, let me know.

The 13/14 season also saw the conclusion of the first season of the fully fledged ToonForumIndex, thanks to Beatski for his work on it, I think it went well and really came together as the resource I'd like it to be for the season review series of articles. Unfortunately I couldn't get a more advanced version (which would save a lot of time on our end) set-up for this season and we've fell behind, but when time allows I'll try to catch-up, and thanks to COT for getting the ball rolling again in recent weeks.

Probably not the most exciting of news to our users, but this past year was the first whole year that I've had in charge of keeping the site alive and self-sufficient, which I can now confirm that it is, even with the server upgrade (October 2013) that doubled the cost of hosting. Also, the week of Pardew's departure set a new activity record as we had 7.8k visitors / 16k sessions for 28/12/14 to 03/01/15, compared to our previous best in the week we saved ourselves from relegation with a win over QPR, in which we had 6.6k visitors / 14k sessions, although it did have a slightly higher single day record. The January 2014 transfer debacle and decline in form had several weeks come close to this record without quite surpassing it, while the January 2013 spending spree holds the month records.

I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone, and another thank you to Skalps for getting this place started.

PS: I bought TF a present, 2n4.im, IDK why.

Then & Now

Three Years Ago

SpoilerShow

Two Years Ago

SpoilerShow

Skalps' Homepage Concept



Blog - http://web.archive.org/web/201302100532 ... o.uk/blog/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

One Year Ago

SpoilerShow

Today

Stats & Stuff

These are from the start of the site.

Top Posters (most prolific, non moderator)

1. The Rock Lobster (retains title)
2. Jaiston (retains second)
3. Yacob (retains third)
4. ALF (retains fourth)
5. Duke (overtakes CryMeARiviere/Lidl)

Top Sections

1. Football Discussion - 2.6m Views
2. General Discussion - 800k Views
3. Gaming - 150k Views

Top Way of Seeing New Posts

1. Forum Home - 2.5m Views (retains title)
2. New Posts - 400k Views (retains second)
3. Ego Search - 250k Views (up from fifth)
4. Unread Posts - 225k Views (down from third)
5. Active Topics - 220k Views (down from fourth)

Top Cities

1. London - 16.10% (up from second)
2. Newcastle-Gateshead - 15.59% (down from first)
(Not Set - 3.56%)
3. Manchester - 1.83% (up from fifth)
4. Leeds - 1.44% (down from third)
5. Birmingham - 1.35% (down from fourth)

Top Countries

1. United Kingdom - 81.39% (retains title)
2. United States - 4.33% (retains second)
(Not Set - 1.26%)
3. Australia - 1.12% (up from fourth)
4. Ireland - 1.06% (down from third)
5. France - 0.96% (overtakes Czech Rep)

Top Browsers

1. Chrome - 41.73%
2. Safari - 21.70%
3. Firefox - 14.98%
4. Internet Explorer - 11.59%
5. Android Browser - 5.98%

Top Mobile Devices

1. iPhone - 32.28% (retains title)
2. iPad - 19.08% (retains second)
(Not Set - 11.65%)
3. Nexus 7 - 2.41% (retains third)
4. Galaxy S III - 2.28% (up from fifth)
5. Galaxy S IV - 2.09% (overtakes Nexus 4)

Top Search Terms

(Not Provided - 57.74%)
1. ToonForum / Toon Forum / toonforum.co.uk (retains title)
2. Newcastle United Forum / Newcastle Forum (retains second)
3. Lovenkrands big penis - (retains third)
4. Toon Forum Perch -(overtakes BGD is a pig f***er)
5. DavideDuck - (down from fourth)
Honourable mentions to "toonforum.co.uk abortion ebar", "alan pardew shagging", "skalpel is a necrophiliac", "acid hippo fists tash toonforum"

Top Referral Sites

1. Google
2. Twitter
3. Facebook
4. Bing
5. Reddit

My memory's a bit s***, so if there's anything that I've missed, let me know. Also the goldmine has been neglected over the last couple of years, what have been your favourite TF moments in the last 12 months, and what deserves to be archived in the goldmine that hasn't? Also are there any changes you'd like to see this year?

