May has been the busiest month so far according to
the monthly traffic report. Averaging 15 or 16 posts a day for the first 3 weeks of the month, the admins were kept on their toes with main page updates.
Along with increased traffic, there was an increase in the number of spam incidents, as evidenced by the large number of
removed comments and posts this month. While most were non-serious spam, there were two cases of defamation, one of which was
slightly controversial.
Real life happenings affected Tangst to the greatest extent in the month of May. The admins were busy with so many things outside the website. Performance was slightly lower because of this exhaustion. Family life, AP review and exams, SATs and SAT IIs, regular schoolwork, oncoming finals, jobs, social lives, college grief, and schedule messes are just some of the stresses we've been working around.
For the first two weeks, those enrolled in AP classes had the corresponding AP examinations, leading to a bit of AP-related angst posts. Also during this period, SD was promoted to admin status after a frank discussion where upon he accused the current admins of being "slow." (Yes, we promote insolence. As teenagers, we have to admire each other for that kind of thing.)
After APs finished, a sense of discontent and ennui fell over the general populace of Tangst, especially the Enloe faction, from the pointless of schoolwork beyond AP exams. "All work seems superfluous now" appears to be the basic consensus.
With the advent of Stanley Cup playoffs and the success of the Carolina Hurricanes , several of the main admins (i.e. SD, thewordofrashi, and I) have been distracted, leading to posts lingering on Share A Secret for a longer period of time on game nights.
No major changes to site layout or maintenance occurred during May - the admins have been too busy to work on anything particularly large or intense.
Needless to say, everyone is just waiting for finals to be over so we can all be free. We're anticipating summer with unmatched glee - we need to recharge.
Over the summer, Tangst will undergo major and minor renovations. 龙年 and I will be tinkering around with improvements for a while. After finals are over, we'll be setting up a copycat site to do all of the work on; Tangst itself will not be immediately affected. Once we start testing new ideas, I'll release a link to the alternate site so everyone can see what's going on and directly comment with any opinions and suggestions.
One of the minor changes is that for the first time since January, I'll be going through and doing some site cleanup - getting rid of dead links, completely removing deleted posts, that sort of thing. I'll also be working on the offline archives again - they've not been updated since the weekend after Spring Break, so I've got a lot to catch up on.
To the seniors: Congratulations on graduating! And getting into college! We'll miss you guys at school, but I love that there'll still be Tangst as a way to connect.
To everyone: Good luck on finals (whenever you take them)! Have fun this summer (recharging, making money, cleaning squirrel teeth, working out, traveling, wearing dorky shorts, chasing small children, whatever)!
Lots and lots of love to everyone (yes, I'm in that kind of mood),
Heather
