New Spider ID

New Spider ID Launching Summer 2024

June 2, 2024

Thank you to our community for putting up with our chaotic website over the years. The last few years have been challenging for this project. We have struggled to dedicate the time required to make this a thriving, active, and responsive community for spider experts and enthusiasts.

Changes that are coming:

• Our original path forward (~10 years ago) was to focus only on the United States and Canada. After our previous re-launch, we opened up our experience to an international audience. Unfortunately, this decision was a mistake. We have a difficult enough time trying to manage content, expertise, and submissions from the United States and Canada – and opening up the system to the rest of the world has unfortunately done more harm than good. We will be in the process of removing pictures and content submitted over the years to regions outside the United States and Canada. We apologize to all members outside of the United States and Canada, but please understand that international content puts the most stress on moderators, and represents less than 1/10th of a 1% of traffic to our website.
• One thing we’ve always done is delete inactive members, to help keep our database clean and overall server storage low. This will continue and accelerate in June.
• The entire website is in the final stages of being redone. This includes:
  1) Completely new web design.
  2) New codebase and expanded functionality (ability to edit, delete, and moderate pictures).
  3) Dramatically improved performance, reduced ads.
  4) Removal of Ultimate Member and instead, using custom member management.
  5) Expansive FAQ library with dozens and eventually hundreds of educational resources.
  6) Expanded moderation team.
  7) Creation of new mini-sites dedicated to the most popular spiders (brown recluse, jumping spider, black widow, wolf spider, etc.).
  8) Smart, careful expansion into social media.

Thank you to our dedicated members for all your patience over the years. We have been neglecting this project, and looking forward to a complete change of course this summer.

– Spider ID Team