Monetizing/making 2+2 better

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
The last time we visited the collapsible menu idea we felt restricted to not do anything that would not work for the vast majority (all but a very few) people who visit the forums. There are browser issues with almost all collapsible menu schemes.

The point is that it's not just a simple decision to install new technology there are many factors to consider. (Gee, I hope the IT guys I work with don't catch me saying that!)

I'm curious: how many people here use a version of IE prior to 6.0? How many people would not want the site to be dependent upon Javascript (for example)? Etc. I could turn this into a poll or, better yet, a survey, but I'd rather do that when I understand the complete set of questions to be asked.

Chuck

[/ QUOTE ]

Chuck...

First, having some experience in this area, I think its safe to say that while there are certainly many factors to consider, a competent IT web Programmer can code around compatibility issues.

Second, as to user profiling, don't you have that info available to you from Google Analytics? (if not, you certainly could load up another webstat program for a few days to gather that info pretty quickly)

Third, I'm sure you are already aware that javascript is utilized for current functionality in the forums.

[N 82 50 24]

The menu that I use on my blog is 100% compatible with anyone running Windows XP or Mac OS X as far as I know -- someone please let me know if it isn't working for you. All of the big modern browsers support the technology behind it. If someone is running like Netscape 3 on Windows 98, then we might as well force them to upgrade.

And like Sniper said, the web server should have records of the exact browser and operating system usage of 2+2's viewers.

[imported_Chuck Weinstock]

Well you're right. I just checked and if the last week is any indication of the way things are, we could optimize for Internet Explorer 6 or greater and Firefox 1.5 or greater and totally ignore all the rest and only lose about a small number of visitors.

Also, we could ignore all non-Windows XP and Vista users and only lose a few.

Interestingly enough Safari is the main browser used by our Mac visitors. I would have expected Firefox.

Almost all of our visitors have Java enabled.

Almost 5% of our visitors access us via dialup (a number way higher than I would have expected.)

All of these numbers are way different than they were the last time we visited issues such as collapsing menus. There is no reason for us to cater to the laggards I guess.

I would think that any changes have to work for IE 6 or higher, Firefox 1.5 or higher, and Safari. And for XP, Vista, perhaps NT, and Mac OS X and should not make heroic efforts to deal with the others.

Chuck

[N 82 50 24]

Well, Safari is the default OS X browser. I don't think Firefox comes installed on Macs. I don't have a Mac so I'm not sure, but that's what I recall from seeing other Macs...

Anyway, I think it's time that 2+2 used a widely-compatible javascript menu. It wouldn't have a negative effect on traffic provided the right menu system (ie, useful and mostly compatible) was used.

[Abones]

El D has some great ideas as usual. Modernizing this web site should be the number one priority. The look is incredibly stale and before any new features are implemented we need a layout that allows for this.

One idea would be a split in the forums between the off topic stuff and the gambling related forums.

I will clarify what I mean: If and when you do modernize the layout you will realize that the shear number of sub-forums creates a problem in the layout department. Its hard to implement a navigation system for all the forums we have.

You should create a navigation fork between the two different areas example:

Magazine link
Classified link
Forums Link
-Gambling forums link
-Poker Related
-ETC
-ETC
-Sports Betting
-ETC
-ETC

-Off top link
-Whatever
-You
-Get
-It

A crude design I know, and most people with any sort of web design experience let alone on a corporate level will laugh at it. This web site is so horrible looking that any tips are good tips at this point. Pass it along to whoever maintains this web site.

Samjones mentioned t-shirts. I'm not sure if he was joking but this is a great idea! Some of the things written in 2+2 forums are comedy gold and comedy gold will sell. The biggest problem is ownership of comedy gold. If it were possible to sell sup bro? t-shirts people would likely buy them.

vBulletin please?

[imported_Chuck Weinstock]

Why vBulletin? Why not XXX? I'd like to see a well thought out discussion of why a particular piece of software is better than Version 7 of UBBThreads or some other piece of software. I've so far had people ask for at least 3-4 different forum implementations.

[Abones]

[ QUOTE ]
Why vBulletin? Why not XXX? I'd like to see a well thought out discussion of why a particular piece of software is better than Version 7 of UBBThreads or some other piece of software. I've so far had people ask for at least 3-4 different forum implementations.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. Traffic support - The 2+2 forums seem to be plagued with stability issues. I don't know how much of this is related to server-side hardware none the less vBulletin typically performs faster with forums of this size.

