Let's be relevant again.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Ok, so I know that I've been rather on the quiet side lately, but there's a reason for that.

I've spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to make things around here more appealing, and after a few talks with folks, I have started mapping some actions out.

To start!

The Portal.

To me, the portal is nothing like what its' name suggests; let alone you have to essentially guess where it is and hope that you get the front page. 'What's New' does not exactly scream 'THIS IS OUR PORTAL/HOME PAGE CHECK IT OUT', and I feel we need to fix that. To that end, I have started to put together a portal page that is a bit more in tune (rather than old old articles and polls and recent posts) with what happens here. Sections that are blurbs for Daily Character Spotlights, RPers of the month, forum events (to be explained later), and yes, a spot for recent posts that is shored up a small bit.

This is very incomplete, but it's still a start imo, and right now we need a start.


http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh126/silancy/newportal.jpg (http://s255.photobucket.com/user/silancy/media/newportal.jpg.html)


Just like we used to have back in the day, it's time we brought the counter back. And with Ep 7 on its' way, I can think of no better reason.

As you can see the main center section would be a small blurb about the site, and maybe a nod to its' history.

The boxes for SW RP and General RP would send folks straight to those particular subforums, so that they can get an immediate look at the RP that happens here. According the proposed portal page, the SW and General verses would have a defining line between them, and there would be a separation between the two. You can still go to the overall forums that would have everything, but from the portal page the lines would be far less blurred, which in my opinion would greatly help with first impressions for folks giving us a gander for the first time.

Below those two links would be the section for articles and possibly even blog entries.

Left Column:


Kale brought up a very good notion I thought, in integrating member created music to pages, and it got me thinking about the old 2advanced pages that had both ambient and cinematic style music that you could play, so I added in a music player that would allow visitors to have a choice on whether they would like to play music on the site or not.

The Forum Events section would highlight a boardwide event that would be taking place that isn't long, yet would allow all members who wish to participate the chance to do so. The Vangaurds series would be a good example I think, and any sort of MU or WoD event would certainly be able to be featured as well.

The Daily Spotlight functions as a sort of character of the month, but on a - you guessed it - daily basis. If we can get a code that randomizes member characters and swaps out their avatar each day that, when clicked on, sends someone to that character's wiki page, I thought that something of that nature would be pretty awesome to have.

Of course we would still have RP of the Month, and would still cast votes etc in the planning forums, so that would not change; only showcase the winners on the portal for all to see.

Jace's map is something I feel needs to be offered, since it is so well done and useful. I added it on a sidebar section, but it can also be easily moved to the upper main navbar, which might be better.

Right Column

Recent posts. Self Explanatory.

Polls for whatever recent polls were made.

Affiliate list. This is something that gets brought up every so often, but now is the time I think that we actually take the time and effort to get the old program up and running once again. It's a really good idea I think.



There is a lot more that I have plans to address, but I thought that it would be a good idea to start this off now with our portal page. As I said before, this is very basic. I did not even add the main navbar sections since I wanted to get the overall look of the portal mostly reworked.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I like it a lot. :)

[Crusader]

I <3 it :)

[Kyle Krogen]

Shiny. Very shiny.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

How will it be implemented?

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Well, I imagine it would be done in stages.

The easiest stuff in layout terms can be done first, and if others have ideas on things to add to the sidebars, definitely speak up. All of what you see now is just stuff that I thought would make a good springboard, and even after I'd gotten it to the point it is now, I had the thought to take the map off of a sidebar and add it to the top main navbar. Of course, I say that now, and it's entirely possible that the SW map can stay on the side, with other maps of sorts for WoD and MU (And Myth too if we ever revisit that ^_^).

So yeah, start with the easiest things first I think; basic content changes since I built off of the existing framework. Finding a counter that we can use.

Things such as the Daily Spotlight we need to find out if there is such a code or even possibly a hack that would allow us to do that, and the music player I feel would best be brought up in a voting environment, so that members can weigh in on what they think.

