[AJ Quick]

Twenty-six years ago, a small group of Ghostbusters fans built something special. A place where we could obsess over intricate prop details, debate the finer points of proton pack builds, share photos from our first builds, and connect with people who understood why this franchise means so much to us. That place became GBFans.com, and over two and a half decades it has grown into the largest and longest-running Ghostbusters fan community on the internet.

But we need to be real with you: GBFans.com needs your help to survive.

The Internet Has Changed. We Haven't.

The web we built GBFans.com on doesn't exist anymore. Social media scattered our community across dozens of Facebook groups, Discord servers, and Reddit threads. Content that used to live on GBFans.com, carefully organized and searchable, now disappears into algorithmic feeds where posts have a shelf life of hours. Twenty-five years of build knowledge, tutorials, reference photos, and community history are harder to find than ever, buried in an aging platform that wasn't designed for how fans use the internet today.

We've watched it happen. The forums have slowed. The gallery hasn't kept up. The site still doesn't work well on your phone. And every year, it gets a little harder to justify keeping the lights on when the infrastructure underneath is held together with code that's old enough to rent a car.

We refuse to let this community fade away. Not after 26 years. Not when there's still nothing else like it.



What We're Building

We are rebuilding GBFans.com from the ground up. Not a fresh coat of paint. A full-scale revamp of every part of the site, designed to bring back the energy of GBFans.com' golden age while making it feel like it belongs in 2026 and beyond.

Here's what's coming:

A Completely New Site Design. A modern, responsive homepage that works beautifully on your phone, your tablet, and your desktop. Clean navigation, fast loading, and a layout that puts the best community content front and center. No more pinching and zooming on your phone to read a build thread.

Modernized Community Forums. We're migrating to a completely new forum platform with real-time discussion, better search, inline media, rich text editing, and a user experience that feels like it was built in this decade. Every single post from our 20+ year forum history will make the journey. Nothing gets left behind.

A Rebuilt Photo Gallery with Community Uploads. The gallery is getting a total overhaul. Community members will be able to upload their own photos, tag their props and costumes, and contribute to a living archive of Ghostbusters fandom. Convention photos, build progress shots, group meetups ... all organized, searchable, and showcased the way they deserve to be.

Dedicated Prop Build Threads and Community Showcases. Build threads are the heart and soul of GBFans.com. We're giving them a proper home with dedicated sections, better media support, and tools that make it easy to document your build from first cut to first suiting-up. Whether you're building your first trap or your fifth pack, your work will be easy to find, follow, and celebrate.

Social Networking Features. Member profiles, activity feeds, direct messaging, and the ability to follow builders and community members whose work you admire. Think of it as the social experience you wish Facebook groups could be, but built specifically for Ghostbusters fans and owned by the community, not by an algorithm.

A Searchable Knowledge Base Built from 25 Years of Expertise. Somewhere in our forums, someone has answered almost every Ghostbusters prop question ever asked. The problem is finding it. We're building a structured knowledge base that distills 25 years of community expertise into an organized, searchable resource. Part reference library, part living encyclopedia, all powered by the incredible knowledge this community has accumulated since 2000.

A Revamped Community Wiki. The GBFans.com Wiki is getting a complete refresh with updated content, better organization, and tighter integration with the rest of the site. Reference material, historical info, and community-maintained documentation all in one place.

An Updated Shop Experience. The GBFans.com Shop is getting modernized with a better browsing experience, improved checkout, and a platform that can grow with the community. We'll continue offering the same quality prop parts, pins, and merchandise you've come to rely on.

This Is Where You Come In

None of this happens without funding. Server costs, development tools, software licenses, and countless hours of work are required to pull off a rebuild of this scale. GBFans.com has always been a labor of love, but love alone doesn't pay for infrastructure.

We're asking you to become a Supporting Member. Your membership directly funds the development of the new GBFans.com. Every dollar goes toward building the community platform we all deserve.

Membership Tiers

Bronze Membership ... Annual support to keep the lights on and development moving forward.

Silver Membership ... Step up your support and get recognized for going above and beyond.

Gold Membership ... Our premium annual tier for fans who want to make a serious impact.

