New Website, Official Notification there of:

Greetings Space Cadets,

The time has arrived!! We now have our very own, fully operational DEATH STAR!! ....oh, no... hang on, I mean WEB SITE!!!! <roar> "The crowd goes wild" <roar>!!!!

We are now WWW.BRISBANESCIFI.NET - no longer .com! Please everyone update your bookmarks! Click the space ship, or logo to enter the site once the page loads.


Special thanks must go to our own Lixx (super website designer) and her tireless days of work. Without her this would never have happened so quickly and so so beautifully.


I invite one and all to come on over and have a look. As you will see, we have everything there you could ever want. And if we don't, then line up in an orderly fashion, whisper to us one item at a time and we'll see what we can do!

Many of the pages are works in progress and will be filled during the coming weeks, so for now, enjoy the new Calendar, the Captain's Log, BSG Pyramid Poker, and the BRAND NEW Forum! We already have 9 of you signed up and posting, let's get the rest of you all joining in!

So, all in all, we now have a website with the following:


"Brand new" Forum - for every topic known, and then I'm sure we'll make up a few too.

Calendar - to keep everyone up to date with what's going down.

Adventures - info on our favourite regular, and irregular adventures (meet ups, conventions etc)

Movies - to show our own "in group" Sweded productions.

Crew - section to give the group a more personable feel.

Pyramid - page to teach anyone interested in learning one of the best games known throughout the 12 Colonies.

Links - to all your favourite (and some you didn't know about) scifi & fantasy sites.

Gallery - of the crew doing what we do. Mostly having a great time!!

Captain's Log - News page for all important scifi related material.

Contact - a new form based contact page for anyone new and old to use to contact BSFF HQ

Merchandise - for all the BSFF cools we're going to create!


The original forum will stay for awhile to refer to, but all new stuff should be directed to the new forum.

Hi everyone,

I only have a few things to say, so I'll make it short.

I am understandably quite offended and disappointed that you decided to go somewhere else for the website, as I was involved from the start of that concept, paying for everything and donating my time, with the open offer of unlimited hours and money spending to come.

I am also very surprised that my suggestions for the new site were not taken on board, as they were necessary, obvious, and simple to any web designer. Briefly, they involved blatant copyright infringement, unprofessional web design (not the flash or graphics), and very poor SEO and Meta entries.

I am also now stunned that you also went out and purchased a new domain name. I have no idea why, and due to all these recent events I don’t think I want to know.

I am sincerely saddened by the actions of this group, who I took to be fun, fair and friendly. I only hope the "admin" can get their act together in future, so more interested and enthusiastic members don’t get ignored and ostracised for trying to make this group the best it can be, because if the recent trend continues, it is going to be very far from that goal.

I wish you all a lot of luck, because at this rate, you are going to need it.

Nicole.

P.S. - I have also just noticed that you have deleted a lot of old topics, probably in an veiled attempt to "clean up" the site. However it is obvious why you actually did it. I just can't believe the type of group that this has turned into. But, having thought about it for a while, I'm glad I discovered the true nature of you all before I invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in creating the kick arse website that we all seemed so keen on, but didn't get.

Hey Nicole, sorry you feel this way about how things worked out between you and the group. Our intention was never to make you feel as though we didn't appreciate the effort that you so obviously put into the group. I personally feel as though you did a good job trying to get everyone organised, while trying to get a very formal website off the ground, but I also feel as though in the end our two styles just didn't mesh, and I think that's why it didn't work out.

We're a very laid back group, without any 'serious' expectations for the group, its members and website, and are only interested in taking things as they come and enjoying it.

I believe that our current website designer, although not in step with your thinking, did an AMAZING job on the site, and although I feel bad that you feel let down by our decision to go with her site I believe that what she has created was exactly what we're looking for. Stylish, modern and just about having fun.

I know you said you spent a lot of time, money and effort trying to provide us with a site, but in the end she was able to give us what we wanted right here and now and just how admin envisioned.

And yes, perhaps it does skirt on the end of copyright infringment, and if that issue arises in the future I'm sure we'll be able to push through and work it out, but as of right now I can speak for everyone when I say; we're extremely happy with what has come out of her equal time, money and effort, and isn't that REALLY what this group is all about, a great end product.

Its sad to see that you may be leaving the group, because as you said, you were there from the beginning, but if that's what you feel you need to do then I guess all I can say is good luck and hopefully you'll find a group more suited to your needs and expectations.



PS - you may be mistaken about the deleted threads on the forum. The more outdated thread become unviewable once they have passed 30days of unadded posts. I'm guessing the ones you're talking about have passed that 30day period and are no longer viewable to the general public. You can reactivate them to the scroll list by changing the date at the bottom of the main thread page.

Hope that helps.

Let us all take a moment to remember our origins. "A Social Meetup Group"

I hate to go against the flow, guys, but Nicole has valid points.

To me, the Copyright Infringement is a HUGE issue that should be addressed ASAP. As funky as that flash header looks, legally.. well, you're screwed.

Fansites are one thing - what I do with my own fansites isn't even legal - but using those sorts of images for an organisation, even a social one like this, is a big no-no. You're cheating Image companies out of thousands of dollars, and they're not going to be happy about it.

I've been lucky with the HP fanclub so far, but even now Cara and I are working on a design that doesn't use official images. But the lawyers in the Harry Potter universe don't have as iron a fist as those that you're using in your header and forum.

I won't get into the design, coding or other aspects of the site, because I really think Copyright is the biggest problem right now.

Too be honest I'm not really in a place to make a legal call on whether the site is infringing on copyright or not, but from what I can gather from other similar fan sites/clubs most of them use similar images from an official sources and at most only add a disclaimer saying that "its all just for fun and they don't mean to cross any legal lines".

I myself have designed fan and group site for about 10years now, using whatever images I could track down that would suit my needs, and not once did I run into any legal hurdles. We're a pretty small group, with no aspirations for exploiting the original source material or product so do you guys reckon that'd ever come up with us?

Personally, I think the only thing that might cross the line, copyright wise, is the logo I made. It was me, taking images from someone else, stamping our name on it and then touting it as our own. If everyone is worried about us getting into some legal trouble I'm more that willing to remove it, just in case.

So lets get a show of hands...

Oh.. I thought you made that yourself? Using images as a base, yes, but I thought you did the "artwork" yourself?

If you didn't, then you'll need to track down the original artist's and ask their permission to use it. They'd have every right to ask you to remove it, otherwise.

As for the rest.. I know of plenty of websites (fan and otherwise) that have been shut down due to the same copyright issues.

If you google "science fiction social club", you'll see that most (if not all) use generic science fiction images, or fan-created images (like here) that don't really infringe on copyright.

I'm not trying to start a fight, just stating where we could potentially end up in a lot of trouble.

hey y'all,

Regarding the copyright issue -

My partner studied law, and we are both heavily involved in the creative industries and publishing (internet, digital distribution, visual arts and multimedia).

All that would happen if we are singled out of the millions (literally) of other websites (including all Monkiee's ) infringing copyright is that we would be simply served a "cease a and desist" notice. If that ever happened, I just swap the menu icons for something more banal.. or, if I have some free time, something sketchy (in a space-funky way )... then Bob's your Ma's bro... and we all chilax and have funz!

It's no biggie. ...or as Monkiee would say "meh"

Til then, I'm voting for practising the chilax and have fun thing....

Or like... I could start working on cybernetic toons of all our heads for buttons... haha... or hey, there's always that basic "words" idea.... we could just have wholesome old fashioned text styles.

There are plenty of options, but like the current one, none of them involve jail time or being sued for all our cubits.

peace.