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Another month, another round of submissions made! This post is intended to thank those members who have helped to grow our database. This last month saw 2992 submissions. Of those submissions, 2295 submissions were for the games database and 697 were for the hardware database. In addition, 391 images were added to the database last month.
We'd like to thank everyone for the submissions that they make. A special thanks goes out to those members who submitted more than 50 pieces of information. Those members are Tan, Tynstar, James, eaglebeak99, Funk_Buddy, Pop Culture Portal, OatBob, ApolloBoy, NES_Rules, and Mezmoron. Tan also had the largest number of submissions made, with 874. Congratulations on taking the top spot! It certainly is appreciated.
Any submission made by a regular member must be approved by a staff member, and this month, Tan also took the top post for approving submissions, with 540 approvals. OatBob and Tynstar round out the top 3 approvers, and we are thankful that they and all other staff members helped to approve your submissions. Thanks!
Lastly, I'd like to thank Tynstar for all the items that he helps to fix in the database. Scott, has been great, fixing errors and inconsistencies that can not be fixed using the edit scripts. We are appreciate for that!
Thanks for the submissions, and let's try to submit many new submissions this month!
[img align=right]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/204325269947003e9e076a6141427082v7_240x240_Front_Color-BlackWhite.jpg[/img]
RF Generation is a community of gamers, collectors, and generally good people that make this place truly special. With this site though there are costs associated with it, whether it is domain registration fees, server costs, contingency budgets, or contests. Well, these costs add up, and for poor college kids such as myself it is a cost that we would love to be shared amongst the community. As such, today we start the 2007 "keep the site running" donation drive.
Any donation made during this drive will be used solely for server costs and contingencies. Over the past year, we've seen readership grow immensely, and we want to make sure that we have the funds available to ensure that the server and site are always running properly. With your help, we'll have the funds to keep the site going for another year. This year, we are looking for a goal of $500 to be raised.
The question then arises - what is the incentive for donating? Well, don't you love the site? Wouldn't you hate it if it disappeared? Well, while the site will never disappear, you certainly would make the poor college kids (and Scott) happy if you helped defray the costs of running the site. Additionally, there are perks. Anyone who donates money this year will get to be given donor status, which let's everyone know that they helped to keep the site running. Additionally, we have something new this year for donors - freebies! If you donate $20, you will get RF Generation Logo Magnet, and if you donate $50, a cool RF Generation ringer T is yours to keep! That's our way of saying thanks for donating! Please note that to get your shirt or magnet you will have to provide an address to us via PM, and while we're pretty sure we can deliver our merchandise anywhere, we can't guarantee it. If we find out that you live somewhere where we can't deliver the shirt we'll make every effort to make things right, including having the shirt delivered to our house and then out via UPS, DHL, or Fed-ex rather than having it shipped directly from the manufacturer.
To donate, click the donate button located in the navigation area of our forum, or click here. We certainly appreciate any donation that is made, and with your help, we'll reach our goal. Thank you!
Deep within the depths of this site, we hid a page that perhaps some of you are not aware of. This page possibly has some things of interest for you... it is our promote page.
Why might this page interest you? Well, we know that you all really love RF Generation. Some of you practically live here (I am looking at you Scott). Well, why not express your love elsewhere! Want a promotional banner of microbar to use? We got plenty of them that you can use! You might even find some personalized content made just for you, provided that you are a member with a collection.
[img width=468 height=60]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/banners/generated/collection/den68.png[/img]
So, check out our promote page. You'll find some cool things there. Perhaps if you are not into the images you can still help to make the site known. Word of mouth works miracles, and without this word of mouth we'd be a really small site with a tiny community. But, you guys have all done a wonderful job promoting the site, and we hope that you keep it up. Tell your friends, and we hope that you'll keep it tuned to channel 3.
Hello readers and members, I hope you've enjoyed the last weekend as much as I have. For those of you not in the states or Canada, it was Labor Day weekend. In Cincinnati, we have a big party. I, along with many of my friends were there. Hopefully your weekend was as awesome as ours.
