swag\.~*-=Website/Community Feedback for Reboot=-*~./swag

[Sonarch]

If it hasn't been said already, since I didn't read all of the previous posts in this topic, I think mods/admins should be able to delete old threads that have gone a long time unused or are no longer relevant, so they can't be necro'd and such.

[Nine Volt]

Or just auto-lock a thread after, say, 45 days of no posts?

[Sonarch]

Or just auto-lock a thread after, say, 45 days of no posts?

Something to that effect would also work.

[Lying Pink]

Auto-locking sounds like a cool idea. Deleting, less so -- dead threads are still useful for reference, especially in, say, the technique forum.

[Camsy]

Or just auto-lock a thread after, say, 45 days of no posts?

Bumping every thread on the forums after 44 days of inactivity?

[Acsii]

phpBB has a feature that does exactly that but it only kicks in if the available space is lower than a certain amount

[Sonarch]

Okay, so maybe auto-locking for old unused threads, but mods should be able to delete some of the locked threads that aren't good for reference. Plus, if someone comes along who has something to say about a topic that was locked or deleted, they can always start a new one if there is something else to say, right?

[Acsii]

Yea exactly

[Conduit]

Deleting threads after 45 days would kill both the tutors thread and the music guide. We would have to be able to select certain threads that wouldn't be locked or deleted. Other then those exceptions it seems like a good idea to me.

[Freewave]

Most of our threads are reference material so making new ones often won't help if the good advice is already here and just needs to be searched on. Bumping an old thread when it's ON TOPIC isn't a bad thing rather than having multiple threads on the same topic, is it? Necro-ing threads for pointless reasons is dumb but that can be handled by flagging and mod intervention i would think.

On another forum i'm on what they actually do is MERGE related threads into one so there aren't so many. If that's possible it would be good to see that happen more.

[Acsii]

Too true

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I have an idea.

How about we just don't make thread necro'ing a big deal.

Like, if it happens it happens.

Tomayto, Tomahto.

[topitmunkeydog]

OK, what we really need here is this:
When you click on the arrow thing next to unread topics, it takes you to the last post made on that topic. we need another button that takes you to the first post made on the topic since you visited. If you don't really understand what I am trying to explain because I didn't do it very well I will post some screenshots from another forum I go to.

[Acsii]

^that is an amazing feature

[Nine Volt]

OK, what we really need here is this:
When you click on the arrow thing next to unread topics, it takes you to the last post made on that topic. we need another button that takes you to the first post made on the topic since you visited. If you don't really understand what I am trying to explain because I didn't do it very well I will post some screenshots from another forum I go to.

We have the first one, click on the little paper icon thingy next to the name of the latest poster.

[Acsii]

he said that Ninth

[Nine Volt]

Oh, I thought he was saying we need that and the other thing

[IamMadetoFall]

Kinda skimmed this thread a bit after page 3 so if I touch on something already definitive, just ignore my thoughts.

Just throwing in my opinion and experience:

Spam thread:
I would say the spam sub-forum would be better. From the sites I've modded in the past, it seems to be best if you have a dedicated off-topic area of the site that abides by all the same restrictions and rules of the rest of the boards with a spam sub-forum for people to get it out of their systems.
I can't recall if it's a feature or a mod of PHPBB3 but you can exclude boards from post-counts so that shouldn't be an issue.

Post Counts/titles:
I saw people talking about it and it may have already been covered but - post counts are purely to encourage users to post. I can relate in the sense that achieving something makes doing so much more worthwhile. I was part of a forum that had titles for certain posting milestones and after a certain one gave the user the ability to choose a custom title.
I feel custom titles are a novelty at best if everyone gets one. But if you have to work at it then it's more interesting. And with a rule against double-posting, certain broader definitions for spam, and an excluded section for spam posts - post counts are almost always legitimate.

Karma:
I have always liked the "idea" of karma, but it's hard to implement in a reasonable format. You'll always have people come in who abuse the system. It's imperfect.
I think there is a mod out there that allows for the OP of a topic to choose a "best answer" sort of thing. That being that helpful answers in certain boards give a metaphorical thumbs-up for an assist that then contributes to a users passive standing on the site.
Something to consider.


On a more administrative note:

Mods:
I saw some people requesting more mods, I would suggest there be a distinct system for determining the need for mods. In the past I had set a system that determined say, 1 mod per x number of users, or 1 mod per x number of daily posts. This really depends on the activity of the site, the quantity of "active" users, and the frequency of required moderation. For example, I modded a teen chat site with 10,000+ users who were all little snots with anger issues. This required a great many more mods than we ever had! This site however doesn't appear to have that problem and I doubt requires more than 5 active mods, or 10 semi-active mods.

Events:
These are fantastic but they're terribly hard to properly design. I was a seasonal mod for another teen chat site that was really into role playing. So they actually had a multitude of events each year including an annual "site prom". It was a regular hit, didn't really offer any reward for participating but was ultimately an interesting and unique way to bump activity.
Mostly saying that we should bear in mind that events can certainly be non-music related and bear no actual reward. Something to think about.



As for the original thoughts for the re-design - I think that a new skin would be awesome, and I think that while this is primarily a music site, the pony side of it is branded to the hilt here. It's going to be hard to pull in a lot of non-brony artists when they realize the basis of it. I'm all for trying to do whatever is needed, but I don't think we should bank on that being optimal. Ultimately advertisement and such should be extended to elsewhere within the brony community if we intend to bring in much more involvement.

The wiki sounds awesome! I know I would benefit from it greatly. Though, I think integration with other sites wouldn't necessarily be as functional.

What WOULD be cool however would be a different profile design. If we could have a more in-depth profile where the users could almost build a resume of sorts - that would be awesome. A place where we can show our skills sets, samples of our work, etc...




Finally - if you're really looking for activity I would suggest broadening the scope of artistry to include visual art. It's present, but underwhelming in comparison to the primary goal which is music. But often times it seems like they go hand-in-hand, I feel both the site and the community could benefit from this form of scope-expansion.



Again, sorry if I re-spoke anything already determined. And I hope this was helpful!

[AJ_]

Birthday updates ._.

[ExoBassTix]

Are already there. Bottom of site.

I would really, really like there to be a chatbox inbetween the site content and the bar with the links.
I can show you an example, but I know only one and I don't wanna be banned ;~;

[MYCUTIEMARKISAGUN]

You know what would be cool? A page that lists all the due dates for community album projects.

[Acsii]

Big projects that have been supported by the Forum are listed in the events page and have a due date count down
submission/list.php

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

thats really out of date..

like..it doesn't have anything that isn't past deadline.

[Acsii]

yea I know...

[Sonarch]

okay I just realized this but, while thread necro'ing and such isn't that big a deal to me, it seemed like it was to other people, and while the ideas of auto-locking were shown to be flawed, my original point that it could be useful for mods to be able to delete threads, mainly old unused ones but perhaps also the spammy/arguing ones that get locked anyway, would still work. A mod's discretion could be applied so no useful references and things like that are deleted, but still remove things that ought to be removed

right?