WHAT NEEDS UPDATING ON THE SITE BROTHERS OR SORTING OUT

There are way too many forums and subforums.

This poses a threat to the site. Having too many subforums makes the site appear empty and inactive, even with a small, core userbase. Too many subforums is stifling, being over-specific; several general forums foster a broad range of discussion, and are easier to navigate and moderate.

IMO this site's appearance is low-tech. As a new member, this site appears cobbled together. A new look is easy to do.

A small and large forum logo (to establish identity), and GK-specific smilies (to spread the fame of the site), are needed along with a core group dedicated to growing the site; advertising on other 40k forums, and posting exciting and substantive things- If we can make this forum a hub for Grey Knight battle reports and tactica, this site will grow. I look to previous Deathwing, Dark Angels, and Deathguard army-specific sites for guidance.

IMO the biggest things though is 1) cleaning up the look, and 2) tidying up the organization.

*Grumble, Grumble,Change, Grumble, Grumble* Justicar Constantine Paces around his command Redeemer shaking his head.
I like our site and its specific subforums. I think that is part of our sites appeal. I can not think of our pure white site as anything other than "clean". And besides, we don't want to be like the other chapter specific forums because the majority of them failed.

That being said, some change might not be bad, but we should not be hasty.

Constantine wrote: And besides, we don't want to be like the other chapter specific forums because the majority of them failed.

But failed gloriously!

I cannot emphasize enough though- seeing the a lot of the boards not have a new post in 5 months is pathetic. We need to consolidate and focus, do a few things well, then move on to splitting up each forum into 3-4 subforums.

Armylists do not need to be split up in a forum this size. Or any size. Tactica does not need to be split up, if there needs to be a separate tactica forum at all. Perhaps "Tactica & Battle Reports". We do not need painting subforums that have seven threads in the past twelve months.

And the forum skin is ugly. There, I said it. We don't need anything fancy, but we can find and design a skin that will work with our GK theme and our specific message board system. B&C has a simple layout, has for years, and fairly early on established a clear, distinct image of the site.

What we can't do is allow the place to look unused. It needs to appear active, foster broad discussion, and make a name for itself in tactica theory, painted armies, in-depth battle reports, active userbase, distinct forum image, even unique smilies. We have to really market ourselves so that every GK player on another 40k forum just HAS to have a dual membership with us, because this is where the hardcore GK players go.

Now, we have lessons to learn from, examples to follow, and tools that will get us there. Librarium Online, Warseer, 40konline, they all have the "medium-quality megaforum" market down. Because our stated goal is so specific, we need to attract enthusiastic members because we will have to make do with less users. And to do that we need to portray quality and dedication to the hobby.

We should use W40k Vassal in our battlereports and borrow/steal/invent cameras to photograph our armies. Improve not just the look, but the functionality of the site (which could interlap). But to grow/survive, we will need to change.

*EDIT*- Also, pleased to meet you.

well some ideas yes and some no army sizes there is nothin more annoying than haveing to trug thru 1000 post looking for your army list size you are after secound skins you are more than welcome to make some up and we shall go from there i do not site in fron of a pc all day i have a job to go to so any help would be great !!! has all well know i read every post on this forum and all notes or taken down .

Hmmm.

You know snow, i get the feeling you usually work with advertising or something.

Or like it very much.

Too me, many of theese ideas sound really good, but some, sound crap.

We should get our own logo and perhaps get some nice borders around the message boards.
(The grey knight prayers written in latin around the edges of the site would look cool, i imagine them to have like a waterstamp effect and run along the edges, keeping the middle clean and easy too read)

I would suggest that we compile a list of "changes" and present them to the members for a vote. I know that the forum's layout and content is member created and approved, so we need to keep that in mind when making all of these proposed changes.
Also if we are going to create a logo for our selves, we should hold a logo designing competition.

Brother Snow,
Your posts have a real sence of urgency in them, and I appreciate your enthusiasm and energy. However, it is not as though we are going to become obsolete tomorow!!!! We have been growing (slowly, but steadily) for quite some time now . We are talking about a lot of changes (Which a lot of us are not apposed to), my suggestion is that we take a realistic amount of time to make these decisions in order to make sure they are the right ones and that they improve the site not take away from its uniqueness. We do not need to change over night!!!

Maybe snow is Tzeentch, Lord of Change.

Ahhhhhh where is my incinerator, I know I put it here somewhere ah yes just behind my psycannon.

