Dethroner Housekeeping: Private, Invite-Only Forum; Suggest a Theme

In lieu of a picture, imagine I am standing in the room with you, clad only in an apron, wielding a feather duster.

First, my thanks. The first couple of months since Dethroner has opened have been great; lots of new folks and lots of new lessons to learn about the best way to do this sort of thing. I’m an easily discouraged guy but the thought of having people waiting to read Dethroner each morning has been plenty of motivation—and flattering besides.

Now, a bit of housekeeping: I am going to be making the forum a private, invite-only affair, the better to protect from spam as well as to establish a “back room” venue where we can discuss things in a less robot-visible place. Everyone who has existing accounts will certainly be able to keep them. I’ll be closing up the forums as soon as this weekend, so if you do not have an account, go ahead and grab one if you’re interested. I’ll be sending out batches of invites as necessary from time to time, but we’ll try to find the balance between exclusivity and watering-down.

Lastly, while I have a backlist of themes for the coming weeks, it’s obvious that some of my ideas are better than others. (”Danger?” Sheesh.) Next week is booked up with an experimental theme that I hope will be fun for everyone, but the weeks after are as yet unscheduled. If you’ve a good idea for a theme, don’t be shy: Post it right in the comments.

A couple more boring notes about themes after the jump.

We will eventually begin to revisit themes that we have discussed before, because at the current rate of posting we’re not getting anywhere close to tapping them out. Before then, there are a wealth of subject areas so vast I’ve been afraid to broach them, not the least of which are sex, women, and dating. (Don’t worry, we’ll get there.)

All that’s to say: If you have a theme idea that we’ve approached before, be sure to offer a new spin or sub-subject area you’d like us to focus on.

In addition to theme suggestions, I would totally love to hear any other general suggestions you have about what’s working on Dethroner, what isn’t, and wholly new ideas or features we should include. Between you and me, traffic has fallen off a bit over the last few weeks—this was expected after the initial launch furor, but I hoped against hope—and while I’m far from panic mode, I don’t mind taking a step back now that we’ve got a couple of months under our belts and seeing what works and what doesn’t.

Again, thanks to everybody who is reading, commenting, and sending in tips (in any combination). Take even a momentary glance at the posts: Cliche or not, I couldn’t have done it without you.