cat_loves_mika

Here's another thing I thought of: 

When I first joined MFC, I really felt like one of the group from the beginning because of the FAQ section that you had. Explaining the inside jokes and how the forum worked there was a nice place to start from. Also, the FAQ about Mika was nice as well. 

Well, I know in real life the best way to deal with drama and rumors and bs is to address it head on. Does that apply to the internet as well? 

1 hour ago, mellody said:

 

Then those who don't have the money to pay for these tickets would also say it's unfair. Maybe Mika should use a stage design as in Bercy, with the catwalk into the crowd, then the front row would be longer. But then he'd also have to do half of the show on the front stage and half on the second stage, unlike in Bercy... otherwise it's unfair again. Besides, such a stage design only works in big arenas.

I don't think Mika wants to offer such VIP tickets, he wants everyone to have the same chances. Well, mostly... I've seen exceptions from that, too. And if you don't have the time or energy to queue for 2 days, you also don't have the same chances as those who do. Anyway, it's never 100% fair, no matter what we or Team Mika do, so I guess they will leave it as it is.

Like I always say, people will just have have to get over it.  I think instead of focusing on the lame people cheating the system, maybe focus on the awesome Mika show you are about to go to? Be positive? I think being in the front of a concert venue can be a little overrated and kinda awful. But, if you’re that desperate to see Mika close up? To each their own, I guess. 

But the cheating the queue system is never good. That bad karma will bite you back, HARD. 

Also, I bet in America that queueing up starts only a few hours before a show. But who knows anymore, I don’t think he’s played a show here in 5 years. (*realization sets in* God, I’m literally never going to see him live am I..)

Maybe a lot of this queueing and ticket drama would be solved in Mika’s team handled it better. There’s obviously too many people at these shows for just general admission. There probably needs to be a VIP option for more money, for people to pay more to get into the venue first to eliminate some of the competition and pettiness. That’s what a lot of people do. I understand the concept of being fair, but there’s practicality to the paying more money thing as well. Unless of something like this already happens. I wouldn’t know. 

6 minutes ago, carafon said:

Just thinking one more thing :

Why not asking local forums like "Mika Italia" ;'Mika France" ;"Mika Website" and so on , to create un special topic dedicated to the MFC  with links for the most important topics here ?

 

Apparently there is a sense of competition, but if we can work something out... why not have all of us promote each other? Fan websites usually do that. I'm not too sure being the "official" fan club how that would work though. 

Going off what @zia Giovi and @Siri said, maybe other Italians can start promoting MFC to start dispelling the rumors it seems to have from awhile ago. 

I’ve been on here for years and been matched up a few times but I’ve never had a Mika Mail go through. 

Is there anyone out there who would be interested in being my partner? I won’t have anything Mika related (at least, not for awhile. I have some things stored at my parents house that I can get next time I’m there if said person wants to wait until late March to exchange packages). But I can send you candies and other trinkets you would enjoy! 

@dcdeb

It looks great!

I have a small issue with the set up now, I'm not sure why it's not showing up on your browser and not mine.

At the top of the page, its a light teal/blue. So I can hardly see the white words and icons in the top right corner on the page. 

Edit: Wow, that was fixed fast. Looks good to me now!

37 minutes ago, crazyaboutmika said:

Well pics that used to be hosted by the first version of the forum were lost with the moves. And back then MFC couldn't host many pics so we had to link them. 

The only way I can think is integrating better image hosting in the forum itself to prevent future losses. Its just difficult to tell everyone who would be posting images to do it a certain way. Someone might be willing to archive all gig images posted, but that's a lot of work. 

1 hour ago, crazyaboutmika said:

Hi

Just reacting to "autotranslating depending on where you live" It would have to be optional. Autotranslating is something that must be used with caution as it's not always accurate nor always needed but for people who already use google translation for MFC it might come in handy.

 

This function would be accurate, unlike google or other translation software. But, I see your point. 

25 minutes ago, Loo said:

 

A question I'm wondering about the pictures that have disappeared from all the forums I've been able to visit after the image hosts stopped: Would it be possible to host them differently to avoid further losses in the future?

 

Someone would just have to put them on a website that hosts images that's probably not going to go away for awhile. Like Google. Or people could start actually uploading them to the forum rather than inserting them with a link. 

5 minutes ago, ladyolivier said:

I agree that Mika's internet presence isn't great. His website is horribly poorly updated and his official Facebook is weirdly managed. But this isn't something easy to fix other than Mika hiring new IT people.

