As you may have noticed (like you could have missed them!) the site has been somewhat inactive recently, as we all struggle through the show’s hiatus and a lack of activity in all things SouthLAnd during the long wait for Season 3. One of our dedicated Team members, Cathy, has been posting Fan Birthday Greetings on a pretty regular basis, frequently with input from other friends and fans in the form of pictures and collages.

Now that our fan base has grown so large, and real life has reared its ugly head reducing the amount of time that Cathy has available to spend on coordinating and posting those messages, we’ve made the decision to discontinue posting Fan Birthdays on this website.

First of all, as I mentioned, they take a great deal of time to coordinate and execute. Sending out notices to people, receiving the pictures/greetings, uploading them in a post and publishing it – that all takes a lot of time and effort. As we are an all volunteer team, with real day jobs, time is definitely a premium and better spent working on stuff more directly related to the show, in our humble opinions.

Second, with so many fans out there, we are absolutely guaranteed to miss somebody’s birthday, which can lead to hurt feelings and conflict. We love all our fans and I absolutely do not want any hurt feelings or conflict. I know it has already happened, regrettably, so the only way to ensure that it doesn’t happen again is to not do any more.

Third, with very little actual news regarding SouthLAnd to post recently, all of the Birthday posts have made the site start looking like nothing more than a Happy Birthday site. While it’s true that we are a Fan site, we are supposed to be primarily a SouthLAnd site and that is what people visit us to see – SouthLAnd information. It is very detrimental to our standing in the search engines and ranking when our number 1 keyword is “birthday” or “happy birthday”, which ends up being bad for SouthLAnd in the long run. Ultimately, this is the deciding factor for me in the long run for halting the birthday greetings.

All is not lost, however! If you are really into birthdays and want to get lots of well-wishes on yours (or give them to others), we have a great alternative available. Simply join our Forums at http://www.SouthlandForums.com and make sure you fill out your personal profile after you register. The Forums will automatically keep track of your birthday and let everyone know about it when they log in. Everyone is invited, nay – encouraged, to share all of the birthday greetings there in the full social setting of the Forums.

Thank you for your understanding of this decidedly touchy subject and decision!

Visit SouthlandForums.com