My ideas

[ImAnOgre]

I’m a member of a few message boards, my 2nd favorite being DSLReports.com (of course this is my favorite board), but I’m thinking of ways to improve our forums.

As a reference, I think DSLReports does some things very well. For instance, rather then just have a Discussion Boards link on their main page, they have a link to “hottest topics”. This might attract a bit more attention to anybody who does read the main page.

Additionally, I’m thinking the main page should, at the very least, receive one topic a day. How we go about that, I don’t know… but if our front door looks void of talk…. Well, it looks like a ghost town… And I DON’T like the fact that comments must be approved. But I do like that the first post is approved. If a poster can post in our forum, they should be allowed to post a comment on the main page to an already posted article.

Perhaps we can add additional functionality to those members who pay for a premium membership. While I understand many members may not be willing, or not have the ability to give funds we should not take away anything they have currently, but maybe a allowing premium users a theworldforgotten.com email address (this will help garner interest in the site as well), maybe extra space for their avatar, maybe an extra line on the title that says premium member or something. Yes we all came through to help get vBulletin, but we’re all on a natural high right now as we just left CC. What happens a year from now, should Wraith be the only one who assumes the cost for this place? What happens when traffic grows? Should he still assume the extra cost? I DON’T want to have advertising here (yes, advertising for my father’s new startup was stupid, it was a dumb idea and wish I hadn’t mentioned it on IRC)… so by having Premium memberships with extra benefits will help circumvent the cost for Wraithy (love ya for offereing to shoulder the cost, but you shouldn’t have to bro).

Maybe even giving premium users a spot to upload custom pics instead of using a sight like photobucket… little small things like that would make a premium membership worth it.

Anyway, just a few of my thoughts….

[Nessus]

So basically you want us to be SA, except do everything they did right the exact opposite?

Yeah, let's do that.

[ImAnOgre]

What is SA?

[Steely Glint]

Something Awful.

[Nessus]

Something Awful.

Come on, at least make them work for it

[Ziggy Stardust]

I hate the idea of premium memberships.

With a passion.

[littlelolligagged]

I hate the idea of premium memberships.

With a passion.

I would assume that if Wraithy finds himself needing assistance with the costs at any time, or just gets tired of having them all to himself, he has the balls to say so, and that people would come through to help, without needing public approval for doing so.

[Loki]

If costs skyrocket, we can always add some non-annoying ads.

[ImAnOgre]

To Ness: How is it awful?

To Ziggy: Why do you hate them? Wouldn't a theworldforgotten.com email address be cool?

Loki: We don't have enough members to recoup the cost from ads, but then again, I'm not actually privy to the amount of money we'll gain from 'non-annoying' ads.

[Wraith]

non-annoying? Screw that. Non-annoying ads aren't going to buy me a russian jet. I'm thinking BIG here people. Every word a hyperlink to a commercial sponsor. All whitespace replaced by flashing ads. The mouse cursor will be replaced by the google G. At least three of those giant ads that try to take over your browser, on each page. An entire forum devoted to discussing Evony. It'll be fantastic!

[Loki]

To Ness: How is it awful?

To Ziggy: Why do you hate them? Wouldn't a theworldforgotten.com email address be cool?

Loki: We don't have enough members to recoup the cost from ads, but then again, I'm not actually privy to the amount of money we'll gain from 'non-annoying' ads.

We should probably try to see where the traffic level stabilizes before looking into that.

[Ziggy Stardust]

To Ziggy: Why do you hate them? Wouldn't a theworldforgotten.com email address be cool?

The same reason I would like the donations to be anonymous.

[ImAnOgre]

What if someone was willing to pay for extra, should we allow that person to pay for it? Capitalism at it's best young man.