Tom, you made a web legend. Do you know what Newgrounds means to so many people? You created a milestone in the "Thats just in bad taste" era of comedy. Without Newgrounds there wouldn't be half as many people telling jokes about beating seals. You need to realize that you aren't Superman. You and your team can't churn out two games and a re-design like that. I think you shouldn't tell people your plans such as the redesign untill your near 80% of completion, so you don't have thousands of angry nerds flaming the site. I think you should worry a little less about what NG will become, and what NG is. Look at it. It's the first and largest flash portal in all of Neverland, err, the universe rather. You paved the way for Flash Games/Moives based sites.

the higher we get the harder the climb but it's NG when has that stopped it?

Tom,

There's a decisive advantage in being on the edge of the mainstream.
To me NG presents aspiring creative talent to present refreshing new ideas amidst the stagnation of streamlined IP industries.
Movies, games, and animated series that never would have seen the light of day because of overly conservative and bureaucratic production studios can have their voices heard amongst hundreds upon thousands, possibly millions.
Eventually a select few with influence and power will listen. That day will come, have faith.
The vision and dream you have for NG will only die the day you decide to quit.
Don't give it up. GO TEAM!

Man i remember back i the day when my best friend showed me this little flash site that he said was the best thing to hit the net sense porn, and that was back in 2001. plus its a great place for upcoming cartoonists, musicians, and game designers to get noticed. and look at all the NG fans out there. you guys have changed the way the world looks at flash. so in short keep up the great work guys and keep your heds up.

Everything by Everyone.

That tagline couldn't be more true... I think that this is exactly why Newgrounds gets more negative attention than positive. The media just focuses more on content thats offensive/questionable than any of the great/inspiring stuff thats submitted.

Lets say Newgrounds gets as popular as Tom wants it to be. Okay, but we'd need a NSFW flag feature for reviews. But even with the films tagged with this, would that stop the media, parents, lawyers or whoever to bash Newgrounds for a crappy drawn Virginia Tech game? They do that already, only now it could be 10 times worse...

We'd have to keep it as family friendly as possible... Meaning toning down on the language, sex, and violence... Effectively taking away our artistic freedom. It wouldn't be Everything by Everyone anymore. Stricter rules would be made as to what you can and cannot submit. Not to mention clean up the thousands of flash already submitted that break these rules. Yeesh... Thats too much work, and Tom already has his hands full with projects that are behind schedule.

I say that Newgrounds is fine the way it is...With or without the redesign. This place has things you will NEVER see anywhere else. Just because Newgrounds isn't as popular as those other sites people have mentioned doesn't necessarly make that a bad thing at all. We're different. We have Everything.

"Go team."

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! Go Team, you rock man. Do you realize how influential you are?

Contrary to what others say, newgrounds would never have to change to be "family friendly".

Now we're taking off here. Fuck Youtube and all those other sites, this right here is THE flash portal site. It's good that NG's getting some publicity, but it doesn't matter to me. This place right here is all I need for my internet.

Although the mature section is a bit lacking, but that's not what NG was made for anyway.

Yeah you know why nothing has happened? cause you're fuckin lazy. You want to get something done? HIRE SOME PEOPLE. Work your ass off. Over and over for the last few years we've been hearing about this major overhaul and it hasn't happened. I honestly don't think it ever will happen.

If you want to be the best, be the best. Newgrounds' place at the top isn't set in stone and if you don't keep working for the top spot you may just lose it one of these days. You know why those other sites are huge? because they have great ideas and they pursue them passionately.. whether that means you're spending alot of money or alot of time, if you really want something you go out of your way to achieve it.

I love newgrounds just as much as the next person but I seriously have grown to loathe the laziness and procrastination inherit of the newgrounds team.

Either way Tom, you got us to fuck stuff up for you!

Newgrounds being in Edge reminded me seeing Edmund McMillen's game "Gish" in the underdog section of a UK PC gaming mag.
I'm glad NG and it's community is slowly getting some recognition for some of the amazing content leaked throughout the internet.

Anyways, sounds like you have a lot on your plate, you have to learn to let go and pass on things even if they seem close to you. As you are probably well aware by now, maintaining a mainstream website, creating flash and creating a console videogame isn't a job for one person if they want to have a life (or get married :P).
It sounds like you really need to some more staff in to work on things when you don't have the time to do so. The last time you asked about hiring someone you specifically asked for them to be able to commute to the NG office, perhaps it’s time to start thinking about hiring people online, and setting them tasks.
Final thing (and negative/pushy comment), how is your time management for NG/Behemoth? Are you setting deadlines, and are you meeting them?

Oh, also 12 years in another milestone, anything planned for the date?

Tom sorry to hear you have been in a bit of a bad mood I hope you'll feel better soon man, and get yourself back on track with everything that sweet the edge talked about the site.

You were on a honeymoon? So thats why you didnt reply to my PMs. Congrats.

