Site Roadmap

We have lofty goals for making The Crafting Community the best crafting website on the internet. To reach that goal, we have decided to implement areas of the site in several phases. This should keep the website growing, but not causing it to become too big, too fast. We would love to just release everything at one and say “have at it”, but we feel if we were to do that, then it would cause some sections of the site to grown faster than others, and in general make the site a less enjoyable experience. Below is our planned release phases:

Phase 1 - Forums and Gallery - The Forums and Gallery sections are currently available as of Day 1. As these areas are expected to be the main part of the site, we wanted to make these available first. As user participation increase and becomes regular, we will move on to Phase 2. Implemented December 2024

Phase 2 - Downloads - Downloads is an area we are excited to make available (but also a little worried about), because it gives our members the opportunity to share and download files, such as patterns, project instructions, 3D printing files, or even vinyl cutting designs, which is a great resource to the crafting community, but it will also be the most resource intensive features of our site. The Downloads section will require a huge amount of storage space, as well as bandwidth for downloads, and the site is free, so we will be absorbing all of the cost associated with this. We want to make sure that the Forums, followed by the Gallery, remains the main focus of the website, and not just people wanting to come and download free files, but not participating in the rest of the website.

Phase 3 - Blogs - Blogs is going to be a great section, where we can give some of our most knowledgeable, respected, and active members, a place for their own voice, to impart their knowledge with other users. This might be things like how-to’s or even special projects just for the members of The Crafting Community. This will be added once the site has grown significantly and is quite active.

Phase 4 - Clubs - Clubs are a fun way for our members to make the site a part of their own. Clubs are like a community within the community (such as a crafting club within a particular city). Like Blogs, Clubs will be added once the site has grown quite significantly, and is quite active. The reason for doing this, is because Clubs can take on a life of their own, and if we were to implement them in the beginning, it could take away quite a bit from the other sections of the site, and we don’t want that to happen.