On Being a Torch Bug
I know, you haven't seen a "substantial" blog post from me in a while. That is mainly because I've been putting as much time as possible into Torch Bugs. I've been wanting to write here, but not really knowing what I should write about - I've been constantly yammering about just about everything over there anyway. So, today I'm gonna tell you about the "Torch Bugs experience", from my own personal point of view. After all, it's not every day that I find myself helping to build an online lampwork community, and it has been quite the experience so far.
Torch Bugs kind of "just happened". It was all pretty spontaneous; there was no master plan. On the night Forumland exploded, a few of us needed somewhere to talk, so someone started a Yahoo group. Have you ever been on a Yahoo group? Yahoo groups have got to be the dumbest thing on the entire world wide web. They make it pretty much impossible to follow a conversation and understand who is saying what to whom. So, Deb graciously offered to set up a little forum for us, just so we'd have a place to talk.
(At this point, I should mention - there seems to be a popular misconception going around about Torch Bugs being "my" forum. It is not my forum. It is Deb's forum. She is the owner and administrator. I am a moderator there and I have been helping her out in any way I can, and I intend to stand behind her and support her for as long as Torch Bugs is around. I am thinking that is going to be a very long time.)
Having our own private little place to talk was fun. There turned out to be a whole lot to talk about. We started inviting our friends to join us, and then the friends starting inviting more friends, and we suddenly realized we had a nice little group of people going. I don't remember at what point exactly the idea to turn it into an actual public forum came to life, but it was beginning to look like a really good idea. After all, we had been told that "if we don't like the way things are run around here, we should go start our own forum". Hey, we could actually do that! So we did! We switched to a better forum platform, took a few days to make sure everything was working smoothly, and, with much excitement, began to spread the word.
Less than a month later, our forum has over 900 members from all over the world. I don't think any of us were expecting it to grow this quickly - it has been really exciting! It is incredibly cool to watch people actively participating, sharing information, helping eachother out or just joking around and having fun. It is wonderful to see new lampworkers coming out of their shells and sharing photos of their work, saying they are glad to finally have a place where they feel comfortable to do that. It makes me really happy to see Torch Bugs grow into a forum with a true international flavor - as opposed to other forums out there which seem to be mainly US- or Europe-oriented. Seriously, I am loving this. I think this is a great thing for the lampwork community, and it also brings me much personal joy and satisfaction.
I am loving this so much that I have even found myself doing some - gasp - graphic design stuff for TB. I know, I swore I'd never get involved in this kind of thing again, but this time it's for a worthy cause, and it's actually been fun. I designed the site's logo, and also a special set of emoticons (a work in progress), commonly known as "Buglies". Here's a little sample of the existing ones. I'm gonna be making more as we go along.
And, of course, there are the negative sides as well, but that was to be expected. On the day Torch Bugs was opened, I could have given you a list of the people who would have "something to say" about it. Some people never surprise you. There were others as well - there have definitely been a few "who the hell is this person and why are they publicly bashing me" moments. Oh well. Most of the "complaints" have been downright silly. A few people seem to enjoy coming into our forum, searching for any hint of negativity they can find, and rushing off to tell the world that Torch Bugs is an awful, negative place. Uh, yeah. If you really want to find some negativity on TB, you will probably find some. We are a group of 900+ people, most of whom are creative and tend to be opinionated - not a pile of plastic mannequins. Out of 13,340+ posts in 830+ threads, not every single one of them is going to be all smiles and rainbows - and who would want to be on a forum like that anyway? However, I can say that for every "negative thread" I've seen on the forum, there are at least 100 "positive" ones. Come and see for yourself!
(Most of the forum is now open to members only. There were a few different reasons for this decision - and no, "we need to cover up our negativity" is not one of them. Membership is free of charge and includes access to all areas of the forum. Anyone who wants to join can easily become a member, as long as they're not trying to sell us Viagra.)
There has been other BS going around - "they just want to reign with terror and control everyone" and such. Does anyone really think we forced 900 members to join our forum? Do you think they joined us because they are "afraid" of us? Do you think we sent them death threats? Do you think we are holding a gun to their head and making them post? Actually, most of our members seem quite happy to be on board. Torch Bugs is not a dictatorship. We discuss things as a team. We are most open to feedback, suggestions and constructive criticism from our members, and we have been doing everything we can to make them happy. A forum is nothing without its members. We are very much aware of that.
Like I said, most of it is silly. The one statement that does get on my nerves - I have heard this one from a few different people at this point - is the "they can't do it". We can't do it? Hello? Uh, we seem to be doing it. Why wouldn't we be able to do it? We are a team of strong, intelligent women who are passionate about glass, and equally passionate about making the online lampwork community a better place. With our many different skills combined, we have all the knowledge and motivation we need to build a fantastic forum - and we respect eachother and get along great, and we're having a lot of fun in the process. We ARE doing it. When people tell us we can't do it, it just fuels our fire (no pun intended), and motivates us even more - and we're just getting started! We have many exciting plans in store for the future of Torch Bugs, and we are busily working away at making our goals become a reality. Torch Bugs isn't going anywhere. We are here to stay, and we are only going to get bigger and better. You can't beat us, so you might as well join us!
(If you don't want to join us, you might as well leave us alone and go find something better to do with your life.)
Well, there you have it. As of today, the Torch Bugs team includes Deb Jennings, Kevan Aponte, Laurie Hyatt, Leslie Dana, Sherry Bellamy, Miriam Steger and myself.
I know most of my readers are already members, but if you aren't yet - you should be!
Come join us (or we will keel you
). 
They just want TB's "Buglies", now if you could do a buglie with an LE on its chest and call it the "love everyone" buglie that would be great!!! I personally love the site and know that it is growing every day!! i especially love that there are forums for the different glasses because i use bullseye too, well and now i think i am going to get into boro (big sigh)
steph
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I love being a bug! I think we need a bug song too.
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If it's good enough for Jerry Garcia, it could be good enough for Torch Bugs.
Chorus 1
Oh there ain't no bugs on me
There ain't no bugs on me
There may be bugs on some of you mugs
But there ain't no bugs on me
Well, the Juney bug comes in the month of June
The lightning bug comes in May
Bed bug comes just any old time
But, they're not going to stay
Chorus 2
Oh there ain't no bugs on me
There ain't no bugs on me
There may be bugs on the rest of you mugs
But there ain't no bugs on me
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I love ninja buglie and all his friends.
Karen
Volkano Exotik
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I think there's plenty of room and need for AT LEAST two lampwork forums. It was bound to happen sooner or later. It helps me to think of it like churches - a whole gob of people agree on basic concepts (of glass) but have different ways of working it out.
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I love torchbug, but I can't login atm. I keep getting '404 Not Found' message.
Help...
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