[jpg]

Happy Birthday TF

[skalpel]

Great OP . Happy Birthday

And I'll suggest, as my nomination for the goldmine:

Duke: What would win a fight between a gorilla and a grizzly bear?

[Cal]

Gorilla vs Grizzly has been inducted.

Does this deserve to go in? http://toonforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6105" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Jaiston]

TRL still a sad bastard

Happy birthday TF

[Speedo]

Happy birthday TF! Congrats to all the mods for keeping it going. It has wasted many hours of my life.

I wonder if it might be worth doing post-match reports for the blog? I always think it looks a strange when you go on the homepage on a Friday and the last blog post is the preview of the previous match. I don't know if we have any wannabe sports journalists on here, but it'd be a great way for them to get some practice/actually have something to put on their CV.

Gorilla vs Grizzly has been inducted.

Does this deserve to go in? http://toonforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6105" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That thread made me so much

[DDuc]

In the search terms again.

I only ever ego search when I want to find old posts or mentions or something, it's hardly a regular occurrence.

Edit: also, happy birthday

[Colback's Orange Tufts]

The earth discussion should go in, twas hilarious. I still can't work out if it was a long form troll or not.

[overseasTOON]

The earth discussion should go in, twas hilarious. I still can't work out if it was a long form troll or not.

I didn't sleep well for a few nights knowing that there was an utter freak out there who thought such **** was true.

[TJR]

Happy Birthday TF

[ALF]

Happy Birthday 3 years has flown by.

[cbrad NUFC]

Bloody hell, never realised how much this place has changed. Well done to Cal, Skalpel and others for making this place a success and making relevant changes when required.

[Micky Quim]

I come on here everyday. Its sad but true

Happy B-day! Well done to all involved in the creation and running of this fantastic forum!

[Micky Quim]

Btw, Ive only just noticed the "View New Posts" button!

I always thought it strange that their wasn't one on this site. Perhaps it could be made bigger? Or put near the "View Your Posts" button?

Just a suggestion

[bodacious benny]

Here's a suggestion, give me a custom rank

[Micky Quim]

Here's a suggestion, give me a custom rank

Its easier to get a custom w***

[Speedo]

Here's a suggestion, give me a custom rank

Its easier to get a custom w***

Stealing my signature (which was so rudely edited by a mod in the early days )

On another note: it has always struck me how few WUMs, trolls etc we've had on here. Are there ban statistics available to his Calness? Preferably excluding spammers.

[skalpel]

There are 63 usernames still currently banned, there are 84 email addresses banned and several hundred IPs banned. There have been 517 individual acts of banning since the site began (though a few of these are duplicate, due to the odd person being banned two or three ways: username, email, IP). The most recent ban was of a user who signed up to promote their football kit website on the 12th of January, and the most recent ban of a non spammer was on the 31st of August last year. It was short term as far as I can see, because that user is no longer banned. Cal's anti spam techniques rapidly decreased the number of spammers getting through and as far as I know now they're usually the sort who post a couple of times to try and infiltrate and then go for the kill with a blatant ad.

Most banned users are spam bots, but it would take cycling through each individual case for me to tell you exactly how many and I can't be arsed to do that.

[ALF]

There are 63 usernames still currently banned, there are 84 email addresses banned and several hundred IPs banned. There have been 517 individual acts of banning since the site began (though a few of these are duplicate, due to the odd person being banned two or three ways: username, email, IP). The most recent ban was of a user who signed up to promote their football kit website on the 12th of January, and the most recent ban of a non spammer was on the 31st of August last year. It was short term as far as I can see, because that user is no longer banned. Cal's anti spam techniques rapidly decreased the number of spammers getting through and as far as I know now they're usually the sort who post a couple of times to try and infiltrate and then go for the kill with a blatant ad.

Most banned users are spam bots, but it would take cycling through each individual case for me to tell you exactly how many and I can't be arsed to do that.

Name and shame the banned actual users

[skalpel]

Like a sort of TF sex offenders register. Tempting to publish .