About The Muncie Scene (dot com)

A lot of people have been asking what's going on with this site and the project behind it. Well, here's the skinny.

TheMuncieScene.com was chugging along pretty well from around 2003 to 2006ish and did a pretty good job staying current, well-trafficked, and useful for anybody that wanted to stay up-to-date on Muncie arts, music, and community development and network with likeminded folks. Then I did what's typical of me and I got all tangled up in my own overreaching ambition and let the thing die out. I was going to rebuild the site to be all modern and extra-useful, but once I started rearranging things, I never really finished, which left us all with a largely useless shell of a site that I never even bothered to promote to begin with.

But since Muncie obviously needs something like the old Muncie Scene site again, I'm making another honest effort to get one set up. Except this time, it's going to have all the bells and whistles that a community-run community website should have, and I'm going to pull in as much outside help as I can so the project doesn't just fizzle out again because of my lack of free time.
Here's what would help me:

• Designers
  Especially banner ad designers and web designers that are familiar with CakePHP or similar frameworks.
• Web Developers
  We'll be using PHP (probably CakePHP), MySQL, and Prototype/Scriptaculous for all the Javascript voodoo.
• Advertising / Marketing Folks
  To head up the promotional campaign for the project.
• Reporters / Event Hunters
  To find events going on in the city and write about them.
• Moderators
  To filter through user submitions and approve posts.
• Salespeople
  To sell advertising and solicit donations for our awesome monthly givaways.
• Miscellaneous volunteers
  To give feedback, test the site for bugs, pass out flyers, and spread the word.

What will you get out of it? Well, primarily an awesome community website. Also, if you're a Ball State student, you can get independent study or internship credit for your work. Also, if you're writing grants or selling ads to help defray the cost of hosting the website, you will keep a percentage of those sales. And everybody that donates their time to helping develop this project will get fun perks like free admission into fundraiser concerts. And everyone who donates anything else will get a tax deduction, as the project is operating under a local 501(c)(3) not-for-profit group called the Full Circle Arts Co-op.

What exactly are all the crazy ambitious plans for this website? Well, there are lots of ideas, all of which can be accomplished with a little bit of effort, but moreover this project is quite open-ended and I'm willing to integrate any new ideas that utilize the Internet to help promote and develop great things in Muncie. Anyhow, here's a quick rundown of some of the initial goals of this project.

If you'd like to help, or if you want to know more about what's planned, you can get in touch with me by emailing me or attending Full Circle's twice-monthly meetings.

P.S.: Congratulations for reading all the way to the end of that. Your bonus prize is my shameless plugging! Come down to Doc's Music Hall on Sundays at 9pm to catch me hosting Doc's Trivia Night. Free to play, $50 bar tab to the winning team, ages 21+ only (sorry, kids!). Also, tune in to MAX 93.5 / 96.7 FM to catch me cohosting the Doc's Music Hall radio show on Mondays from 10pm to 12am.