Adapting the boards for a broader audience Options

[Psykopath]

This has been brought up a lot recently with the revived push for new members.

Too many random BS posts (be it crude, sexual, etc.) are flooding the boards in random places. Certain threads are understandable (like in LR&AR), but to post about "tit hats" in a "Letters of Recommendation" thread is getting annoying.

I understand that this is the internet, yadda yadda, and I don't necessarily mind random crude humor...but we will not attract new members by continuing such childish e-behavior.


BUT!!!... we mods have been chastised in the past for doing such things as controlling excessive language.

SO, what's it going to be? Free for all and no new members?
or
Mods keeping things as the rules say & have a more friendly messageboard to attract newer members?

This post has been edited by Psykopath: Sep 29 2007, 12:09 AM

[Hartmann]

Lance, I have no hard feelings towards you either. I never did. I was pissed at both sides for causing such a ruckus and giving me more stress than a college student should have.

My main problem was the way things went down, that's all.

Anyway, with cmac being a designer I think that it would be great if we could get a decent homepage up (don't make the forums the starting page). I also think another .com domain would help.

With Facebook and MySpace being so dominant now (it wasn't really around when RaR was up) getting people to the boards is going to take some serious work. One thing I had in mind was a Facebook plugin to the forums. Show people the newest topics, their stats, etc.

I think the Rate A Professor specific for Tech is a fantastic idea. You will get people to the site and they'll find the forums and they can ask questions and it progresses from there.

I would bring back the moderation rules. Remember we had a document that described what was allowed and what wasn't? I know people like images in their signature but for one thing it eats up bandwidth and they can be undesirable at times.

I'd rethink the forum categories. They work for how we post now but can be confusing for anyone not in the "group".

I can post more ideas as I remember them.