Phoenix: Welcome to the interview The Anarchist, for the first edition of the news. You are the admin and owner of anarchyforums.net, do you have anyone you wish to shout out to for helping you in the creation of the site?
The Anarchist: Well, I'd love to shout out to INST1NCT and Nohbdy, who've been at my side for a pretty long time. There's too many people who've contributed to make AF what it is, so I'll just leave it at them.

Phoenix: Very well. What inspired the forum? Why did you choose the name anarchy forums?
The Anarchist: Well, around August I realized that I didn't actually have much important going on. I was pretty bored with the year starting and all, so I decided I'd gather up my previous contacts and start a new forum. I have a decent amount of experience with owning forums, so it was pretty easy to start things up. However, the big issue was with getting ahold of previous contacts. I had been inactive for about a year or so and it was surprising any of my contacts were still around, much less remembered me. I wanted to make a technology forum that wasn't like the others available.
As far as names go, my past forums have all had terrible names. Several people know that I used to own a group a couple of years ago called Anonymous Citizens (which had no affiliation with 4chan's Anonymous). Later a website was created for the group and I renamed the site to Digital Underground. Digital Underground just so happened to be the name of a music group (and I felt bad for picking the name). When I made Anarchy Forums, I picked the name because I thought it fit, and my username has always been The Anarchist so it made sense. Some might think it's a bad name, but whatever.

Phoenix: That makes sense, would you say anarchyforums.net affiliates itself with actual anarchy, or is that just a name you liked?
The Anarchist: Well, there's two definitions for anarchy. "A state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority" is the first, which pretty much means chaos. The second is "absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal." While it's a synonym of chaos, it can also describe a political ideology. While I've done plenty of reading on the political ideology (being a libertarian myself), I think our name primarily represents the first definition. You can check the definitions here:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anarchy

Phoenix: Though you regard the first definition I have noticed that you do have staff that will not allow rules to be broken, so there is a government if you will, over the site. Have you had any issues so far with people breaking rules since you started the site, or is it minimal?
The Anarchist: Ironic, right? Unfortunately, I do have to moderate the website so it doesn't turn into a complete disgrace. Things like child pornography and fraud don't belong on the site and I can get in trouble if people post either. While I'd love to grant people absolute freedom, it's not possible. Additionally, I'd like to mention that Xeronations resigned from staff, so I'm the only one moderating right now. As far as having issues with rule-breaking, it's been easy for me. When someone breaks a rule I'm able to warn them and move on.

Phoenix: So you are the only one running the site at the moment, well it is small for now but I assume it will grow larger very quickly as most good sites do. What changes, or features do you plan to add to the site in the future? What is going on in that mind of yours for the site next?
The Anarchist: Well, most people agree that I'm always scheming and I plan ahead. I also generally keep my plans secret. However, I guess for the interview's sake I can give a few details as to what's going on my mind. As most know, December's been a rough month for us so I've been working on getting more users. I plan on putting a lot of resources towards increasing our member count so we have more people. In addition to advertising, I'll also be adding a few things to improve the site's usability, and possibly design. One thing that might be added is an Imgur.com image uploader.
There's also a few other things that I can't mention quite yet, but I'll leave you guys guessing.

Phoenix: Good to see that you are looking ahead and keeping people guessing at the same time, I am sure we only have great features ahead of us. Speaking of great features, what is the thing you are most proud of achieving in the making of this forum?
The Anarchist: Right now I'd like to see more involvement from the members. While we have a bunch of dedicated people, it'd be neat to see more of the users educating each other. Knowledge is one thing you can't buy and I think people should appreciate it and share it. In addition to sharing information, I think it'd be neat if members referred more people to the forum. It's always nice to see new faces around the forum and people don't know how much of a difference one person can make on the site. Many of the forum's members wouldn't be here if they had not been invited.

Phoenix: I can agree with that, word of mouth is one of the best and most useful types of advertisement. Speaking of advertisement do you plan on running ad campaigns to advertise anarchyforums?
The Anarchist: No doubt, word of mouth has probably been our strongest method of getting new people involved. It's amazing how the user base can exponentially grow just from a few people spreading the word. As I mentioned earlier, December has been a hard month for us. A lot of people have been on vacation and less active (including myself). In order to make up for it I will definitely be getting ads around the internet. Generally we've advertised on similar forums, so keep your eyes peeled.

Phoenix: Do you plan on adding advertisements to anarchyforums.net?
The Anarchist: It's unlikely the site will ever have ads, asides from the single Adsense ad we have at the footer. Occasionally I might give another site a sticky, provided they aren't competition, but it's rare. For the most part, I dislike ads and I like to keep the forum ad-free so people can enjoy it.

Phoenix: I like that idea, hopefully the rising costs of owning a growing website wont push you to ad advertisements, though if you do you can remove them for a fee perhaps. Do you have anything else you would like to add The Anarchist?
The Anarchist: Well, to address your statement - we shouldn't ever have issues with funding. I have a decent amount of money and we receive occasional donations. I won't change site policy just to obtain funding.
Other than that, I don't have anything to add.

Phoenix: Well it has been nice interviewing you The Anarchist, I am glad that you have such a good handle on the site and I look forward to future additions to the site, the features you add. Thank you for joining us in the first edition of the AF news, see you around the forums!