Website Changes
I’m planning on doing a few things to encourage participation.
Front Page Changes
Some of you are thinking, “Front page? What front page?” because you never visit it, but yes, there’s a front page

Please look at the About Us page and feel free to edit it to make it clear that we welcome new contributors! I’m thinking if nothing else a cartoon illustrating someone discovering our site for the first time (and liking it, DUH

Concerning Missing Images
I don't want new people going to "Start With First ..." and reading through only to hit missing images. This issue has been mentioned in the past and I have a plan of action here.
First I should mention that I wrote a utility that copies posted images (only in the OP of Spamuser Comic threads, that is) that I first ran a couple of years ago. I just now wrote a report that analyzes the results and here’s the numbers:
- Total Number of Spamuser Comic Threads: 9624
- Total With Good Images: 8072
- Total With Missing Images But I Have A Copy: 446
- Total Missing Altogether: 1106
The next thing I’m going to do is write a utility to copy the missing images to this website and edit the posts to point to the new image location. Now this may make some of you worry about copyright issues, so I’m thinking of adding something about this to the FAQ (and maybe also as a followup post to StevenF’s “How to Post a Guest Strip”). Here is my take on it:
New FAQ Text? wrote:All images posted as a Spamuser Comic are assumed to be the work of the person starting the thread and the copyright is held by that person. This web site claims no copyright on any image you post.
From time to time copies may be of posted images. If an original link to your image goes bad this site reserves the right to host a copy of the original image on this web site. This is no way affects your ownership or copyright of your image. If you do not want your images hosted on this site then (a) make sure your links don’t go bad, or (b) send PonderThis a PM stating you want to “opt out” of spamusers.com image hosting. We would really prefer you didn’t do this, though, as old comics with dead image links make the Baby StevenF cry.
If you don't like what I'm saying or if I'm not clear or you have something better, let me know.
Yeah But That Still Leaves 1K+ Missing Images
I plan on making a new Spamuser Comics subforum with a name like “Missing In Action” or some such. I’m writing a utility right now to move threads with missing images (not counting the two stickies, of course) from Spamuser Comics to the subforum. This forum will be locked to new threads but still allow commenting on anything in there. For example, if one of your threads is in there but you still have your image file and you’d like to mention that. If you have images that you want to host here directly, because, say, SuperImageHost keeps deleting them, peem me and we’ll talk about it.
After I run this utility, if you spot anything with a static “SuperImageHost no longer has this image!” type of image, let me know and I’ll move those threads individually to the MIA forum.
Other Front Page “Perusing Comics” Issues
I seem to remember a few very old threads where people posted multiple comics (all with different subjects) in the OP. Should I do anything about these, like making new threads? Or make a new [subtitle] tag that the front page code would parse?
For that matter, for a long time we had an unspoken rule about posting new takes on a subject line someone else did first in the same thread. None of these show up on the front page. I can (a) split these off to new threads, (b) create some sort of “supplementary data table” that points to these posts within their threads and read that table for use with the front page (this would be a bit more work and would take some time to do), or (c) don’t worry about it.
Thanks/Like/Funny Button
Several people have mentioned this before. Jek found a mod and that mod does support our version of the forum software we’re running. I must admit I’m a bit uneasy about installing this as I never know ahead of time how much work this sort of thing will be. For one thing I’m pretty sure I will have to individually edit all 8 board styles, but how much editing will be required I just don’t know.
Seems like a lot of work but if you all bug me about it I'll do it.
Advertising
Advertising our site on other sites, that is. There are several advertisers I would consider, but I’m leaning towards ProjectWonderful since I seem to see that on a lot of webcomic sites. Furthermore, these ads all tend to be for other webcomics. It’s a sort of comics-advertising-comics sort of thing which I think targets who we’d want to see here. Another advertiser I see on some webcomic sites is AdChoices, but they seem to be a general advertiser plus I think all their ads are flash ads which I’d really rather avoid.
Where To Advertise
In perusing PW’s FAQs I’m not sure if I can target a type of website (i.e., “comics”) or if I have to target specific sites. In case it’s the latter, please post sites you think we’d do well on. A couple of webcomics I looked up real quick that have PW ads are SMBC (http://www.smbc-comics.com/) and QC (http://questionablecontent.net/).
Creating Ads
I’m thinking maybe some of our more prolific spamuser comic posters could come up with an ad or two. The ads should convey who we are and what we do. You could draw something around our semiofficial motto, “Where your spam subject lines become cartoon fodder!” or make up something like “Got Spam? Want to Mock It? Draw something and come on over to …” or the like.
PW has several different standard ad sizes. The two used in the sites I mentioned are:


There’s more here.
Now if I decide to go ahead and place these ads, maybe we should have a few fresh new Spamuser Comics in storage to post right before we start? Nudge nudge hint hint.
Hey, If We Get More Traffic …
It occurs to me that if we get more traffic there may be an occasion where you’d want to get hold of me, like when we had the “Maximum Login Attempt” thing happening or if something happens to the site itself. Peem me and I’ll send you all of my various email addresses, just in case.
Hmm, speaking of more traffic, maybe we should get a new mod or two? What do you think? Any nominations? Jek, you’ve helped out a lot in the past so I’m kinda sorta looking in your direction …