one suggestion to make this forum better

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by Greg Perkins

heres what i woulld like to see...

when a new member joins... instead of bringing them right into the forums, have them go to another page with a link, that link would then show a brief video/flash/ppt about the rules and procedures. then they would have to submit a specialized subscription code that they would recieve in their email.

that way everyone would have to know the rules

just my $.02

I've been playing with an idea of having a tutorial for every new user out there. Something that can teach them the rules of the forum, talk about appropriate behaviors, and provide tips on how to search and using various tools. This idea has been proven by Katie's wonderful search tutorial posted here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=32993 . That tutorial is easy to follow, and very helpful in teaching new members on how to search.

Though I must admit I am not very good at putting all these details together. I would imagine it's a pretty big task for anyone to do. I can't even imagine Brandon having any sort of time to actually do this.

So, I thought about it, and thought, why not make it into a contest? It doesn't have to be the entire tutorial. It could be split into parts, and people can work on parts of it, or the entire tutorial if they have time. The best of the tutorials win the contest and get to be the official tutorial, plus a prize or some sort.

This is just an idea at the moment. Details will have to be worked out, things like the format of the tutorial, the submission method, the judging process, and the prize of the contest. I am not even sure this is possible at all, but it doesn't hurt just to think about it.

*edit* This of course will have to wait till the season is over, during the summer/offseason. *edit*

I suggest posting a new thread if people want to toy with this idea.

[steven114]

we nd fwer ppl talkng like tis
caps splling nd punctatiun go a lng wayz to mking posts readuble

[nehalita]

what if....

we had a box in the corner of the home page where a random person shows up kind of like a "spotlight" on a person. (of course we would give our consent by some option in our profile or something). i think it's a cool way to get to know new people. it'd just be a box with something simple like:

[[pictures]]
Name:
Location:
Role:
Message:
[[link to profile]]

i dunno, it sounds like a lot of coding though x.x'

or, a people search....to find people with similar interests or people in the same location. example: I'm looking for a programmer of a school by my area. so with this option, instead of searching through threads, the search option would look through threads and tell me all the people who have "ft laud" and "programming" in their profile.

and....on our smilies box, we have that ONE little empty box where a smiley could fit in and i REALLLLLLY want a smiley with an L on their forehead (loser)...just for me. i swear if it were there I'd use it in every post i make. please? with a cherry on top?

[Brandon Martus]

Originally Posted by nehalita

what if we had a box in the corner of the home page where a random person shows up kind of like a "spotlight" on a person.

I've thought of that before, actually. A random 'member of the week' or something. I'll add that to my todo list; good idea.

It would be useful to highlight some popular or important threads, the same way sitepoint forums does it.

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/