Hope that answers your question.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Did a bit more work on the look of the portal:

http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh126/silancy/newportal3.jpg (http://s255.photobucket.com/user/silancy/media/newportal3.jpg.html)

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I'd like to move on to content overall. I have a small list of ideas and thoughts, so I'll go ahead and write them out.


Stylesets

I've already mentioned elsewhere that it'd be nice to go back to having locked stylesets for factions/groups subforums, and if there's a way that we can go back to that I think it'd help with immersion and give each place an identity through not only content, but aesthetic as well.
Many of the stylesets I feel to be ho-hum. Holly did a great job on the Mutants style, but a majority of the styles are simply recolors, and others can simply be gotten rid of/repurposed (Looking at the Myth styleset on that note). I'll be spending the next week trying to work on making more engaging visuals for stylesets, so if you have ideas speak up.


Creation

This was brought up to me and I thought it very handy and helpful - A resources forum. Here would be found things such as bios, custom weapon and ship specs, info about non-canon races that members have come up with, and other informative subject matter.
Dovetailing neatly from above, I think it would be a good idea to have a small wiki staff (if we have one already that's great) that are able to go into the resources forum and pull approved bios and whatnot to insert them into the wiki for members. It would be a great service I feel, and while no one is barred from adding content to the wiki, this sort of option being available would be great.
While there are indeed plenty of ships all throughout the SW universe, I think it's also important to provide an environment for folks who like to shipbuild. It wouldn't be a setup that allows any and all ship designs to be allowed, but rather to go through a small group of appointed folks who know the process and have common sense. There would be submissions to be gone over, and if something is in need of changing, that call is made by the ones chosen to head that particular group of overseers.
Character porting and rank transfers are - I feel - far more nebulous than how they used to be. Most of us follow the old guidelines, and we should, but with the exception of the Jedi subforum, there is nothing anywhere to let knew members know about fresh character creation, let alone rank transfers. Perhaps a sticky thread in planning and discussion would be a good idea.


On the writing front

As I mentioned a few posts up, the forum story events would be smallish stories thought up that any who wished to participate in could. The original Years From Now thread, and Vanguards are good examples, and when we decide to do such events I think it'd be a great idea to feature them, and have a small 'movie poster'/graphic made to put in the designated feature box on the portal.
RP Challenges are a great idea, and we should get back to them in a small capacity to start.
The Most Awards were always great, and I'd love to see them again.


Bonus - if anyone can think up a way for us to incorporate those playing cards I made ages back, that'd be awesome. I have been entertaining the thought of updating those who've had their image claims changed, and if there's interest in that, I'll get on it. Hmmm, possibly using them as the character graphics for the Daily Spotlight (sized down a bit, of course)?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Wouldn't a resources forum be redundant with the wiki?

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I don't necessarily see it as redundant, since the resources forum would be used for submitting ideas, and once approved can be moved to the wiki.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Ah, I missed the bit about having a wiki staff move stuff from the resources forum to the wiki. Still, it feels like doing the same thing twice. :)

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I'll try to break down the process I have in my head.

1 - A member proposes an idea for a starship with specs etc.
2 - The starship overseers go over the submission.
3 - If they feel something needs to be tweaked then they say so, or if they feel that the submission is good as-is, then they greenlight it.
4 - Now the submission is accepted, and ready to be ported into the wiki.

On the surface it will be the same information, but a resources forum would allow the submission process to take place without fussing with multiple wiki edits, and if there are small (2-4 people) overseer groups for say, starship design and functionality, character bios, etc to handle the different submissions made, I think that would help spread out the experience we have already here. Basically the resource forum is the test grounds and working stage, and the wiki is the polished product.



Also a thing I thought would be neat; canon planet development. Members can take a canon planet and flesh it out a bit more, like how I did with Cathar, and make it unique to our forums.

