Let's be relevant again.

[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I think the Open/Closed system is a bit out of date.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....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

[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.