There is some confusion as to what is happening on the site. Let me lay it out so everyone can see and understand. This will be the forum lineup after June 1st here on GridironFans.com: Football Forums Latest NFL Headlines General Football Discussion NFL Gameday AFC Discussion NFC Discussion NFL Draft Discussion NCAA Football Forums NCAA General Discussion NCAA Gameday ACC Discussion Big 10 Discussion Big 12 Discussion Big East Discussion Conference-USA Discussion D-1 Independents MAC Discussion Mountain West PAC 10 Discussion SEC Discussion Sun-Belt Discussion WAC Discussion Fantasy Football Talk NFL Pick'em League NFL Smack Central GridironFans Central Site News GridironFans Support Outside The Lines Off Topic Forum Graphics Showcase Other Sports Baseball Talk Basketball Talk Boxing/MMA Talk Hockey Talk Racing Talk Soccer Talk Wrestling Talk Miscellaneous Sports Fight Club! Staff Support Staff Hangout NFL News Reporters Support Recycle Bin We are MERGING the following forums into the Off-Topic forum: Crossfire Entertainment Forum Opie & Anthony/Ron & Fez Talk Tournament Central Newbie Central We are DROPPING the following forums: Sportsbook American Football Events College Football Events Baseball Events Basketball Events Boxing/MMA Events Hockey Events Racing Events Soccer Events Wrestling Events Other Sports/Misc. Closed Events We are also dropping the following features: Post Counts Reputation System vCash vBookie Now....the move to a NFL News Blog only format will ONLY happen IF the site cannot pay for itself after these changes. What we are doing is re-shifting the focus to make GridironFans.com about what it was meant to be about since day one.....NFL FOOTBALL. We are not here to compete with Social Network sites like Facebook with their gifts and games. We are not here to compete with Twitter with their constant profile updates. We are not about gimmicks, games, fake money, inflating post counts.....we are about the NFL and hopefully changing the culture of the site so this is the place to come discuss the best professional sports league in the world.
That's a far better explanation. I am not a fan of the vbookie/vcash being removed, but I can tolerate it. Thanks for giving us more details Steve.
That sounds more than fair to me IMO. One thing I would suggest is maybe merging all the other sports forums into one forum also, because the majority of them aren't very well used and to be honest probably wouldn't be too much of an issue. Thanks for clearing the air SRW.
How much are the changes going to save? It doesn't seem like a lot to me but then again I really have no idea.
No rep ... No vCash ... Guess I'll do the signatures for members out of the kindness of my heart. (no sarcasm included...lol)
To be honest I'm not sure how much merging forums will do for easing the load on the forum, but I guess the Admins wouldn't have decided on this without that intention.
It's about refocusing the site to make it about football first and foremost. If we can flow the conversation towards the NFL more then the site becomes more attractive for people who find the site for the NFL news and talk. Right now there is no justification to keeping GIF on such an expensive server if the site isn't going to support the cost. We are moving away from the extra fluff and focusing on what is successful on the site. Hopefully we will be able to build on it.
Dont know anything about this stuff, but things like rep and bookie could have been a server hog. IIRC thats why we purged ancient threads massive tramp threads
And if the click once a day still happens we should be able to keep the site this way for a long time, I just don't see why some members have a problem with clicking once a day and if you don't know what I'm talking about see HH he'll help you.
I don't think people have a problem with clicking, it just slips your mind, especially if members (Like I had) don't read the site news section. But with the earlier talk of the forums being shut for good, I'm sure the clickrate will jump significantly (Well, at least I hope that happens).
Here's the issue....yes things like this tend to get a spike in clicks. The problem is a week, two weeks from now.....people start to forget....one, two, three people....then before you know it hardly anyone is clicking like yesterday when we had seven clicks total (and two were from Sweets and myself.) The thing to remember is it's once a day EVERY DAY.
If the clicking doesn't occur or tails off like it has in the past, would it be possible to resort to the past where the "welcome page" occurred every so often?
We already have the full page ads on the site. Guests are the only ones who can see them. Give it a shot....log out, clear your cookies and then navigate the site. Eventually you'll see the full page ad.
Would it benefit the site to have it for members as well? Or is it possible to do it to members under a certain number of football forum post count...even though you just got rid of the post count...
It actually benefits the site not to have them at all. They are a huge turn-off for visitors to begin with. The problem is that members aren't clicking to help so we need something to generate consistent revenue. Again, it comes down to one click a day every day. Is that too much to ask for?
I'm all for the full page ads twice a day. Ive grown used to them from various sites i visit on a daily basis
