I read about your site in a message on http://www.davecullen.com/brokebackmountain/ - which he calls The Ultimate Brokeback Guide. I have to admit I have found most of my jpg, gif and mp3 collection from links on his site. Some MOV and some WMV's too. But I try and surf safely and some of the sites that he links to have so many popups and other junk. Still, I haven't been back there since I signed on with you. Your site is at a great stage of development and I really thank you for putting it up.
Thanks for stopping by and joining us. Dave Cullen's forum is simply amazing in the sheer number of people that are over there posting away. The philosophy in the forum setup there seems to be to have a set number of threads and then have people reply within them, which I suppose makes it easier to find out what is where, but it is daunting for newbies like me over there to try and get through 200 pages of replies.
My goal here isn't really to compete with any of the other forums. In fact, I take pleasure in seeing people jump from one forum to another and end up back here again. I set BetterMost up mostly to move beyond the movie itself. I realize the IMDB and many other forums are focused on every detail of the film, but I suspect that once people are done doing that, there needs to be something beyond the film to keep people interested in the forum and topic.
So BetterMost was launched as an effort to bring a committed group of people together to move forward in their lives, knowing we all have one thing in common - a shared experience with the movie. But as we meet new challenges - be it a new career or relationship or just coming to terms with oneself better, there will be a familiar group of people here who will get to know each other who will hopefully still be here to support each other on these newer challenges.
A year from now, I don't know how much of this place will still be focused on
Brokeback Mountain the movie versus User X has just decided to start a new business because they are not going to waste another moment doing what they aren't in life and they want support. Or, User Y has been working on their sexual orientation issues and has just found someone to go out with on a first date and want to share their feelings about that. After a year of getting to know both, hopefully the advice and support they receive from our little group will be worth something more than trying to open up with a group of strangers.
But never fear, I think we'll be making references to Jack and Ennis for a long time to come.
As far as external links on other sites, it's hard to control what happens when you leave a website. Pop-up ads are likely on those external sites to "monetize" them. We have some advertising on this site, but it's not designed to be intrusive. BetterMost is never going to be a whack-a-mole style popup ad site where you race to close windows as fast as they open. When I post external links, mostly on the Movie Resources forum, I try not to extend links to sites that will drive you crazy.