[Charley]

I guess that works in the sense that you could have folks with eyes for detail giving additional info a glance before putting it on the wiki. I know next to nothing about wikis so I'm not sure if there's something like an admin approval setting where you can have a proposed edit that then goes to an administrator to check off on. Probably not since wikis are to my knowledge more open edit only.

I like the idea as long as there's someone who's okay with editing the wiki, because it sure ain't me because I'm pretty bad at that sort of thing.


One thing I'd like to see is a community blog that's not just something that's tucked away on each forum user's account, but something where we can submit various articles about things we're doing in our lives that may not be SW or RP related, but may still be interesting or fun. Have those entries put into a bucket so to speak where the person managing the portal can take one of those articles to slap on the front page for a week. That way we get shifting content that can cover any number of interesting things such as Holly's amazing garden or Chris doing rally work or Mitch showing off a rifle restoration project or Peter showing off a step-by-step food recipe thing. We all have rich and varied lives away from writing about star wars and it's kinda cool to keep on that pulse.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The current news articles can do just that, Charley, and when I went over it originally I added a bunch of...interest friendly sections, like Homebrewing, for instance. All anyone has to do is submit content.

[Charley]

Ah cool then. Didn't know it has that functionality

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Yeah. I'd imagine that would be utilized in the new one as well.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Another thing that I thought would be neat was awards that could be displayed in character profiles. They would be small and icon-sized, but still a nice reward to display for possibly participating in an RP of the month, winning a 'Most' Award, completing an RP challenge, coming out on top with a pick-em, etc. It would be a great way to show appreciation for members and also show off their achievements.




I also made some quick icons to give to affiliate sites:

[Lilaena De'Ville]

So this is going to be a redesign of the Articles page, right? And then when someone goes to theholo.net it will redirect someone there instead of the forums so it will be the portal?

I think the articles page can do a lot of what you have listed. And I like your ideas, but I don't like that tattoo design being featured so prominently all over the boards, tbh.

Is this something you and the staff are proposing and are going to do, or is this just you?

[Charley]

It's not just a tattoo design, its been a forums logo for a while now. Why's that a problem now?

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I suppose a redesign of the articles page is one way to define it. I'm personally looking to turn it back into something that gave it a 'This is what we are' at a glance. Something that encapsulated us as a site in a quick glance that doesn't involve indepth analysis of the threads we write. Not trying to make a tiff out of it, and this thread is something that I embarked upon of my own volition because I felt it necessary. With Episode 7 on its' way, we need to look at ourselves and re-assess what made us great in the past. That's why I started this thread; to revisit and look at expanded options that would take us past what we used to be.

But there is so much more that I am proposing here than a simple redesign. A way of recognizing our members, a way of calling to attention our writers, and a system that rewards and gives those who contribute something to work towards. Even if it's recognition in a small form, it's something :|

I'm really trying to help here, not swagjack.

[Crusader]

I agree completly with what you said, Christin. We have a certain timeframe now to attract new members. Once the new movies hit the theaters we should have a certain polished look so it is a good idea to give the forum a new look sooner than later.

I haven't been on other forums lately so I would like to suggest that if you see a feature on another forum that you like please post the address and a short feature description here so that we can argue if we want this here as well.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Chat box :)

[TheHolo.Net]

It's not just a tattoo design, its been a forums logo for a while now. Why's that a problem now?Agreed. It is a shout out to our heritage/history as SW-Fans. I feel it should stay somewhat prominent.

[Captain Untouchable]

I feel like the tattoo = logo thing is kind of the point? We designed a logo, and people got the logo as a tattoo. It'd be a shame to take something that people have permanently branded themselves with and delete it's significance. Plus, it's cool as hell. We should maybe look into one of those cafepress things and get some theholo.net mugs and beer glasses rolling or something.

If the map is gonna wind up prominantly displayed (which, yay, flattery ^_^; ), could we look into finding a better way to host it, on the site rather than photobucket? Preferably something I could update with minimal pestering of Admins? The zoom issues on photobucket make it slightly more of a headache than it needs to be, and photobucket assigns new file names (you can't upload a "new version" with the same name), so there'd need to be manual url updates if we stuck with that particular image host.