Anyways, I digress. Last Friday was the last day of August, and so it is time for me to reflect on the last month and commend you all for the submissions that you have made. In case you were wondering, 3016 submissions were made last month. Of those, 1700 were games submissions, 1316 were hardware submissions, and 583 submissions were for new images. I'd like to thank you all for helping to grow our database with these submissions, it's you guys that allow our site and database to grow, and we are truly thankful. This month's top submitter was Mariott_guy! He bested the competition with 1231 submissions. The next highest submitters with more than 50 submissions last month are, in order, Funk_Buddy, Belgarath, NES_Rules, Oatbob, Tan, eaglebeak99, and Alabama-shrimp. I'd like to thank all members, including those who made less than 50 submissions for their submissions. We truly appreciate it. Some people also have to approve submissions, and I'd like to thank Tan and Tynstar for approving a bunch of submissions. Tynstar narrowly beat out Tan for top approver spot last month (148 vs 146). Congrats on that, and try not to rub it in too much.
I believe that I failed to do this post for July, and I am truly sorry. In case you were wondering, July saw 4351 new submissions. Of those, 4150 were for the games database and 351 were for the hardware database. July also saw 1675 new images, an impressive number indeed. In July, Funk_Buddy was the top submitter, with 662 new submissions. The next largest submitters over 50 submissions are in order: Tan, Belgarath, Oatbob, Speedy_NES, Tynstar, marriott_guy, Fighter17, Donkey Kong Kid, Magewout, NES_Rules, sharp, James, Mars, Apolloboy, Alabama-Shrimp, Malgyris, Rorschach, Fuyukaze, cverz2, and JWKobayashi. I'd like to thank everyone for their submissions. In July, Tan schooled Tynstar in the approvals category, with 722 aprrovals versus Tynstar's 258 approvals. I'd like to thank everyone who approved submissions in July and August, thanks for keeping the show going.
Thanks everyone, and as always stay tuned, you never know when new features will be showing up.
I'm surprised I even caught this stat, but as of yesterday RF Generation officially broke the one million visits per year mark. That doesn't mean one million unique visitors in the past year, but still its an impressive feat. Essentially, a visit is a session that a user spends on a site. I know most of you probably won't understand the notion of a visit, but for those of you who do and those who don't, we are certainly touched by the statistic. Just to give you an idea of how much the site has grown, in September of last year we had 14621 visits. In July of this year we had 209662 visits. You all must certainly love us, and we are touched. This site is nothing without its community, and it's nice to know that our community is so strong. For this fact, we are truly grateful.
Thanks for your readership, and thanks for being a part of our community. We hope that you enjoy the direction we've been going, and if you wish for something new or unique we're always certainly willing to listen. Thanks for being there with us, and we hope that you will all continue to keep it tuned to channel 3.
RF Generation has had a lot of things added in the last year, and one of those additions, the blog, launched with the new site design. Well, some people thought that the blog was so nifty that they asked if they could have their own blogs. Well, starting today, they can.
Introducing... the Community Blogs. Here, you can find our member's blogs, or you can start your own, provided that you are a registered member of the site. Of course, this blogging system is programmed by your neighborhood friendly Site Director, so this release is a beta, some new features are yet to be added, and some things may yet work perfectly. If you catch a bug, let me know, I'd certainly love to quash it.
I've tried to add as much customization options to the blog script as I can, so please take advantage of them. Since this script is beta, I am open to suggestions, but I do not intend on adding any features that would take extensive coding. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the blogs, perhaps you'll find the scripts of use, or you'll just enjoy reading its contents.
Cheers!
This post is a long time coming. In the past few months we've added quite a few members to staff, but as far as I am aware of we've never introduced them. Well, today let me spend the time to introduce our new staff members, and officially welcome them into the community.
First off, I'd like to welcome the new hardware contributors, Marriott_guy and ApolloBoy, their enthusiasm for all things hardware related make them a welcome part of the team. We certainly hope that the hardware database will grow with their help.
