The certain future of OozingGoo

[Autumn]

Hey all,

Mark has decided to step down as owner of OozingGoo and pass the torch on to me. Most everyone on here knows me, but here is a real quick summary of my involvement over the years. I've been a mod on here for 10+ years and have been the main contributor to the Lava Library with the assistance of many people on here (Jonas in particular). Since I am still passionate about the lava hobby and want to preserve what we have here I volunteered to run OozingGoo and pay the bills.

So what is going to change? Not a whole lot right this moment. I rearranged the home page to remove some old outdated links that didn't work and disabled some features that no one used. I have also been discussing with some other members of the lava community about integrating our communities together. This is the big thing to look out for. I have laid some of the ground work to start this process on the home page. Chat has been moved to Discord. We have a very active community on there and it far surpasses the built in chat Ning provides. We have a Facebook group that we would like to make the official oozing goo Facebook group. Finally there is a subReddit that I'd like to incorporate into the fold as another part of our community.

The idea here is to make a cohesive community where everyone can participate wherever they want while still having OozingGoo around as a permanent place to share their photos and topics. OozingGoo isn't going anywhere. It is too important to fade away. There is so much history here and I want to make sure this place continues to be a place where everyone can share their collections, talk to other collectors, and most importantly be a place where your contributions will become part of lava history.

You can see the start of the community hub on the home page now. Hopefully we will get some better graphics in there. :)

[LampHead]

Big changes. Very cool !

[Galaxy_9]

This is very exciting news! Such a long history and the backbone of how our community was built. Back in the earlier days of the internet, this was the only place to connect, see pictures and vintage history and yes, thanks to Jonas, for being a pioneer contributor. I recall catching the Lava fever in '97 era, obsessed and printing pictures in black and white then coloring them in to make decorative Binder inserts / motivation for lamps to hunt at flea markets and antique shops LOL. Twenty something years later it's great to see a huge community, not just a few collectors, we have come a long way. Thank You, Autumn, for being a leader and stepping up to keep the lights on!

[Soylent Green]

I"m so relieved!

[Soylent Green]

I'm so relieved!

[Brad]

thanks for the taking the reins, autumn, and for leading this charge! the discord server IS really cool and VERY active.

[Mattgyver92]

Thanks for stepping up Autumn. I'm glad to see the lavamancy community thrive and innovate.

[MonsoonStorm]

Great to hear that you've taken over and the forum will continue, and cool to know about the discord, I'll check it out.

Just a quick thought, would incorporating the reddit sub not detract from this forum?  They both essentially serve the same purpose - it would become a case of "which do we post to?"

I'm not sure how big the subreddit is, but other "specialty" subs I'm subscribed to tend to suffer from endless posts of photos of the product (often the same popular one), and the same questions asked over and over and over.  There is often is little of substance and a lack of community which tends to lead to a 'crappier' atmosphere.  The great thing about this forum is the dedicated areas that encourage great conversation/research.  If people want to post pictures of their lamp here then they can simply add it to their album or post it in dedicated places and not clutter the rest of the site.

I'd hate to see the best of this site ending up lost in the mire of a subreddit (and at the mercy of reddit's whims - they haven't exactly been playing nice recently).  There's also the issue of potential ad revenue from this site being lost if people start posting more on reddit? Just my thoughts. 

Perhaps negotiating a link to this site within a pinned post or the wiki may be better? 

[MonsoonStorm]

Addition to the above...

Would the same concerns not apply to Facebook also?  Personally I haven't used facebook for years (can't stand the place) so I don't really know what the deal is there.

Just a little concerned about the dilution of the forum/information.

[Mattgyver92]

I follow you there. The r/lavalamps sub is pretty much a lot posts these days asking for help for the same issues/problems and most cases they just need a dimmer, more patience, different bulb, or a different room environment. That said, I do like how here at OG, there's a specific place where people can go to ask for help and search for similar posts (which I've needed to do myself many times). It keeps the other discussions on collecting, theory, experimentation, and development from being drowned with help requests which is nice.

MonsoonStorm said:

Great to hear that you've taken over and the forum will continue, and cool to know about the discord, I'll check it out.

Just a quick thought, would incorporating the reddit sub not detract from this forum?  They both essentially serve the same purpose - it would become a case of "which do we post to?"

I'm not sure how big the subreddit is, but other "specialty" subs I'm subscribed to tend to suffer from endless posts of photos of the product (often the same popular one), and the same questions asked over and over and over.  There is often is little of substance and a lack of community which tends to lead to a 'crappier' atmosphere.  The great thing about this forum is the dedicated areas that encourage great conversation/research.  If people want to post pictures of their lamp here then they can simply add it to their album or post it in dedicated places and not clutter the rest of the site.

I'd hate to see the best of this site ending up lost in the mire of a subreddit (and at the mercy of reddit's whims - they haven't exactly been playing nice recently).  There's also the issue of potential ad revenue from this site being lost if people start posting more on reddit? Just my thoughts. 

Perhaps negotiating a link to this site within a pinned post or the wiki may be better? 

[Autumn]

This is exactly why I wanted to keep Oozinggoo alive. This is a more permanent place to have discussions with a stronger community. Reddit provides us with new members since Reddit has a much larger user base and we provide reddit with static information they can reference. If you read some of the reddit discussions you will see the common questions that get asked over and over often get replies that include a link to the Lava Library. The same thing happens on Facebook too. The reality is these platforms have a near monopoly on social media spaces and it's better to work with them in a symbiotic way rather than competitive.

[Angel]

Even though I'm a very new member of this site (this accounts only a few days old; its just a baby!), I feel obligated to thank you for keeping it up and running Autumn! I'm beyond ecstatic that the sites mostly retained its initial layout and accessibility over time, but most importantly I love seeing such a strong community from years past still so alive as more and more members join. Its been an honor to be here even for the few days I've been registered, and I cant wait to make more friends and learn more about these lamps I love so much!

[Bob Scran]

Yes Autumn! Can’t think of a better person to take over ☺️🙌