This is an internal thread I'm posting after some talks tonight about improvements to the forum. I feel that this is a good way to get our eyes on the "big picture" of things and make a cohesive site that encompasses all of the different things that we need as a group.
Where am I going with this and why post it if we've already got a Forum Input section?
Simply put, we've got some good guys who've got a lot of talent here, and I want us to get together and start discussing what we want to do with the site. What I DO NOT want though, is for us to go our own separate ways, and try to make our own sites and hijack this thing out from under njb (and yes, I'll be honest that as a coder, I've wanted to do this too before when I first saw the board and immediately thought of a million ways it could improve, but I frequently knock myself down a notch and try to put things in perspective ). Njb's put in some good effort here, and I definitely want him to both retain administration and also have his own say in the site. What I'm hoping for is to get out a product that will benefit EVERYONE, not just one or two people.
So with that said, I'm going to throw out a few preliminary suggestions, and I'm not going to in any way say that my suggestions are the end-all be-all, that's where you come in. We need to continue to refine this thing until we come up with a site that's really going to secure the future for this growing forum.
1) First of all, I want us to look into some other forum softwares and also sites to host. This forum is a good starting place, but I think there are some other good and more robust softwares out there (phpBB for example, even vBulletin if we have to go commercial), and we also need a host that will let us host the entire contents of the site and not just a forum.
2) I'd like to see us get custom themes for the board, made by our users (a BitRunner theme, Asuka theme, etc).
3) A more robust calendar that lets us bring in events on the fly, and also (I'll dare to go there) sync up with Outlook and other PIM softwares.
4) I'd like to see a good introductory page to the group, what our goals are, what we're about, etc.
5) I'd like to see user blog pages for each user, and our own main site blog (minus ads) for news postings.
6) A section for different games and clan listings for each online game that we have a presence in.
Got some further improvements or things you agree or don't agree with? Let's talk about them all here!
Where am I going with this and why post it if we've already got a Forum Input section?
Simply put, we've got some good guys who've got a lot of talent here, and I want us to get together and start discussing what we want to do with the site. What I DO NOT want though, is for us to go our own separate ways, and try to make our own sites and hijack this thing out from under njb (and yes, I'll be honest that as a coder, I've wanted to do this too before when I first saw the board and immediately thought of a million ways it could improve, but I frequently knock myself down a notch and try to put things in perspective ). Njb's put in some good effort here, and I definitely want him to both retain administration and also have his own say in the site. What I'm hoping for is to get out a product that will benefit EVERYONE, not just one or two people.
So with that said, I'm going to throw out a few preliminary suggestions, and I'm not going to in any way say that my suggestions are the end-all be-all, that's where you come in. We need to continue to refine this thing until we come up with a site that's really going to secure the future for this growing forum.
1) First of all, I want us to look into some other forum softwares and also sites to host. This forum is a good starting place, but I think there are some other good and more robust softwares out there (phpBB for example, even vBulletin if we have to go commercial), and we also need a host that will let us host the entire contents of the site and not just a forum.
2) I'd like to see us get custom themes for the board, made by our users (a BitRunner theme, Asuka theme, etc).
3) A more robust calendar that lets us bring in events on the fly, and also (I'll dare to go there) sync up with Outlook and other PIM softwares.
4) I'd like to see a good introductory page to the group, what our goals are, what we're about, etc.
5) I'd like to see user blog pages for each user, and our own main site blog (minus ads) for news postings.
6) A section for different games and clan listings for each online game that we have a presence in.
Got some further improvements or things you agree or don't agree with? Let's talk about them all here!