I was going to post some news or at least an announcement but I think eventhough this is an important matter its better dealt like an internal one.
Actually im writing this post to deal with several issues that are important for the portal.
Many of you know that i wanted to lay down my job as SWAT administrator in december 2009. I revoked that decision for the fact that Crossfire was not finished (which i was badly reminded by RGHawk) and the fact that there was nobody else will to step forward to take over that job. I still have the wish to leave someday... but i want to be sure that the community will go on. Until that day its my job to ensure that the community (you) finally take over responsibility.
I am aware that this will take some time but its also my job to remind you that time is limited. Every chance we do not use is lost once and forever. Everytime you wait instead of contributing the situation gets worse.
Of course you can now point your finger on somebody else (e.g. me) if there are problems, that happened often enough in the past. But i really suggest you do that move now. Take your hand... and point your finger directly on your monitor. Watch your hand... do you finally notice that at least 3 of your fingers point back to you?
Think about it.
Im not going to point my finger on somebody today nor do i intend to do that anytime soon. The only think i want to achieve is that you all start to think about a few very simple questions. Nobody needs to answer them here openly but you at least should try to be honest to yourself.
1. This community used to be a place where the members agreed to trust each other. I know that nowadays this trust is damaged and i know that ppl use to talk about each other in a sometimes very disrespectful way.
Is that really neccessary?
Does that help anybody?
Does it make anything better or does it make everything worse?
Please answer these questions to yourself.
(I personally prefer to talk with ppl instead of talking about them)
2. The members of this community have most fun when there is high activity.
Is that correct?
If so, why dont you contribute to raise the activity (if thats not the case yet)?
3. Most of you play Freelancer. But we know times change, sooner or later you are going to play something else (no matter which reason that will have).
Do you want to stay at SWAT when that time has come?
Would you be willing to help that the community, your friends, stay together?
I could ask more specific questions but these depend on the answers to the previous questions. I believe further questions can wait for now. Important is if you want improvements of this community and if you are willing to do something for it even if that just means to revisit the own behaviour.
That being said, my thoughts about the future of this community.
Not long ago the entire portal has been reconstructed with the purpose to do a fresh start under better conditions.
From the technical side that was a major success since heavy limitations could be lifted.
SWAT went from 1.0 to SWAT 2.0... mainly a name game from my side in relation to the Web 2.0
I guess here i need to explain the meaning of it before you can fully understand the intentions behind such heavy changes.
Like the Web 1.0 SWAT was very static... we had the forum... but next to that everything content related required that I as admin had to do those changes. Web 1.0 is the internet that got filled with information by just a few Administrators which had the knowledge how to do that stuff. So was the old SWAT Portal.
Web 2.0 is the internet where the information comes from all the people which use it. Think about youtube, facebook, wikipedia,... thats Web 2.0
The new SWAT Portal (SWAT 2.0) actually can do the same. You just need to decide for yourself that you want to use such a chance. You decide about success or failure of the Portal. You decide about its future.
I have used the past months to give SWAT a push again.
I got the baby standing, now it needs to walk.
Last wednesday i started to work on the SWAT games Wiki, it has more than 500 wiki pages meanwhile and if you decide to contribute it soon will have thousands of detailed information about many games out there... existing ones and upcoming ones.
Ive also started to work on the image galleries which meanwhile contain more than 2000 pictures of the games that we support here at SWAT. You are free to add more.
My next task is to work on the download database, adding more than 1000 downloads... you are of course also invited to help there.
Why is that important?
Like i already mentioned with SWAT 2.0 limitations have been lifted which prevented that search engines such as google, yahoo, bing and all the others could read the big parts of the portal. Those times are over now and the SWAT content being displayed at those search sites has been increased by 2400%.
Sounds chinese?
OK lets stay with english then... it simply means that players that search for game information will more likely visit SWAT than before. The more content we have to offer here at SWAT the more ppl will visit the portal, the better the quality of that content is the more of these visitors will register and become members. Thats the future of the Portal and thats also the future of the SWAT Projects including Crossfire.
Quality content and active communities attract new players... thats almost a natural law.
How good that works depends on you because both, the content and the activity depends on you.
All you have to do is to make a decision.
Related to "activity" is the final topic i want to mention here.
In my eyes there are way too many ppl which only take, take, take...
On the server there are ppl have the mod for free... the server for free... ppl which do nothing for the community. They even refuse to be active on the forum. I personally would even see it a contribution to SWAT if they would take part in forum discussions and if they would help players which come to the forum with their questions.
Maybe i am asking too much... no actually im pretty sure that i dont ask for too much in this case.
Part of many problems on the server is the lack of communication and ppl which dont feel responsible for the problems of the community. That has to change.
Ive been playing with the idea to force players to be active on the forum by linking the server accounts with forum accounts. Its a pretty rough but effective method to force players to visit the portal, to read the news, to read important discussions about the server and to check when events are sheduled. I am fully aware that some ppl wont like such a method and i am also fully aware that new players should at least be excluded from such an automatic account prune (for lets say 2 weeks). But i am also sure that ppl get used to it after some time. Such links between forum accounts and server accounts do already exist on various FL servers and are technically possible. Maybe with some time additional features can also be linked with it. However i am not sure when i will be able to work on such changes... maybe in a week, maybe in a month... dunno.
All i know is that it is neccessary for the sake of the community, so that the community starts to act like a community again.
Such a plan requires that the CF server stays online for some time. This month i was in need to do a decision if i continue to host the server or if its better to cancel the contract. None of both options will be the case. As it looks like Im going to be able to get out of the contract by every three months which limits my financial risk and gives you the chance to prove that you want to bring back this server and this community to the top. If you - the players - do nothing or not enough then you will be responsible when i have to do another decision in 3 months. Take it as a chance, and dont waste it... its not much time.
way better than FLAM.
Hence its hard for me to believe that such work couldnt be done by any of you at all. Its easy - isnt it. 
believe me. I see You decided to get really huge task on You - Build Such Huge community isnt easy - You have a lot of experiance and You should know that most people are attracted by graphics! And SWAT portal is in that matter tragedy. It has really great funcionality - i agree - its impressive, but for casual user its too complicated and he will be not interested in those all futures. He will check portal - look for what he need and than leave and rarely get back. I understand You OP very well i tried similiar actions as Yours many times - all failed - few because of my fault. I think that SWAT COMMUNITY and SWAT CROSSFIRE should be separated somehow - believe me those players needs that. WHY You ask? Thats simple - You want to make SWAT Portal as some kind of huge game community like sites as mmogspot.com or something like that - but they have money for advertising theyre site on google ads - and also they get money from other adverts and from community members and thats how it works. Also all those communities got profit from that - and from what i see here really clearly SWAT is non profit portal. You want peple to understand that being a part of CrossFire Comunity member is privileage but You give us everything for free - thats wrong too. Man who doesnt have to earn something wont care about it. I Think we should start New Topic about future of SWAT CROSSFIRE and other for future of SWAT PORTAL. In those topics we would post our ideas on how it should looks like and discuss that and than You could decide in whoch way everything should go. Im not sure about possibility of this feature but just writing theory:
