New Staff?

[Omniscient]

I was thinking you could introduce a portal page to give users a proper (and enticing) idea of what the forum is about.

I dislike portal pages. We're a forum. I focus on that.

[Peter L]

I was thinking you could introduce a portal page to give users a proper (and enticing) idea of what the forum is about. I also sent you some ideas a few minutes ago, but they're pretty bland and I'm sure you've given them a thought before. I'm not creative.

Support Forums. People expect a forum upon visiting. It'd be counter-productive to show them something else.

[Alreiger]

Support Forums. People expect a forum upon visiting. It'd be counter-productive to show them something else.

I should have mentioned I didn't mean as a front page; a page on the side that can be viewed by clicking a link or something of the sort. I know it's a terrible idea, but I'm just shooting in the dark here.

[Fragma]

Portals only work on sites that offer something other than a forum, (GFX Forums for example).

[Peter L]

The portal and XenForo change is what strayed me away from GFX Forums in the first place. I personally don't think it works well.

[Fragma]

I meant graphics forums in general, not GFXForums.net.
Portals can be good places to showcase competitions, show announcements and supply downloads.
SF is just a forum, so a Portal would be useless.

[Retribute]

I remember seeing Omniscient saying that Breshie will never be staff somewhere...

[Fragma]

I remember seeing Omniscient saying that Breshie will never be staff somewhere...

He has a few times. What's that got to do with anything though?

[AceInfinity]

Problem in a nutshell. First glance there is nothing exciting here. It's a reasonable looking forum but there is no WOW factor to entice joining or participation.

I GOT IT. I've got a great idea.

It's mainly because of the comparison that goes on in the minds of members that come from SF and think "HF vs. SF?"

This is a great reply though, the rest of what I didn't quote from your reply included. You point things out in a straightforward fashion and I can't say I disagree. The SF feather did have it's benefits, but now that those benefits are a bit less significant for how the community has progressed it was good that it got removed. I don't think this would have been the community it is now without the feather, perhaps the same forum, but less active, and probably with less changes as some of the members that helped instigate them to happen would have never known about SF in the first place.

Curious to see what this great idea is though

"Problem in a nutshell. First glance there is nothing exciting here." - I will say that this is a problem for most forums, unless your already one of those big forums with high enough SEO and good enough content or content in vast amounts that seems to attract people out there, as for some reason bigger forum seems to mean better for lots of viewers. It's just tougher here because when people go back to HF they see on their account 1000's of reps and awards everywhere, and this community where those things need to be earned, they may only have 1 or 2 rep at most, so there's no "treat" for them here. Especially coming from HF with that HF attitude where ego means everything...

[Peter L]

Yup, that is another thing about the HF vs SF thing. On HF all you have to do is be an butthead, and you'll end up getting a high post count/respect/high reputation. It is easy.

On SF, however, you need to actually work to earn your respect. So they choose the former. But Omni's got the right idea, get members from different sources. That will resolve the issue entirely.