Days02

Cypher Avenue is building some new monumental shit, fam….again.

Ever since we started this blogging and website thing back in 2011 we’ve been constantly changing and trying new things. In addition to rebranding our entire web presence in 2013 to more accurately represent our “gay hip hop and gaming nerds with swagger” niche, we stepped up the quality and creativity of our articles, reviews and podcasts.

The one nut we haven’t been able to crack is the social media side of things. I’ll admit without hesitation that we suck at being active on Facebook and Twitter. We actually have an Instagram account but there are no photos in sight on it.

One reason for this is we’ve been too busy interacting with our Squad Members on this very website…we’d rather stay here and clown around with our brothers than jump on Twitter and constantly have to Mute profiles retweeting erect penis photos and open bung holes in our timeline. And Facebook isn’t much better.

So many of the fellas here have had really good discussions on what we call The Activity Stream. It’s basically a poor-man’s Facebook. People can post photos, videos, links and status updates and the other members can respond to them…and hundreds of Lurkers shyly read along without ever commenting.

Regardless…if you come to Cypher Avenue on the regular, you’re on the Squad:

From the beginning, the problem with people commenting on the Activity Stream has always been limitations in what they could post and how easily they could do it. It made our Squad Members very frustrated on more than one occasion (I have the inbox messages to prove it).

This has NEVER satisfied me.

So now its time to build some new shit from scratch.

build01

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build03

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build07

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So now we’re ready to put in the work to create a better alternative.

A full fledged graphic-heavy message board forum for the fellas (and ladies) to have greater control over the Cyphers they create themselves here on the site.

New Features Will Include:

  • New Articles will simultaneously post to the Forum as a New Topic
  • Article Comments automatically post to corresponding forum thread and vice versa
  • Members can easily post their own Cyphers for discussion
  • Dedicated Advice Column Section for asking questions
  • Quickly add photos, videos and links to replies
  • Better Squad Member profiles
  • Private Messaging and Private Groups
  • Mobile friendly alerts when someone replies to your comment
  • Create Sub-threads and private groups for side discussions
  • Rewards and Badges for heavy posters and helpful members
  • Better system to “Like” posts by Dapping them
  • Add or take away “Props Points” for good and bad commenters
  • Sign up manually or connect with Facebook Accounts
  • Photo albums and Galleries….and much more

Days01

Just to be clear, the blogging, articles, reviews and podcasts will continue.

The Activity Stream, unfortunately, may become phased out over time in exchange for the updated social media forum system.

Admittedly, building a forum community from scratch is going to be hard, patient work…

We going to need all heads on deck to keep the place active and lively to attract more and more people to contribute.

For this reason, I want you all to be involved from the start on deciding what Main Categories should populate the forum.

Shoot us any ideas you have…What general topics and sections would you like to see the most?

A section dedicated to Gayming?

An area for discussing Dating and Relationships?

Any music headz out there want to share opinions on new albums and artists?

Want an entire area dedicated to the complete filmography of Patrick Ian Polk?

You want it, we got it!

Let us know what subjects matter most to you and we’ll find a way to incorporate them?

The launch date for the new features should be within the next 30 days so drop us a line sooner than later!