What do YOU want to talk about?

[Tomspy77]

This is YOUR forums, and I plan for it to have a huge amount of subject matter in the future, and hopefully as we grow.

But we need your ideas for topics and sections, which you can post here, and we need threads YOU create which for now you can post in the general section, and we will move it to the right place when it is available, so please if you want to discuss the virtues of hang gliding or pottery making put up a thread or post. If you want a section devoted to 15th century art, let us know.

We will even have adult orientated areas in the future, as well as kiddy ones, if everything goes right.

This forum could develop into a nice smallish community, but we need you guys who are here first to help us build content, and also that way we are talking about subjects that interest you...

[Tomspy77]

I figure tomorrow will allow me to work on the skin (I did not know you guys were staring at that horrid one for the first two days, I thought the default one that comes with the board was up.), and get a banner from a banner generator.

I think we will stay like this for about a week or so (Sound good Sherlew?), please keep posting threads on any subject or topic (Minus the adult stuff, we need a password protected area for that. I'm not prudish, but I don't want a five year old boy in Boise to learn about sex from my forums! ), it will help fill out the areas of the forum I create later.

Also what areas do you guys think we should have?

[sherlew (Ret)]

Sounds good. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with tomorrow. Also, I thought that the skin that appeared was set up on purpose. Found myself thinking, this is rather Gothic and different. Oddly enough, it seems to match the name of the forum, to my mind anyway.

Those who don't like the default can go into their profiles and change it. It's on the same page as the one used to add avatars and signatures. I have a how-to here.

[Tomspy77]

The picture of the bloody rose was intentional, and I'm glad it did what i hoped it would by fitting the name of the forums., I was more concerned by the color scheme...can anybody here do Photoshop or Gimp? I would like a banner with a black rose with a long stem stretching across the length of the banner.

Anyway, it will all come together. The list goes like this:

1. Banner and Skin creation
2. As many topics as we all can post in 'general chat'
2. Creation of sections/forums/subforums
3. Getting members & promotion
4. Enjoy posting in our new home

I know Sherlew & EBTL said they are currently members of a general forum, any info you can contribute would be great, I plan on trying to find some URL's of general forums tomorrow to research them (Actually if non members can read the one you guys belong to a URL would be great..).

[pickinduck]

What about songs?
I love sea shantys & bawdy songs.
You probably could not let everybody see bawdy songs (they are very volgar ).

[sherlew (Ret)]

Hi PD, the bawdy songs will have to go into the adult section later, but please go ahead and post any family-friendly ones now, that would be great. They will probably go into a music forum before too long.

The picture of the bloody rose was intentional, and I'm glad it did what i hoped it would by fitting the name of the forums., I was more concerned by the color scheme...

Well, we'll get it sorted.

Also, here are links to a couple of open, general boards I post on:

forumaddictersparadise.yuku.com/

southeastonline.yuku.com/directory

A third board I go to is closed to non-members and the owner of the fourth shut her's down for a bit while she took some time off. It might be back up this week. I'll let you know if it's open to non-members or not.

My Photoshop skills are limited, but I'll see what I can do about a banner.

[Tomspy77]

Thanks Sherlew, I'll check out those links.

[sherlew (Ret)]

You're welcome.

[Tomspy77]

Those links are helpful, what we need to do now as well is figure out WHAT our other areas will be.
This board has sub forums, so to me an area say tiled 'Multii Media', could have areas for Movies, TV, Books etc... all in one place, so its not a real long page and easier to navigate.

[sherlew (Ret)]

Using the sub forums in this manner would be the best way to do it. Long pages are a pain.

I'll be thinking up some threads about different subjects to try out here soon.

[Tomspy77]

interesting week for us, as the advice given to me was to see what we post about and what is popular, and then go from there...thing is our three most popular threads are:

1. Word Association Game (Which is mostly just me and Sherlew with the Watcher popping in now and then.)
2. Sea Shanty thread
3. TV/Movie thread

So so far we are a wordy forum about sea shanty movies and TV shows...

[sherlew (Ret)]

That's entertainment.

[Tomspy77]

FYI: I am leaving the single chat section up for at least one more week, and am thinking of doing things simply, with just a chat, media and games section after that. I want to expand but we need more content to work with.

Does anyone have anyone else to bring into the fold here so we can have more posts and topics? If so, please bring them over.

Also, does anyone have sigs at other boards that allow you to place a link to here? If so, I would like you guys to place a link in them if you would be so kind, the link below even lets you use BBC code to do this with less of a ,mess:
site.nissr.com/zeino/forum/forumhelp/ubbc.html

The site called The Admin Zone had this to say about our just starting community here:

TomSpy77 Said:

I was setting up a forum for a website related to the TV show Doctor Who (The second one I have ever started...) when my PC not got a nasty virus and I had to wipe the hard drive, killing all the data and content for the new website. The few posters from the temporary Doctor Who forums decided to have me and another poster make a general content forum, which will be open as soon as it can be.

My questions are:

1. In the past I have allowed guests to post to create content, is this a good idea with a new forum or not?

2. I know you have to have unique content and a place to advertise, but with this one it is harder then Doctor Who as I knew PPL in that fan base and had connections and sigs and places to post my site/forum's URL. With this general forum it is hard as I do not know where to advertise.

3. I am having problems making sections and sub boards as I do not want to be too precise and have lots of empty space, but I also want to ensure that PPL know that I want to expand and include all kinds of content/subject material in the future.

I know the URL usually helps you guys and I'll give it, but I'm just starting there's really nothing there yet but rules and one area where all the old members of the DW forum chat on a few things, and I'm pretty sure the look and background will not be staying the same as they are now.
deathbyposting.proboards.com/index.cgi?/

And the reply's were:

1. It's a bad idea - it will make more bots come and spam and you don't catch their IP.
2. General Forums are bad - there's too many. Try making a niche like Doctor Who or Torchwood etc.
3. I made 4 categories, each with no more than 6 forums in them - and their all to do with the niche. So, start small.
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1 - Personally, I do not recommend this. For one, you'll have to deal with spam and other idiotic posts. You also do not establish any connections or 'ties' with the guests that post. By getting them to register, they feel like they become a 'part' of the site and will be more likely to visit.

2 - That's the problem with general forums: they're hard to advertise and have no specific niche. The trick is to make your community different in some way. You need a special, unique 'spark' that attracts members. You cannot just be a forum to talk about anything and everything. There are already hundreds upon thousands of those.

3 - Ask your small group of current members what they'd like to see. With a general forum, you can group topics together to keep the boards small. There is no downside to having too few forums, because you can expand later on as the increased activity dictates. Don't offer more forums than users will post in.
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So far that's the only feed back I have gotten in over twenty four hours, but as we are only a few and you guys are my long time friends, I'd like your opinions as the forums are yours.
So what are your answer's to my query's?

[sherlew (Ret)]

I've been trying to find a picture for a sig I'm making up, but haven't found anything I really like yet. Will come up with something soon, though.

[Tomspy77]

May 18, 2009 11:07:13 GMT -6 sherlew (Ret) said:

I've been trying to find a picture for a sig I'm making up, but haven't found anything I really like yet. Will come up with something soon, though.

Just thinking out loud I guess is all...we also need to figure out what exactly we are as a forum..we have more then one thread on afew topics namely computers and computer related, movies and television and a few threads that border on the paranormal front.
One or all of these could be used to give ourselves a niche so to speak....just thinking out loud again, but feel free to think out loud yourselves...