Next, we've added quite a few European Staff members to the fold. Recently, Belgarath and Magewout were added to the fold, and sharp was welcomed back onto staff. They join the existing team of Speedy_NES and AndyC. To say that we are elated with these additions to the team would be an understatement. We are truly lucky to have these five enthusiastic people on board to help make sure the PAL database grows.
We've also added a new features writer and a new blog writer into the fold. Our new features writer OatBob and our new blog writer Tondog will strive along with the existing features and blog writers to make sure that the pages of our site have substance. I encourage you all to check out their work.
In addition to these new staff members, we've also moved some editors around to satisfy needs. AndyC has elected to assist in moving forward the European Database, and we enthusiastically grant his wish. Replacing AndyC in the hardware editor position will be Tan, who will also remain the blog editor as well. We wish both of these two the best of luck in their new positions.
So, let's officially welcome these new staff members to the team. With their help, the site will truly become something great.
July 26, 2007. On this day the RF Generation database passed 30000 games. Don't believe me? Look at the stats to the right of this post. Isn't that number large? Truly this number is a milestone to be marked and celebrated. From a database of about ten thousand games in 2004 to the 30000 game behemoth we are today, truly this milestone is a great one, and it couldn't have been done without you guys, our community.
Without our community this milestone would be insignificant, and with you guys we will celebrate the occasion. With your help, we certainly are becoming the classic and modern video games database that Michael Collins, Laurel Settee, Mark Hartholt, Mike Leon, Eddie Herrmann, and Rick Kuethe set out to create. Thank all of you, from staff to regular member to programmers to editors to directors, certainly we could not have gotten to this point without your help, and we are truly grateful.
Now is the time to celebrate, but it is also a time to look to the future! Help us get to 40000 games in the database. With your help, I am sure we'll make that milestone someday soon.
On behalf of directors at RF Generation, I'd like to thank everyone who has submitted information or images over the last month. For June, we had a total of 3433 submissions made. Of those submissions, 1408 were image additions and 687 were hardware submissions. We even had 9 regional variation submissions, which goes to show that some people from Europe are reading the site, and we are grateful for their readership.
As with each month there is a top submitter of information and images. This month, that submitter is Belgarath with 745 submissions. Funk_Buddy came in second with 419 submssions, and Tan third with 387 submissions. The next highest submitters over 50 submissions, in order, are Marriott_Guy, sharp, James, briskbc, Fuyukaze, Alabama-Shrimp, Mezmoron, Malygris, NES_Rules, Izret101, Kevincal, Magewout, and Samada. Thank you all for your submissions, we'd be nowhere without them.
Many of these submissions have to be approved by someone. This month, Tan kicked everyone's butt on staff with 761 approvals. Thank you Tan and everyone else on staff for getting those submissions approved.
Lastly, I'd like to thank you all for being such loyal members of our community. Our visits in the last month were the most they've ever been by a long shot, and we are now certainly on pace to have a million visit year. Thank you all for helping this amazing milestone come to fruition, and I do hope that you all continue to keep it tuned to channel three.
[img align=right]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/J-060/bf/J-060-S-03025-A.jpg&sizex=200[/img]
Japan is home to many things, and many of those things we embrace. Of the things Japan has given to the world are games, and this week we celebrate those games and hardware entries with a Japanese Influence.
First off, check out the featured game, Battle Arena Toshinden Remix. If I had played the game I'd say something about it, but sadly I have not touched this game. However, Kevincal has, and he submitted a wonderful review and overview back in the day. We appreciate that.
Next, the featured image goes to Akumajo Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku. Yes, that title is a Romanized Japanese title, but you may know the game as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I hear that game is pretty darn good.
Next, the featured hardware is the Family Computer, or Famicom. This system was released by some playing card company named Nintendo. I hear they went to become something huge, even momentarily being worth more than Sony today. Guess that Nintendo does good for itself.
Lastly, the featured collection belongs to Funk Buddy. Funk Buddy has an affinity for Japanese games and hardware, epsecially the Japanese Sega Saturn. As such, he has the featured collection.
