From New Owner of Zealot

admin

Administrator
Hi Everyone - I just wanted to introduce myself to you. My name is Darius and I wanted to thank each and every one of you for your patience during the migration to the new Zealot website.

As a debt holder, I acquired most of crowd gathers forums. I had two decisions to make:

Decision 1: Shut it all down and try and sell the domains
Decision 2: Reinvest, double-down and try and make it work by overhauling 22 forums

Luckily, I chose Zealot as the first forum I'd concentrate and build upon. It's a rather large task for just one person to do. Having amazing Admins and users makes all the difference in the world. I personally want to thank John (Zathros) for his guidance as he was instrumental in guiding me as to what the community wants and needs. Together, we were able to break away from Tapatalk and reclaim our independence.

We will be adding more features to Zealot in the coming weeks. One feature that will help us, is a donation box. This will help with offsetting the costs of me hiring an independent programmer who is maintaining the virtual server as well as constantly maintaining the website. I still am paying out of pocket and as we gain more users and traction, we will be in a better position to ask for sponsorships. Until then, whatever you can do to help will directly benefit Zealot (not me).

I apologize that some features were not migrated over properly and it is something that was out of our control. The good news is that I am committed to making Zealot a premier destination for the modeling community. We will be adding a front page with articles as well as HOW-TO'S and also feature our users work on the front page. Again, I will need the help of this community to help write articles. So please introduce yourself and feel free to let me know if you are able to help write articles.

It's an honor to serve you all and hope you can help spread the word (even a simple email to a friend or a previous user) will help us grow our base.

Respectfully,

Darius
 

zathros

*****SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR*****
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Thank You Darius, for everything you have done. You were handed a mess, and frankly, I am astonished at what you were able to put together from the remains. You've done a great job, and have all our admiration and support.ClaphandsClaphandsClaphands thumbsup:King::Bravo:ClaphandsClaphandsClaphands
 

Revell-Fan

Co-Administrator
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Hello Darius,

thank you very much for posting this introduction which allows us all to "officially" welcome you to the forum.

I'm Marcell from Germany. Rhaven is my conscience, Zathros my guide and master. My main topics are sci-fi and fantasy with a strong focus on "Battlestar Galactica" and "Buck Rogers". Zealot was the first forum I joined and I never regretted this decision. The creativity showcased here introduced me to another whole world where sky's the limit and even turned me into a paper model designer myself. I'm known as "Revell-Fan" here and as "Galactican" on the German sci-fi modeling forum Phoxim.

Please allow me to express my gratitude to you for saving Zealot. This is one of the best online communities in the world. This is no exaggeration. The members here are amazing, as is their work. You rarely find such a creative, ingenious and peaceful crowd of people. There are no fights, everyone is treated with the greatest respect. We have come together here from all over the world to celebrate our hobby, share experiences and learn from one another. Over the years this forum has become more to many of us. It has turned into a second "home", giving us a place to get inspired, improve our skills and have fun and enjoy. So we are truly honoured to be the first forum to be saved.

I'm really looking forward to the new features and the new front page. The idea of writing articles sounds interesting. I like writing, so you may count me in. ;)

I'm fixing my threads on-the-fly and as time allows (I have a very intense job at an old people's home, so it may take a while).

Once again, we are honoured to have you on board.

And aside from the hard work that is lying ahead of each and every one of us, please don't forget to:

Have fun and enjoy! :Drinks: :Drinks: :Drinks:

Marcell
 

swampdaddy41

Active Member
Zealot was the only forum I used for sharing my modeling and I am certainly glad it did not disappear. When things went TapaTalk I could not even log in and thought the site was was gone for me.. Glad to have my favorite forum back and I will spread the word.

Thank you, Swamp Daddy
 
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lyter1958

Esteemed Member
Hi Darius, THANK YOU sooo much for saving this site.it is a fantastic place and i know that you will enjoy it as much as we all do here. Every one here are great people and the banter, tips, support, and the ideas everyone gives helps all who come here..not to mention the models... again THANK YOU...
mark
lyter1958
 

xaero892

Mad Modeller
Hi Darius,

First of all, welcome to the zealot family.
Secondly, my immense gratitude goes to you for saving us from disaster.

I think the donation box could be a good idea as members could put in as much or as little as they can afford. As the slogan of a popular British supermarket says... "Every little helps".

I, along with all the others, are looking forward to seeing where we go in the future.

Here's hoping we can make you proud to have picked zealot over so many others.

Once again, thank you.

Ryan.
 

Dagger

Active Member
Hi Darius.
As everyone says, thank you very much.
I only have a few months here, and in this short time I have been treated as one of this international family. I am also a member in another English-speaking and another Spanish-speaking forum. More so that I have not seen discussions or aggressive comments so far. All calm and cordial. And much collaboration before a question or concern. Thank you very much!
A cordial greeting.
Sergio
 

micahrogers

Moderator "Where am I, and how did I get here?"
Staff member
Moderator
Hello Darius,
My name is Micah, I hail from NW Georgia, I would like to add my heartfelt thanks to you for your efforts in saving Zealot. I was introduced to Zealot by a member that I have not seen in a while DanBKing, My main interests are in sci Fi, and fantasy figures, I build and paint models of all types, plastic, resin, multi media, and paper... another thank you to Zathros, and Rhaven Bllack for adding the "other media" section to Zealot.
If I can help in any way just let me know, I can write articles, and would happily do so, but my build progress can be slow do to my full-time job.

