RAF Blog

Your backstage pass into Richard's Animorphs Forum.

Monday, February 8, 2010

2 New SMF Mods

First off, the staff has implemented a group PM feature on RAF. This mod will allow a user to send mass pms to a specific group.
You need to pm the moderators? Easy as a click.

If you would like a membergroup added to the options (within reason, of course) feel free to pm me and I will consider adding it to the list.

The second modification is subtle, yet a great time-saver. Users can now expand the page choices by clicking on the ellipses (...) next to the page numbers.
So, for example, with 6 being the page number you are on:
Pages: 1 ... 4 5 [6] 7 8 ... 15
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 [6] 7 8 ... 15
Lastly, as some of you have noticed, I've been promoted to Administrator.
I'm honored to be a part of this community, and i'll do everything that I can to better it.
Thanks to you all.

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Friday, February 5, 2010

NEW RECORDS - February 4 2010


Yesterday, February 4 2010 two RAF Records were broken:

Most users online - First, the RAFmultitude came out on the forum. This resulted in 168 members logging in. See image / screen shot below:



Most new members in a single day - A day or so after the Animorphs Author(s) (K.A. Applegeate / Michael Grant) started answering Animorphs fan's questions, RAF saw the most new members in a single day. This record was previously held by June 5 2008, when Richard's Animorphs Forum completely moved from Conforums to SMF and 23 persons registered on the present-day RAF.
Fast-forward to February 4, I tweeted that RAF was 7 members away from breaking that very old record. I felt that because of the influx of members to ask questions to Applegate / Grant and read their replies, this record could come down that day.

I was right. 27 persons registered on RAF within 24 hours on February 4. Beating the old record by 4 members.

To all those 27 members who registered yesterday - welcome to RAF - The Ultimate Animorphs Forum, and congratulations for being a part of the record breaking batch. Even though you had no idea that records were falling.

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Thursday, February 4, 2010

1900 Members

A first for RAF in our almost 7 years - we have crossed the 1900 members mark. Our 1900th member is Iapetus, so welcome to Richard's Animorphs Forum, and congratulations to her for being our 1900th member.

It took 24 days for our member count to jump from 1800 to 1900.

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Monday, September 28, 2009

New SMF Mod - notify mod

Here are a few of the perks this new notification mod that we added will provide for the forum:

Users may now effectively 'bump' old topics simply by editing their last post. Double posting is no longer required to revive it.

Users will also receive their usual email for subscribed threads in such an instance.

Enjoy!

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RAF Store

That's right, RAFians, the RAF store is now up and running. If you look at the store (http://www.cafepress.com/rafians), there are a few different designs, and there are still more to come. They all feature a unique RAF Logo design, consisting of all the member's names, along with the forum's URL underneath.

Now, if you wish to have a different design, let me know, and I can try and make it so, so you can buy just the exact one you want (or the closest you can get). PM me, or post a suggestion here.

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

New Member Position.

Goom has come up with an awesome solution to the "God Rank Problem." Any member who has or obtains the position of "God," and does not like that position (for whatever reason), now has an option to have it changed! An alternate rank, "Elite," has been created for this situation.

If you wish to change your rank to "Elite" once you have reached 5000 posts, please contact any one of our staff members via PM (such as Richard).

Member Ranks:

  • Lurker | 0-9 Posts
1 Star - Can't applaud or smite. Allowed 10 personal messages.

  • Newbie | 1-9 Posts
1 Star - Can't applaud or smite. Allowed 10 personal messages.

  • Jr. Member | 10-49 Posts
2 Stars - Can applaud or smite. Allowed 50 personal messages & Can attach files.

  • Full Member | 50-249 Posts

3 Stars - Same as Jr. Member. + Allowed 100 personal messages.

  • Sr. Member | 250-499 Posts
4 Stars - Same as Full Member + Can edit display name.

