What would you think of a name change?

[Daerir]

I can back that. MERanger was the name of Andy's old site, and was a natural progression to pick up, but a community like this, might benefit from a more spelled out site url, like that.

I'd be behind middleearthranger.org happily, if that were an option.

middle-earthranger.org or even middle~earthranger.org lol gotta have them separators

[Ringulf]

We have always stayed true to our core and founding ideals of being reenactors of Tolkiens Middle Earth and its Rangers, but we have actually opened our doors to quite a bit more in the Ranger genre.
A question I would have for all of you (and I am not sure I have a firm opinion myself) is:

Do you think it will be limited by name or is that diversity something we want folks to happily stumble on once they have found us? I like the fact that we are a broadminded group myself as I enjoy the other Ranger themes as well but I am feeling as though it would be meaningful to stay true to our roots.

[Peter Remling]

I think we will still get the broader spectrum we are currently enjoying. Most of our members have found us looking specifically for Rangers of Middle Earth. The ancillerary aspects are just gravy once they have found us.

[Raziel Alastor]

I think we will still get the broader spectrum we are currently enjoying. Most of our members have found us looking specifically for Rangers of Middle Earth. The ancillerary aspects are just gravy once they have found us.

I found this forum simply from looking for Renaissance Themed Garb. It turned out to be a forum I enjoyed reading, which helped with some of the questions I have been wondering since I started putting together my ideals of my own garb. From how garb looks to where to get nice arrows, to small talk among cool individuals. I'm not even that familiar with the Tokien rangers (I plan to read up on the books when I get some time), but I still like the forum and the people within it. Overall, the name can be either something with a broad sounding name or not; it will still pull people in. Not because of the forum but the people who make up the forum. How awesome you people are.

[Manveruon]

I wholeheartedly agree with the above two comments.

I do not think calling ourselves the "Middle Earth Ranger Forum" has been a significant deterrent to those more interested in other sorts of rangers, and I would posit that changing our URL itself to something like middleearthranger.org would not change this significantly.

[Ringulf]

I thought it was worth mentioning just to get some consensis of the feelings of the group, as I mentioned I was not hard one way or the other. But It has worked well for us in the past so changing the addy should not affect us too greatly.

[Stormraven]

I'm open to whatever name that you guys can have a consensus on. I do like the idea of holding to the Middle Earth or Tolkien theme for that is what attracted me initially to the page - that I found like minds recreating Tolkien's Rangers. I'm not opposed to other genres such as Ranger's Apprentice, etc. for yes, they will have some of the same primitive elements that we discuss. I just want to be sure that we don't lose the essence of "Tolkien". There's a lot of good minds working together here on an awesome project - that of recreating something not so easily recreated. One of our French brethren made a comment about what we do and described it thus:

"We are into the Jurassic Park business. We use Tolkien words and descriptions like dinosaur DNA. It's pure and there is no way around it. It's the original vision. But sometimes it's not enough to get a global picture. In those occasions, we need some other thing to fill the blank. Something we know worked at some point. Just like Jurassic Park frog DNA, which is the DNA of a living, working thing, we use historical sources because for them to exist, they had to be in use at some point by some people with compatible technology."

[Manveruon]

Hah! That's an absolutely brilliant description! How apt!

[Greg]

I'm rather fond of that myself. It takes someone in-the-know to get it, but I like it.

[Kiriana]

I always refer to this site as MERF!! My friends know what I am talking about when I say Merf too!! LOL

And I never even knew this page existed.. http://www.ranger.budgetauthenticity.org LOL

MERanger is fine with me.. I will still refer to you all as my MERF friends!!

[Ringulf]

Me too! I even named Ringulf's goat mount in Lotro "Merf"!

[Manveruon]

To be fair, I don't think anyone is suggesting changing the name of the forums in any way - so we would and always will remain the MERF, as it were - only shortening and simplifying the URL address so it makes it easier for people to type, and potentially to find.

[Kiriana]

shorter url is good. Since I have it bookmarked.. I don't have to search. But for new people.. yes a shorter url with alot of good keywords.

[Aaron]

Aquaman sucks

Aquaman has been pretty awesome for a while now. Total badass.

As for the name, I can see why you guys would want to do it. Make the URL more focused for the forum's purpose. But I have to ask, what benefit would be gained? If you google "Tolkien ranger forum" or "Middle Earth ranger forum" this site is the first result. So I don't think a URL change would help garner any new members or help people find the forum better.

But it would sound nicer. Just food for thought on whether it's worth it or not.

[Kiriana]

When people search.. they don't necessarily search with the word FORUM in the search. However a shorter url and inputting alot of good keywords will keep our forums at the tops of the searches.