Thanks again
Micah
 

admin

Administrator
Thank you everyone for the well wishes! Here are some of my goals to accomplish by end of year:

1) Front page of zealot will have plenty of articles and how-to videos

2) Google will re-index us so we can show up in search - right now if you search for "paper modeling" we are nowhere to be found on google. Please send me any other keywords so when we write articles, we can properly write for those key words.

Next Year:

1) My main goal is to bring back the 50k registered users back to our site and to be active on an ongoing basis.

2) Obtain dedicated sponsors

3) Obtain new members (the millenial'ish folks) - this is an art in and of itself and we cannot have this art die as our members progress in age. We need to have some type of mentorship to where maybe we host an online class on Zoom or maybe have some introduction videos on making your first paper model.
 

micahrogers

Moderator "Where am I, and how did I get here?"
Staff member
Moderator
Micah, your presence here is a cornerstone. :)
Ya know "Z", sometimes I think I'm just a tag along... I may look at a lot of things, and I truly admire a lot of the build quality some of y'all display, but I'm nothing special, just "Joe Average" Your comments always make me either laugh or sit back and think... I I wouldn't dream of missing them.
 

Sky Seeker

Well Established Member
Hi Everyone - I just wanted to introduce myself to you. My name is Darius and I wanted to thank each and every one of you for your patience during the migration to the new Zealot website.

As a debt holder, I acquired most of crowd gathers forums. I had two decisions to make:

Decision 1: Shut it all down and try and sell the domains
Decision 2: Reinvest, double-down and try and make it work by overhauling 22 forums

Luckily, I chose Zealot as the first forum I'd concentrate and build upon. It's a rather large task for just one person to do. Having amazing Admins and users makes all the difference in the world. I personally want to thank John (Zathros) for his guidance as he was instrumental in guiding me as to what the community wants and needs. Together, we were able to break away from Tapatalk and reclaim our independence.

We will be adding more features to Zealot in the coming weeks. One feature that will help us, is a donation box. This will help with offsetting the costs of me hiring an independent programmer who is maintaining the virtual server as well as constantly maintaining the website. I still am paying out of pocket and as we gain more users and traction, we will be in a better position to ask for sponsorships. Until then, whatever you can do to help will directly benefit Zealot (not me).

I apologize that some features were not migrated over properly and it is something that was out of our control. The good news is that I am committed to making Zealot a premier destination for the modeling community. We will be adding a front page with articles as well as HOW-TO'S and also feature our users work on the front page. Again, I will need the help of this community to help write articles. So please introduce yourself and feel free to let me know if you are able to help write articles.

It's an honor to serve you all and hope you can help spread the word (even a simple email to a friend or a previous user) will help us grow our base.

Respectfully,

Darius

Darius,

Welcome to Zealot and thanks for saving us!:) This is the first time as I've recalled ever hearing from an owner of this website so that's something new (at least to me). I've always enjoyed the creativity and congeniality everyone from across the planet has demonstrated on this particular forum. That has occurred due to a LOT of hard work from people like Rhaven, Revell Fan, Gandolf, Subnuke, Spaceagent, & of Course Zathros. I'm sure that I'm missing a few people that work behind the scenes, but all of these regulars have been an inspiration to me and a LOT of others over time for MANY years now.

Can I ask how much it costs on a monthly or yearly basis to run this website? I think that would bring more awareness to some of us who are regulars here.

Also, as someone who is relatively new to the community do you have any models that you would like to show the rest of us?

I look forward to your guidance and involvement on this forum.

Take care and have a great day!:Drinks:

Sky Seeker (LK)
 

admin

Administrator
Darius,

Welcome to Zealot and thanks for saving us!:) This is the first time as I've recalled ever hearing from an owner of this website so that's something new (at least to me). I've always enjoyed the creativity and congeniality everyone from across the planet has demonstrated on this particular forum. That has occurred due to a LOT of hard work from people like Rhaven, Revell Fan, Gandolf, Subnuke, Spaceagent, & of Course Zathros. I'm sure that I'm missing a few people that work behind the scenes, but all of these regulars have been an inspiration to me and a LOT of others over time for MANY years now.

Can I ask how much it costs on a monthly or yearly basis to run this website? I think that would bring more awareness to some of us who are regulars here.

Also, as someone who is relatively new to the community do you have any models that you would like to show the rest of us?

I look forward to your guidance and involvement on this forum.

Take care and have a great day!:Drinks:

Sky Seeker (LK)


Hi Sky Seeker,

To answer your questions:

1) The programmer is the biggest cost. He charges based on a project and then for ongoing maintenance which is on a time basis. To date I have paid $1,200 for the migration and on a weekly basis he drops in and charges on what needs to be done.
2) Hosting & storage is $80 / month. This includes 6TB of transfer a month which is sufficient for large resource files to be viewed/downloaded etc
3) Xenforo & Addons - This all varies on what the add-on is but that was a one time purchase plus yearly licensing fees. $644 spent
4) Backups - I have not got a cost on this but that's what our task is for this coming week. This will be an additional monthly cost plus any programmer costs that are associated with implementing daily backups.

I have not made any models, the more I read about Zealot the more I am entertained about it and will try one day but for now, I have 20+ other forums to save and those admins are eagerly awaiting for me to basically replicate what I did with Zealot so I have a lot to do plus my regular job on top of everything else.

Take care,

Darius
 
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