NEW: Lifetime Platinum Membership ... $1,000 LIMITED TIME. The ultimate commitment to GBFans.com. A one-time investment equivalent to 20 years of Gold membership. Your name permanently enshrined as a founding supporter of the next era of GBFans.com. This is for the fans who look at 26 years of community history and say, "I'm not letting this go anywhere." And if we can reach 20 Lifetime Members, we will make an exclusive Lifetime Member Challenge Coin!

BECOME A SUPPORTING MEMBER TODAY

https://www.gbfans.com/fans/supporting/

Why This Matters

Fan communities don't last 26 years by accident. They last because people care enough to show up, contribute, and invest in something bigger than themselves. GBFans.com has survived four movies, countless toy lines, a global pandemic, and the rise and fall of a dozen social media platforms. It's still here because of you.

But "still here" isn't good enough anymore. We don't want to just survive. We want GBFans.com to thrive the way it did in its best years, and we want to build something that will still be standing for the next generation of fans. The kid who just watched Ghostbusters for the first time last weekend deserves the same experience we had: a place to geek out, learn, build, and belong.

Facebook groups won't give them that. Reddit won't give them that. Only a dedicated, community-owned platform can.

That's what GBFans.com has always been. That's what we're fighting to keep it.

If GBFans.com has ever helped you find a part, finish a build, meet a friend, or just feel a little less weird for caring this much about a movie from 1984 ... we're asking you to help us keep it going. Not just for us. For everyone who comes next.

We ain't afraid of no ghosts. But we are afraid of losing this community.

See you on the other side,
-AJ Quick

[Ebobhazard84]

I'm proud to have become a paying member not too long ago, when you were starting your move into a new space. I much prefer a website as opposed to the cesspool that is social media, so I will continue my membership if it means helping secure the future of GBFans.

[AJ Quick]

I've only been working on this for about 24 hours now, but I'm happy with the progress so far.Our current site is deeply tied to the legacy forum software, so unfortunately that will be the last major piece to migrate. Right now, the order of operations looks something like this:

Timeline:
- Shop (already in progress)
- Wiki (starting now)
- News system (more news front and center on the main page)

Once those are done, I'll tackle replacing the forum with Discourse. That's the biggest hurdle due to the sheer volume of data. It takes 30 minutes just to initialize the new forum software. Every time you want to test a change, another 30 minutes to recompile. More than enough time for Dennis Nedry to cause havoc on Jurassic Park.

But once the forum migration is complete, we'll no longer be bound to the old site, and things can start moving in rapid succession. I'll reintroduce old features like prop build galleries, and more of the social media aspects will be coming back.

The new site will also be load balanced. If more people are using it, it'll scale to meet demand. Pages should load in 1-2 seconds max.

AND if there are any features you want, please post them in this thread!

[edspengler]

Take your time, there is absolutely no hurry. I love this site and love reading through the forums. Facebook is going to garbage and it’s not worth posting anything there except a few fun fotos here and there. Important information that is worth archiving and sharing - like detailed build diaries - belongs here.

[zeta otaku]

AND if there are any features you want, please post them in this thread!

One thing I'd love to see on the new forum is image hosting where we can just attach an image to a post without having to link to an outside source.

[Psycho Werekitsune]

I've only been working on this for about 24 hours now, but I'm happy with the progress so far.Our current site is deeply tied to the legacy forum software, so unfortunately that will be the last major piece to migrate. Right now, the order of operations looks something like this:

Timeline:
- Shop (already in progress)
- Wiki (starting now)
- News system (more news front and center on the main page)

Once those are done, I'll tackle replacing the forum with Discourse. That's the biggest hurdle due to the sheer volume of data. It takes 30 minutes just to initialize the new forum software. Every time you want to test a change, another 30 minutes to recompile. More than enough time for Dennis Nedry to cause havoc on Jurassic Park.

But once the forum migration is complete, we'll no longer be bound to the old site, and things can start moving in rapid succession. I'll reintroduce old features like prop build galleries, and more of the social media aspects will be coming back.

The new site will also be load balanced. If more people are using it, it'll scale to meet demand. Pages should load in 1-2 seconds max.

