One of my goals with the new gamequitters.com homepage is to showcase all of the countries that we have members from. What I want to do is recreate the global map that charitywater.org has (scroll down to Where We Work) with markers for our own countries. I've inspected their code and it looks like it's all being done with html/css (sprites):

If you're interested in taking on this project, let me know. It could be a fun way to practice your css/html skills and contribute to the community. Below I have listed the countries that we have represented in Game Quitters. For colors, the pin marker would be best as red (look at gamequitters.com for the colors), with highlight map a darker red and the global map either a lighter red or gray.

Countries: (75)

Singapore, USA, Canada, South Africa, Slovakia, England (United Kingdom), Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Germany, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia, Russia, Turkey, Denmark, Greece, Lithuania, India, Czech Republic, Morocco, Colombia, Latvia, Serbia, Tunisia, Sweden, Portugal, Luxembourg, Italy, France, Algeria, Ireland, Romania, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Egypt, Iceland, Scotland, Paraguay, Qatar, Bulgaria, Philippines, Argentina, Pakistan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Estonia, Ghana, South Korea, Israel, Malaysia, Austria, Slovenia, Syria, Hungary, Taiwan, Thailand, Croatia, Brunei, Bosnia, Bahrain, Guernsey, Tanzania, Venezuela, Uruguay, Mongolia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Montenegro

Any questions let me know.

Writing:

• Share your story in a blog post on gamequitters.com (examples) - the more of these we have the better, because it will inspire others who are lurking to join the community and take action. Your story matters and it can inspire others.
  • Guidelines:
    • Minimum 600 words
    • Here are a few questions to help you get started:
      • When you started gaming? What games?
      • What did you like about gaming?
      • When did you notice it becoming a problem?
      • What consequences did you start to experience?
      • When did you decide to quit?
      • Did you seek help or support? Start the detox? Relapse?
      • What benefit(s) have you gotten from quitting?
      • Is there anything else you'd like to share?
    • Submit your draft to cam@gamequitters.com with the subject line [Community Contribution]
    • Optional: Please include a few pictures of you and the name you would like us to use for your post. You may remain as anonymous as you would like.
    • Bonus: You may also record a video of your story and submit it also. Example.

Translations:

• Want to help people in your country who don't speak English to be able to get the help they need? Join our Translations Team. Reply to this thread with your language and we will add you to the subforum.

Coding:

• We are still looking for someone to help us program a badgebot for this forum. Details here.

Other:

• Do you have a particular skill that you think could help grow the Game Quitters community? We are always open to ideas and looking for help. Post your idea!

The UK Parliament has launched a new committee looking into video game addiction and they are looking for someone in the UK aged 18-25 who would be willing to testify and share their experience.

Often these inquiries only showcase academic researchers and not the people struggling themselves (like us!) so it's a really great opportunity to share our actual experience with the issue.

If this is you, please PM me and I can connect you.

Here are the details:

The Committee and the Chair are interested in hearing from gamers between 18-25 that have experienced issues with gaming addiction. The Committee are exploring a variety of themes within the gaming industry and eager to understand the problems young gamers in particular face. This provides a great opportunity for them to speak directly to the Committee and contribute to the final report. Some of the issues that we will be discussing include:

- Tackling digital and gaming addiction: what are digital addiction and gaming addiction, and how do they differ from other forms? What is the scale of the problem and what support do those with digital or gaming addiction need? What role does design play in gaming addiction, or the addictive use of social media, and how might that be managed? Are extra measures needed to protect children from these forms of addiction? How well co-ordinated are Government efforts on these forms of addiction? What can be learned from other countries?

- The links between gaming and gambling: what are the links between gaming and gambling? What are the effects of in-game spending, especially on children, and does it need stronger monitoring or regulation? What challenges and opportunities do gaming and eSports offer the gambling industry and how should that be managed?

Please find below guidance for witnesses on giving evidence to Select Committees. It provides more detailed logistical information.

1. Game Quitters default theme has been updated to be more in alignment with the new brand direction you can see on the homepage of the website: gamequitters.com
    
2. The majority of subforums have been removed and merged into one main subforum: General Discussion (previously, Main Room). If you have any topics or things you would like to discuss outside of journaling, that is the best subforum to do it. Specific questions should go into "Ask the Community", which will be our place to organize valuable resources for the most important questions.
    
