First off, thank you for visiting Magic Deck Vortex and for reading up on the whole forum ‘switcharoo’. You’re asking yourself.. what happen to the forums? Why did it happen and why aren’t we on Magic Trading Post anymore? I told you I would explain what has happened and why, and below you will find all of that. But first, let me digress a little bit.

Oh yes, before the digression, the new forums for MDV can be found here.  And yes, that is the same image that I posted when I originally posted the forums for Magic Deck Vortex, except then I linked to www.magictradingpost.com. 

Webmaster Digressions… (blah blah blah)

Since Magic Deck Vortex began a little over three years ago (August 2005 marks it’s third year) a lot has been accomplished, changed, revamped, deleted and so on. My personal deck database grew from 200 decks to over 1500. It wasn't very personal anymore either.  The deck clinic, which was part of the site for the first few months, was 86’d (86’d means deleted for you non-food establishment workers out there) because there wasn’t enough time to devote to it. Polls were eventually added. I tried using Google as the site’s search function but then a year later I changed it over to the Entropy search engine. Google just wasn’t good enough although it had some better features than Entropy – but it just didn’t search all of MDV. AdventuresOn hosted a deck submission utility for MDV.  And then, for the first time, Magic Deck Vortex had a forum for all of you to go to.  That happened in March this year.

All of these add-ons to MDV were things I wanted since the beginning and I felt and feel like it is mandatory to have some of these features in order to grow as a site and become all that it can be. A search function is something that gives users a better experience in trying to find something on the site. It’s about a thousand times better to click three times instead of twenty to find an article or deck on, say, Stax. Then there are polls. Polls offer an interactive part of the site that visitors can relate to. If you can interact with the site as oppose to just viewing it, it makes you want to return. Polls are the most primitive form of visitor interaction… but at least it was a start. The deck contests I once had were also a form of user interaction.. but that’s a sour point with some of the visitors, so I won’t talk too much about it.

Finally, there are forums. Forums are the ultimate tool for visitor interaction. Forums give visitors a place where they can discuss the latest deck updates, articles or news from the site or even not from the site. Forums are like the egg in meatloaf. It the like glue that keeps the community of MDV together. Without a forum, a site is like an encyclopedia… just a reference for anyone to pick up when they need it. And who wants to go to an encyclopedia everyday? I want to go to a community and I think all of you do too.

The infancy of the MDV forums

Back in March this year, MastaBling, from Magic Trading Post (MTP), approached me via email to see if I wanted to join up with them and use MTP as a forum for Magic Deck Vortex. Here is text from the email he sent:

I co-own and host www.magictradingpost.com. Right now, we are looking to building the site members to that of a grander scale. Would you be interested in possibly talking over a scheme where MDV and MTP could both grow together? Please let me know if you’d be receptive to chatting and throwing ideas back and forth.

At first glance, I was very skeptical about the email. While I would have loved having a forum, I didn’t think I had time to oversee one nor did I know how to go about it. This email was a blessing but one that I would have to think a lot about before I ever agreed to anything. I didn’t know this guy. I never heard of their forum. I didn’t know. How would it pan out? Would it really be good for MDV? Would it just be a way for this forum to increase their forum member count? Would they ever screw me over? I just didn’t know. I decided to think deep about it and below are some of the pros and cons I thought of in making this deal.. this forum pact. (Not Guildpact).

The Pros:

• I could finally have a forum – something I have wanted since the beginning. A little glue in the community of Magic Deck Vortex visitors. A little egg if you want think of Magic Deck Vortex as a meatloaf.  [Cream of Mushroom goes great in Meatload, BTW...]
• It would give visitors the opportunity to discuss facets, articles and features on Magic Deck Vortex.  It would thus help create a community for MDV.  I think articles need to be discussed and thus a forum is great at that.
• In the forum I can run contests that are a lot less time consuming than some of the Deckbuilding contests I did. This included non-deck building contests like Card Creations contests and Flavor Text contests I had hosted or been apart of on other forums.  I always found this to be an enjoyable experience on other sites.. so why couldn't it be enjoyable for MDV visitors too?
• I could feel the power of Moderating my own sections of the forum. MWAHA HA HA! That’s really a joke… there’s no power in it.. just lots of reading, posting and work.  But I think it pays off in the end.

The Cons:

• For one, the forum wasn’t on Magic Deck Vortex itself. Thus, I feared many people wouldn’t join for that reason. It would create a sort of sub-Community mixed in with the community of another site. I didn’t want a sub-Community. I wanted MDV’s own community.
• I didn’t have complete control of the forum. If something was going wrong outside of my section of the forums, I could do nothing to really stop it. Also, say I didn’t like the color scheme or the goals of the site, I had no power to change it.
• I would have to invest a lot of time into the forum to make sure people were aware of it and that my section of the forum was always jumping. In hosting contests or whatever, I would have to spend a small part of my day everyday to keep up with everything. I didn’t know if I had the time.
• I knew nothing about the people who ran or visited MTP.  If you are making an investment, do you just throw money at the first company you see?  No.  You don't.  This analogy is appropriate for this kind of dealing.  I have invested A LOT of time into my webiste, Magic Deck Vortex, and I wasn't about to make this kind of investment without knowing details.