2. Features - User permissions are incredibly flexible. Every aspect of moderating a forum can be defined on a user to user bases; you can set who gets to move threads, who can ban, etc. Moderation itself is also much easier with vBulletin, the on-the-fly moderating is great.

3. Look - It um looks better.

Check http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=186803

It has been a year or so since I have done work with large forums but I still have some knowledge in the area. I have tried everything and vBulletin is the bees knees.

[By-Tor]

[ QUOTE ]
Why vBulletin? Why not XXX? I'd like to see a well thought out discussion of why a particular piece of software is better than Version 7 of UBBThreads or some other piece of software. I've so far had people ask for at least 3-4 different forum implementations.

[/ QUOTE ]


I personally have no complaints about the forum software, but I do think 2+2 is long overdue for a cosmetic makeover.

I also have a feeling that a fair percentage of people who complain about the forum software are actually complaining about one of two things: the search engine or the 'look and feel'.

IMO, the search engine works fine. Other who know how to use it probably agree. I do think however the results could be increased from 200 to 500.

Back to the makeover...

We basically have three things here. The magazine, the books and
the forums, so imo, we need one of these neat-o picture type home pages, somewhat functional, with 3 very specific and unique routes.

I found a fair example when I was looking at bigboards to compare what the other larger forums are using from software. The first entry on the list was Gaia Online and their forum page is here.

It caught my eye for a couple reasons. The home page is similar to what I described above.

One section could easily be a 'backdrop' of a magazine with a quick blurb from this months issue along with a link to The magazine (with it's own facelift hopefully).

Another section would be linked to the books page and have pics of the old men with maybe some pull-down's directly below each with a list/link of books for sale.

And then of course the last section with some sort of graphical representation of the forums (ummm, OOT volunteers in advance to create .....but don't accept!!) [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]


On to the 'Forums homepage' of the example I provided, you can see how this is just a much 'cleaner look'. The forum homepage does not need to have a bunch of information about the 'current' contents or 'hot topics'. We are past that stage here viewership-wise. We need clean pretty pictures and eye-pleasing pages.

Another thing I would recommend/like to see in a face lift is left-justification. The left-hand bar really drives me nuts. 'In my design', I would not list all of the forums here any longer. I think it falls under the 'we are past that stage' category. People here are going to find/bookmark/go back/hot link/pull-down to the forum they want to get to and while yes, I do actually use the links on the left...I would not miss them if the result where the forum being left-justified.


$.02

[BluffTHIS!]

Abones,

Can you speak to vb's search funtionality? That has always been a big problem with this forum. Also exactly how large can the post database get before it clogs up and slows down and chunks need to be moved to an archiveserver as is done with the present UBB setup?

[ZeTurd]

[ QUOTE ]
Another thing I would recommend/like to see in a face lift is left-justification. The left-hand bar really drives me nuts. 'In my design', I would not list all of the forums here any longer. I think it falls under the 'we are past that stage' category. People here are going to find/bookmark/go back/hot link/pull-down to the forum they want to get to and while yes, I do actually use the links on the left...I would not miss them if the result where the forum being left-justified.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even though I agree with you, you'll probably be met with a lot of conservative views on this particular position.

A possible compromise in this regard, would be to implement a menu in the upper right corner or a stretched header that uses the CSS-property { position: fixed }. In non-technical terms that means that the menu will be fixed to a certain position of the page as you scroll the page.

For a live demo, you can check out this page.

Combining something like that with dropdown menus for space conservation, you have a user-friendly compromise that in all likelihood will be more accessible than the left column menu as it is today.

There is a slight drawback though: The { position: fixed } property doesn't work properly in IE 6.0 and older versions. But considering that a menu like that would degrade gracefully [1] in non-compliant browsers, and the fact that most people have upgraded to 7.0 now (if not using a proper browser like Firefox or Opera), it shouldn't be much of a problem.

The technical implementation should be very easy even for someone with medium-to-low knowledge of PHP / CSS.

[1] Depending on the placement of the menu, that may actually not be totally true , but any potential problems with IE 6.0 and lower are easily corrected by serving alternate CSS for these browsers.