  • Hero Member | 500-999 Posts
5 Stars - Same as Sr. Member

  • Jr. Xtreme Member | 1000-1999 Posts
6 Stars - Same as Sr. Member

  • Xtreme Member | 2000-4999 Posts
7 Stars - Same as Sr. Member + Can modify custom title

  • God | 5000+ Posts (black color)

8 Stars - Same as Xtreme Member + 500 personal messages + Can move & lock own posts.

  • Elite | 5000+ Posts (black color) -Alternate to God-

8 Stars - Same as God Member

9 Stars - Same as Gods + 1000 personal messages + 10 Karma Points + access to D-Lounge

  • Gold Member ($50+ in donations - gold color - lasts forever)

10 Stars - Same as Donators + unlimited personal messages + 50 Karma Points


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Saturday, July 25, 2009

Know the Secret - Animorphs Game - Full Download




I just realized that the Animorphs Game - Know the Secret that is on RAF Downloads, never got the full direct download treatment in all its 500mb glory.


Here it is - Download Here.

Feel free to visit Hirac Delest.

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Saturday, July 18, 2009

Twitter in your Profile

That's right folks, the option to put a Twitter username in your profile has been added. Click here and then click on "Forum Profile Information" on the left hand side of the screen. Go halfway down the page and there the box will be.

Remember, you can also put in information for others such as:
  • ICQ
  • AIM
  • MSN
  • YIM
  • Twitter
  • Skype
I look forward to seeing people's tweets! For a list of Twitter usernames, or to post yours, there is this thread.

If you are new to Twitter, here are a few usernames you can follow to get you started.

richardonraf - Richard obviously. He usually uses his tweets to tell us about the forum (problems, etc.)
xeroxedfool - Russell AKA Esplin 9466.
cprailfreak - This is me!

Remember, getting started on Twitter is very easy. But if you have any problems, that thread mentioned above would be the place to ask your questions! So lets get your tweets a-tweetn'!!

-Adam

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Saturday, July 11, 2009

Donators & Gold Members

In an overdue move, those who donate have been split into two groups: Donators & Gold Members.

Essentially those who donate:
-less than $50 will fall into the "Donators" category. This position will last for a year.
-more than $49 will fall into the "Gold Member" category. This position lasts forever.

Both groups will also have access to a special board on RAF.

9 Stars - Same as Gods + 1000 personal messages + 10 Karma Points + access to D-Lounge

  • Gold Member ($50+ in donations - gold color - lasts forever)

10 Stars - Same as Donators + unlimited personal messages + 50 Karma Points


-Member groups / Member positions in detail

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Saturday, July 4, 2009

View all your topics - new feature!


SMF doesn't have this option by default, but thanks to Goom, we now have that option. If you want to find all the topics a member created, just visit their profile and click on "Show Topics".

To see yours, click here.

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Saturday, June 20, 2009

Happy Birthday Goom

It is our friendly staff memeber's birthday today: goom. Not only would I like to wish him a happy birthday, I would like to congratulate him on his promotion to the Sr. Staff.

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

1 000 Members... all over again.


RAF has yet again reached the 1000 member mark.

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

200000 Posts

Friday, May 8, 2009

RAF Social - Make your thread you.

In case you didn't get that memo, RAF created boards to accommodate what we term RAF Social.

What is RAF Social you ask? Well it's not only the coolest place to catch up on your RAF Crush, or your favourite RAFian, but it's that place you can share your own life's journeys.

Think of it as your personal RAF Blog, or RAF Twitter, or RAF Facebook.

Each member has the ability to create a personal thread in the Member Profiles board, and chat to others about whatever they like. So if you're having a bad day, just post in your thread how crappy it was, and no doubt other RAFians will offer their shoulder. Or did you just go to Disney Land? Post pictures and share the moments.

Just get to know each other & Make your thread you.

http://animorphsforum.com/social

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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Recent Email Sent + Rank Changes

As I said on Twitter, I sent out an email to every member who has no posts: just to remind them that we exist. Below is the screen-shot of that image for all you guys who are not newbies:


Oh and to facilitate this new email reminders I have changed the member groups/ member ranks a bit. "Newbie" are now members who have only 0 posts. The new group "Non-N00b" are for those who have 1-9 post.
See here for more information.