After some IM discussions with the guy I decided it would be in the best interest for Magic Deck Vortex to have a forum, even if it wasn’t on Magic Deck Vortex. MastaBling gave me a good impression and I felt his intentions were good.  Also, The Pros seem to outweigh the cons. At the time, I had just started a movement to get writers on MDV and I thought this would be a great outlet for people to discuss the articles much like they do on MTGS, StarCity, Londes, Magic4You and Wizards.  While Magic Deck Vortex mainly caters to the casual crowd, I want it to be just as good as my fellow Magic: the Gathering websites on the net.

So what happened?

So yeah… what happened? Six months into it I just change it all up – and why? Why would I confuse everyone that enjoyed the forums by switching everything to a different place? Well, before I go on about that, let me say a big thank you to the owners of Magic Trading Post.

THANK YOU!

Without my experience on MTP, I would not have done this. What did I do? I started Magic Deck Vortex’s own forum right here on the MDV site… not somewhere else. MTP taught me a few things and one of which is hosting a forum is not as difficult as you think it is as long as you have a good base of forum posters and moderators. Already, several people have stepped up to take Mod positions, but I digress. Thank you MagicManiac, AlphaInsidious and MastaBling for teaming up with Magic Deck Vortex back in March of this year to give MDV people a place to talk and discuss.

I would hope that the owners of MTP are not upset with this change as I did email MagicManiac with brief statement on my intent and what was happening. I would like to stay affiliated with MTP. Magic Trading Post will continue to grow and so will Magic Deck Vortex but now we each have out own place. MTP has their new better forum to talk through and MDV has its own forum you all can talk through.

While MDV was teamed up with MTP, I feel that a good portion of the MDV visitors joined the forums and heavily discussed many topics from CELIXIA topics to non-magic related topics to various contests. I was very happy with the turnout of MDV people on MTP. I don’t think there were any harsh feelings created on the MTP boards nor do I think people disliked their experience there. MTP was a good catalyst in the creation of MDV’s own forums and, at the time, a great place for MDV people before this changeover.

Plus, while writing this article, I had a discussion with MagicManiac, one of the owners of Magic Trading Post.  He was upset to see me break away from MTP, but at the same time he expressed kind words regarding this change.  He even offered to help me set up the MDV forums.  And he said they looked cool.  That's amazing!  I mean, I thought MTP would be upset about the change, but they weren't.  They were willing to even help if I needed it.  That's amazing!

I shall never forget MTP for helping MDV out with the forums they had.  There are many things I associate with MTP like the Flavor Text contest I hosted, the card creation contests I hosted there and more.   I also invested quite a bit of time and effort into seeing MTP grow and I hope they do well.. with or without MDV visitors posting there.  I would encourage you to keep visiting the site as they are a good group of people, posters, admins and moderators.

Details.. I know you want details.

So what were my feelings and motives behind all of this? It wasn't just one thing.  That's for sure.  Let me go into some of the major factors (below).

One big push towards this change was MTP’s downtime for a week. Turns out they invested some funds into getting a new forum set up with new software in a new place. This meant that many of the threads would not be transferred over to the new locale and much of the MDV forums would be lost in limbo on the old MTP site. At least that is what MagicManiac had mentioned to me in several IM conversations.  I didn’t like this AT ALL. I figured if I was going to have to start over, I would start over with my own forum. This was the major reason for the change. Note that I chatted with MagicManiac on MSN IM while writing this article and it turns out he will be able to transfer some or all of the threads. That's great, but, this new forum has already been set into motion and I stand firm in this change.

Another thing that sparked my interest in this was playing around in my control panel on Magic Deck Vortex. Remember when I installed the new search engine? Well, at the same time I noticed my web host provided several different forum softwares for free. This meant that I could install phpBB forums for free. All I had to do was figure it out. It’s been less than a week since I installed the software on MDV and I’ve figured quite a bit out. When I first installed the software I started playing around with the background styles.  While doing that, I managed to completely screw up the forum... thus having to uninstall the forum and resintall it.  We all live and learn, right?  Anyway, with the help of “SuperStreetz”, a.k.a. my older brother, I might be able to get some cool features on the forum including card tags and other modifications to make the forum better for all of us.  SuperStreetz is an uber knowledgable programmer so within time, we will have the new forums perfect.

The last major pull in doing this was getting the forum on MDV. I wanted a community within the site.. not spread out amongst other sites. This is why I chose to install the ENTROPY search engine on MDV instead of using Google. This will be a recurring theme through all I do on Magic Deck Vortex. If it isn’t on Magic Deck Vortex for it’s visitors, I will work to get it only on Magic Deck Vortex. The only exception to this is the deck submission tool by AdventuresOn.  Know that I strive on a daily basis to make MDV the best for all of you.  I want MDV to succeed in everything it could.  I want MDV to really be "What the casual players use!"

Hopefully, this has given you some insight and answered your questions about the forum changes from MTP to MDV. In the end, this will be most beneficial for Magic Deck Vortex as a site and for you as the visitor. If you have any questions about this, or suggestions, please post something in the forum or send me an email.

In the meantime, enjoy the new forums, enjoy Magic Deck Vortex, and enjoy playing Magic: the Gathering.  Thanks you, as always, for visiting Magic Deck Vortex. I appreciate it.

~Streetz~

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

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