Do you have a few extra minutes…maybe an hour or two? Would you mind doing a little typing in the service of Star Trek fan films? If so, then the blog site STAR TREK REVIEWED needs YOUR help!
I can honestly say that Fan Film Factor would likely not exist were it not for Star Trek Reviewed. Started back in 2009 by uber-fan BARBARA READER, her humble website quick grew to enormous proportions, containing resources and information about nearly EVERY Star Trek fan film. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever found a Trek film that wasn’t already somewhere on Barbara’s site. You think I’ve covered a lot of Trek fan films here? I’m just peanuts compared to an outfit like Star Trek Reviewed!
I don’t look at STR as a competitor, though…not in the least! Like firefighters and police officers, there’s similarities but a lot of significant differences in what we do. While both blogs include lists of fan films and tell you where you can view them, STR provides links to articles and interviews and reviews about each production and/or series…and groups those fan films into categories by Trek “era” and production type (live action, animated, machinima, etc.). STR also includes Trek audio productions, plus comics and games created by fans. (I don’t have enough time to include those here.)
What Fan Film Factor does that STR doesn’t is provide the “deep dives” into each production…histories and interviews (both text and audio), closer looks at the producers and their projects, and don’t forget editorials. In many ways, the two sites complement each other perfectly to provide a wonderfully full coverage of fan films.
Last year, after doing all the work to maintain and update STR by her lonesome for nearly seven years, Barbara grew her team to five individuals from all across the planet—keeping fans apprised of the latest fan project releases. (How DO they do it!?!?) And now they’re looking for a little more help…possibly from YOU!
When Barbara started the site, it was hosted on Google’s Blogspot service. While a great tool for beginning bloggers, Blogspot still has its limitations in terms of content layout capabilities and not being able to have the URL StarTrekReviewed.com (instead, they are startrekreviewed.blogspot.com).
The team is currently working to change that. They’ve undertaken the gargantuan task of taking all of the pages from the current blog site and porting them over to a new domain with a cleaner layout. Along the way, they’re testing old hyperlinks and clearing away those that are no longer valid.
It’s not rocket surgery. In fact, it’s relatively easy work to do (they even created instructions and are happy to help walk volunteers through the process until they’re comfortable). But it is time-consuming…especially if you’ve got a team of only five people doing all the work.
But if they can add to their volunteer pool—at any level of time commitment—things will go faster. As team member JAMES HEANEY commented to me:
If we get a volunteer who puts in an hour a week on this alongside the rest of us, we’ll get migrated to the new site a long time from now. If we get a volunteer who puts in ten hours a week on this (or ten volunteers who each do one hour a week), we could have the new site completely ready to go very soon.
We will take any help we can get! It’s a daunting task, but one that (we think) will be worth it in the long run, because it will make the Internet’s most comprehensive and current database of Star Trek fan films a clean, clear structure the entire community can use.
If you’ve been wanting to get more involved in the world of fan films and really make a difference, here is your chance!
No skills are required. You just need an internet connection, a keyboard, and a willingness to diligently copy data from one source to another.
If you’re interested in helping STR take its next big leap forward, please write to the team at startrekreviewed@gmail.com.