I have updates on a couple of things:
- I've edited all of the "What Does UBC Mean to You?" clips I've received so far. I regret to say that some of the transitions and editing might be sloppy because my computer can't handle all of your awesome footage. Boo...
- I ordered the black logo tee from Redbubble to make sure that it looks OK. If it does, you'll have the purchase link soon!
- I finished my first read-through of Clockwork Angel yesterday. Once I have the RQs for the upcoming Voting Cycle in May, I'll post them here to give you guys a head start.
This next part's a little more personal.
Throughout this process, we've had about ten people routinely commenting on this blog—thanks so much for that. As you can imagine, however, I have to really ask myself where the other 3390 of you are. Where are our Finalists? Our old Finalists? The people who said they couldn't imagine living without UBC? Why have emails from concerned members not been flooding my inboxes? Why do so few people care anymore? (Ok, so I know the answers to those last few. It's what prompted the site overhaul in the first place.)
Even though I know the site overhaul will fix a lot of the problems we've had, I still can't help but realize:
- I'm terrified that despite the countless hours that are going into this revamp, nothing will change.
- I'm terrified that too many of you have already moved on.
- I'm terrified by the sheer volume of work that's still ahead of me.
- I'm terrified of screwing up again.
You know, just the usual feels. ;-)
Kat. :( Please don't despair. Maybe this break is a wake-up call for some of the people who've gotten very inactive. Personally, I've always been enthusiastic about UBC, but even I felt sort of lethargic about it in the last month or so that it was online, because I started getting a "Why care if no one else does?" type of attitude (and because college calculus and three other classes were trying to swallow me alive a little bit, but still). Now that it's gone, I've realized that I love it as much as ever, and I can't take it for granted.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I don't think you screwed up in the first place. If it was hard for me and other members to stay motivated when activity was super-low, it had to be way harder than that for you. You kept going anyway. You could have scrapped the site last summer, but you made changes, and you're making changes again, which shows a great amount of dedication. Maybe seeing how much you care is making other people start to care more.
The whole time this blog has been online, I've wanted to ask you when UBC would be back, but I felt like that question would yield too much pressure. Maybe people are holding back from contacting you because they don't want to stress you out?
I can't speak for everyone else, but I have not moved on from UBC. Of course, I'm still in college (junior status now, yay), which makes me busy, like a lot of other members, but I've gotten past the main busy part of the semester, and soon, it will be spring break. (Plus, only one of my four classes has a comprehensive final exam. Yay!)
Lastly, Kat, thank you so much for thinking of us members. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's also okay to think about yourself, though. You are not obligated to lose sleep, peace, or sanity because you're revamping UBC. If we have to wait a little longer so that you won't be overly stressing yourself, forget us. We can wait.
I was getting that same attitude, trust me! :P It really is hard once something has lost momentum. I came pretty close to giving up.
ReplyDeleteI do think that a lot of this is my fault. I overcompensated when you guys asked for there to be more Voting Cycles and it pretty much killed the site. (That and a lack of new members/movie news/presence on the internet—it's all a mess, basically.)
My goal is to have UBC back online before April 1st.
Kat, I really don't think it was your fault at all. I completely agree with everything Cimone said. I also don't think you should worry about site activity. I really feel that having the site being taken down for a while has made people realise that they can't take it for granted, and by making the process of updating the site so public I think it's made everyone appreciate just how much work you put into UBC, as well as making everyone feel involved, which I think is going to be great at getting the community back together. I think TID could help boost popularity too, because Cassandra Clare is known to interact with fans a lot and has a large following. And your plan of contacting booktubers and bloggers I really think will help advertise UBC to a much wider range of people, I really think it will work and I'm so excited to see all of the new changes in action as I'm sure so many other people are!!!
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