Daily character spotlights might be a little ambitious: perhaps weekly would be better (or at least multiple days) to up the odds of spotlights being seen by less frequent visitors? Perhaps there's a way to pull a blerb from the Biography field on people's profile, so writing any text becomes a writer responsibility rather than a mod one?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

A daily/weekly character thing might even be a code that just pulls a name from recent posters. I dunno, but automating it seems like the easiest way to do something like that (ok setting it up would be much harder)

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

The Daily Spotlight functions as a sort of character of the month, but on a - you guessed it - daily basis. If we can get a code that randomizes member characters and swaps out their avatar each day that, when clicked on, sends someone to that character's wiki page, I thought that something of that nature would be pretty awesome to have.

A code was what I mentioned, yes. It would pull from a bank of character avatar pictures - much like the old rotating signatures we used to have. Making the pictures themselves links that send folks to that character's wiki page negates any need to have anything other than a name in the sidebar box to go along with the picture.



edit - Also I don't think there'd be any problem at all finding hosting that better suits the map and all things pertaining to upgrading it etc. Whether it's here or on other members' hosting sites, it shouldn't be an issue at all.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I knew I read it somewhere. ;)

[Captain Untouchable]

Making the pictures themselves links that send folks to that character's wiki page negates any need to have anything other than a name in the sidebar box to go along with the picture.

If that's what you're after, then it'd perhaps be wise to add a "wiki link" field to character profiles. We have an unofficial sort of half-hearted agreement that people will post wiki links in the Biography field on their profile, but a separate (shorter) field elsewhere in the profile might be more beneficial. Maybe that link could even be added to the fields underneath people's avatar for added convenience? A hyperlink to people's wiki page would be vastly more useful than "Location", since we usually just plug some sort of silliness in there anyway.

[Dasquian Belargic]

The Daily Spotlight functions as a sort of character of the month, but on a - you guessed it - daily basis. If we can get a code that randomizes member characters and swaps out their avatar each day that, when clicked on, sends someone to that character's wiki page, I thought that something of that nature would be pretty awesome to have.

A code was what I mentioned, yes. It would pull from a bank of character avatar pictures - much like the old rotating signatures we used to have. Making the pictures themselves links that send folks to that character's wiki page negates any need to have anything other than a name in the sidebar box to go along with the picture.



I like this a lot.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Would anyone like to be involved in groups that start getting things off the ground and up and running? Like, maybe a few folks start working on new articles (whether they be whole new 'interviews' with members or maybe even using some of the AMA threads), and another group could begin reconnecting with old affiliate sites and maybe search for new sites to affiliate with and trade icons. Something to get us all engaged in a series of activities that come together and get us sitting pretty once more?

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I am going to be doing some interviews in the very near future.

[Kei'suke Zendu]

Make a thread with a brief outline of what the fuck is/has happened In Universe, because new people need to know what is going on. That is my only beef with trying to get new people/as someone who's come back from a huge absence.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

We could sticky it in the Introductions forum :)

[Captain Untouchable]

Would anyone like to be involved in groups that start getting things off the ground and up and running? Like, maybe a few folks start working on new articles (whether they be whole new 'interviews' with members or maybe even using some of the AMA threads), and another group could begin reconnecting with old affiliate sites and maybe search for new sites to affiliate with and trade icons. Something to get us all engaged in a series of activities that come together and get us sitting pretty once more?

I've been trying to do interviews for years and years: heck, you guys made me a group mod for the Communications forum so I could approve articles for the Front Page back on the old boards for exactly that purpose. Problem is, everyone is super-keen to get involved when I bring it up in a thread, but as soon as it comes to them actually doing anything, their enthusiasm sorta swan dives off a cliff. ^_^;

I would be insanely happy to produce oodles of interviews, provided that the people who say they're up for it are, y'know, actually up for it. :uhoh


Also, point of... clarification I guess? I've been planning to get back into blogging again, but depending on what sort of stuff you want / is appropriate for articles, I can potentially divert some of those energies elsewhere. Does it have to be specifically Fans-related? Only Star Wars? A broader scifi/cult scope, since we're theholo.net now? Reviews? Editorials?