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Monday, March 9, 2009

RAF Chat Smilies Codes Changed

On the RAF Chat, you don't have to remember some lame codes to get the emoticons (smilies), see the list below:

is now ;)
is now :lol:
is now :P
is now =)
is now :s
is now :Oo:
is now :D
is now =D
is now 8)

Thanks to Goom for the suggestions.

If you don't know what the RAF Chat is... then here we go: The RAF Chat is the area of RAF (Richard's Animorphs Forum) which allows you to chat directly with members and non-members in an instant message format.

If you haven't registered yet... what are you waiting for?

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Friday, February 13, 2009

Goom - New Jr. Staff Member

That's right.. get used to the purple from relative new-comer goom. He has been promoted to Jr. Staff. We welcome him... right?

Oh and Claire is no longer a Jr. Staff member... she has also been promoted: she now holds the Senior Staff position.

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Russell = Admin


In case you were wondering what's with Russell's / Esplin 9466's red text colour... he has been promoted to Administrator. He is RAF's second administrator (excluding myself) in our almost six years of existence.

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Thursday, January 8, 2009

RAF Chat Upgraded


The RAF Chat (the chat-room) has been upgraded again.

If you have any problems accessing it, check this thread.

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Thursday, January 1, 2009

Donator Rewards Updated

In addition to their placement on the Donator Leader Board (which is shown across RAF), the gold username, the lack of advertisements on RAF Forum, the 10 stars, the unlimited PM space, the ability to move and lock their own posts, edit their custom title, and name; Donators now will get +50 karma. This is effective immediately (January 1 2009).

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Saturday, December 27, 2008

The R is back in RAF

After a bit of deliberation, I've decided to put back the R in RAF. No matter how I try to escape people calling our Animorphs community Richard's Animorphs Forum, it keeps haunting me.

So I've come to the conclusion that RAF is inextricably linked with my name. So I have regressed on my October 2007 decision to rename us The Animorphs Forum.

It's Richard's Animorphs Forum... or RAF for short.

I honestly intended to purchase richardsanimorphs.com & richardsanimorphsforum.com on my birthday; January 1, but I already went ahead and did so, right in time for the name change. I don't want people to get confused, so I won't publicize the new domains; their only purpose is to secure the names.

All pages have been renamed Richard's Animorphs Forum.

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Friday, December 26, 2008

Doing a database host switch...

That's why the Forum is down. It should be back up in no time.

Move only took 10 minutes.

The connection problems should be reduced now.

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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Invitation to Write for Blog


Xtreme Members to Gods (and of course Donators), this is your chance to rise to the occasion.

This is your opportunity to write about RAF, on the RAF Blog. Always wanted your little column? This is your chance.

Just send me a PM, and I'll set up your account.
*CONDITIONS APPLY

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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Website Wide Edits

I started to edit the pages of RAF 5 hours ago. I am now done for the day. What was done?

1. New background.

2. Tidying up of the backend codes (bulk of the 5 hours). Will allow for faster page loads.

3. RAF eBooks: fixing mis-matched links.

4. RAF eBooks pages all edited to include easy navigation between Remnants, Animorphs and Everworld eBooks.

5. RAF eBooks pages edited: added a discuss link to RAF Forum.

6. RAF eBooks - added Remnants eBook 9.

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Saturday, November 29, 2008

New Boards - General RP & Fanfiction

New Boards


Newly suggested General Role-Playing and General Fan-fiction boards have been added to RAF Forum.

These two boards are where threads pertaining to role-playing and fan-fiction (and are not Animorphs related) are put.

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Monday, November 17, 2008

Quick Reply Pimped

Quick Reply

The quick reply feature (allowing you the option to post without clicking on "Reply") has been updated to give you access to the highlighted options.
To attach files, you sill have to use the standard method, and Reply.

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Sunday, November 16, 2008

Edits to RAF Home & TV

RAF Home & RAF TV have been modified. Nothing big, nothing drastic, only simple edits. 

