The Gasroom 3.0
Hello everyone. I am excited to announce that @OxfordBlue and I will be taking over as custodians of the Gasroom, following on from the fantastic work that @drcongo has done over the years. It has been already said in other threads but cannot be overstated - thank you @drcongo for all of your efforts in supporting the Gasroom community, it really is a shining example of what a football forum should be.
We are working hard to navigate challenges that have presented themselves to digital communities such as ours, please bear with us while we work through this. However, please be assured that we are doing everything we can in our ambition to keep the Gasroom alive and well for years to come.
The Gasroom 3.0 will be moving to a new forum platform, but will remain at the same gasroom.org web address. Our target transition date is 1st April, this version of the forum will remain live in the meantime. You can register your email address here to be notified of updates should that be of interest.
COYB
Comments
I, for one, welcome our new gasroom overlords
Ah! That's amazing news 👏 🙌 😀
Well done you two! Thank you both!
Brilliant news - it's fantastic that people are willing to step up to the plate. Just out of curiosity, @bluequarters, it looks like you only joined the Gasroom last month. Did you post previously using a different account? If not what makes you want to take on such significant responsibility so soon after joining this community? No negativity in that question intended, just genuine curiosity.
Also, at some point maybe you or @OxfordBlue might take a second to set out your vision for the new forum. Will it be run on the same model as this one or will you be looking to move to a subscription model, for example?
About time we got rid of Congo
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(joke, obviously)
If you're not guillotining me by May you're doing it wrong.
Excellent news for a Monday morning, @OxfordBlue and @bluequarters. You are to be applauded in taking on the responsibility - and thanks once again to @drcongo for your efforts in running Gasroom 2.
FWIW I see no reason for @bluequarters to disclose any other/previous user name on here, if they have one. A certain anonymity might be needed for those occasions when you have something to say of a robust nature! Your choice, clearly, if you want to answer the question from @aloysius or not.
I do hope that somehow we can notify @Shev of these developments - his absence has been noted.
@aloysius I've been a lurker on the platform for some time and have enjoyed reading the rumours, reactions and general chat over the years. I started supporting Wycombe during the Smith era, despite everything I decided to stick around for many subsequent highs and lows. The Gasroom is a big part of my (and from what I can tell many others') Wycombe experience, it would be a massive shame to see it go. Professionally I work in the digital space so it presents an exciting challenge to help be a custodian in the next Gasroom evolution.
Will there be Christmas lights?
Also a belated thank you to the good Dr for all of his work. The Gasroom has been a beacon of light amongst the mental drain that is the majority of the internet. It has brought a lot of joy to a number of Wycombe over the years and it is great that the community lives on
We'll add Christmas lights to the list..!
In answer to the question regarding future vision and plans it's still very TBC, we have some ideas that we're exploring at the moment and will definitely share any updates as soon as we're able.
All beginning to make sense now...
I always wondered if our esteemed host had a PhD, a medical qualification or was based in Kinshasa?
Or perhaps all three?
Great to start the week with news of Gasroom3 after a depressing w/e result by the way.
This is phenomenal news! Thank you so much @bluequarters and @OxfordBlue, an amazing boost to what was a rubbish weekend.
And once again, thank you so much @drcongo for what you have done.
COYB!!!!
Great news!! Hopefully @drcongo will still contribute
Has there been a coup, so common in Africa nowadays?
Amazing news. Thanks to all involved.
In all honesty I’d take the Gasroom continuing over promotion any day of the week. Hopefully we can still do both!
@aloysius We will lay out our vision in much more detail, once we move to the new platform. This decision happened very quickly over just the last few days, so we still don't have all the answers fully formed at this point, to be totally honest.
Like @bluequarters, I work in digital media / publishing, although our similar backgrounds are purely by chance. We met for the first time ever this weekend over a Zoom call, and agreed to team up and have a crack at this. It's an exciting opportunity to take my professional experience and apply it to a genuine passion project.
I've supported the club since 2001, and been a user of the Gasroom since the early 2000s under the Gasman. I live in London, have a season ticket on the terrace, and have met a number of other posters in-person over the years at home and away games.
The esteemed @drcongo has a more technical background than either myself or @bluequarters. This allowed him to manage most site matters in-house. As we will be relying on more third party services (server hosting, forum software etc.), our costs are will be higher.
We will look to cover costs via a mix of subscription and ads. If this can be done entirely via subscription / donations, we could keep the site ad-free, but transparently, I don't think that will be achievable.
I know a lot of other football forums have absolutely terrible ad experiences reminiscent of a faulty Christmas tree. This is because they outsource it to external ad management companies who don't care about the users, and have no incentive to optimise towards anything except higher ad revenues.
My background is specifically in ad tech, which means we won't cede control of anything within that area. We will run a very conservative ad experience where required, without any disruptive ad formats.
Amazing news and thank you to you both. Once again thanks to @drcongo too for keeping this running for so long.
A huge thank you to taking on the mantel of being the custodian of the Gasroom.
With regards to ads, if you require some income from these to cover the costs I dare say there would be enough Gasroomers who'd chip in a few quid to help keep our forum ad- and tracker-free for everyone.
Sincere thanks to @drcongo @OxfordBlue and @bluequarters . I hope the new forum will be as valuable as this one has been for those of us only able to attend rarely. No doubt it will be different and will take some getting used to but the essence of any forum is its people. Thanks all.
Thanks both for answering my questions, all sounds very positive.
Great news that the Gasroom will continue. Thanks to @bluequarters @OxfordBlue for taking it over and of course @drcongo for hosting it for so long
As a non-technical dinosaur, I have what is probably a daft question - Will all our accounts move across seamlessly when the site is transferred to a new server or will we all have to sign up again?
If the ads are targeted towards the users this place will be wall to wall viagra and regaine.
Could be worse.
Just a suggestion, but Oxford's forum has an official sponsor - a local taxi firm. I wonder if there's something similar in Wycombe that might be up for such an arrangement, which would perhaps limit the amount of adverts needed to make the site sustainable.
Anyway, the very best of luck getting it up and running and thanks for stepping into the breach.
As a tribute to the former webmaster, can we ensure that the host servers of the new platform are located in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
brb, registering thegasroombroughttoyoubydennisskebabvan.com
Corporate sponsorship is not a bad shout though.
What about Dreams? The sight of beds popping up now and again might make the site more restful!
I’d definitely be up for paying for an ad-free experience.
Thanks to @bluequarters and @OxfordBlue .
And again...thanks @drcongo
This is great news to start the week! Many thanks to all involved for setting. I would be very happy to chip in to keep ads to absolute minimum if not eliminated! Good luck with the set up and thanks again to the good Dr