Nobody has time for anything these days, but I think my may have access to a programmer or two who is willing to make time for a good cause. I've also dabbled, myself. I think the important thing is to take the first step... so I have gone ahead and done so.
If you can get your hands on a decent domain, I can get us about a full day of an experienced programmer's time. What this means is, we can get a custom website running professional social image sharing software, but we can't go adding too much in the way of features yet: he'll set us up something that works for our immediate purposes, and we will be in touch in the future to add new features (plus people like StemCell might be willing to devote a day or two themselves, to improving the site code).
If we want to take him up on it, it will have to be reasonably soon (i.e. within 10 days), but here's what he's offering:
1. An image sharing website custom-built for our purposes, based on the ZenPhoto CMS (
http://www.zenphoto.org/ ).
2. Support for both image and story content, plus a news section, built in blog, and support for other custom pages.
3. A sexy, modern user interface. Have a look here, for how the pages of the site will look:
http://oswebcreations.com/zenphoto-themes/zpmasonry/4. Support for tagging, user permission levels, content ratings, categories, commenting on artwork (and writing), as well as plug-in support for all kinds of customization and additional features in future.
5. RSS for new content, backup and restore feature (in case the site gets deleted), automatic updates (to fix bugs), statistics for most viewed, top rated, most commented, etc., as well as the most popular tags.
6. Automatic spam filtering in comments, CAPTCHAs for security, automatic compression of oversize images (optional), "protected" pages for members only (e.g. loli content).
6. Fully searchable image library, including search-by-artist and search-by-resolution alongside the normal search by tag stuff.
7. A full suite of admin tools for managing the above, giving us total control of the site.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like the hypno-site of the future to me... and precisely what I think the community needs right now. There's plenty of chans, groups and boorus and such where we can place hypno content: even the loli stuff that started this thread can technically go on Lolibooru under the hypnosis or mind_control tags, and stories could be sent to Piper's Domain. MC Stories has the regular stories; Sleepychan has artist threads and IRL hookups; DA-Entranced offers a supportive community for new artists and writers to hone their skills and/or explore their interests; Hypnobooru covers everything else.
So what's missing? Why do I want to see something brand new appear? Well, here's my answer: I would also like to hear your own, below.
I think what's missing is a place where all of the above is possible, but the focus is on sharing and discussing quality original work, with facilities for artists and writers to post, share, discuss, grow and improve, and all the modern conveniences like RSS, twitter feeds and so forth.
In short, I want a one-stop shop for hypno-news, art, writing and community, I want to be able to watch an RSS feed for new content I am interested in (instead of visiting a bunch of different sites twice a day, many of which never seem to update), and most of all I want to see more original art, stories with a real plot, and quality manips. I don't care if that means male/male stuff, loli stuff or My Little Pony stuff: when it gets posted, it should get tagged, and everyone who likes that kind of thing should see it. As for amateur works that don't meet the quality criteria, there should be links to all the major sites. As for commercial works that aren't legal to repost, there should be links to the creators' sites. As for anything else that's happening in the community – if, say, somebody throws a contest or a new issue of Squid Ops has come out – I want to see that kind of thing right there under "News".
That's what I want out of a new hypno-site, and I feel like this offering could give us exactly what I've been after.
I am only one man, though, so I ask you:
When you imagine the "big new hypno-site" of your dreams, what exactly is it that you want from it, and does the option I outlined above offer (or potentially offer in future, through a plug-in) what you want?
Let's discuss, get everybody's thoughts in here, and make a decision soon. Hopefully, we can all get at least some of what we want, and one or two more weeks from now we'll have the seed of the new hypno-hub of the future.
For that matter, I quite like the name "HypnoHub"... or, in honour of the fallen HypnoChan, perhaps a name like "HypnoClan". What would you name your ideal site, and what would be on it?
We've 10 days and counting to make a decision and to lay the groundwork, starting now, so let's get some traction in this thread.
Over to you.