Ideas to improve upon this GREAT forum

There has been plenty of good discussion on here about the forum lately. This thread is for each of us to contribute our ideas for consideration. The moderator group, along with Brett, has been discussing some possible improvements and changes for the forum. While we don't all agree, we have lots of really great ideas flowing. We encourage each of you to take some time and give some of your feedback too. Unlike most threads, lets try to keep this one on topic. Thanks everyone!


Here are a few of my suggestions:

- Add to potential revenue by adding more forms of advertisements to the forum.
- Allow everyone full posting access to the forum, but at the same time making contributing a desirable decision for members
- Contributors would get control panel options such as abilities to toggle advertisements on/off, upload their own avatars, have a signature, toggle reputation on/off, etc. Basically a normal member gets the rights to post anywhere, but with advertising and no user bells & whistles.
- Add a front page to the site that has articles, but build from within. There are a few viable writer candidates that are members here.
- Add a suggestions forum that is only accessible to contributors. A place where we can publicly address comments, suggestions, criticisms, etc. Allows forum contributors members to play more of a role in developing the forum over time.


Lets hear some more!

 

Dear OT,

Thanks,
Grad

Got it boss!

I don't like the ad idea but if as a contributer I can toggle them off then I don't care either way. As long as it isn't a lot of clutter I have to look at. I also think that maybe there should be a couple of extra bonus' for the paying members but maybe not forum rights. I also like that certain forums are for paying members only but i agree with the other thread that these should not be college sports ones.

 

Can we get a DC Watch forum? :wave:

 

for some reason, this is my favorite. :yelwink2:

 

I've been thinking for some time that would be a great idea! It would get the site many more hits and the average joe would come here just for the news and frontpage stuff. :thumb:

 

I was thinking about you on this one and I AGREE!!!!!!!!!

 

I think making: The Den, Tiger Recruiting, The Ticket Office, The Pro Sports, and creating The College Sports and allowing those to be free for everyone.

Everything else is contributor areas.

The ad idea is a good one AS LONG AS I can turn em off!

Also creating a Fantasy Sports section instead of the subsection we have now. All fantasy games, football, baseball, TFFL and the pick ems be resevered for those memebers that want to contribute to the site. Last year I handed out prizes for the first time and will keep doing so so thats a perk.

How about a Tailgating Section???????

 

Yep what I meant he just said it better. I like the tailgating section also!

 

this is pretty much in line with what i have been thinking. what started the whole debate what the question of what is and isnt pertinent to lsu sports in the den. by having lsu stuff and all other college stuff in different areas, a lot of the subjectivity of what is and isnt is taken away. (not all, but a lot.) all of the sports talk will be free, but those that want just lsu stuff dont have to wade through a lot of other threads just to find lsu things.

i also like the articles page or front page idea. we have some talented writers around here and it would be nice to have their stuff right here for us to read.

 

I'm not trying to stir any pot or rock the boat per say, but it seems like TF is all about the money. First off, charging members for the ability to read certain forums, have access to their member CPanel, or have the ability to have cool sigs or Avatars or even just look at picture downloads posted by other members is greedy imo. All of these functions come with the VB software and do not add any expense to the forums owner.... other than bandwidth used up by posting pictures, but there's certain server companies that offer big enough packages for realtively no money that would off set this issue.
As I said in another thread the servers, domains and VB software is not relatively expensive so it doesn't take a large resource of money to keep a forum like this open ( afew hundered to open and maybe $30/mo for a good server). The only real expense (unless brett can do it himself) is in graphic and forum skin work. But even then it's easy to find people for relatively low cost to do this. So again it's not that expensive. All it takes is a person with a little knowledge of code to change some of the templates.
Advertisements aren't a bad way for a forum to make some extra cash to offset some of these expenses, and they can be added without cluttering the forums themselves. All that needs to be done is add another drop link at the top of the forums for "Sponsors" or "advertisers" and add their links or banners in there. IF someone wants to click on it and use them that's their choice, but it doesn't force anyone to see the advertisers unless they choose to.
I used to be a Contributing member here but chose to stop just because I don't agree with forcing people to pay money to read or take part in discussion on topics that someone enjoys, just so someone else can make a buck on it. I've owned numerous VBulletin forums of various topics, and still own a few... I've also learned how to do some of the work myself (like add forum hacks, template edits and so forth), but there's a ton of ways to make money from outside sources without charging the members for access and without cluttering the forums.
Like I said not trying to rock the boat or flame TF, but daily activity could be atleast twice what it is now with open access to all discussions and functions of the board. After all... board traffic is what's required to get advertisers, not just member account numbers.