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Your point of clarification is a very good one. I personally would be up for as broad of a pen-stroke as you wish to make it. While the site most certainly has roots in Star Wars, having something that goes beyond and delves into the everyday lives and thoughts of those who post on the site is something that I feel brings a deeper level of humanization to the posters here, and offers a window into things that they take enjoyment from that may not be SW related.



One thing that I thought of on the way home from work:

Our Facebook Forumites page. Karl created it if memory serves me correctly, but as he's currently busy with other irl stuffs, perhaps you may wish to contact him and see if you might take over from him? You said yourself you've got oodles of time at your disposal, so if you'd like to spruce up that page, take artwork from members here and feature them there I see that as a pretty awesome thing. Heck, even if you'd like some of the offhand stuff I put together in PS I can send you that so you can feature it/them.

[Darth Turbogeek]

I'm reading this and..... I'm kinda thinking everyone is putting the cart before the horse.

When Brendon started SW vs Titanic waaaaaaaay back, he put a god awful load of work not into the look and feel.... but the promotion. He got a hook going and he worked the hell out of it. The look and feel of SWvsTitanic was bloody awful but the community that arrived, that made the place something. Places like Reddit and 4Chan prove the look and feel arent that important in the scheme of things as long as you have the hook. Once we arrived, the community just.... kinda happened to be honest. Sure, we all were there to see TPM sink the boat but once that didnt happen.... welll we went role palying and that became the hook. SWvsTitanic, CC.Net then SwFans when the main sites remerged were THE place to beat each other up with words.

So I'm looking around now and..... what exactly is the hook here now? If I wasnt the oldest of old farts from the SWvsTitanic days, I wouldnt even register here now. I'd ignore it because .... well, what exactly have you got? Why should I register? What kind of compelling hook is there?

If you want to be relavent, there's a lot of work for someone exactly like Brendon did in the early days. And if I might also make a suggestion for a hook, look to the early days to inspire it. I would seriously look at recreating the SWvs..... vibe again, of course this time its SWvsAVATAR or SWvsAvengers or SWvs....., your pick. I think you could mine that and strike gold.

Sorry, but I dont think you'll get too far with a RP based site, not these days. As a community feature to keep those who been hooked? Yeeeeep, that can be part of it. But you need more than that and as I said, you need that hook to get people in here in the first place. What you have is very insular(*) and it's not really appealing to anyone dropping in.

(*) Not deliberatly... but even if I wanted to write again, I look in the RP forums and I'm like..... oh holy shit, where on earth do I start? There's a reall apparent lack of an "in" like there used to be. It used to be for an example.... turn up at a group, post HI! I wanna be a evil dick or a good Jedi and you were away. Now? I honestly look at it and wonder what on earth is going on here?

Just my 25 cents,, 20 cents adjusted for inflation.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I didn't make this thread solely for the look and feel. Yes, I posted up a few pictures of a portal page that I'd been tooling around with, but more than that I've been putting forth ideas to both draw newcomers in and make them want to stay. I want to restart the affiliate program, and I want to start really making used of our FB page. Those are two very good tools to promote, and good things to start with.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The lack of accessibility to the RP world is a problem, one we've tried to address by simplifying the galactic landscape, but I think the real problem is a lack of explanatory or introduction to RPing threads. Also having people who are long time members be open to making more of their threads open.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

It is a delicate time. With the Empire and the Alliance of Free Planets having entered into a Cold War, a barely stable treaty has been signed between the two galactic powers. Instead of open aggression between the two, we have entered into a galaxy rife with intrigue, secrecy, and clandestine endeavors. The Jedi, once hunted to near-extinction in the wake of the Purge, have congregated on the planet of Ossus to begin the first steps of bringing their Order back from the brink of nothing.


That's just a thought about what might be able to be used as a blurb on the portal/home page. I think a stickied thread with a larger two paragraph explanation would be good; something that simplifies and allows a lot more inviting room for folks to come and write without feeling overwhelmed.

[TheHolo.Net]

Additional info: From an administrative standpoint, the site can be linked to a Facebook page. I am not innately familiar with all of what that means at this point, but with proper access to the Facebook page, the admins can learn.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Can we make the articles page a portal rather than dumping everyone directly into the forums if they type in theholo.net ?

[TheHolo.Net]

Can we make the articles page a portal rather than dumping everyone directly into the forums if they type in theholo.net ?The default landing page is easily changed.

[Captain Untouchable]

Our Facebook Forumites page. Karl created it if memory serves me correctly, but as he's currently busy with other irl stuffs, perhaps you may wish to contact him and see if you might take over from him? You said yourself you've got oodles of time at your disposal, so if you'd like to spruce up that page, take artwork from members here and feature them there I see that as a pretty awesome thing. Heck, even if you'd like some of the offhand stuff I put together in PS I can send you that so you can feature it/them.


Additional info: From an administrative standpoint, the site can be linked to a Facebook page. I am not innately familiar with all of what that means at this point, but with proper access to the Facebook page, the admins can learn.

In this case, should I leave it to an admin to try and get access to the Facebook page? I'm happy to contact KV like Christin suggested, but if it's gonna take an admin to do that sort of integration stuff, there's not much point me embarking on a task that I can only do half of.


The lack of accessibility to the RP world is a problem, one we've tried to address by simplifying the galactic landscape, but I think the real problem is a lack of explanatory or introduction to RPing threads. Also having people who are long time members be open to making more of their threads open.

I think the Open/Closed system is a bit out of date. The fact that I use the Closed tag all the time doesn't mean others aren't welcome: it just means I'm expecting people to "ring the doorbell" rather than leaving the door open for them to walk straight in. Just because Holly uses the Open tag so often doesn't give anyone free reign to waltz into a thread and derail it.

Nowadays, we seem to have three types of thread, not two. With some threads you can "jump right in" - usually these are the hanging out in a bar, hanging out on Ossus, all comers are welcome sorts of threads. With some threads, participants are welcome, but "ask first" - perhaps they need to PM the people involved to make sure they aren't going to step on any toes, perhaps they need to read the associated OOC thread, perhaps they can't join in the Senate discussion until they've popped into the relevant thread and worked out which planet they're senator for. We also have some "not this time" threads - where it's so important to specific characters and specific plotlines that extra people just aren't appropriate this time around.

Perhaps we could abandon words, and switch to traffic lights? If a thread is green, you're good to go and jump in regardless. If a thread is red, you need to stop, it's not a thread you can roll into this time. If it's yellow/amber, that's where you need to think, to check the OOC boards or shoot PMs or IMs to people, just to make sure you don't step on any toes or run over any pedestrians.

[TheHolo.Net]

In this case, should I leave it to an admin to try and get access to the Facebook page? I'm happy to contact KV like Christin suggested, but if it's gonna take an admin to do that sort of integration stuff, there's not much point me embarking on a task that I can only do half of.There is a topic regarding new staffers. Perhaps this identified need/interest/idea to branch out into Facebook, is also a need/interest/idea that requires another administrator? A brand new Facebook page for TheHolo.Net could probably be setup.

[Captain Untouchable]

In this case, should I leave it to an admin to try and get access to the Facebook page? I'm happy to contact KV like Christin suggested, but if it's gonna take an admin to do that sort of integration stuff, there's not much point me embarking on a task that I can only do half of.There is a topic regarding new staffers. Perhaps this identified need/interest/idea to branch out into Facebook, is also a need/interest/idea that requires another administrator? A brand new Facebook page for TheHolo.Net could probably be setup.