  • RAF Home saw a banner change, and a RAF eBooks & RAF TV images changed. This one done as to emphasise the two links, so new visitors can easily go to the respective RAF Pages.
  • RAF TV saw all dead links removed.

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Saturday, November 15, 2008

RAF Party - Day 1

Today is the first RAF Party. In addition to the Bored Board counting towards your post count, you will be awarded 2 karma points for each thread you create today (and other RAF Party days).

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Saturday, November 8, 2008

Karma Upgraded

Starting now you need to give a reason why you are changing someone's karma; being it smiting or applauding. Adding to the upgrade, you have the option to see who changed your karma and why.

To see who has changed your karma, or whose karma you changed, visit your profile.

Additionally, you can have the option to be notified when someone changes your karma. See screen-shot below:

Click for bigger image


To do so, go to your profile, click on Look and Layout Preferences.

An addition to this upgrade is that once you have changed someone's karma you can now see how many times you have been applauded or smited.

Tip: to see this, go to your profile, click on any of the karma options, there you will see in brackets the total applauds and smites beside the username.

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RAF Forum Upgrades to SMF 1.1.7

This release is a security-only update which addresses a few recently discovered security issues in SMF 1.1.6 and older.

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Monday, October 27, 2008

RAF Chat Now Has A Logo

I knocked up a logo for the RAF Chat, since it has become so popular and who doesn't love logos?

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Sunday, October 26, 2008

...And then there was Skype!

You now have the ability to enter your Skype username into your profile. When you do so your profile will be tricked out with the Skype logo; enabling anyone to click on it and add you into their contact list.

Here's a tip: To see who has entered their Skype information into their profile, click here.

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Saturday, October 25, 2008

New Stats: Top Poster Today & This Week


As of now you can see who posted the most today, and who posted the most for this week. See the RAF Forum Statistics Center for that information.

Note that the statistics use the forum time (EST).

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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

New RAF eBook Pages: Remnants & Everworld

RAF eBooks | Everworld

I spent the entire day yesterday (Monday) creating e-book pages for Everworld. Currently there is only one Everworld eBook (#1), but the hope is thatonce the books are converted to eBook format, they will be readily available for all to download.

If you have the Everworld books and would like to help to make Everworld ebooks, feel free to visit this board.

RAF eBooks | Remnants


Remnants too have been giving a section under RAF eBooks. There are five books currently available, and if you have the others and would like to help the process, see this board.

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Sunday, October 19, 2008

RAF Chat Upgraded


As you may, or may not be aware, the RAF Chat has been upgraded.

New Features:
1. Registrations (this prevents multiple members and spammers)
2. Better User Control (for staff and moderators)
3. Private Chats
4. Dedicated Rooms
5. User Profiles with Avatars

Please Note:
The Opera Browser does NOT work with the new Chat.

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RAF: Party

Both Richard and I had the idea that it would be fun to let the bored board count toward your post count one day of out the month. This would be a monthly day for everyone to come and post on RAF, go in RAF chat, break RAF records, and become a forum personality. New comers to the forum are encouraged to make themselves known and old personalities are welcome to post in the Animorphs section for a change. The first RAFparty would be on November the 15th and 16th and the following ones would be on the second weekend of every month. I tried to schedule them so that people wouldn’t have to worry about holidays or work (hopefully!)

_The Abomination_

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Monday, September 29, 2008

"abchakraborty" promoted to eBook group

abchakraborty is the first member on the new RAF Forum to be promoted to the eBook Contributor group. He will enjoy the same privileges like RAF Gods.
Of course, this was done to promote the community involvement in the creation of eBooks.

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Sunday, September 28, 2008

RAF Forum has its own domain!

Maybe you're like me and when you think about RAF the first thing you do is to input raf into the address bar of your browser, only to remember that our domain is animorphsforum.com. No need to fear though; you can be lazy like me and simply type rafforum.com, then you will be redirected to the most awesome Animorphs forum on the internets.