(I'm majoring in IT - hey Mika, I'm so available)

That's not IT at all, that's just social media management. 

6 hours ago, silver said:

 

We set up the World Reps at a time when the forum was very busy with active members from all over the world, but this is another area we could look at. 

No matter how much I love my new little world rep badge, maybe we just need a smaller welcome wagon now rather than people from every country. 

I used to do a lot of song writing. Lately I haven’t been able to put together anything I like and it driving me insane. It make me mad and sad, because people would say I was so good at it. I think it’s because I haven’t been heartbroken in awhile, having a good relationship has ruined me.  

2 hours ago, mellody said:

 

Doesn't the calendar help with seeing what Mika is and has been doing? I don't know if you've used this function here before, guess it's also something we should communicate better... but the calendar gives a pretty good overview over all the public appointments of Mika.

 

As for sorting old topics by years, I guess we could do that with sub-forums, then we don't have to use the archive function. We'd just have to find a solution for the problem that there'll be a list of (so far) 10 years before the other posts then... But maybe we could just add an extra section, called "Archives", to make the current boards more organized.

 

 

It's probably all in the software. But it is HUGE, you can take days going through all functions, and that doesn't even include additional modules we haven't installed yet. That's why this thread is so important, to help us find out what the forum should look like, which functions we need and which we don't. Usability, based on the way people use the internet nowadays. I'm not sure if anyone has given this much thought since the forum was started in 2007. It just grew over the years, at some point the board structure and the design got changed, as the members and topics got more and to give it a fresh look. And at some point we moved to a different server, and a different forum software. Not too long ago, there was a huge update of this software, that led to more changes, in the design as well as in the function (front-end and back-end). Basically I think we just tried to adapt the forum in a way members could continue to use it in the familiar way without too many changes. But I guess it's time for some changes now, to turn this dinosaur into a weasel, so to speak.

 

May I ask which programming language(s) you've learned at college?

It does to an extent, but also I haven’t been around that much for the past few years. So I can’t really say how much it’s helped. I  don’t know if I’ve ever been very active on the forum when Mika was very active in his career. I don’t think the calendar ever did much for me in that regard when it I was here when Mika was touring or whatever.

I learned C++ and I taught myself html for tumblr purposes years ago. I probably need to brush up on some things though.

I think I’m going to look into the software to give better suggestions, so I can take on consideration what it can do. 

Edit: Here's what I found when I looked at the website for the forum software

First, Siri mentioned that since the website is mostly in english, people who don't speak english back off from using it. There is a localization element in on the forum software that I'm wondering is in use or not. I know that would help people who speak different languages navigate the website better, if they are on their phones of if they don't use google chrome that would already automatically translate the website for them. I know this won't change things that are posted in certain languages, but still, it'll help if its not already in use. 

Second, theres a feature that can promote content from the forum on external website run with a CMS (content management system, most websites these says are run with one of these because its easier for people to manage and they don't really need to have any programming knowledge). So, maybe you want to explore the possibility of promoting forum content on Mika's website instead of just having a link to it at the bottom of the page. It might attract more interest to us as a website and a fan club than just a link. 

22 minutes ago, dcdeb said:

 

I hear you. Keep throwing out ideas -- we'll play around with things and see what works best. We are a bit restricted with the forum format, but I'll look to see what other sort of modules are available with this software and see what we can come up with.

Let me know if I can help. I have a bit of programming under my belt as I was in college for it for awhile. I can probably get a website like this the way you want it pretty easily. Good luck with the refurbishment!

32 minutes ago, carafon said:

Hi 

I don't know if it's easy to do ,but speaking about how difficult it is to find a special topic sometimes ,what about "archiving" old  concert ,media and press topics by years?

 

Yeah, I agree. I was just thinking about how unorganized it was. I wish there was one thread that would tell me where and what Mika was doing, then other threads about more important things in the in the Mika press and news topic. Its kinda of a s**t show, to be frank. Or maybe it be permanently pin it in order of when the event happened, to make it easier to sort through. 

Welcome back!

I’ve recently come back as well to the forum. Hope to see you around! I’m always up for a good chat. 

8 minutes ago, kreacher said:

 

Yo! I've been ok, been busy doing not much at all. How's things with you? I miss talking to you on chat too, it's been aaaaaages. 