As always stay tuned, more is certainly to follow when you keep it tuned to channel 3.
RF Generation strives to be THE Classic and Modern Video Games Database (see the right corner of the site). This site is a labor of love of the staff and members that contribute to make it what it is, and as of today we are looking for a few bright souls to help continue to make RF Generation what it is today, and even guide it to something better. If you are interested in becoming part of the staff, the people who keep the site moving forward, I encourage you to read on, and if you are interested to apply to become a part of the team that makes RF Generation great.
If you've read on then I imagine that you understand what RF Generation is about. We strive to provide video game collectors and enthusiasts with a place to call home in the vast, dark depths of the internet. It's a scary place, that internet, but we have a cozy community here, and amazingly it is rather diverse, hosting people of many nationalities and backgrounds and interests. We are looking for people who understand the community, and are a productive member of the RF Generation community. While a person with 0 posts will not be completely discounted from consideration we do look favorably upon those applicants who are an active presence in the community, and who understand what RF Generation is. A vibrant community is important to us, and we want people who share our viewpoints on the matter.
Content addition is also an extremely important aspect of RF Generation. In the past, we let staff members go on an "add when you feel like it" policy. Well the truth of the matter is that we have members who add when they feel like it, so we are going to look for applicants that are willing to submit to a schedule and work under an editor. No, this scheme doesn't mean that you have to put work into RF Generation every day, but rather that we, the directors and editors of the site, wish that staff members would post on a consistent basis rather than once every few months. As such, we would like to find people that would be willing to work with an editor to get a schedule going. It would be up to the editor to determine how often you would be working on the site, but you probably would not have to do a significant addition / news post once a week, perhaps even less depending on what you are doing. We're not looking to work anyone to death here, we're just hoping that the front page doesn't go through a month without a news post, or a section of the site goes too long with out a significant addition. We've begun the process of rectifying certain fallacies in the system by restructuring the staff. If brought on to the staff you would be working for an editor. Each editor is specialized in making sure a certain area of the site grows. It would be your job as their staff member to help them make sure that their part of the site grows. Right now, we are looking to fill the following positions:
- Blog Writer: A blog writer is a person that wants to help post to the RF Generation blog. A blog writer must be able to find stories regarding gaming, collecting, otaku, or anything else interesting and relevant via the internet or other media and be able to post them here on the in an interesting, engaging fashion. Due to the nature of blogs, we'd be looking for someone who would be willing to post something on a fairly consistent basis, a basis that would be determined between you and the editor. If you become unable to continue on this basis, we'd have to place you On Hiatus or remove you from staff. We are looking for quite a few blog writers, each with their own specific interests and perspectives, so please, please apply. A blog writer should have a very good grasp of the English language, and should be able to write well and proficiently. Journalistic skills such as citations and the like can be taught, but having some idea how to write blogs and cite correctly would be a major plus. Once again, we are really, really looking for blog writers, so if you are interested and want to help make the RF Generation blog something to be checked every minute then do send in your application. The editor of the blog, and subsequently the front page, is Tan
- Japanese Contributor: The Japanese contributor helps to make the Japanese database meaningful. Title Additions, Page Edits, Screenshots, and Image Submissions would be a part of the things you would be doing for the Japanese database. A Japanese contributor would need to have an affinity for Japanese games, and should be able to Romanize titles. Currently, there is no editor for the Japanese database, but you would be working along with Fuyukaze to make the Japanese database better. It is greatly desired that any incoming Japanese contributor have a willingness to help craft guidelines and FAQs for this database, as currently there is no guidance on Romanization and the like. We'd really like to make our Japanese database significant and meaningful, and we highly encourage you to apply if interested in assisting with that goal.
- European Contributor: The European staff contributor helps to make the PAL database meaningful.
Title Additions, Page Edits, Screenshots, and Image Submissions would be a part of the things you would be doing for the European database. You may also be asked to help approve member submissions as well The PAL database is special in that it has the challenge of regional variations, and a European staff contributor would need to be able to deal with and effectively catalog the variations. The editor in charge of the PAL database is Speedy_NES. - Hardware Contributor: The hardware contributor helps to make the hardware database meaningful. Title Additions, Page Edits, and Image Submissions would be a part of the things you would be doing for the hardware database. The editor in charge of the Hardware database is AndyC.
