Abandoned Forum

[Chazoa]

Sorry if I put this in the wrong area.

So what do you think?

[Astarte]

It is a bit quiet, isn't it?

A lot of the forums are that way at present. In the Southern Hemispere, school and uni haven't been back that long after their summer break and up north, you guys are working towards finals, I imagine.

The only thing we can do is post, those of us that aren't too busy with other committments. It's not a ghost town, but things are much quieter since I first joined.

Do you have any suggestions?

[Pixyboo]

Ya, make it more intresting........

[Pixyboo]

Get rid of some of the old stuff, keep the last 12 months or so, cut out the dead wpood so to speak,

[hamster]

What's a wpood? Is that a kind of bird? Poor thing, to have died and then to be cut out, adding insult to injury.

[Chazoa]

Here's what we can do... OMG POST

[Bomadeno]

The forum... hasn't actually got anyhting older than 12 months

And we need to try and trim the forum... we don't have a market... we're not hitting anyone specific... We need to organise things, and posssibly create some common interest forums. And maybe if we had clearer cut categories (not saying get rid of existing ones) then people would stay on topic more, and we could bring in new members. Maybe take a little bit of a leaf from Astarte's forum, nicely built categories there. And it we had like, a plus plus menu to browse(like in windows explorer, those pluses), there's be less to scroll through..kind of like this:

+General
...+Topic of the day
...+Ice breakers
+Specialist
...+Dream interpretation
...+Maybe nil you could put your travel forum into here?
+Media
...+Music
...+Film
+Miscellaneous
...+Bins
...+Rants



We could also do with having valuable information in some place or other... at the moment we have no information source, we're just babble (not insulting the babble, but people don't come here looking for information)

What about merchandise? nil could maybe create a shop... not a big one to start, but what about t-shirts, mugs, that kind of thing?

I see great things on the horizon! *looks carefully* Yes, a cream pie! (and the future of the universe!)

What do you all think?

[Chazoa]

The forum... hasn't actually got anyhting older than 12 months

And we need to try and trim the forum... we don't have a market... we're not hitting anyone specific... We need to organise things, and posssibly create some common interest forums. And maybe if we had clearer cut categories (not saying get rid of existing ones) then people would stay on topic more, and we could bring in new members. Maybe take a little bit of a leaf from Astarte's forum, nicely built categories there. And it we had like, a plus plus menu to browse(like in windows explorer, those pluses), there's be less to scroll through..kind of like this:

+General
...+Topic of the day
...+Ice breakers
+Specialist
...+Dream interpretation
...+Maybe nil you could put your travel forum into here?
+Media
...+Music
...+Film
+Miscellaneous
...+Bins
...+Rants



We could also do with having valuable information in some place or other... at the moment we have no information source, we're just babble (not insulting the babble, but people don't come here looking for information)

What about merchandise? nil could maybe create a shop... not a big one to start, but what about t-shirts, mugs, that kind of thing?

I see great things on the horizon! *looks carefully* Yes, a cream pie! (and the future of the universe!)

What do you all think?

Umm... great. Not much else to say besides YES.

[Astarte]

I quite like the forum as it is, I love the whimsical topic headings and I love wandering through them each day wondering what people could have posted under each heading.

I think most other forums are very....... straight up and down...???? No nonsense?? It was wonderful to stumble across this one, which is so different.

You could always do a bit of gentle spamming, in which you join forums with web rings, put up the site link for here in the web ring, and in your profile and then, post there for a while, particularly welcoming new members. I've had a few spamming admin come to visit me, which I don't mind, as then I pop over to visit them. Two of them welcome every new poster I get, which is rather sweet - and quite a sensible way to find new posters.

I also think that you really do have a theme here, in that you have the opportunity to express yourself creatively. Not many otther forums give you that opportunity.


So, what do I suggest? Go forth and spam with shrewness and cunning!

[Bomadeno]

I certainly don't want to detract from the forums current state... I was thinking more of adding then replacing. If we had some 'focus' topics, maybe we could draw in more people through that, then they'd trickle into the spirit of the forum. Time would be enough to boost our populace, if it weren't for the fact that our populace is currently leaving almost as fast as it is arriving... Maybe we neeed to concentrate on a way of keeping people coming as well?

[Astarte]

I think the "Don't Click Here" seems to draw a lot of people....
Have any of those stayed to post?

What sort of theme were you thinking of, Boma???

[Pixyboo]

What's a wpood? Is that a kind of bird? Poor thing, to have died and then to be cut out, adding insult to injury.

dead wood! tisnt a bird tis a tree!

[Pixyboo]

General
...+Topic of the day
...+Ice breakers
+Specialist
...+Dream interpretation
...+Maybe nil you could put your travel forum into here?
+Media
...+Music
...+Film
+Miscellaneous
...+Bins
...+Rants

i like the idea of drop down memus, they make senese, it neeeds tidying up!

[Bomadeno]

I think something common to a few people here to start with... I'm geting a vision, so brace yourself.

We find something popular (we tried anime/manga a bit in writeing corner, nil tried with the hamster inkwell (how are things over there? (i'm still scared of it))) So anyway, something popular, like food, or tv, or computers, or travel. We start a lighthearted forum to discuss, with tighter moderation rules... so unrelated posts would be 'discouraged'.
By trimming away these 'off topic' posts, we keep the topics on topic, we will hopefully have more people coming in from outside, and getting interested in 'their' topic. They might not stick around, but they'd be sincere at least (we hope), and might get more people in, some of whome.. could stay!
Eventually, with whichever topic flares up best, we can expand it - say if food was chosen, we could add more food options, like a recipes sub forum, and a drinks forum maybe.
We could then remove old topics that aren't gettting any activity - after discussion to check noone is really using them, say if the tv forum never really got going, we could move out posts, then delete the sub forum of TV. And within food, we could do the same - if noone was posting in drinks, we could remove that, and keep recipes... and if we got enough in recipes, break it down into.. 'souffles' 'toast recipes' 'etc'.

That, is my vison! What do you all think?

[Astarte]

I think the moderation aspect is fine here - people do think about where to post their threads and a little off-topic wandering, as we all tend to do, is not so vile and horrible.

Well then, everybody.....



What new topics do you wish to discuss at the hat???



And also.......



Who has posted the hat.com link up on other forums, either in their Web Rings or in your profile, or both???

And, if you haven't could you please do so??? We seem to need more posters and this is a good way to advertise....!!