Well, thats good! Glad you're still alive and active on the forum. I saw your Mika Encyclopedia; it's impressive to say the least. So at least Mika keeps you all sorts of busy 

I'm pretty good. Probably a lot better than when I last talked to you, honestly. A lot has changed for the better. 

34 minutes ago, JoAllison said:

Basically because neither of us can picture life without the other in it, but there are real reasons we can’t live together yet. In another 2-4 years we’ll do it. We talk every night, text throughout the day if things happen that we want to share now (instead of waiting for 9 pm call) or need help on now (ditto). We spend 5-6 days together every 4-6 weeks and about 2-3 two week vacations together a year.(although lately some of those “vacations” have been me (& him) going out to Texas to help my brother with my parents. Usually I go to his place in the winter and he comes up in the Summer and we split fall and spring. Whenever I’m hospitalized he comes up during and after to take care of me (I’ve some chronic illness issues).

 

We’ve both been living alone a long time before we met (at an online discussion site),  and liked being single.  We’d dated others but never married anyone. I lived with another guy for awhile but ended up with restraining orders. (When young I’d an unerring eye for falling for “the bad guy”, then I took some years off dating & into therapy to sort myself out.)   So I’ve dated enough bad ones to appreciate a good one when I found him, and realized at my age it’s worth the effort to keep it strong, yet this way we each get our alone time. For us, it works.

 

Where in N.C. are you headed?

Well, its nice that you've found someone and that you've figured something out that works. Must be nice to get out of upstate NY in the winter for the south pretty regularly 

Charlotte. Very nice area, my parents are there too. 

It doesn't seem that they put too much thought or effort into merchandising in the first place, there aren't that many items in the store. And the items are pretty standard, I don't know if it attracts much business for this kind of thing to be worth it. 

Edit: I swear I posted this in that official fanclub card thread but I guess it works here just fine 

I will say, forums aren't completely dead. People still live and breathe on reddit, but there's nothing to it. It's just an easy and simple site to use. But with the simplicity, you don't get the fun stuff like picture and videos in your posts. Or emoticons. Those are very important.  I think that the guiding through forums like on this website has always been a little daunting for people who have never used it before, it definitely was for me when I first joined. I think any type of social media people sign up for today is intuitive and not having to learn how to use a website is more appealing, that's why you probably don't see many returning newbies (if that is in fact, the case). People like what familiarity and will stick with what they know. 

Ah, okay. I didn't see the MFC link down there. My bad.  

23 hours ago, cathouzouf said:

 

what I think MFC needs is a complete awareness campaign: what it is, why it’s there, how it is run (and ultimately, who is behind it). It would even be better (and more effective/legitimate) if Team Mika (or even Mika himself) would participate in a way. 

 

Agreed. Some of this is mentioned on the homepage, but its something that should be really highlighted. (We used to be linked on Mika's website, if I remember correctly. All that internet traffic is gone. We don't show up in the first few results when you google "mika" anymore. What happened?)

Maybe more online events or games that make being on the forum more fun and interactive would be a good idea. I don't know if you guys still do anything like that, but I remember activities like that from awhile ago and they were fun. It doesn't have to be a huge thing, but just something to pique interest. 

I'm definitely here to help as well. I don't plan on disappearing again. I'll be around. 

14 hours ago, JoAllison said:

My partner lives in SC (14 year long distance relationship, so I’ve been to SC a lot). I also have an aunt and uncle in Wilmington NC who I visit (and cousins in other southern states). I’m not first choice since I don’t live there, but if nobody better turns up, maybe I can help.

Wow, and you're from New York? That's far. How have you guys made that work? 

I've visited a few times as well, because my parents live there, but it's going to be so different actually living there and getting to know people from there. It'd be interesting to talk to someone who is actually from there about it. But if you have any input, I'd be happy to hear it! 

1 hour ago, kreacher said:

 

i'm sorry, i've never even been to the south (except florida once) so i'm no help at all. We did have an MFCer from SC who frequented for a while but i haven't seen her around since like late 2015.

I know who you're talking about. We used to be best friends on here. I'm pretty sure I'm moving close to where she was from, if I remember correctly. Just in North Carolina. Is that creepy that I remember that? We were online friends after all. 

Geez, Dee. I haven't talked to you in literally years. Sorry for being MIA. How are you doing? I miss talking to you on chat. 

Wondering if there's anyone from North Carolina lurking around here? I'm moving there in the summer. Just wondering, some advice on moving to the south would be nice.