rastagard
05-28-2004, 04:44 PM
Even though we didn't upgrade to vB3, we still made a few changes to the site. You prolly have noticed we added quite a few new forums, these really were just a way of better organizing the stuff you guys have been posting about. The good thing about this is that threads won't become buried so quickly now. In moving threads around we came across some really good stuff that just became buried. Most everything got thrown into the Off Topics forum, so we took a good look at what was being posted and came up with a better place to put it all. Take some time to browse the new forums, I guarantee you will find some interesting threads. Resurrect them, it only takes one new post.
We also added some new bbcodes, these will be fun, I think. They are also a good way to jazz up a signature. (if I could find the post Lion made about them, I woulda linked to it here, LOL)
Lion says:Click Me
Some of the changes we have been talking about are ways to broaden the areas of discussion. One thing we are kicking around is the possibility of implementing private forums. These would be open to anyone who wanted to join, but the title would be the only thing you would see if you chose not to subscribe to one of these. This would mean things could discussed that perhaps not everyone would be comfortable with. If someone wasn't interested, they could remain unsubscribed and the threads would not show up to them in the forums or the search results. 2 potential areas for this would be a Mature area and possibly an area for Topical or Political discussions. These 2 areas could have the potential to offend some people, but could also provide interesting discussion for those who chose to participate.
Something else we have been discussing is the need to keep the forum database lean and mean. This would entail periodic culling of posts and threads that were no longer relevant. The Word Association and Question/Answer threads are a couple of good examples of threads which I doubt anyone goes back to read too far and therefore could be culled. (we would leave the last month or so of posts, to keep the thread alive) The problem with this is of course that anyone who participated in those threads would lose posts everytime we did a cull. The vB3 software has a feature called Reputations. This is just a way where you gain Reputation Points by people clicking on your reputation in a post they liked and increasing your Reputation. This is a good way to validate your contribution to the community in a way other than post count. This would have offset any posts lost to culling to a great degree. So the dilemma we now face is this, would it be better to lose posts after culling or would it be better to put certain threads into a dedicated Spam Forum where the post counts would be turned off. This way when we cull, no one would lose any posts cause they never would be credited with them in the first place. Or would you rather accumulate the posts, then lose them to periodic culling?
Last but certainly not least, is there anything you guys would like us to add to the site or change? You guys make this place everything that it is. It is your site. Those of us lucky enough to be on staff, just work for you guys. We are more than happy and willing to make changes you want. That is, if we can. There are all kinds of features available, if not for this version of vB, then for vB3. We are trying to get a chat program that will allow us to chat with each other without leaving the site. This is pretty exciting and could be a lot of fun for us all. There are many, many things out there, if you have seen something on other sites or just a crazy idea you might have, throw it out to us, we wanna hear it. :squint:
We also added some new bbcodes, these will be fun, I think. They are also a good way to jazz up a signature. (if I could find the post Lion made about them, I woulda linked to it here, LOL)
Lion says:Click Me
Some of the changes we have been talking about are ways to broaden the areas of discussion. One thing we are kicking around is the possibility of implementing private forums. These would be open to anyone who wanted to join, but the title would be the only thing you would see if you chose not to subscribe to one of these. This would mean things could discussed that perhaps not everyone would be comfortable with. If someone wasn't interested, they could remain unsubscribed and the threads would not show up to them in the forums or the search results. 2 potential areas for this would be a Mature area and possibly an area for Topical or Political discussions. These 2 areas could have the potential to offend some people, but could also provide interesting discussion for those who chose to participate.
Something else we have been discussing is the need to keep the forum database lean and mean. This would entail periodic culling of posts and threads that were no longer relevant. The Word Association and Question/Answer threads are a couple of good examples of threads which I doubt anyone goes back to read too far and therefore could be culled. (we would leave the last month or so of posts, to keep the thread alive) The problem with this is of course that anyone who participated in those threads would lose posts everytime we did a cull. The vB3 software has a feature called Reputations. This is just a way where you gain Reputation Points by people clicking on your reputation in a post they liked and increasing your Reputation. This is a good way to validate your contribution to the community in a way other than post count. This would have offset any posts lost to culling to a great degree. So the dilemma we now face is this, would it be better to lose posts after culling or would it be better to put certain threads into a dedicated Spam Forum where the post counts would be turned off. This way when we cull, no one would lose any posts cause they never would be credited with them in the first place. Or would you rather accumulate the posts, then lose them to periodic culling?
Last but certainly not least, is there anything you guys would like us to add to the site or change? You guys make this place everything that it is. It is your site. Those of us lucky enough to be on staff, just work for you guys. We are more than happy and willing to make changes you want. That is, if we can. There are all kinds of features available, if not for this version of vB, then for vB3. We are trying to get a chat program that will allow us to chat with each other without leaving the site. This is pretty exciting and could be a lot of fun for us all. There are many, many things out there, if you have seen something on other sites or just a crazy idea you might have, throw it out to us, we wanna hear it. :squint: