It's Real: UrsusMaximus.com

[octothorpe]

OK, so I purchased the domain. From the thread Building a Better Bear411, I got a lot of positive feedback. I am gonna do this.

There are a lot of features that will go into the site. Some will make the initial cut, some will be added to the list of potential future upgrades. At this time, I'd like to outline the basic themes:

• This will be a bear site, foremost. This means everyone is invited if you feel "bear identified" in any way, or are an admirer of the same.
• The primary purpose will be to foster community, not just hook-ups
• There will be free and paid accounts
• While I can't commit to this, I will try to make sure the free members never get their services cut. However, Paid/donating members will get perks
• The User Experience will blow the doors off any existing site to date.
• Don't expect much at first, but *do* expect new features to be implemented rapidly.

Now it's your turn. There are a lot of you out there who have talent. I'm not able to create this by my self, so I am asking for volunteers. I would like to have people dedicated to creating a quality site, who share in this Vision Thing. I need coders, artists, database admins, and writers. I'll be handling the Information Architecture, and standards. Soon, I will also need a handful of beta testers. It's going to be a hell of a lot of work, but it will be worth the effort if we can foster a community. Chosen volunteers will be rewarded in some way, *at least* with a free (full) account.

All past and future posts on this topic will be tagged as "ursusmaximus", so you can easily follow along.

What say ye?

.

Comments

[bix02138.livejournal.com]

sign me up!

i can help with writing, suggestions and vetting (beta testing).

i can also help with approvals and/or identification issues.

just let me know when.

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Fantastic. I'll let you know. At the moment, we're still in the über early planning stages. I want to take a day with my (pen and paper) notebook, and do some general organising and mind-mapping.

One of the features I want to have is a weblog, and keep it updated daily. Another "perk" idea would allow paid members to also have weblogs. Yeah, I know many people already have LJ, or TypePad, etc, but it still may be useful, *and* I will provide RSS feeds so *unlike* LJ, you can actually follow along.

Aye

[notdefined.livejournal.com]

Whatever my limited talents may provide sir.

Re: Aye

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Danke. Your help on the back-end (ahem) will be of *much* use.

[pagerbear.livejournal.com]

I can help with writing and testing.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

I'll donate to the cause as much as you'll let me. :) I can do artwork, coding, writing, etc.

[sunsmogseahorse.livejournal.com]

Hey, I wanted to reply to your last post but I wasn't sufficiently caffienated when I read it. Now, strong cup of tea in hand, here goes.

This is a great idea. I really love bigmusclebears.com. It's aimed at a subset of bears, not so much in the exclusionary sense but in the sense of specialization. Bill and Andy's format is excellent. I like the messaging aspect to it, that not that much in profile creation is forced-choice and that one can write a lot or a little depending on what they want.

I had a profile on bear411 for about ten seconds, quite literally. Their format was just too horrible to look at and trying to create a profile was wholly unpleasant. Feh.

Build a better beast for the general bear crowd. I'm all for it.

[gotmoof.livejournal.com]

Its exciting to see someone taking the balls to move forward to create a better site for users.

I offer my help in whatever way I can.

[pagerbear.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I'll gladly drool over screen any images submitted for profiles.

[mh58.livejournal.com]

Beta tester here. And of course helping out the hubby.

[thikstache.livejournal.com]

Woo Hoo...this is so great! A couple nights ago, I was talking to this guy on Bear411 about how all these puter Bears should get together and take all the best ideas and put it in one place.

Hell, let me know how I can help out. And thanks so much for putting yourself out there for this!

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Help is always good! What can you do(aside from that thing with your tongue)?

[ptownnyc.livejournal.com]

If I had any of those particular technical skills, I'd be happy to help you out :(

[pagerbear.livejournal.com]

You can be legal counsel for the site. And help me drool over screen profiles.

[gothikcub.livejournal.com]

i'd love to help, although i might only be able to beta test it. bear411's system has been getting on my last nerve for months...i'd love to usher in something more user friendly!

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

It's all good. Also, if you happen to know anyone who can code (Perl, Ruby, PHP), that'd be great.

Keep up the buzz

[wonderboynj.livejournal.com]

Count me in amongst those who can offer their limited services :)

[rootbeer1.livejournal.com]

I'll help with testing, feedback, etc.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

My training is in publication and website design (look & feel stuff) and there's the photography thing also. But I don't mind doing grunt work of any kind either.

Um...

[otterpup.livejournal.com]

I'd volunteer, but I don't think I really have any skills... um... yeah.

But I can cheerlead for you!

Re: Um...

[gotmoof.livejournal.com]

You'd look damned sexy in a cheerleaders outfit, B. :-)

[le-lapin.livejournal.com]

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Oh, but you do!