Hey man cheer up eh?

The Millions of your fans hate to see you like this.

Cheer up man!

Wow Tom, you are really hard on yourself.

I think it's good to keep striving for excellence but don't spit at the wind when it comes to all you've accomplished so far.

Keep up the good work! You're entertaining at hundreds and thousands of people around the world. You've made a real impact on Internet culture. Keep it up!

Please don't go emo, Tom Fulp.

congrats! and good luck on the whole inner strugle

At 6/17/07 11:45 PM, TheSPA wrote: Foolish newgrounders there are not enough sprite movies on the frontpage

I fucking hate sprite movies. The less, the better.

At 6/17/07 11:45 PM, TheSPA wrote: Foolish newgrounders there are not enough sprite movies on the frontpage

your site will burn for unpopularity

The two users above this post are idiots.

im not a flash artist, and even by normal accounts dont really spend that much time on a computer. but Newgrounds is by far the best thing ive seen on the internet; facebook and myspace are only fairweather fashions in my opinion that will (effectively) fizz out in time. The thing is this site has alot of history, and even though i have only been using it for a couple of years, i can see how big it is and how many people its attracted and even inspired to do flash and music compilations. What im trying to say is that in my opinion, the people in charge of NG shouldnt concentrate on what hasnt been accomplished, but rather what has; im sure in any internet poll or survey, a huge percentage of people who go on the internet are there for fun, games or flash toons, and like the site's banner says, NG has "everything by everyone". as long as this site continues to give back to the people who contribute to it (as it has done), this wont die out like some silly blog. Just wanted to say my piece, as i think this really is one of -the- giants of the internet, and will continue to be for a long time.
Sam :)

At 6/16/07 10:15 PM, DFox wrote: As for the Youtube comment system, yeah, it gets some bad comments obviously, but they constructed it thinking more about the CONTENT PROVIDER than Newgrounds has. They allow authors to delete comments which puts the power to clean up comments in the content creators hands, which is clearly how it should be.

That is a fundamental difference between NG and the comment systems on most "web 2.0" sites... Our comments are in the form of reviews, with scores that impact the submission. If authors could delete the reviews, they could prune out the low scores and have perfect 10s. I've noticed that a general "comment" system results in feedback from a larger number of people and the ability for the author to manage the feedback, but I've also noticed that a majority of the feedback is in the form of four words or less and is basically people just sticking their name on the page.

At 6/17/07 12:19 PM, DFox wrote: I just feel the NG review system as is is stuck in the middle. It doesn't allow for true user feedback, and it doesn't allow for conversation on the entry. All the current review system offers is a one way, 1998ish method for "feedback", and an easily riggable award to go with it. To put it blunt, the Youtube comment system kills the NG review system because it gives the content creator the power (the person who SHOULD have it), allows for more advanced feedback, and overall is very effective. Even more depressing is that the copycat portals also provide comment systems which are more effective than the current NG review system, and their comment systems aren't even that well made. If NG built a state-of-the-art comment system it would be great. It would finally allow actual discussion AND feedback on the all-important content.

I'll admit you're making me tempted to just ditch the review system in favor of pure comments. I still get a lot of emails from Flash authors who say they get better quality feedback on NG than on other sites, though... So I still like to think our review system encourages a higher level of feedback than a more passive comment system would. Tough call, though.

The review system in the redesign does away with all the sub-scoring, so all that remains is a single score to go along with your review... This was a step towards making reviews "easier" to leave, rather than having to rank a submission on a bunch of sub-criteria. Maybe the last step is to just remove all scoring altogether. We'll revisit this later. :)

At 6/18/07 08:34 AM, TomFulp wrote: The review system in the redesign does away with all the sub-scoring, so all that remains is a single score to go along with your review... This was a step towards making reviews "easier" to leave, rather than having to rank a submission on a bunch of sub-criteria.

That would be better because i noticed alot of people just putting ones in every box and putting a 10 in overall just because everyone is so lazy to ratwe properly.

Maybe the last step is to just remove all scoring altogether. We'll revisit this later. :)

In my opinion thats not good then you would lose the review pick award and whatnot And you won't get a good average on what people think of your flash, But hey its your site you want to get rid of it thats your choice to make....

At 6/17/07 06:13 PM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote: If you want to be the best, be the best. Newgrounds' place at the top isn't set in stone and if you don't keep working for the top spot you may just lose it one of these days. You know why those other sites are huge? because they have great ideas and they pursue them passionately.. whether that means you're spending alot of money or alot of time, if you really want something you go out of your way to achieve it.

I love newgrounds just as much as the next person but I seriously have grown to loathe the laziness and procrastination inherit of the newgrounds team.

You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger site than Newgrounds that was built without venture capital or some base of wealth. I could expand the staff if I accepted outside capital, but in return I would need to sell the site so that the investors could make their profits. YouTube lost money every day, but that was fine because everyone got rich when they sold for $1.5 BILLION. I could do the same thing at any moment - there are a ton of investment groups that check in with me on a regular basis, looking to buy into NG and help us grow - so that we can sell for a mint. At this point in my life, I haven't been interested in going that route.

