View new posts | View your posts Ghostbusters United

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After a few months of discussion & planning, I'm proud to finally unveil GhostbustersUnited.com.

What is Ghostbusters United?

Short answer? A place for the franchises. Long answer? It's a place where people can see every franchise. An easy to find, public, friendly listing. Want to find your local team? Want to see what franchises are kicking around in Canada? Want to see how many teams are in Philadelphia? Wondering if there are other people as dedicated to this silly hobby as you out in the UK? Look no further than GhostbustersUnited.com.

Think of all the times people have wondered and asked if there was a way to tie all the teams together. It always seems like such a natural progression of thought, seeing as how many amazing franchises are out there now. From coast to coast in the US and on just about every continent out there (stupid Antarctica...) you'll find GB teams now. Enough people have asked us on the New Hampshire team if there was some name for all of us, some sort of "union" for lack of a better term. Why not put it to rest and finally get this show on the road.

The goal here is not to make a new message board or news site- our community has plenty of fine examples of both out there. In fact, GBU has a news feed that pulls news from each franchises' RSS feed as well as from Proton Charging & GB News' "franchise" categories- whenever a team has a story run about them one one of those sites it makes an appearance on GBU. This encourages everyone to work on their own team's website- making sure that we can all do as we please with each team without feeling obligated to abide by any unnecessary pressures while we have our fun. The goal of GBU, pure and simple, is to have a place where we can find every team under one roof.

So Who's Included?

The idea here is to get everyone on GB United who wants to be involved. This means there are limited restrictions for those interested and that anyone can apply to be on the listing & map. However, there are a few rules to join GBU- check them out below.

Wait- My Team Isn't On The Site. What Gives? Why Do You Hate Me?

FEAR NOT. The site is very, very young as of this writing and there is plenty of room for improvement. Upon launch the site only has thirteen teams listed, a number that pales in comparison to the true number of teams out there. Anyone absent can hop on the site and join, a painless task that takes all of two minutes.

Seriously- if you have fun doing this and want to be on Ghostbusters United we'd be more than happy to have you. There's no exclusivity or club mentality here- it's all in good fun. Do not misinterpret this as some form of hierarchy or unnecessary mandates- GBU's goal is to try and pull the teams together.

Rules/Guidelines:

•Your team has multiple members. This means 2+.
•Everyone on your team has at least one piece of equipment. This can include uniforms- jumpsuits with your nametag and a GB logo on the shoulder. People should be able to identify you as a Ghostbuster.
•Your franchise should have some form of web presence, be it a team website, Facebook page, Wordpress blog, MySpace, etc. This helps make the list more relevant & fleshed out. Contact emails are a plus too.
•While there wouldn't be much policing for this, teams should try and do at least one charitable or good will event every year. This is something practically everyone does already, but it would help associate the franchises with more than just the geekier merits we already carry so proudly about ourselves.

This was a pretty intense post. If anyone has any concerns/questions, post them here or send an email to GhostbustersUnited@gmail.com. Here's hoping most of you guys hop on the site- the more the merrier.

-Kevin James, GBNH & Ghostbusters United

Very cool. You are just missing a 'dot' in your link. No workies.

Nice job on the site! Alabama GB has formally signed up!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Why do you hate me!?




No, it looks good Kevin, you did a nice job putting it together.

To anyone who applied prior to 12 noon today:

The application form was bugging out on me and I had to rework some of the code. It's fine now, but anyone who applied earlier this morning (sorry Alabama) will have to do it again. I know, I know, it's two minutes of your life you'll never get back.

Nooooooo!

I resubmitted it. I did it from my Blackberry, so please let me know if our logo didn't show up.

Thanks!

Popped up just fine.

After a couple of weeks when submissions die down I'm going to do a new form- but for now it's probably best if I just let it stay put.

Great work, Kevin. The site looks awesome, very well put together.

Email was sent in. Baltimore ghostbusters signed up.

I can't say how excited I am that I get to have my picture featured on this site. It looks amazing man. Great work

Very nice, love the map being on the homepage.

Doh- I need to change the font for the Flash Map.