3. A new sidebar has been added to show Newest Topics, Forum Statistics, Member Statistics, and Who's Online. 

- Cam

Thanks is owed to @stablish for all of his hard work on this.

Check it out

A quick note on a few recent changes:

1. I have removed the "Deep Forum" for now. I'm always willing to experiment with new ideas, but there was no activity in the forum after a few weeks so we can come back to this idea at a later time.

2. I have made a change to "Archived Journals" and included them all back in the parent "Daily Journals" section. All journals that I "recommend" for people to read - for whatever reason - are now featured with a STAR, as you can see below:

3. Once you reach 800 posts, you can now set your own custom title in your profile. I may change this to a higher number at some point.

4. Live Chat has been upgraded to have room for 20 members at one time. 

5. The navigation bar now includes links to our Facebook and YouTube, and a link to make a one-time donation to Game Quitters. If you'd like to see our latest financial reports, read our monthly progress reports.

6. We reached a major milestone with 10,000+ posts in the Daily Journals. Starting from 0 just over 13 months ago is a really incredible feat. Here's a graph that shows our daily new posts progress:

I'm always looking to improve the forum and love the special community we have developed here. Thanks for being a part of it!

Just a few quick changes I wanted to note:

1. I received a PM that I should have a Donate button on the forum for those who would like to support in this way so I have gone ahead and added that, along with links to Facebook and YouTube. No pressure to donate, it's just there for those who wish to support the site in that way. You can also support the site by purchasing Respawn.

2. You may notice that the # of posts on the Daily Journals forum appear lower than yesterday (it went from 9000 to 7200 or so.) That's because the site updated the number to reflect the Daily Journals forum minus the Archived Journals subforum. So no posts have been deleted or disappeared. On that note, we're less than 1,000 posts away from reaching 10,000 journals posts. Really incredible milestone I'm excited for.

Thanks for being a part of our community here. Really appreciate it and enjoy reading all of your posts every day.

A few changes to announce:

1. I have added a few new titles to the mix. I'm not going to announce what they are but members will find them soon enough!

2. We have created a Deep Forum for conversations around philosophy, reality and ideals. Serious topics only! Thanks to @JustBeingReal for the suggestion.

I think that's it for now.

We have a couple of new changes to report:

1. As you've seen over the last couple of weeks, we now have an "announcement bar" (below the header) where I share important information - especially about new members. I update it regularly.

2. I have created a subforum called "Archived Journals." These are journals from members of our community that I believe have made a specific contribution to the forum community, and of which are good for those who are newer to read or check out to learn from. I may change the name from Archived Journals to something else, but that's what it is for now. Three of the journals listed under the Archives were the first three journals on this forum, by @Zane, @Matthias and @leprosy so I wanted to include those as well for people to see where we came from.

3. I have added two new titles: Old Timer and Legend. Right now our posting titles work as follows:

- New Member
- Member: 10 posts
- Veteran: 30 posts
- Old Timer: 300 posts
- Legend: set by me

I'm still always looking for ideas for new titles so if you have any that you think would be great for our community, let me know.  Always trying to make the forum better and better so if you have any ideas for anything else, let me know as well.

As you can see, I made a few changes today. Here's a list of changes made:

1. Updated the forum colors. More black, less red.
2. Slight tweak to the forum header.
3. Merged "Start Here" and "Introductions" to save scrolling space.
4. Moved Daily Journals to the top of section two.
5. Create this Special Announcements subforum.

I think that's all.

Open to any feedback or thoughts. Next step is to get a badge on here for you all.

With the forum growing quickly we are working to put together structures that ensure everyone feels welcome and safe.

When a new member joins, it's important that they receive replies, so I have created a new way to highlight new journals. For now I'm going to Feature them (this adds a green icon next to their title). If you see one with a green icon and you haven't replied to it, it would be awesome for you to do so.

For now journals with under 10 replies will be featured. I may use this same feature as a way to highlight journals that I identify as needing a reply or insight from others, or just as a way to send some extra love to that person. 

Last note: with the forum growing it becomes harder to reply to everyone and this can be discouraging. Don't sweat it. Contribute what you can and pop in to others journals to say hey. Don't feel a need to reply to everyone, but do remain active and posting your own experiences. It makes a big difference, not only for yourself but to inspire others to get involved as well.

Happy Monday!