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Saturday, September 27, 2008

RAF Forum Upgrades to SMF 1.1.6

I've upgraded to the latest version (non-BETA) of our Forum system SMF. Here is announcement made by SMF admins:


Simple Machines is happy to announce the release of SMF 1.1.6, which fixes a number of minor bugs in 1.1.5 and addresses a security vulnerability. While the vulnerability primarily affects SMF installations on Windows servers, we would like to encourage all users to upgrade as soon as possible. A successful exploit could result in privilege escalation.

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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Access RAF Forum Using WAP on your Mobile

If you didn't already know, you can access the RAF Forum on your mobile device/phone using the WAP URL. This page (RAF Mobile) will take you to a scaled down version of the forum; optimized for mobile phones.

The URL is: http://m.animorphsforum.com

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Monday, August 11, 2008

RAF Chat - Now Open All Week!


The RAF Chat (where members and non-members alike chat about Animorphs in an IM style) will not be closed throughout the week anymore. I've decided to have the chat room remain open 7 days of the week.

To allow you to gauge when there is activity in the chat room, I've placed an online notification at the bottom of all RAF Forum pages.

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Sunday, August 3, 2008

RAF Downloads

Starting with the Animorphs eBooks, Television Series, and newly added Know the Secret PC Game; RAF Downloads will be your one stop shop for Animorphs related downloads.

I spent most of last night creating the two new pages: RAF Downloads (located at downloads.animorphsforum.com) & RAF Games (located at animorphsforum.com/games/) after I noticed persons trying to access our downloads folder, and after Truth from Hirac Delest provided us with the game respectively.

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Uploading Via Attachments

Want to show off your picture? Share PDFs? Or your own song? It's simple:

First. Go to your Post Reply, or New Topic area:



Then click on Additional Options:



From there you can select whatever* you want to upload.

*Please note the Allowed file types: doc, gif, jpg, mp3, pdf, png, txt, zip.


Maximum attachment size allowed: 5120 Kilobytes or 5 Megabytes.
You also get to attach four per post.

Enjoy!

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Monday, July 14, 2008

Home Page Link Added


A little tweak I made to the RAF Forum navigation.

I've added a link to the home page. Previously you could, and still can go to RAF's home page by clicking on the RAF logo atop all pages.


In addition to the Home link addition. The RAF Forum home link has been renamed to Forum Home, and the RAF Blog link is now beside the newly created RAF Home link.

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Saturday, July 12, 2008

RAF's New Facebook Page


Our presence on Facebook has been updated. You can now get updates directly on your profile/home page when you become a fan of the Official RAF Facebook page.

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Saturday, July 5, 2008

Hide Your Online Status

The following groups now have the option to hide their online status:

  1. Donators
  2. Gods (5000 posts or more)
  3. Xtreme Members (2000 posts or more)

To hide your online status, go to your profile, select "Account Related Settings", then untick "Show others your online status?"

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Monday, June 2, 2008

RAF is Moving



RAF: The Animorphs Forum has finally moved from Conforums to SMF after 5 years with them. The old RAF has been renamed RAF Classic, and is viewable to anyone who wishes to. Posting though has been restricted to push members to the new forum, simply called RAF.

This board system is fully hosted by RAF, allowing The Animorphs Forum to wholly host the entire website

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Sunday, May 18, 2008

RAF Front Page Updated



I have streamlined the RAF Home page. Instead of a ported RAF Forum Logo unto the home page, I've created a simple flash logo. In addition, the RAF eBooks and RAFtv logos were removed from the home page. In their places, roll over images of the Animorphs books, and screen-shots from the Animorphs TV-Show were placed respectively.

RAF Pages links at the bottom were also edited. This is the first update of RAF Home since it was introduced on March 9, 2008.

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Monday, May 12, 2008

15 Members Removed

I have removed 15 19 duplicate members. Expect a smaller member list in
the coming days. Coming off the heals of our 1800 member announcement,
at this time the count has dropped to 1790.

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Sunday, April 13, 2008

Vegemorphs E-Book Online!

