Step by step... TLRs way back

Ok I intent to use this thread to lay out a concept for Lancersreactors future aswell as I want to give some explainations about the "why", since I was told that some people from another community feel not comfortable when TLR gets rewived.

First off, I am not crazy doing what I do here.
TLR is a name that is used on hundreds if not thousands of websites out there. Sure these sites refere to the http://www.lancersreactor.org, but many people are clever enough to find the .org domain and so today I was pleased to recognize that TLR gets a good amount of daily hits. During the past 15 hours we had 20 new registrations which shows that the interest in this site is still high. The heart is still beating and we will speed up the frequency very soon.
I clearly don't agree with the "no" sayers which prefer to see this place dead or at least empty. These people have blamed me often enough for not supporting their ideas and now they walk along the same road. Inacceptable, this is for the benefit of the FL community.
I requested to get this chance to help this community and support Freelancer players. To be honest, I do almost nothing without taking benefit from it. There is no reason to hide that the support of TLR is beneficial for my own Community, in the same way it is beneficial for ALL other FL communities and sites out there. This is a furtunate side effect.
But ok, enough of that... everyone willing to help is welcome and will take benefit from the outcome.

The concept I have in mind for TLR introduced step by step (just as the title says).

First step was to build a website with all the features we might need. A fresh representative look, cool tools and a user friendly environment. Considering that I brought this to life in just 2 days should show you that I take it serious and that I have the neccessary skills to get the ball at least rolling.
But I need you now.
The site for sure is not perfect now, some minor problems were already reported and fixed but there might be other issues which we have not noticed yet. Please report these probs back to me (just write a PM). I will take care of it as soon as possible.
You for sure will encounter various weird text strings here on the site starting with a "wcf.*****". Those are missing language variables due to the fact that parts of the forum software is actually not available in english language. In totaly I have meanwhile spotted about 800 of those variables that i am going to translate now (will take a few days). Mainly affecty by that are the links and the newsletter functions of the forum. So if you find such errors there you dont need to report them. All others please via PM.
Thx.

Step 2
Getting a Staff reading to manage this new site.
Since I would like to see other Communities involved here aswell, or in other words "represented" in order to bring the lancer communities closer together again I have already contacted various people to ask them if they are interested in supporting TLR.
At this point I would like to get your opinion on this matter before final decisions are getting done. So... what do you think about that?

Step 3
Getting the support of modders, coders and other admins.
I meanwhile have also spoken to various well known personalities from the OLD TLR... so far the feedback is pretty cool. Not a single one which didn't like the idea to rebuild TLR. We need to get in contact with other FL sites and let them know that we are here and what we have to offer.

Step 4
Restructuring the Forum.
Well the forum is a bit chaotic. There are boards that nobody uses, there are boards that we need. Together with the new staff we will lay out a new structure that everybody can get familar with. Most important is to give good info where to post.

Step 5
Obtaining the original lancersreactor.org domain.
I see at least a chance to get it back but on this one i can not make any promises. Its difficult and tricky... so we will see.
It at least would be nice to have TLR complete again.

Step 6
As a friend was so kind to submit the old TLR database (the TLR site before 2008, reaching back to the year 2000) I would like to include at least the threads and posts directly into our new website. We would close a very large missing gap by doing so. Much valueable information would return to TLR.
This is not an easy job but it is doable.

These were the short term steps of the concept to rebuild TLR. Further ones will follow when the time is right.

Im making progress on step 2 + 3
Step 4 is done, the forum has a somewhat more clear structure

The first week passed by, the domain transfer is almost complete and that allows us to take further steps.

Steps such as including the old TLR database back to its home.
Hundred thousands of posts, several ten thousands of registered members (all with usable accounts), detailed information about the Freelancer game aswell as detailed information about Starlancer.

The work that was done the past week was enormous but it will pay out.
We have the chance to get thousands of Lancer players back to TLR. We can fill the new site with content and all kind of information. Tutorials, interview,s walkthroughs, information about the games, modding topics.
We are also able to bring back some exclusive TLR material and show you how the original idea behind Freelancer did look like.

More and more people are returning to TLR, new ones which visit the site will soon find good reasons to stay here.
I am glad to get much positive feedback about the new TLR aswell as i am glad to receive feedback about which parts of the new site require a bit "fine tuning". For sure I cant do everything at once but I will take care of it.

After one week we have a significantly increase of the activity on this place, not only by visitors but also by active posts. After one week that appears to be a step into the right direction.

However, not everything was 100% successful.
My try to get Starport involved in TLR failed and just alone my offer to work together after they bashed this site on their forum resulted in more unpleasant comments. I clearly can not agree with them that rebuilding TLR is a split to the FL community, aswell as I can not agree to their methods. On the other side, Starport has not done anything constructive here before, so it is no loss at all. I'd like to focus on those which want and not on those which dont want.
Having that in mind I think it would be unfair when the supporters of TLR work for the good of the community and others which dont do take the benefits. Fair would be to support exactly those which support us, and support can be done in many ways. Once the new TLR staff becomes fully active (somewhen the next few days) I will adress this issue and probably we can work on a policy regarding it.

if you ask so directly
no - did not think about it yet

getting developers involved is tricky
most are more interested in new projects or new jobs

it was not even easy to get them involved in anything that happened at TLR when FL was released
I remember the old DA server that was hosted during the first few weeks after the FL release... was pretty hard to get any info out of it

pretty busy this week
have to take care of a legal issue regarding TLR as finding a civil solution has failed
however
this week mainly will be used to prepare some ads for TLR aswell as working on the site content

It like to use the chance (a few mins free time) to inform you about the progress.
Its been 2 1/2 weeks not that I am working at TLR. Like already said the changes will not come from one moment to another but this site is worth the efforts.
In fact i could simply start promoting TLR now and try to bring old members back. But the time has not come yet.
When we start that then we should be prepared not only to welcome them here but also to keep them here. That is why the work on the website currently has highest priority.

We have a nice site now, we also have gotten the old TLR content back, we offer downloads, we offer images and we are building content pages for game info. Once we are able to present Mods, FL sites and News (frequently) then we can concentrate on bringing back the members and the Forum activity. Up to now this simply has had no priority. -> Step by Step.

But lets take a look at this community and why it is so important (i dont spent time with stuff that doesnt pay off).
TLR has more than 350.000 posts about Starlancer and Freelancer and is therefor the biggest source of knowledge about these games. I made sure that search engine bots crawl the new TLR. That allows players to find us here.
Currently there are ~37.000 links to TLR (refering to google), ~315.000 links based on all major search engines (double counts possible). I dont know any other FL site which does out there that is known better than TLR.
This site as ~38.000 registered members. Most of course not active at the moment. But nobody says that it has to stay this way. If we do our job right then we can bring many of them back. Just imagine we bring just 1% of them back (i am pretty careful), that would be a large increase to the entire FL community. Investing a few weeks on bringing TLR back on its feet is the biggest chance that the Freelancer community had for years.
And if we just increase the number of players on the servers out there by 50.... that would still be an increase of at least 10%. Worth the effort?

Well, 2 1/2 weeks passed by.
During that time 93 members have reactivated their accounts. More than 100 new have joined.
The posting activity stayed about at the same level (little bit better, even when I dont count my activity here), which is ok since we have not even tried to improve that yet.
When I started the work here the site had about 300 hits and a little more than 500 clicks per day. Currently the average hits are 1720 per day with 4565 clicks (still rising very fast). The interest in TLR is still high and meanwhile increasing.
This site has a high unused potential. Lets start to use it.

so we let it rise again

*sigh*