AND if there are any features you want, please post them in this thread!

Did you mean Discord? So are the forums going away? That'd be a shame, message boards are such a great resource and a much better place for discussion and getting answers, despite the fact that they're not very commonly used these days.

[Murdock]

Second item down under what they are working on talks about a new forum and the migration of all post. So no, the forum won't go away.

Good luck with the upgrades and count me in for a gold!

[Psycho Werekitsune]

Second item down under what they are working on talks about a new forum and the migration of all post. So no, the forum won't go away.

Good luck with the upgrades and count me in for a gold!

It says "replacing the forum with Discourse" to which I assume meant Discord. It sounds to me more like we're getting a Discord server to replace the forums and stuff might be migrated to that, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

[Marcus B]

It says "replacing the forum with Discourse" to which I assume meant Discord. It sounds to me more like we're getting a Discord server to replace the forums and stuff might be migrated to that, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse ... prov=sfla1

[AJ Quick]

Did you mean Discord? So are the forums going away? That'd be a shame, message boards are such a great resource and a much better place for discussion and getting answers, despite the fact that they're not very commonly used these days.

Discourse is a modern forum software.

You can check out their forum here: https://meta.discourse.org/

One thing I'd love to see on the new forum is image hosting where we can just attach an image to a post without having to link to an outside source.

For sure will be there!

[timeware]

Discourse looks fairly messy. Less organized then this that's for sure.

[Fritz]

Discourse looks fairly messy. Less organized then this that's for sure.

Our current software isn't a stock installation with a default theme either; Discourse has an active customization board too. I admit that yeah, the default look on the Discourse site is kinda bland, but I doubt AJ's not going to tinker with it.

[timeware]

I've already signed up so crossing the streams GBfans will be easy to find and navigate through.

[AJ Quick]

There are certainly going to be changes with how the new forum will work.

We have all of these forums, so many forums. The new system will condense things down a lot, so we won't have for example all of these forums:

Northwest, Southwest, Midwest, New England, Northeast, Southeast, Canada, Europe, Australia

But instead we might have one category for them all and then each thread will have a tag that will be the equivalent to each region, or state, or country. You'll be able to filter by the tag, which is the same as viewing a specific forum. We might have a Prop Discussion category, but then tags for Proton Packs, tags for Haslab Proton Packs, tags for 3D Printed Proton Packs.. etc.

The new system will be much better at knowing what a particular thread is about. It will be very easy to find similar topics of discussion.

[AJ Quick]

Came up with a good solution that will speed up development. Previously I was going to have different code bases for the Wiki, News, Prop Uploads etc. I am finding I can combine everything into one system that just changes based on what it needs to display. This somewhat similar to how the original system worked, but it will be a smarter approach this time.

[AJ Quick]

And another cool update coming to the shopping cart. There will now be a much more streamlined checkout process.

You will now have the ability to select if the order will be shipped in multiple packages or combined down into one. Saving shipping expenses for many, including international customers.

There will also be more payment options:

PayPal (normal), PayPal (Pay Later / Payment Plan), Credit / Debit Cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay.

It will be an easier and more secure process.

[mrmichaelt]

For search, can there be an optional box to check off if you only want to search thread titles rather than searching all posts?

For posts, can there be a button to embed videos? I saw some people still get tripped up typing in the youtube code.

And when you quote someone, can there be a multi-quote button for the times when you reply to more than 1 post?

[AJ Quick]

mrmichaelt: I will need to look into these things.

Shameless plug time. Over the last 3 months I've been building a new website, and a lot of the code and patterns I developed for it will make their way into the new GBFans.com to speed up development.

The site is RightGenerator.com and I built it to help people find the right generator for home backup, camping, RV, or construction use. There's a lot of hard to find info out there on this topic, so I wanted to make something actually useful.

Try it out. See how fast it is. Try it on mobile. Use the interactive Finder tool to see how forms work.. etc.

[mrmichaelt]

mrmichaelt: I will need to look into these things.

Thanks, AJ. Hopefully Discourse has it, but these features were from a forum that uses XenForo. They are nice little timesavers for members.