Perhaps even going a step further, a media/advertising/communications staff member to manage not just Facebook, but perhaps to look into Twitter, Tumblr, and other platforms to raise interest and awareness. And, if we can cultivate articles / editorials / blog activity from our community members (I know a few of us are enthusiastic about that sort of thing), there's even the possibility of using that (reblogging and retweeting articles, etc) to coax people back for the discussion side of things. Like Mark so rightly pointed out. this community started out as SW vs Titanic - perhaps a new administrator could help embrace that the way he's suggesting.

Anyhow, I'll make a point of bringing this up in the other thread, when tensions have cooled a little.

[Kei'suke Zendu]

It is a delicate time. With the Empire and the Alliance of Free Planets having entered into a Cold War, a barely stable treaty has been signed between the two galactic powers. Instead of open aggression between the two, we have entered into a galaxy rife with intrigue, secrecy, and clandestine endeavors. The Jedi, once hunted to near-extinction in the wake of the Purge, have congregated on the planet of Ossus to begin the first steps of bringing their Order back from the brink of nothing.


That's just a thought about what might be able to be used as a blurb on the portal/home page. I think a stickied thread with a larger two paragraph explanation would be good; something that simplifies and allows a lot more inviting room for folks to come and write without feeling overwhelmed.


I made a thread in the intro forum, and if people want to add things, it's fair game. :)



http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?55562-What-s-Going-on-in-Our-Star-Wars-Universe-A-Very-Brief-Summary-of-SW-Roleplaying

I'd like to keep it extremely brief, because people SHOULD read some of the posts on here before posting, but I just restarted rping. I NEED AN ADULT :ohno

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Awesome! I'll crosspost what I wrote when I get home, or if you'd like to go ahead and copy over what I wrote, you're more than welcome :)

[Charley]

Mandi and Holly are both pretty good at that sort of thing, with tumblr and flickr and other r's too.

I feel like a luddite old man because I only use facebook and even then I use it badly. I'd certainly appreciate input from folks who know what they're doing and wouldn't mind helping to make content.

[Aaron Nomarr]

Perhaps we could abandon words, and switch to traffic lights? If a thread is green, you're good to go and jump in regardless. If a thread is red, you need to stop, it's not a thread you can roll into this time. If it's yellow/amber, that's where you need to think, to check the OOC boards or shoot PMs or IMs to people, just to make sure you don't step on any toes or run over any pedestrians.

This is a great idea imho. Even a semi-open or openish tag would really help separate the 3 categories. As stated above, red=nope yellow=OOC it on the OOC page and Green=PM. As for a portal page, I've poked around some other rp sites and by and large they don't have portal pages. However, I think it would work great here, especially with its own intro section with some stickied newbie threads and a sort of "character announcement" section where newbies can introduce a new character and hopefully get mentored/ set up by one of ye olde folke. I got into this by making an intro "howdy" post in the Imperial section, and then I got picked up by Steven and taught the ropes. I bring this up because other rp sites have a program that designates a mentor to each new member and sends an automated welcome message with the invitation to pm for help. That might work, but there should be a "already a member" box during registration so members creating new characters don't get that message.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Bumping this!

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Holly brought up having a splash page which is a very good idea; what if our Portal was the splash page? There's a sub-menu link for news articles, so the articles that are on the portal right now can be gathered there, leaving the portal with a shiny RP graphic in the middle and sidebars. Simple and easily understandable.

[Atreyu]

The portal used to be our homepage way back in the day and I think was proposed again in recent years (rather than having our URL just lead directly to the forum directory) - I'm for it. :)

EDIT: duh, it was proposed in this very thread. ^_^;

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Regardless of the Front Page, which just feels overly busy and sort of ugly to me despite my previous efforts to spruce it up (I'm sure it can be made to look better than it does now), we can do a big graphic splashpage with a 'welcome to theholo.net' and some fancy button links to like "RP Quick Start" and stuff like that (even "Portal" and "Forums") that will look nice and web 2.0. Now that we're probably supposed to have moved onto web 3.0 or something, lol.