Millyvegas provides outlet of expression for students

It’s a place for cultural exchange, entertainment, venting and parties. It’s Chris Brock’s corner of the Web. It’s Millyvegas.

Millyvegas, an online forum designed primarily for GC&SU students, currently has over 200 registered users and nearly 3,700 posts. Averaging 150 hits per day, the topics in Millyvegas include a variety of categories including downtown Milledgeville happenings, polls, cars, a love line, school and education, religion and politics, a vent, entertainment and classifieds.

In addition to the GC&SU students who visit the site, students from other universities use the site as well, said Brock.

“Between 80 and 90 users are from GC&SU,” said Brock, “and there are a good number of students from the University of Georgia, Georgia Southern University, Clemson and several other nearby schools.”

Brock, a management information systems major, got the idea to create the Web site from a friend from his hometown in Conyers, Ga. who created a similar site for local high school students. The success of his friend’s site made Brock want to create his own site, attaining most of his Web page design skills by teaching himself.

“Once my friend and the rest of us moved on to college, we decided it would be a better idea to change the site to better suit college students in Milledgeville,” Brock said. “I thought it would be a nice way for GC&SU students to chat online with each other and talk about events and parties that are going on. It’s also something fun to do when you’re bored and sitting in your apartment with nothing else to do.”

Sophomore Jeremy Rawn uses the site for both entertainment purposes and to find out about events and parties in Milledgeville.

“Millyvegas is an outlet to express anything you want to others, whether it’s just to vent, mention funny experiences, or even tell people personal stuff and get railed for it later on by random people,” said Rawn. “It’s also a way to find out about weekend events both small and large so students can manage their time wisely on the weekends.”

Brock said the initial setup of the site took about 10 to 15 hours over the span of approximately a week. He created his own graphics for the forum and edited the HTML himself.

According to Brock, the Web site has been fairly easy to maintain, except for a few incidents.

“I had someone threaten legal action because of some photos that were posted on the site, but everything was taken care of without a problem,” said Brock.

Users that attempt to harass people on the site or post offensive material are banned. Brock has banned approximately 20 people.

“None of the banned people were actually GC&SU students or even residents of Milledgeville,” said Brock. “They were just some people that randomly came across the site and decided it would be funny to stir up trouble.”

Brock bought the domain for the site and reserved it for the next two years. He also pays a hosting fee, but said those fees are minimal.

In order to help maintain the Web site, Brock has assigned site administrators. Administrators are assigned the highest level of control on the forum, and have the ability to control all facets of board operations, such as setting permissions, banning users and creating user groups.

GC&SU freshman Drew Keenan is one of the Web site’s administrators.

“As an administrator, I help with the day-to-day functioning of the site,” said Keenan. “If anything gets out of hand, I can step in and be the regulator. But this rarely happens because the site is there for people to have a good time.”

Brock invites anyone to join the forum at

http://www.millyvegas.com.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 4 2005. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry