Archived Tacoma3G.com's one year anniversary!

[Tyler]

T3G fam,

Tacoma3G.com's one year anniversary is this month! It actually came and went already on May 1st (April 12th for you soft launch people). I wanted to create this thread on the day of but real life got in the way and that is actually want I want to address for a minute.

I hate to get dark during a milestone that is meant to be celebrated, but I have to.

The forum officially launched on May 1st, 2018. It was off to a great start. Sometime during the summer of 2018, depression got the best of me. It put me in the hospital and also began my medical separation from six years in the Marine Corps, which is due to that event combined with a disc in my spine being damaged; two mostly separate circumstances that are grounds for medical separation. I expected to stay in for 20+ years, but hey.

Fast forward about ten months later to now. I'm stuck. Waiting for the VA to come to a final decision on disability claims so the Marine Corps can finally let me leave. Still up and down with depression and anxiety. I am trying to make it to the next chapter in life but they are making it so difficult.

What does this have to do with Tacoma3G.com?

Neglect, mostly. I have so many visions for the website and community within it. But none that I have been really executing on. I feel like I seriously neglect the forum. That's because I usually have trouble functioning as a normal person. But I think that will change and I think that I will get better once I'm out of the purgatory state that I feel like I am in. And when that happens, everything I want to do for Tacoma3G.com and Tacoma owners and off-road enthusiasts in general will start to be possible for me. I literally have a huge to-do list for the website that I have been adding to over the last year+ and I do intend to accomplish everything on it. My end goal is to have an extremely useful website for anyone that owns a Tacoma. Especially one that looks clean, is easy to use, and is free of bullshit.

One of the biggest projects that I want to tackle is adding an actual homepage to the forum that has content on it. Easy to read and navigate tutorials for common questions, comparisons of similar products with photos and all the info you could need, etc. I know I can do it, just not yet.

I'm gonna stop there. I had to get it off my chest and I mostly want you guys to understand how much I love this community and how thankful I am that you guys love it too. It literally wouldn't be a thing if you guys didn't log on and use it everyday, and I say that a lot, but it's true.

To close out this one year anniversary post that was hardly a celebration, I am gonna leave you with a snippet of something that I had been recently trying to work on. A better "About Us" page with actual history, milestones, giveaway winners, and photos from all of our various meets and trail rides. Some type of page that makes it feel like a tight-knit community. It is still a work in progress though. But if you're interested in reading even more text, here's the excerpt:

Tacoma3G (T3G) is an online forum and social media group for 3rd generation Toyota Tacoma enthusiasts. I had recently purchased a 2017 Tacoma and wanted to see what other people were doing in regards to customization. I was using two major sources for this: Instagram and a seasoned Tacoma forum (all years). Soon after, I realized that people have Instagram pages solely for their trucks. That intrigued me. I also noticed many pages dedicated to re-posting said trucks, but these pages weren't necessarily satisfying my picky taste. Solution? Do it myself.

I decided to combine having a personal page for my build and re-posting other beautiful builds on one page. The difference would be: I would stick to only the 3rd gen Taco because, to be honest, I was only looking for references of my exact model. I love almost all trucks from all brands; I grew up in trucks and they've always been 4x4. It's in my blood. But, from experience, for a social group to be successful, it needs a good niche. Generic stuff is harder to manage. So, 3rd gen Tacomas are the niche, and the Instagram is meant to showcase my truck, other trucks that I believe are done well, and photos that I believe are taken with care (too many pages mix awful, non-functional trucks and crappy photos with the good stuff you do want).

The Instagram started in March 2018 and, by April 2018, it already had a decent following of good people. I was also spending a lot of time on the other Tacoma forums and began to notice a few things. Before I say what they were, let me mention that I was heavily into forum building/administrating/moderating from 2004-2012. It was always a hobby of mine, and I never understood why I loved it so much. My personal favorite, which I created, was called "Badtrucks," which was a forum dedicated to old trucks. Anyway, being on this other Taco forum, I noticed that it was very old and while the info was there, it wasn't very user-friendly. For example, I only needed info relevant to the 2016+ Tacoma, which was often hard to narrow down when searching. The one section dedicated to the 3rd gen was too fast-paced and unorganized for me. I love organization and felt I could do better for a community who might have been experiencing the same issues as me. It was time to bring back an old hobby of mine and create a new forum.

Launching a forum in 2018 or later isn't easy. Many people say forums are dead, many say the seasoned (ugly) ones from the 2000s are good enough, and I understand why they think that. But, it was worth a try, and I knew if it had any chance of working, it needed to be organized, it needed to be modern, and it needed to be friendly! The organizational part was easy (and my favorite part.) We just needed a handful of separate categories to contain the bulk of the discussion topics and nothing extra. The modern part was fun because the awesome developers at XenForo (the platform T3G is using) are pretty good at that already. Mobile usability is fantastic, and we have a lot of cool features that weren't on forums in the 2000s. The graphic designing was a little stressful because I knew I had to get it right, but my graphic designer was very skilled and had plenty of patience for all the nit-picky (and probably unnecessary) changes I kept asking him to make as he was designing what you see today. I think attention to detail is important even if most people won't ever notice that stuff, and it was worth it because the majority of the positive feedback I get is regarding the user-friendliness of the design. Lastly, having a friendly community is completely dependent on you guys, and I couldn't be more stoked to say you all absolutely nailed it!

