I don't want anyone to get the idea that I'm gonna have complete control over this - I did the part of starting it up and installing it - but I want the rest to be a team effort - it belongs to the community that will be using it. Mods will be impartially appointed along the way.

Depending on the interest this experiment generates, I'll buy a domain for it soon. I plan to take a vote from the forum users regarding what domain name to pick, if switchfams.com isn't everyone's favourite idea for a name.

And, did I mention, we can have a custom skin/theme on the boards for those who come there through your fansite!? A theme that matches your site's design/colours. I'll help you with this, after which you just have to add "?styleid=x" (where 'x' is the theme number) in front of the URL and you now have a custom link to the boards for your fansite! :)

http://switchfams.110mb.com

If you don't like the "Oh! Gravity." skin/theme, you can change the skin to the default one (from the drop-down menu at the bottom). More skins coming soon.

This forum isn't for any one particular fansite, it's for everyone, even your friends who aren't into Switchfoot might be able to have a good time there, eventually. I find it disappointing to see the Switchfoot community all broken up - a lot of the old boardies don't come on here anymore because these boards' software sucks. Some fansites have tried other alternatives (which furthered the split-up of the community), but those free alternatives are usually not good enough either - the ads and limited customization aren't fun, and the software isn't great either. So I thought (as many have suggested before, but no one has set up) it was time for vBulletin, the best forum software that exists. It took me a while to come to a decision because I really didn't wanna do something redundant by making a forum for switchfeed.com - yet another forum by a fansite - a pointless idea, when I believe all of us fans should be in one place, as one big community. So I ensured the forums didn't follow the design theme of switchfeed.com or peddled any exclusiveness.

I'm not saying the forums I just created are the solution, but I hope they're one step closer to it, even if by just conveying a message to Sony or Switchfoot, whoever it may concern, that we deserve a better place to hang out. Either way, Switchfoot's contract will end in a couple albums (and these boards are Sony's webspace), but we're not going anywhere, are we? Maybe if enough of us get on there, it could move to its own domain and I could offer Switchfoot the ownership. For now, I'll just wait and see where it goes.

If any fansite managers wish to relocate their boardies/message-board section to those forums, I'll place a prominent link/button to your fansite on that page (or create a homepage of fansite links and move the forums to a sub-directory), as a token of my appreciation, and I'll make you an admin/mod - fair deal? I hope you understand, this is a sincere effort to bring us all (at least all fansite boardies - who don't hang out much at these boards anyway) to one place with a quality forum software. And I believe vBulletin is the answer. We could call ourselves the fansite coalition or something, haha.