I didn't realize that Flash required the end user to have the fonts used in the graphics shown, so right now it looks a bit silly to most people out there. I'll fix that this weekend!

Is it just my Balckberry browser, or does our logo have a black background? I'll send you another one tomorrow if so. I thought I sent a transparent PNG file.

Re applying now...

Since our group has had a growth spurt and a name change, we are officially signed up as the Tennessee Ghostbusters. The only thing we can't submit yet is a proper logo, but we're working on that.

So far, the site looks great! Thanks for this. Very nicely done.

I think it's your browser- it looks transparent to me.

Let me know your email address. I'll see what I can come up with for you guys.

Awesome! Thanks, Kevin!

Viva Blackberry!

Charity work is a requirement? Oh well.

well that leaves us out

Just wrapped the first batch of submissions for day one. I'm waiting on some further info from NJ and the Ohio teams (logos, websites, etc), but for a first day I'd say it was a success. Lots of states filled in, a ton of good will, and a strong amount of forward momentum.

Now I just need to fix that damn font on the Flash map and find an excuse to get a pick of the Philly guys on there.

Not true fellas. Like I said:

"teams should try and do at least one charitable or good will event every year."

I talked to Vince pretty early on about GBU- I'd be a fool to not try and get So-Cal on board. We talked and he mentioned that you guys hadn't jumped into charity events yet. I understand not everyone has the time or means to do charity stuff every couple of months, and So-Cal is no exception. Kevin told me similar stuff about the Denver guys (and girls) and I don't think it'd be fair to hold that against them (although Denver has done a few charitable events, they just don't make it a "regular thing").

The idea is this: try and do something positive with the teams. Doing one event a year would make all the difference and not put to much pressure on anyone. So-Cal was founded in Feb 2010, according to their Facebook page, and I wouldn't hold it against them if they hadn't jumped head first into any charity they could find. Plus, I mean, most of us only really get busy around October, right?

Again, the rules are strict here & the goal is to just have fun with this.

In that case, I should be applying soon. I just have to talk to my partner.

[quote=To anyone who applied prior to 12 noon today:

The application form was bugging out on me and I had to rework some of the code. It's fine now, but anyone who applied earlier this morning (sorry Alabama) will have to do it again. I know, I know, it's two minutes of your life you'll never get back.[/quote]


I applied last night, but just saw your note, so I just reapplied again.

Great work so far.

Yup- I got your info earlier. I just need a version of your logo that's 80px tall so I can fit it on the map. Get me that and we're in business.

Phew. Lots of submissions. We're at nearly 30 teams already- thanks to everyone who's submitted and gotten involved.

add one more submission for review ; )

Palm Coast & a bunch of other teams (including Indiana, Houston, and a few more international teams) are now up and on the site. There are so many franchises out there that I've never even heard of, it's unreal just how many are coming out of the woodwork. A lot of teams are finally starting their own sites in the wake of GBU showing just how many teams are out there- I even got asked to make a version of the application available in Spanish this week!

I can now safely say that there are definitely plans on expanding the site beyond what is currently up and online. The goal will always be, first and foremost, to cater to the franchises and show just what the teams do while assisting anyone wanting to start there own. The goal here isn't to replace anything else that's already out there currently (we're not looking to bump Proton Charging, GB Fans, GB News or anyone out of the running- there's plenty of fandom to go around) and we have some solid ideas on how to do just that. I say we because, well, some pretty cool people have offered to lend a hand behind the scenes.

I don't want to promise anything now, but I do want people to know that the site will certainly be changing and improving in the future. The goal right now is simply to build up our index of franchises, spread the word, and fill out that map. More efforts will soon be put into the international teams as well as ways on finding your local team, not to mention a better spotlight on each franchise. All of that is in due time though, and for now we'll be focusing on the listing itself.

Also: in anyone has any questions, concerns, or (most importantly) feature requests for the site, don't be a stranger. Email the site at GhostbustersUnited@gmail.com and we'll get back to you soon.

-Kevin

So far so great man. Can't wait to see what the future brings for GBU.

I applied for Galena and thats still not up there.... why do you hate me?