 

[Timlovestacos]

T3G fam,

Tacoma3G.com's one year anniversary is this month! It actually came and went already on May 1st (April 12th for you soft launch people). I wanted to create this thread on the day of but real life got in the way and that is actually want I want to address for a minute.

I hate to get dark during a milestone that is meant to be celebrated, but I have to.

The forum officially launched on May 1st, 2018. It was off to a great start. Sometime during the summer of 2018, depression got the best of me. It put me in the hospital and also began my medical separation from six years in the Marine Corps, which is due to that event combined with a disc in my spine being damaged; two mostly separate circumstances that are grounds for medical separation. I expected to stay in for 20+ years, but hey.

Fast forward about ten months later to now. I'm stuck. Waiting for the VA to come to a final decision on disability claims so the Marine Corps can finally let me leave. Still up and down with depression and anxiety. I am trying to make it to the next chapter in life but they are making it so difficult.

What does this have to do with Tacoma3G.com?

Neglect, mostly. I have so many visions for the website and community within it. But none that I have been really executing on. I feel like I seriously neglect the forum. That's because I usually have trouble functioning as a normal person. But I think that will change and I think that I will get better once I'm out of the purgatory state that I feel like I am in. And when that happens, everything I want to do for Tacoma3G.com and Tacoma owners and off-road enthusiasts in general will start to be possible for me. I literally have a huge to-do list for the website that I have been adding to over the last year+ and I do intend to accomplish everything on it. My end goal is to have an extremely useful website for anyone that owns a Tacoma. Especially one that looks clean, is easy to use, and is free of bullshit.

One of the biggest projects that I want to tackle is adding an actual homepage to the forum that has content on it. Easy to read and navigate tutorials for common questions, comparisons of similar products with photos and all the info you could need, etc. I know I can do it, just not yet.

I'm gonna stop there. I had to get it off my chest and I mostly want you guys to understand how much I love this community and how thankful I am that you guys love it too. It literally wouldn't be a thing if you guys didn't log on and use it everyday, and I say that a lot, but it's true.

To close out this one year anniversary post that was hardly a celebration, I am gonna leave you with a snippet of something that I had been recently trying to work on. A better "About Us" page with actual history, milestones, giveaway winners, and photos from all of our various meets and trail rides. Some type of page that makes it feel like a tight-knit community. It is still a work in progress though. But if you're interested in reading even more text, here's the excerpt:

Super thankful for you, your service, and putting together this forum bro. Can’t wait to see what the future holds! It’s great to be in a drama free community.

 

[Tacomadad18]

You are a good dude Tyler. You have brought a select group of enthusiasts together, who respect one an other and that’s not the quickest or easiest process. In the end it is rewarding. Being active on the page when you can just helps other members know that this isn’t just a forum, but a family of 3rd gen Tacoma-holics

I’m not gonna pretend I know what your going through but putting it all out there is a step to understand better. I hope you are on the right track now to overcome it. If you need anything from us, I’m sure I speak for others, we’re here for you.

If there is anything we can do as a group to bring your dreams to reality, let us know.

 

[Tacomadad18]

Oh and

HAPPY 1 YEAR TACOMA3G!

? ? ?

 

[Tyler]

Oh and

HAPPY 1 YEAR TACOMA3G!

???

Lol, thanks. And the original post needed more of this!

 

[tacostand1970]

Thank you for this forum, your service, and for sharing this. Anxiety is no joke, I know this all too well. Be well and happy anniversary!

 

[SDCementTacoTruck]

Tyler, Thank you for helping to pull us together. You are a great dude and I personally have really enjoyed you out on the trails around Southern California. Please remember alot of us really respect you and are better for having you in this community.

 

[RevN3]

Wow, it's only been a year? That's some really impressive growth! That's remarkable and something to be proud of Tyler.

free of bullshit

So the opposite of TW then. That place is all about sarcastic and abusive emoticons.

 

[TRDTACO6968]

Thank you for your service! Thankful for your creative wisdom creating this thread & "here's to another year T3G fam"!

 

[Romp-A-Taco]

Thanks for creating the forum. It's a great alternative to other outdated platforms and the vibes here are rad. Good people and awesome builds. It's nice to have a forum focused on one specific generation of the tacoma and it makes it more niche. Love the concepts on the about us page and home page ideas.

Thanks for your service too. You'll get through this and you'll be on to a new chapter in no time. Keep on keeping on.

And happy 1 year Tacoma3g.com!

 

[WarFabArmor]

Best thing of a good foundation is the community that flows to it will help build it for you. ??

 

[hellppy]

Not to be redundant or anything, but thank you for your service and for this awesome forum, @Tyler!!

????HAPPY 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY T3G FAMILY!!!????

 

[Tyler]

Thank you guys for the kind words. It is pretty awesome to hear that coming from you guys.

 

[Mr. Nobody]

Thank you Tyler for putting in all the hard work and keeping the lights on.

Thank you to all the users who log in and provide helpful relevant conversation.

Lot to look forward to in the years to come so cheers T3G!!??? ????