We have a team of 10 people running a near-top 500 website. Wade and I manage customer service for a visitor base of over 10 million unique visitors each month. And yeah, it's stupid that we do that ourselves... But it's also what keeps us in touch with the lifeblood of NG.

At 6/18/07 09:23 AM, TomFulp wrote: You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger site than Newgrounds that was built without venture capital or some base of wealth. I could expand the staff if I accepted outside capital, but in return I would need to sell the site so that the investors could make their profits. YouTube lost money every day, but that was fine because everyone got rich when they sold for $1.5 BILLION.

True, but NG isn't toying around on the global market.
If NG was, we'd be as rich as Google.
But why can't we do that?
Because NG as a flash and audio site doesn't have much to offer to the world outside of the internet.

I could do the same thing at any moment - there are a ton of investment groups that check in with me on a regular basis, looking to buy into NG and help us grow - so that we can sell for a mint. At this point in my life, I haven't been interested in going that route.

Yes, you could. but what would that mean for the site and it's community?
For the past almost-12 years you have created one hell of a site.
Ofcourse you could just ditch NG and get rich off of it. But you would dissapoint the entire group of followers that, well, follow.
It's like Stamper confessing he's straight :)

Just kidding, lol.

That would be a big change, because he's one of the site's responsible men.
I felt deeply dissapointed when, for example, Cartoon Network changed to dutch.
If NG would get a different team, a team that would be more capitalistic and would care less about it's users, I think I would stop visiting.
Big changes hurt all my feelings D:

We have a team of 10 people running a near-top 500 website. Wade and I manage customer service for a visitor base of over 10 million unique visitors each month. And yeah, it's stupid that we do that ourselves... But it's also what keeps us in touch with the lifeblood of NG.

Indeed it is.
NG is one of the closest community's I know.
It's the only site I visit regularily that creates contests for it's users.
It's system is based on user-interaction, and I wouldn't let that go for the world :)

At 6/17/07 06:13 PM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote: I love newgrounds just as much as the next person but I seriously have grown to loathe the laziness and procrastination inherit of the newgrounds team.

Good to see you have an awesome handle on what actually goes into running a business. It's not all flash and show and 'look at this!' A LOT of it is heartache and sweat that nobody ever sees. For all their inherent laziness, they've managed to produce and maintain one of the best websites on the internet with a staff of under a dozen. That close knit workforce is what has prevented NG from going the way of youtube and its cesspool of a userbase.

At 6/18/07 08:34 AM, TomFulp wrote: The review system in the redesign does away with all the sub-scoring, so all that remains is a single score to go along with your review... This was a step towards making reviews "easier" to leave, rather than having to rank a submission on a bunch of sub-criteria. Maybe the last step is to just remove all scoring altogether. We'll revisit this later. :)

Awesome Tom, thanks for hearing me out. And about some reviews being really effective, I agree. I just think the people who write really good reviews would still write really good comments, but like you said, you would get 4 worders, but I think those would also translate to the same for reviews. I think it all really depends on the person reviewing/commenting and how much effort they want to give it.

At 6/18/07 08:47 AM, Shawn wrote: In my opinion thats not good then you would lose the review pick award and whatnot And you won't get a good average on what people think of your flash, But hey its your site you want to get rid of it thats your choice to make....

I disagree for one main reason, because you have such a solid scoring system, (main system -5), why taint it with an additional score that can only be left by a minority of people? (because people with NG accounts compared to people who vote without accounts has to be much less) I think the normal scoring system is really solid, except for the fact that you can vote on an entry everyday, which I'll never understand, but that's a story for another day. My point is the 1-5 scoring system seems much more solid than the review scoring system.

At 6/17/07 06:13 PM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote: Yeah you know why nothing has happened? cause you're fuckin lazy. You want to get something done? HIRE SOME PEOPLE. Work your ass off. Over and over for the last few years we've been hearing about this major overhaul and it hasn't happened. I honestly don't think it ever will happen.

holy shit everybody this kid has the answers! that was our problem! we we're being LAZY! HOW DID WE NOT SEE THIS BEFORE!

THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH BRYCE.

At 6/18/07 10:12 AM, SuperFlonic wrote: True, but NG isn't toying around on the global market.

I'm not sure what you mean, but I know from experience that any rich-content site, especially one like Newgrounds is probably highly accessed in other countries. I'd be curious to see their stats because I would bet they get GREAT amounts of visitors from outside the U.S. I bet they get so many that it would be a huge step forward to offer NG with a few additional language packs for a way to get ahead of the curve.

At 6/18/07 11:23 AM, JohnnyUtah wrote: THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH BRYCE.

GET BACK TO WORK, ASSHOLE! lololo