Ownership - do something to bring in new traffic

[Admin]

Looks good to me. You guys spend the actual time here while I just pass through to help fix/improve anything, so we'll back whatever you guys want as long as it's feasible from a tech standpoint.

Perhaps one day when I'm not apartment living, I'll be able to drop in on my off time

Kevin

[CarsAndGames]

Originally Posted by Admin

For drumming up traffic, we are definitely open to suggestions.

zathras, in your PM you mentioned opening some or all of the Off-Topics to be viewed by guests. This is an easily doable suggestion and would help bring users in from Google. Having them being viewed by all means they will get "crawled" by google search bots, and therefore added to their Search results

Besides that, I could see what could be done to bring more content to the site. Perhaps articles that would relate. There isn't really an official place for them to go at the moment, but we could add a subsection for that sort of thing.

We also have a forum layout upgrade that we could pitch you. It's something that would probably be coming some time down the line, but I could see about getting the site bumped up the list. It would have some slightly layout changes, including the addition of a homepage (having a homepage increases your standing with Google), and we could make sure that the traditional forum layout would remain available for those who want it.

Here is an example the a site that got the upgrade: JeepForum.com - Jeep & Off-Road Discussion Community

The colour scheme would be whatever fits best, but the general layout would be the same.

That's what I got off the top of my head. Thoughts?

Kevin

Jeep forum ran way better before the upgrade.

[Admin]

Jeep Forum had a difficult transition, but has gotten over many of those troubles. I see you haven't visited in a while - maybe drop back in and say hi

Digital Home might be a better comparison for this site: Canadian TV, Computing and Home Theatre Forums A facelift can certainly help renew the life of a site. If there's any interest in this, we can put in the request to add this site to the schedule queue for conversion. There is a few months wait here.

As for forum re-organization, I think your suggestions here are spot on. I've brought this up with the mod team for their input as well. If these changes sit well with everyone, they are relatively easy to implement. The difficult part will be going through the current threads and moving them to the proper new sections.

I will mention, as you also have in the other thread, that OT was hidden by design as some of the controversial topics are not SeachBot friendly and can hinder site ratings (which means even though they are available to search engines, they can choose to hide them on their end or bury them under pages of other sites in search results because they don't like the content being posted here). That said, things like Sports and Poker can certainly be made publicly available, while Politics and NSFW will definitely need to be kept in the hidden subforum.

Dayle

[big0mike]

Originally Posted by Shadow

I wonder if Meat Locker should actually be in Inside the Cave rather than OT.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Hirize

Maybe add a general woodworking section under "Mancave Projects".

My gut would say no since it would be kinda duplicative of the main Plan, Design, Build forum.

I like Zathras' layout. Hide the Back Room and Sports Book forums. Maybe rename the back room to HTFU?

I personally wouldn't care if we migrate away from vBulletin. I like it but if something different drives more traffic then what the hell.

There's no shortage, at least there wasn't some time ago, of people that could help reskinning it. Myself included...

[CRAW]

Originally Posted by big0mike

Maybe rename the back room to HTFU?

Or just "Stay the Fuck Out?" I would bet the only thing to ever come out of that forum is hard feelings.

[JCinPA]

Yeah, Hirize, the elections been over for like 6 months! Get with the program. How's this?

[Admin]

Originally Posted by big0mike

I like Zathras' layout. Hide the Back Room and Sports Book forums. Maybe rename the back room to HTFU?

I personally wouldn't care if we migrate away from vBulletin. I like it but if something different drives more traffic then what the hell.

There's no shortage, at least there wasn't some time ago, of people that could help reskinning it. Myself included...

The site example that was given by Dayle, is still running on VB. Though it has been given the toucan upgrade which changes the layout of the forum.

We find that it becomes easier to navigate for members on the site. To be fair like anything, it may take the veterans a minute to get their bearings. I find that Member's grasp it fairly quickly.

If the team is okay with the layout suggestions, we can go ahead an change it up.

Back to Kevin's suggestion about articles on the site, what kind of articles would you guys like to see on the site? Do you think this may help bring members in?

This may be worth diving into a little further down the road; What about a community contest? This could drive more member's in while spreading a little friendly competition.

Richard.

[T v2.0]

Just gives us a fucking heads up if/when we need to change our passwords, cause I don't have any clue what mine is.

Top it off, the people who helped migrate multiple profiles, well they have all departed.

T

[Oz]

Only issue by opening up the OT area is a lack of Mods to clean up the crap that will ensue.

Membership only should include betting thread, back room and at least for sale / trade

[CRAW]

How many actives do we have here? 20? 30? IDK. Could we *all* be mods so it's not too overbearing?