Only joking some good ideas and can't wait to see people's ideas. I think the logo comp is a must I did it when I ran a gaming forum and the guys loved it.

Spartan wrote:Maybe snow is Tzeentch, Lord of Change.

Don't hate change. Change can be good! WA-HAHAHAAA! *mutates into giant bird*

Snow wrote:

Spartan wrote:Maybe snow is Tzeentch, Lord of Change.

Don't hate change. Change can be good! WA-HAHAHAAA! *mutates into giant bird*

*BOOOOM!!!!!!.........A cloud of feathers slowly settles to the ground*

Justicar Constantine lowers his smoking Psycannon and walks away *Grumble, Grumble, Lord of Change, Grumble, Grumble*

Spartan walks along behind Constantine eating a freshly made psycannon fried Lord of Change wing and a bargain bucket in the other hand.

Spartan wrote:Spartan walks along behind Constantine eating a freshly made psycannon fried Lord of Change wing and a bargain bucket in the other hand.

LOL!!!! Thats awesome!!! But seriously, why didn't you get fries and gravy? You know I love fries and gravy!!!

I'm thinking a grey/silver base with deep red and gold accents.

Or maybe scroll parchment (flesh) base with a lot of deep red, then silver and gold accents.

For a small icon for like, the address bar and web shortcut, a GKT shield, or maybe part of the banner icon would work. The only thing about the banner icon is we wouldn't wanna step on the toes of GW's intellectual property.

*EDIT*-

Klomster wrote:Hmmm.

You know snow, i get the feeling you usually work with advertising or something.

Or like it very much.

Well I'm a poli-sci major, and I'm thinking about being a political consultant, which is basically marketing. I've never taken a marketing class in my life, though.



Look, the reason I'm so adamant about these changes are this site has a lot of potential- A core userbase like the one here takes years to develop. I'd go out and create my own forum if it wasn't for that fact! That said, my intent is not to hijack this site, but to encourage and advocate policies which ARE good for growing the forum and just improving the experience.

I've only used SMF boards though, so I'm not familiar with forummotion, or it's capabilities. But there's definitely a long list of "little things" that I notice that would take zero effort to streamline; making the GK stats box more adjustable in size, limiting left-side userbar size, going over the subforum titles and organization, all these things are easy to change but impact the site's look and functionality in a big way.

Plus, if we can update the site's look a bit, we can ally ourselves with the other big forums to get more recognition and respect, in particular the B&C (and the many smaller chapter-sites). It legitimizes the site immediately with those unfamiliar with it. We can register with many toplist sites and portals. I remember 4 or so years ago, as a member of Tau Online, there was always a drive to score the most hits on the various toplist sites. Given the success TO has had since then, I can only assume the effort didn't hurt them, and probably helped. Et cetera

I'm all for streamlining and touching things up to make the site look more appealing. If we seem a little defensive about changes Snow it's because we had a not so good experience a while back with a new member. He came in crusading on how we were 'portraying' this as a pure Grey Knight forum and yet we had Inquisition and allies mixed in as well. He threw a few hints on how we should rectify this and we got defensive and things came to a bad head. I think a number of us will agree that one of things we like about this site is how easy on the eyes it is (important for old farts like me) so we've become comfortable with it. That being said, I'm still agreeable to changes but Inquistor Lord will have to get the ball rolling on that front.

Yeah I definitely don't care about inquisition and "unpure" knights, as likely our next codex will be more chamber militant oriented anyway, allowing this site to become an army-specific site quite easily if it wanted. It's just not that big of a deal, with inquisition being the crutch for many GK-heavy armies.

I mean I love GK but there's only so many variations you can have of PGK. We'd have nothing to talk about in the forum without the inquisition!

As far as the site being easy on the eyes, I understand as a forum I still frequent is TWC, a medium-size history/war game site, with quite the few "non-traditional" members. I never really gave it much thought before, but I suppose the reason they've stuck with their light-tan theme for so long is its ease in reading.

Or at least I'd assume it'd be easier than white on black like 40konline or something. Really I think a decent compromise for us might focus on the parchment-color, dark-red, gold, largely non-silver parts of GK iconography. It'd be more interesting and at least I'd assume easier to read then a white on grey setup.

(I'm delirious from lack of sleep so sorry if I don't make sense. Exams...)

