THE STATE OF THE HALL ADDRESS: JANUARY 1, 2007
By Arthur the Head Viking
Welcome! It has been quite a year for Arthur's Hall of Viking Manliness. What was a merely a vision and a pipe dream one year ago has become reality. One year ago today I stood here with around 40,000 hits per month and, at that time, I felt like The Hall was already an important place on the Internet. I stand here today to let you know that The Hall has grown by leaps and bounds in 2006. We have experienced 600% growth this year in the average number of visits per day... a feat I would not have dared to imagine. The Hall owes this growth to you; the regular readers, the members of the Viking Forum, the contributors and the moderators. Thank you for your continued support and I will continue to lean on you to spread the revolutionary ideas of this great hall.
While we have had enormous success, I am not satisfied with where we are. I have only been emboldened by the accomplishments of the last year. It is safe to say that we are only scratching the surface of what this great hall can be. We have undergone massive changes here this year. We had a crisis not long ago where I changed the direction of Arthur's Hall. I know that most of you support my redirection and I have to say that I am proud of the new Forum. It is now what I envisioned, a place where people of all ideologies, sexes and creeds can come to discuss ideas in a safe but challenging environment.
This was the year of the Forum. What was a somewhat muted, dusty forum became a living, breathing entity that enriches hundreds of peoples lives on a weekly basis. To the contributors on the Forum, the forum needs you! I have had passionate discussions with a few of you about the forum and what it should be about, and you have responded well. I am completely satisfied with the content of the Forum now and I fully expect the Forum to continue in its current direction. We started the forum not knowing what to expect, I felt like it would be a good addition but never imagined how many people and conversations would be held there. I felt good about that for the most part but one day I realized that the forum was becoming a hotbed for nonsense, shit talk, and abusive language. I am not against stating your ideas in a abrasive way but personal insults and accusations are not going to be tolerated. I know that you will do the right thing, thank you.
I have a strategic map for the future of the Hall that I want to share with all of you because for this plan to take shape I will need the help of you, the readers. Here is my six step plan for transforming this great Hall into the presence it should be. I will need your help and I appreciate those who step forward to perform roles in this bold plan. As you know by now, Shatner and I have full-time jobs and social lives that do take up a good amount of our time. We have been able to carry the burden of all the aspects that go into this Hall up until now but if we are to keep growing at an exponential rate we will need to have some of you become part of the team. Please do not feel pressure to do anything, I am 100% satisfied if you just like to read the articles. But some of you, I know, see what this Hall could be and I am asking for your assistance in helping the Hall become the leading site for real men on the Internet.
- Shatner and I are going to step up the production of the content that drives The Hall. I am pledging 30 articles this year. I am also interested in guest contributors. I of course reserve the right to edit and comment on guest contributions but I would like to have a handful of regular contributors by the end of 2007. If you are interested in becoming a contributor, regular or one-time, please let me know and we can discuss it.
- By March 31st, we will have the Arthur's Hall of Viking Manliness clothing line up and running. As you all know, Shatner is the lead visual and design Viking and I am hoping that he can come up with a design that is fresh and eye-catching. I am also willing to farm some of this out to some of the more talented members of the Hall. I would like to do a T-Shirt, a workout tank top, a hat and some stickers. Once again, if you have ideas...join us.
- I would also like to expand our presence on the Internet as a whole. We did have a MySpace page but it had become unwieldy and I was unable to fully look into some of the friends there and I was being flooded with messages and group invites that were not beneficial to the future of the site. Rather than devoting time to fixing some of the problems there I decided to remove our profile. I am interested in rebuilding it with more attention to who we invite and associate ourselves with. I would also like to have a group on MySpace. I feel like that may be the best way to use that site. I would also like to have it be managed by someone other than Shatner and myself. I am also encouraging members of the Hall to go out into the cyber world and promote the Hall. For example, I would imagine that many of you are members of other forums that have similar ideas and beliefs as we do. I would like to see signatures with slogans about our site and such. There is no way for someone, even someone as great as me, to know all the sites that could be beneficial to the Hall, I am depending on you to add to our presence on the net. When it comes to this type of promotion it is a free for all...I don't care too much about how you do it... just do it!!
- Another easy way to grow the Hall is to add an active links page. We do have sites that we link to now but they are mostly related to things that we like or agree with and are not linked back to us. We would like to add sites to a links page that would be found on the tab next to the Forum tab. I would like to have sites listed with explanations and my opinions of the site itself. I am only interested in adding links if the site is also willing to link with us. Link trading is a powerful way to grow your site... if you have a site that is even a bit relevant to our Hall, let's trade links. For readers out there, if you find a site that you like, let me know and I will contact the site and see about linking.
- Digg.com and Stumbleupon.com: There are various sites around the internet that serve to highlight articles of interest and rely on viewer feedback to promote articles. Digg and Stumbleupon are two of these sites. Stumbleupon.com is a toolbar you download for your browser and allows you to give any page you see on the internet a thumbs up or thumbs down. It also allows you to randomly surf pages other members have given a thumbs up. This is a lot of fun, and I do not us it only for promoting The Hall. Digg is a site where viewers submit links, and those links are rated by other users for quality. These sites are fantastic ways to spread the popularity of Arthur’s Hall. If you see an article you like, (on the Hall or not) submit it to Digg or Stumbleupon!
- Contact Shatner and I about ANY AND ALL ideas that you think can add to the Hall. Shatner and I are good at what we do but additional ideas are always positive. Please let us know if you have any ideas that could increase readership, make the site more user friendly, etc. And remember there are no stupid ideas... well scratch that, there most certainly are stupid ideas. I also know that anyone who is smart enough to appreciate the Hall will not have stupid ideas!
As we forge ahead into 2007, I see this as the year of the reader. We have accomplished a lot so far but as you all know, we have much to do yet. Join us in creating the greatest site on the net. Thank you for your readership and for attending the State of Hall address. Happy New Year!!
-arthur@arthurshall.com |