Dameg, member of RAF has provided us with the lone Animorphs parody; Vegemorphs. Please click the image above, or visit the RAF eBooks section to read Vegemorphs: The fungus Among Us along with all the other Animorphs books.

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Friday, April 11, 2008

New Boards for RAF


Now you guys have specialized areas to talk about Everworld and Remnants, both K.A. Applegate authored books. In addition, Michael Grant's (Applegate's husband) upcoming book series Gone now has a board for itself.

The new boards are called Forums on RAF because I noted the lack of forums for the currently over two series.

To discuss Everworld, click here.
To discuss Remnants, click here.
To discuss Gone, click here.

You now have a re-launched board, More Books..., to discuss, other books.

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Wednesday, April 9, 2008

RAF Donate - Now Live



RAF Donate is now online. Powered by PayPal, RAF Donate allows you to send money via Credit Card, PayPal to the RAF Fund, which will go toward paying for the hosting services of The Animorphs Forum.

Members who dontate will be promoted to the prestigious Donator group on RAF. In addition, there will be a top list for all those who donate.

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Monday, April 7, 2008

The Bored Board

...has been disabled. My entire feeling toward a spam board changed a few minutes ago.

Edit: It's back. Didn't know people liked it that much...

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

RAF Search


Adding to the usability of RAF, I have added (thanks to Google) search capabilities to all primary RAF pages (index/ blog / tv/ ebooks). This search box will be able to search all pages outside the actual forum. To search the forum, use this option.

Update: RAF Search will now be able to search everything on RAF. (Excluding RAF Classic)

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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

RAF - Still Kicking!

It's exactly one year since I posted about RAF being no more. Well, firstly, I must say that the year has gone quickly, because I remember posting that thread like it was.... a few months ago, but no; it was a year ago.

My outlook was clearly grim, but now, my optimism has risen. Why? Well, have a look at my statistics posts. We are growing.

Here are some highlights which now negate my doomsday prediction one year ago:

1. E-Books. We have the complete Animorphs series available for viewing and downloading.

2. The Animorphs TV Show, which aired between 1998-2000 was uploaded and is also available for anyone to watch.

3. Prosperous RAF Chat, where members and none-members can chat about Animorphs each, and every Sunday.

4. Audiobook Project is still underway.

5. Secured hosting for 1 year, and domain for 2.

6. RAF Podcast began only days ago.

7. Author, K.A. Applegate joined & participated in our forum.

8. Rapid increase in members. Now averaging 7 per day.

9. Since Feb 27 07 to today, February 27, 2008, we've had 617,954 visits, versus the year before, where there were 311,246 hits.

10. The graph below shows RAF's activity from the previous post to today.



We aren't going anywhere just yet. So sit tight, and enjoy RAF: The Animorphs Forum.

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RAF Podcast - Coming Soon


RAF is once again in the middle of another fan made Animorphs project. This time, a number of our members have decided that a podcast would be an interesting endeavor.
Its (the Podcast) going to have discussion on the books, interviews with RAF members, fanfic writers and new Project leaders, news on related projects and websites and much more.
//click for more information

As of now, the team is in developmental stages, so watch this space. The Podcast Team currently consists of the following members:

duffman669
ANItiger13
ANnaBaNAnA
mrlarry
Tobiachel
FroggiJ

Oh, and if you didn't know, you can subscribe to the RAF | Blog RSS feed, so you're updated once a post is made here.

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Sunday, February 17, 2008

RAF Chat

The idea came from Russell who suggested we create a chat room situation for the Record Breaking day attempt. Ok, fair enough. But then I got the idea that why not open the room on a scheduled basis? I thought about it for a few minutes, and said, ok, sounds good. Today Sunday Feb 17 will be the trial day for the Chat room.

RAF Chat will be open every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the following times.

2100 GMT
5 PM EST (East Coast USA)
4 PM EST CDT
3 PM CST MDT
2 PM MST PDT
1 PM PDT (West Coast USA)

... so come in and enjoy the chat!

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