Improving Gamingforce

You've probably noticed that GFF has been pretty quiet as of late. This is not a "GFF is dying thread". We all understand that GFF has evolved into a place where a small but close knit group of people hang out, and it's bound to be a little slow. That doesn't mean we can't make changes to liven things up a bit. Let's hear some suggestions from the community on improvements that can be made to enhance the GFF experience.

This isn't an officially sanctioned thread or anything; it's just me asking folks for ideas. I make no promises, but I'm interested in what people have to say.

Problems
-Hazing of new members
-Apathy of current membership
-Not enough visibility of current community events
-Lack of Ace Combat Era
-Outdated forum design
-Forum is "cliquey"
-Outdated rules

Suggested Improvements
-Redesign the front page or forum header to better advertise events/things new folks might be interested in
-More theme weeks
-Somehow move activity from journals back to the forums
-Merge more subforums together
-Find a niche for GFF and capitalize on it
-Legalize thread necromancy
-Loosen the rules in general
-Less megathreads, more smaller, focused threads
-Site redesign

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Pangalin

Well, this is going to be an unpopular suggestion and it's one that I've made in the past without much hope, but: maybe we could do something about the fact that "Welcome, Welcome" might as well be titled "Get The Fuck Out". I don't know whether it needs closer mod supervision to stop all the trolling or just needs closed entirely, but the entire subforum basically exists for the express purpose of giving trolls easy meat. Any community, no matter how small, needs the occasional infusion of new blood. Every time we drive someone off before they even get the slightest chance to acclimate we're doing ourselves a real disservice. Count the people you haven't seen in a long while. Count the new people you can bring to mind offhand. You see the problem.

(I won't bother to get into the chilling effect trolling has on posting in general, that's obviously a war that's been lost.)

Is trolling, especially in Welcome, Welcome, that big of a problem these days? The recent threads in there have been troll-free as far as I know. As for trolling new folks in other forums, maybe? It seems like it's less about trolling and more about mods handing out silly infractions until the new person gives up trying to figure out what they've done wrong and just leave. Sure it's funny, but it does drive away any hope of new membership.

There's trolling going on in general, but since we all know each other here, it doesn't strike me as a big deal. If you've survived on GFF this long, you've developed a thick skin for that sort of thing.

Quote:

The other major reason activity is low is that most of you are just lazy as all fuck. I give the CH folks a lot of shit, but at least they managed to organize their own (deeply silly) event. And when things are planned, the information is poorly disseminated and nobody knows what the fuck. Acer is running three goddamn streams a week or some shit (or maybe more) and the only way you'd know is if you happened to bumble upon that particular thread. What we need, maybe, is to make some goddamn USE of VB's calendar function and then (and I know this is a little beyond your direct power, nutty) maybe automate some kind of front-page flashing lights and sirens when A Thing Is Starting, no matter how minor. Things need to be... consolidated, if you will, so when a newbie shows up we can point them to a list. This Is The Cool Shit We've Done Lately, This Is The Cool Shit We're Doing Right Now, This Is The Cool Shit We're Doing Soon, This Is The Cool Shit We Do All The Damned Time, etc

The lazy bit I definitely agree with, and I'm guilty of it too. Also, we've sort of reached the "Simpsons did it" level, where you think of a thread idea, and realize it's already been done.

Originally Posted by Angel of Light

One idea I kind of thought about, but I'm kind of reluctant to do it. I was thinking as I eventually get more videos on my youtube channel. My number of subscribers could increase, I was thinking of giving this website a shout-out but it could bring a lot of idiots here in the process.

I'll get yelled at, but I'd say any new blood is better than none. It's not like we mods have much work on our hands these days, and I'd personally be happy to police new folks (though I'd be more lenient than most would like, I'd wager).

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Let's see if I can categorize the responses/suggestions so far, and I'll try to keep it updated in the first post:

Quote:

Problems
-Hazing of new members
-Apathy of current membership
-Not enough visibility of current community events
-Lack of Ace Combat Era
-Outdated forum design
-Forum is "cliquey"
-Outdated rules

Suggested Improvements
-Redesign the front page or forum header to better advertise events/things new folks might be interested in
-More theme weeks
-Somehow move activity from journals back to the forums
-Merge more subforums together
-Find a niche for GFF and capitalize on it
-Legalize thread necromancy
-Loosen the rules in general
-Less megathreads, more smaller, focused threads
-Site redesign

Focusing on the improvements, I strongly support a redesign of at least the initial layout of the front page of the forums (not the "front page", but the page most of us see when we log in). The "5 Recent Posts" encourages apathy, and we'd be much better served with some promotion of events. I'm sure Acer could somehow advertise his nightly streams, and BlogTalkRadio has a plugin that could stream GFF Radio right on the front page. The last Drink-on didn't get nearly the promotion it should have.

I'm really surprised thread necromancy is still enforced. When you have one active thread in each forum, why not allow a little necromancy?

The big question is, what could we do to modernize ourselves? What's popular these days, Facebook, Twitter, etc.? Sure, groan all you want, but they're successful, and many of us use them. Is there some lesson that can be learned and incorporated here? Is there some way to update our antiquated arcade to encourage more user interaction (i.e., something cooperative)?

Is there someway to integrate journals with forums? I think Aussie-Nintendo's forums are kind of neat, in that any time an article is posted, it gets added as a forum thread. What if we had journals work more like forum posts? A user makes a journal, it gets added to the "Journals" subforum. If a mod decides it's worth discussing, it can be moved to a more appropriate subforum. A user could still close their own journal threads, since they're the creator. Sure, they couldn't delete them (maybe that permission could somehow be granted in that subforum?), but it's more fun if you can't delete your drunken journal entry the next morning.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm not saying we need to stoop to the posting quality of Facebook or Twitter, but we have to evolve or die. If you're content to let GFF fade away as a horse and buggy while everyone else on the internet is driving a fancy car, so be it, but if we can modernize things a bit, maybe we attract some new blood.

Or we can just go back to 1995 and make the site run in frames. Rename ourselves Framingforce Interactive Frames.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Some folks have suggested upgrading our version of vBulletin; how much does that cost. Would we need to have another donation event?

If we're upgrading, doesn't the current version of vBulletin have support for RSS? Not to beat a dead horse, but some of us have been wanting that for years.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Radez29

Yeah, was gonna say that I'd be happy to front the cost of upgrade if you guys decide to go forward with this. I can afford that at least.

There's some sort of sexy catch involved here, isn't there.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by a_lurker

You're stepping up for that, Nutty?

Thank god, I'm getting sick of shoving socks down my pants to appease him.

You're doing it wrong. You're supposed to put the socks on underneath the sandals.

FELIPE NO

It's not nearly so fast anymore, Pang. Jump in already.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?