- Features Contributor: This position is different from the other three in that a features contributor helps to do the weekly features. This generally entails writing an overview, review and other content for a games entry, finding an awesome collection, a neat photo, and featuring it on the front page. Additionally, a features contributor aims to add content to games and hardware pages that other people generally would not, such as Instructions, Overviews, Reviews, and the like. We have a lot of game and hardware pages, but many of those pages have only the minimum fields filed out. We'd like to remedy that. A features contributor should have an especially good grasp of the English Language, and someone with the English skills of a 9 year old should avoid applying for this position. The Features Editor is Mezmoron.
Those are the five positions we are currently looking to fill up. I should make special note that we are really, really looking for people who want to be a part of the Blog, Japanese, European and Hardware group. I should mention that since this operation is a labor of love for everyone involved any hire would be unpaid, since not even the directors of this site get paid, in fact, the directors spend money to keep this baby going, because we love the community we have here. If you are still interested in becoming a member of our staff then I encourage you to apply. How do you do that? Well, you would need to PM me. In that PM, I'd expect the following:
- A list of the positions of the you are applying for, ranked. Please note that you may not get your top choice,
- An explanation of why you should be brought on to staff in the position(s) specified. What would make you a great features writer, or European contributor? We'd like to know.
- A discussion of the RF Generation of community, and how you fit into that now and once you'd be on staff.
- A comment regarding how often you think you should be working on the site, if you are to be added to the staff.
- Anything else you feel we should know.
I'm not really expecting a novel from applicants (in fact, keep it concise and to the point), but more so something that says that you want to be on staff. So if you feel that you can do that in a concise manner than I encourage you to do so. If you have any questions you can direct them to me, TraderJake, the content director Tynstar, or one of the editors. No question is a dumb question. While we'll gladly accept applications whenever we need to review applications at some point; therefore, the deadline to submit an application for this round of hirings will be June 27, 2007. You are welcome to submit an application past that date, but we will be reviewing applications starting on that date. All applications will be reviewed by the Directors and Editors of the site, and applicants will be contacted via a PM or email should we decide to ask them to join our staff. Please note that a submitted application does not guarantee a spot on staff.
We hope that there are a few brave souls out in the world to help move the site forward, and look forward to all applications received.
Good Luck,
David Murnan Site Director
Looking for something to do tomorrow night? Want to talk and joke around with other RF Generation members? Want to discuss games, hardware, collecting, or anything else on your mind? Well, if you do, you should check out RFG Chat tomorrow at 8PM Eastern. While we have our chat open 24/7, RFG Chat is the only time that there is guaranteed to be a hopping good time with our resident chat host, shaggy. It should be a great time for all.
You must be a registered member to enter the chat room. Not a member? Why not join? In addition to chat, we also have a nice forum to visit, a rather large games and hardware database, lots of images, and collection tools that would make the most avid game collector happy. Join today! RF Generation is always a good time and if you keep it tuned to channel 3, you'll find that there is always more to follow!
See you in chat!
RF Generation would be nowhere without its members and staff. Your submissions and additions are what help make the database grow. As such, I want to thank those who really helped make the database grow this month.
First off, I'd like to thank Belgarath for being the top submitter for May. His 446 submissions made him the top submitter, and we are grateful for his hard work. The next largest submitters all with over 50 submissions, in order, are Tan, Funk_Buddy, BadKarma, Dreamcaster, Fuyukaze, Speedy_NES, Samada, Tynstar, Rajaat the Warbringer, NES_Rules, and marriott_guy. Thank you all for your dedication last month, and we hope that you guys will continue making our database better this month.
Other statistics that you may find fun is that for May we had 1247 image additions, 768 game additions, and 371 games edits. Our hardware database, on the other hand, had a whopping 76 submissions, which relative to the games total submissions of 2388 submissions is lacking. So, here is my challenge for you -- make the hardware database grow this month, and make it significant. Good luck meeting that goal.