[Kingpin]

I assume one of the features that will come as standard with the forum moving to Discourse software is there being CAPTCHA security in the user registration process?
That should hopefully allow us to catch more/most of the spambots before they get a chance to post on the forum.

[AJ Quick]

Registration will be through a system called Clerk for now. It will allow very fast sign ups and logging in through third party systems. It will help prevent spam by things like SMS / Email codes that need to be filled out when signing up. We can also have passwordless systems where you click login, get an email and click that to finish signing in. It is a much more robust system that is actually handled by a third party.

[AJ Quick]

Found this out:

For search, can there be an optional box to check off if you only want to search thread titles rather than searching all posts?

Yes. It is an advanced search feature. There is a button you can select to do it or (I believe) you can add "in:title" to the search query.

For posts, can there be a button to embed videos? I saw some people still get tripped up typing in the youtube code.

Yes. Or simply linking to a YouTube video will auto embed it. No BBCode needed.

And when you quote someone, can there be a multi-quote button for the times when you reply to more than 1 post?

This is actually one of the cooler features. When you want to quote someone you just select the text you want to quote, a button will appear that says Quote and it will be auto filled in the response box. So if you want to do a bunch, highlight, click quote, continue and then they will all be in the response box for you. Much easier and will prevent people from quoting a whole post and just responding with "Cool!"

[AJ Quick]

Another feature I've been toying with is a built-in marketplace. The idea is that sellers could list and sell their own products directly on GBFans, kind of like Etsy but centralized around our community. Sellers would handle their own listings, pricing, and shipping, and buyers would get a seamless checkout experience right on the site without going anywhere else.

I think this could be especially great for the patch, pin, and small parts crowd. If you do a run of patches or custom parts, you'd have the entire GBFans audience right there instead of relying on Facebook posts or sending people to a separate shop. I'd love to eventually see a spot where you can browse hundreds of franchise patches and pins all in one place.

Every seller would go through an approval process and build a track record over time, so we can keep quality up and weed out the scammers. Sellers would get their own dashboard to manage listings, orders, and payouts.

Curious what you all think. Would you use this as a buyer or a seller? What would make or break it for you?

[timeware]

Any chance of getting an archive system for the news feed?

[AJ Quick]

Any chance of getting an archive system for the news feed?

Specifically which one? RSS news or the news posts?

[timeware]

Probably the news posts .

[AJ Quick]

Probably the news posts .

Yep! Whole new news system. It will have all the old posts.

That being said, right now all the news is right here: viewforum.php?f=14

[Kingpin]

Curious what you all think. Would you use this as a buyer or a seller? What would make or break it for you?

A central repository, or a "one-stop shop" for store items would be potentially useful, though I suppose there would need to be some sort of clear indicator of when items are being offered directly by GBFans, and when items are being offered by forum members... One of the things I find a little frustrating about Amazon is that there isn't an immediately obvious sign when an item is being sold by Amazon, and when an item is being sold through Amazon by an outside party.

I wonder how the forum topic tagging will be implemented... Would we have to manually type the tag name in, or would we be able to click on a button to apply the appropriate tag/s?
A minor concern I have if it is the former, is accidental tag duplication due to spelling errors.
Another minor concern is ending up with multiple tags on a similar theme due to different users using different naming conventions, like: "Tag:_PKE", "Tag:_P.K.E." and "Tag:_Psychokinetic_Energy_Meter".

[AJ Quick]

I would do my best to indicate that it is a third party shipping the item. Somewhat similar to how Amazon does it however. I could make it a bit more prominent.

Tags will be predefined. Admin / mods / staff can create new tags. There will also be auto tagging if topics contain certain words.

[AJ Quick]

Very close to having the shop fully functional. The overall layout and design will change and improve though.



The layout will become more modern, but this is a start.



Product pages will have more information and better photos. There will also be product bundles available.



The cart page will be much more streamlined.



Checkout will be one single page with no reloads between. You now have the option to select between shipping all items together and splitting them up for faster (but more expensive) shipping. Sales tax (for Colorado only) is now properly calculated for the first time. VAT calculations have improved as well. PayPal Pay Later is now available. (Still looking into Apple Pay and Google Pay).