Support Forums

I speak for myself and many other high quality members of http://supportforums.net, a sister forum to HackForums.
Something needs to change about SupportForums, and it needs to be done now.
And the cause of this change?
The Support Feather
People have been rampantly spamming SF for a long time for a couple of pixels here on HF. Members post in month old threads for an excuse to get an award.
Examples.
There is barely any activity on SF.
Spam has suddenly increased and there's only one moderator to help take care of this mess... and he's stepping down from his position.
So... where am I going with this?
I'm trying to get people who want the Support Feather to THINK BEFORE THEY POST.
Is the thread you're about to post in older than a month?
If the OP has a question, has their question been solved?
If replying to a thread about a 'Post your ___' is the thread old?
Et cetera...
So my initiative is to try and clean up Support Forums.
My Initiative:

1. Get members to register and stay on SF for a long time; even after they have reached 100 posts.
   
2. Increase the quality and activity at SF.
   
3. Revive the friendly atmosphere that once was there.
   
4. Appoint new staff to assist cleaning spam up and managing SF.
   
5. Expand SF and make it become a great community, like it once was.
   
6. Live up to Omni's expectations of the forum; he has SF listed as his homepage here on HF, as well as in his signature on MyBB Central.
   

I hope people see it the way I do.
But what do you guys think of all this? Do you think I'm just a butt hurt kid asskissing Omni or do you agree with me?
And please: don't troll or flame in this thread. If you're going to comment, make it relevant and on topic.

---

This is a thread that I plan to post on HF by today.
Anything I should add or remove before it goes public?

I know what your trying to express dude , that's what we did but you've done this with more details like Images and suggestions for example. I atleast hope Omni will take this into consideration and take some steps for the betterment of Support Forums.
EDIT: I need you to add information about the damn bots spamming the forum with their advertising links and shits.

Thank-you for this thread, you saved me allot of typing with this.

Let me explain the situation with Fragma;
A couple of months back, before Fragma gained his rank, the forum was going down hill. I made THIS thread and it finally got Omni's attention and it came along with a new group, two staff demotions and one promotion. Things were going okay, Fragma could keep on top on things, but why should he? Why should we all care about this forum if the owner himself doesn't? So he's going on, as I like to call, "Strike". It seems Omni isn't going to demote him so instead he's just going to ignore all the reports and leave it up to Omni to pick up the pieces until he finally starts giving interested in this forum again.

I myself am starting to lose interest in this forum, when I first joined I used to manage 12-20 posts a day. But now this forum is lucky if it see's 10. This actually quite annoys me as I really do enjoy this forum, I've never ran my own group before and the experience is truly amazing! I did have high hopes for this forum and is a great place to be. But I'm sick of seeing every second HF SKID coming on here to spam their way to the F!$£ing pixel that this thread is about!

I'm going to quit while I'm ahead as posting this is making me actually think about this and is starting to anger me.

EDIT:

Look what I found:

Omniscient Wrote:Removed from staff/admin: Sam, Skill, Solidus

And no I won't remove feather award. It's a benefit more than a problem. Easy to ban those posting LQP but the members who stick around as high quality are greatly appreciated.

The strike idea could actually work.
Fragma has the right idea.
I will post this on HF then, and include more info on the spam bots and Fragma's strike.

No, do not post anything about this on HF. Leave the two forums apart, that's what we're aiming for. If you post on HF then more people are going to become aware on the Support Feather award equalling more spam.

So the idea is to get people to just notice SF when it's all but done...
I won't post this on HF then.

Wow it isn't very hard to understand. Once staff is chosen (good staff who are competent) then spam, bots, and general forum morale is solved. Next issue is quality: first step is to stop posting these threads. If you contribute people will get a hint and follow you. Contribute things people actually care about, things that are useful (tutorials, resources, etc). I don't mean things like *FREE EBOOK MAKE 100,000 AN HOUR*. Original content. Things will shape up eventually but you guys need to actually do it yourself.

I might post a lot but that is because this forum isn't as active but I will continue to stay active after 100 posts. :S To be honest, I didn't even know you get an award until I saw this. My friend just told me to come here and register.

I actually think this forum has a lot of potential.

If you want better quality here then joining together to strike is the worst thing to do. You will just make the LQP appear to be the only content here. Anyone coming here from HF or anywhere else will just see the LQP from HF members.

If you want the HF posts that are LQP to stop being a problem then flood them out with better quality threads/posts.

I've stated that I will not remove until I deem this site active enough to stand on it's own. It's not even close to that. I know it's controversial but I will not remove it simply because a few complain. The activity it does produce is more positive than negative. Heck even these complaining threads about it are activity. Keeping users engaged is all that matters.

The spam bots for the most part stopped because last week I made a plugin to deter the bulk of it. Sam is back on staff and Fragma resigned.

I log into this site everyday..a few times per day. I'm mainly guilty of not posting enough here though. I should post everyday. I'll see if I can up my own personal activity here. To be honest I might be better off with no staff at all forcing me to work on this site on my own. But I guess just having one Staff should be fine.

Quote:I actually think this forum has a lot of potential.

I know it does. I just think SF has not found it's niche yet. But we will. Something here will eventually click. It could be a feature I add or maybe some content genre that takes off here.

I keep SF updated and running as smoothly as I can but my time is very limited. If I didn't own HF then SF would get the bulk of my attention. But HF is mine and I'm forced to spend a great deal of time there. That may not be really fair to SF but you can't ask me to give up income for my family just so this site can grow faster.

I'll continue to work on this site and add stuff. I'll make sure we're online. I'm only asking that you do your best to be active and high quality. It will work if you care.

Give it another year about, things should start to look up.

Quote:I log into this site everyday..a few times per day. I'm mainly guilty of not posting enough here though. I should post everyday. I'll see if I can up my own personal activity here. To be honest I might be better off with no staff at all forcing me to work on this site on my own. But I guess just having one Staff should be fine.

It would be better to see you around here more often. Also, having no staff IMO wouldn't be a good idea, because it may force you to quit the forum. I understand you have your hands tied with HF, running such a big forum must kill any/all time you have, so to be honest, what you've been doing since Fragma resigning is not only beneficial for the forum, but also looks better, so I thank you for that. We can't really ask you for much more. I do agree that without the feather this forum would be dead, but the spam is just horrid. I guess we'll just have to put up with it for now.