I plan on serving more than just the english-speaking crowd. A French translation would be welcome!

I can proofread.

[fuzzyjay.livejournal.com]

I can proofread like a muthmotherfukfucker!

[thornyc.livejournal.com]

I'm more than happy to betatest.

IE 6.0.2 with Windows 200 Pro at work (at least until it gets flagged as an adult site)

Mac 10.? at home, with various non-Explorer browsers

I also have extensive editing and proofreading skills.

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

And we will undoubtedly need them! Thanks much.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Gathering my eggs to egg you on....

1) Business form. Nonprofit or profit? US-based or overseas? Nonprofit gives some (slight) protections from lawsuits and law enforcement harassment. Overseas would be better but complicated, and if you're going to keep the XXX-rated static stuff accessible only to paying members, the issues posed by current law aren't too bad. The organization is protected against content-based harassment only insofar as it serves as a carrier of user-produced content and exercises no editorial control.

2) Market: I whine about the negative effect on community of driven sex addicts (who, because of their dedication, are vastly overrepresented at online sites that work for hookups), but a broad and diverse community includes them without letting them dominate the intercourse (so to speak.) So making the site useful for hookups is a good thing (and of course we all have our moments!). If the user can specify and change current location at will, doing a zipcode->distance mapping for searches is pretty easy (there are tools available, at least for US and Canada.) Feature to be implemented later, but very handy for travel.

3) Leveraging existing communities and tools. LJ combine with email and IM services already does a lot of what one wants; in analogy to ICUii vs. Yahoo or other video-IMs, ICUii has a large community of gay users because it provides a way to find others looking for video chat, so your site stripped down is more about finding people, and the services for communication and personal database can piggyback on others. Gaywired tried to do this, but got beaten out by easier-to-use mass-market sites. Somewhere in between would be ideal and let you start small (message service provided by your site also generates email to user, and vice-versa, a la Live Journal comments but better; simple profile page for searches with easy pointers to content held elsewhere; online status and IM service provided by accessing user's preferred IM service if not the sites; etc.)

4) I'd be happy to help out. I can't code anymore (I haven't kept up with the new world of web-based services) but would be able to write documents and brainstorm ideas.

HTH

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

I was hoping you'd chime in. I was thinking about writing the site in LISP, so your skills *will* be needed. Actually, it's less a website, and more of an Emacs plug-in ;-)

Actually, in all seriousness, your thoughts in 3 are exactly where I am headed. Don't try and re-invent the wheel. Do one thing, and do it well. Allow that one thing to easily communicate in a standardised way, so when we add functionality, we'll have a better time during unit testing, etc.

The site will go up in phases. The first phase, I envision just allowing people to make a profile, and search. That's it. It's simple enough that we can put it up there quickly, and get feedback. Quickly, I would like to add additional features such as messaging and threaded discussion groups. Followed by chat.

In the profile, I think the most important thing isn't so much your vitals, but rather your contacts... how do people get in touch with you... Email/AIM/carrier pigeon/ etc. The worst offense of many of these sites is the failure to allow for free communication outside of the website. I want to build a site where people can build relationships, even if that relationship is for 20 minutes in the back of a pick-up truck. ;-)

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I'll help wherever you need it. Troubleshooting, beta, some coding, gfx, integration, technical/various writing, etc.

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Cool. what kinda coding? I know this is the "latest buzzword" but I am considering Ruby/Rails (or some other solid framework) for the back-end. If you can do some basic OO programming, that would be fantastic.

[trulygrateful.livejournal.com]

I really don't know much about coding... or being an artist... but I can use the existing Bear411 (within non-paid parameters) very well and would be happy to offer my services to you, however you see fit to use them.

No need to reply, unless you really want to.

Grrr.

Web production

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Well if you need a production asst.

While I'm a bit leary of writing HMTL code (and it looks like a lot of this will be scripted stuff anyhows, stuff I don't really know), maybe I can help with the images or banging out some cut and pasting of code.

I'm close enough physically to get files from you, so anything I can to help lighten up your load.

[hossinseattle.livejournal.com]

I'll make cookies for the party. Bear 412?

[beastbriskett.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an exciting project!
I'd like to offer some spot illustrations or other visual fluff if ya need some.

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! Thank you so much!

In trying to be a community-based site, not just a hook-up site, I would like to highlight talent (writing/illustration/etc) wherever I can. I'd love to incorporate your illustrations into the site design.

[jeffbearnyc.livejournal.com]

I don't know if/how I can help, but if I can, please ask. I have multiple servers here (need one?, it's yours) and about 3TB of Web space here. (It's a Windows/IIS/SQL Server 2000 environment, so probably not much use to you, but...?