Hey all, Dennis here. Wanted to provide you with more details about AfterElton's upcoming relaunch as TheBacklot.com. We've settled on a tagline: Corner of Hollywood and Gay, and we have a tentative changeover date: Wednesday, April 17th.
When the switch is thrown the site is going to look quite different-- much better looking I think, with some great new features. Features like better display on smartphones and tablets, photo galleries, and optional email notification when someone replies to one of your comments. But sadly, some of the social features of the current site will be lost.
[Me ducking.]
I fully expect the pitchforks to come out and/or bad fruit to be thrown at me here, but I don't have control over this. Our site needs to be on the same platform as most other Viacom Media Networks websites like MTV.com. That means giving up some features in order to build others around a shared platform. While these changes won't have much impact on casual readers, AE members who regularly log on to our existing site will be affected.
If you have an AfterElton account, here's what you need to know...
The new site, at least initially, will not have a private messaging function. That means if you have any private messages currently stored on AfterElton that are important to you, you should copy them down before the changeover. Those messages won't be retrievable afterwards. And if you're one of those folks who rely on the private messaging system to keep in touch with other AE members, then you'll also want to figure out an alternate means of private communication with your buddies, such as Facebook or regular email.
The new site will have a member tracking feature, so even if you can't PM fellow members, you will be able to follow the activity of your friends on the new site. (In fact, more easily than you can on the current site). But the old AfterElton buddylist system won't feed into that. You'll create a new "Following" list.
Active AfterElton members will automatically have a member account on TheBacklot.com. If you've logged in to AfterElton at any time in the last few months, then you should be able to log in to the new site with the same password and email address now associated with AfterElton. (Your display name on the new site should be the same.)
We've been assured that the text of existing comments will migrate over to the new commenting system, but we're not sure yet whether images/videos in comments will make the transition.
Hypertext links/bookmarks etc. pointing to AfterElton will still work after the transition. They will just redirect to thebacklot.com
Finally, the new forums will not be ready to launch when The Backlot goes live. (A brand new forum service for the site will launch a few months later but the existing forums won't migrate over to it.) That means if there's content in any of the existing AfterElton forums you wish to keep, you should copy it down before April 17th.
I know this is a LOT to digest. I want to stress how sorry I am for the headache and disruption this is going to cause some of our most active members. There really is no way to sugarcoat it, so I won't try. But I hold out hope that the end result of this painful transition will be a bigger and better website for our readers to enjoy.
Sincerely,
Dennis Ayers
Editor AfterElton/The Backlot
