Fixing the Forums

[Jordan Harbinger]

Don't worry guys, we know this SimpleMachines software is annoyingly messed up, and we're fixing things asap. Also, be on the lookout for some serious changes up in this piece for Episode #100!

-Jordan

[AlexWeber]

Hey guys,

Did a bit of spring cleaning around here, you may notice the "Locate Wingmen" forum is now for everywhere.

I'm open to suggestions about how we can further simplify these forums and make them better/easier for you to use!

Leave your thoughts below.

NB: We're working on a bunch of projects right now, so not all suggestions will be immediately implemented, but we are listening.

[nightcrawler]

I ran forums before, and form my personal experience, i find its better to start with a very small forum, with limited sections and allow the community to grow to justify the added sections. Opposed to having a lot of sections and allowing the community to grow and fill it out. Its like a party, no body wants to be in a empty club or bar.. people want to go where theres a lot of activity.

I guess a good sign of the community is that people dont live in the forum. That means members are doing what they intended, which is going out and meeting people and being happy. The down side is, with sooo many sections it tends to look a bit empty.

I guess, we could just generalize the sections a bit more to cut it down. That was at a glance, people can see a lot more recent posts, then needing to constantly navigate from section to section to find the one or two threads that pop up a day.

It wouldn't hurt to have a off topic section where members can just chat and talk. Once members are successful, there isnt much reason to come back other then to try and contribute. Having a section where we can hang around on the odd nights and just chat about random stuff about life would prevent bleeding of members.

My 2 cents, keep up the great job.

[andrey]

Nightcrawler, it sounds like you just read this article: http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Bui...art-1&id=58013

[AlexWeber]

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

@nightcrawler -- I definitely agree that it'd be great to trim the sections down so they each can become more active. Since we already have it set up this way and there are a bunch of posts and users, it's basically grandfathered in. I like the idea of sorting the forums by "topic" so I'll look into that.

[nightcrawler]

No problem.

I ran a few boards 10 years back, when i was in design school so I kinda of pick up certain things.

[sfguy]

I also think it's good that you cut down the number of forums, some of the previous ones just didn't get many posts.

That said, you should consider bring back the internet dating forum. It was pretty busy before, and there are a lot of issues unique to online dating that just don't apply to the game in the physical world.

[Bart S]

That said, you should consider bring back the internet dating forum. It was pretty busy before, and there are a lot of issues unique to online dating that just don't apply to the game in the physical world.

Yeah. I'm kind of surprised you took that away, too. In these cold winter months I spend lots of time doing online game. Like SFGuy says, its a very different dynamic to regular "game". So it would be nice to have that area back.

- -

Also, I have a suggestion. Don't let people with only 0 - 1 post to their membership status send messages to other members. I've been getting lots of spam messages and its annoying.