Thanks to all those who helped the database grow, including those not mentioned. Your dedication and hardwork help make this site a better place for all.
I suppose I don't need an image in this post for you to figure out that something is different. Three months ago, a decision was made to begin the process of redesigning the site. This site would be cleaned up greatly and it would also be using Cascading Style Sheets, something that the previous site sorely needed. Today, June 8, is an important date. Three years ago today RF Generation went live, and today, June 8, 2007, we launch our new site design. Clearly, this may take some time for you to get used to if you really, really enjoyed the old design, but we feel that the new design is cleaner, more professional, and more structured than the old site. It also has some new features that the old site just didn't have. Let's look into those:
First, we have a new front page script. It's really complex, and I guess you could call it a blog. As with most blogs registered members of this site are able to comment to any posts made to the blog, via a comment box on the article's page. Additionally, if you would like to be able to keep track of news or any other topic on the blog you are able to subscribe to that tag and get a lovely RSS feed of that. This new front page design is the reason why we promoted Tan to Front Page Editor, and I know that he'll do a damn good job with the front page. Of course, a good front page editor needs a few good writers, so if you are interested in writing for the blog please let Tan or I know. We are grateful for Tan's willingness to shape the blog, and with his knowledge and leadership I am certain that the blog will flourish.
Secondly, we have some new sections. At the top, there is an about section, where you can find out about the site or its staff, and you can also get some cool promotional images. I should mention that if you are a registered member and you also have a collection you should probably check out the "Promote" page. We also have a home for our weekly features, which can be found in the "Features" section (big surprise there). Lastly, we have the tools section, which for right now are the collection tools. It is rather likely that some day way down the road there will be more tools on this site, stay tuned for that.
I'd like to make the point that during this redesign there has been no removal in functionality of the site, save for System Checklists, which will hopefully make its triumphant return in the not too distant future. Aside from checklists, you should be able to find everything still somewhere on the site.
This project would not have been possible without assistance from many other people, and I'd like to thank Eddie Herrmann (St0rmTK421), Dennis Gruchala (den68), Keith Brown (Tan), Ken Wozetek (Mezmoron), and Scott Williams (Tynstar) for their assistance in addition to the members who unknowingly helped test the commenting system. If I missed thanking you please know that while I missed mentioning your name I am ever grateful for your assistance.
As always stay tuned to RF Generation, there will always be more to follow when you keep it tuned to channel 3.
This week is a special week. On Friday, we have the three year anniversary of when the site went public. We may or may not have something fun planned for that day, but such banter is for another time an place. Right now though, we talk of features.
There is one game series that just seems to be talked about more often than any other on this site. Guitar Hero and its later incarnations have a special place in the hearts of many RF Generation members, and to celebrate our affinity for the game this week is 'Feature Everything Guitar Hero Related' week. Unfortuately, none of you have uploaded hardware shots of one of the guitars for the game, so I threw a Sony model 2 PS2 in there as the featured hardware, you really can't play the featured game, Guitar Hero II for the Sony PS2, without it. Oddly enough, the featured image is the box front image for the 360 version of Guitar Hero II. Surprising, no? Lastly, we've got a featured collection, which for this week is that of our resident graphic artist den68. He's an avid fan of Guitar Hero.
But, that isn't the only reason to feature den's collection. As I write this post, his collection has an astounding 3997 games listed under it. I've also been told by den that he has many more games to add, which will definitely place him over the 4000 game mark. That is a momentous milestone, and it also means that den68 is still king in the total games department. Congrats den, and may the gaming gods smile upon you.
From all of us at RF Generation stay tuned, you never know when more is to follow.
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This is TraderJake's Blog. View Profile | RSS |
This is where my thoughts go and are never heard from again.
Well, maybe not, but this is the repository for all of my published thoughts and rantings. It'll make my day if you find at least 10% of it amusing and enjoyable to read.
Sorry for the other 90%.
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