*EDIT*- Also, I think what I'm doing right now- playing the new hyper-enthusiastic member- is quite annoying. Like, where did I come from!? But I do think these are good ideas, like I said just small stuff that could make a big difference. I don't want anyone to like, be forbidden about talking about the inquisition.

Snow brings forth some valid points, having a xeno forum myself, i know the tribulations a small forum has to overcome to be recognised as a player.

i have a problem with the painting and modeling forum, as there seems to be no modeling part to it. it could be a little more simple to use, for example the b&c have an easy to veiw/use PC&A with just simple forums.

we could do with a similar system eg. General P&M discussion, P&M WIP, Showcase, tutorials

my 0.02 imperial credits


DM

Why don't we poll the forum members about changing things like backround colors and such...and if they (we) decide as a majority then run another poll to see exactly what colors to change it to.

After all in the end isn't it about what the forum as a whole wants and not just a couple members?

Coyote wrote:Why don't we poll the forum members about changing things like backround colors and such...and if they (we) decide as a majority then run another poll to see exactly what colors to change it to.

After all in the end isn't it about what the forum as a whole wants and not just a couple members?

I agree.
I know that everyone has the forums best intyentions at heart but that is not to say that we need to make changes. I know the forum is not like the larger ones such as B&C, WARSEER, etc... That is the whole point. We do have a lot of specialized threads and that is because we have a lot of specialized topics. It may be confusing at first to new members, but that can be said of any forum can't it?

We have never approached the larger sites to see if we could be linked with them, so how can we pretend to know what they require changed? If the majority of members want change then so be it, just make sure it is for the right reasons (the bettering of our Forum) not just to fit in with what already exist.

Constantine wrote:

Coyote wrote:Why don't we poll the forum members about changing things like backround colors and such...and if they (we) decide as a majority then run another poll to see exactly what colors to change it to.

After all in the end isn't it about what the forum as a whole wants and not just a couple members?

I agree.
I know that everyone has the forums best intyentions at heart but that is not to say that we need to make changes. I know the forum is not like the larger ones such as B&C, WARSEER, etc... That is the whole point. We do have a lot of specialized threads and that is because we have a lot of specialized topics. It may be confusing at first to new members, but that can be said of any forum can't it?

We have never approached the larger sites to see if we could be linked with them, so how can we pretend to know what they require changed? If the majority of members want change then so be it, just make sure it is for the right reasons (the bettering of our Forum) not just to fit in with what already exist.

well said brother if its to make the forum better for the users then no problem at all brothers if its for the fasion and to fit in with other forums then sorry not for us i feel

Create a FAQ sub forum dedicated to rules queries for Daemon /Witch hunters and Grey Knights

I think this question was lost but were we going too have a forum games section?

Considering it can be pretty funny if kept serious (and cheers for you all, i think you are serious, take it as a massive compliment) and can prove too be challanging.

I just wanna know if there is any interest in such a thing.

And if we had one.

Perhaps i could throw together a nice grey knight roleplaying challange, with epic fighting, puzzle solving and alot of faith.

And some more fighting.

I think Brother Klomster has a really good suggestion. It could be really fun

I'm interested Brother K.
But I am kind of limited in terms of time that I can commit

Well, in the other forums i've "Gamemastered" (Mainly pandemic forum and wacky rpg in that forum) i have been able too sustain (at least some) interest even though i have been in another timezone and only online once or twize per day.

But that is usually enough, the game keeps a steady pace and you don't feel like too much is happening at the same time.

But of course as PBP games (Play By Post) nature is, it is easy too overpower yourself and produce an unfairness that other people won't accept and will often do the wrong thing and overpower themselves too.

This can be helped by good players (who doesn't overpower themselves) that describe well and interesting (or wacky and insane considering what the rpg is about)

Other kind of games i recently have seen on forums are:
Rate the above users Avatar / Username / Signature, forum wars, pillow fight, escape the rooms (this game is very challanging, i'm playing it myself) and many more.

On pandemic it is very popular with games where you are random people 1,2 and 3 who fights zombies / monsters / other and they are so generic and similar that they are boring.
Mostly becouse of the small kids that doesnt think what they write and mostly Bs (Bologna Socks, i have no idea what this means persei, but it means overpowering)

But theese problems shouldn't be that bad here as we are smart, grown up (in our actions) and humble and fierce!

Well, I don't know who else is interested aside from Brother C, but count me in

we tryed thr role playeing befor brother and we has alot off brothers saying they were intersted when we started it up only one brother joined so this was removed after 1 month has it wasent used