GridironFans.com Suggestion Box

First off, no need to freak out about this not staying a forum. What I mean is I don't know what format we will go for. There are so many options like vBulletin, XenForo, Invisionboard, Wordpress (it's not just for blogs) and many more. Problem is that those all don't play well together and we are a site with some heavy duty modifications to the original vbulletin code. We might lose everything in the process.

As for the smut and sportsbook....no and no. Smut is a big no-no for Google and their ad rules. Ads pay for the site to stay off (granted people click on the ads, and that's a whole other set of problems on the site right now) and Google doesn't allow it. So no smut.

As for the sportsbook, it's simply not popular. We tried it time and time here and it never took off. You know what you end up with? A burnt out mod who quits after posting event after event after event and no members bother to care to wager. Plus it's a major resource hog. GridironFans.com's focus will remain football and the discussion of football.

Something has to be done because as a whole the membership has become lethargic here. We need to find new ways to bring in new members to give this place an infusion of life, find ways to get members to generate content we can feature, find solutions to our current mobile limitations, and update this site so it's not so 2008.

 

I think it's been discussed before, and I know it would probably cost a pretty penny, but an ad supported mobile app for Android and iPhone would be sweet. Would also allow us heavy tapatalk users to support the site by clicking more regularly.

 

The biggest problem with the upgrade is cost. And with members not supporting our sponsors, we cover the server bill at best. I posted this in the staff forum:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTjlRoLdmxI]Experience vBulletin 5 Connect - YouTube[/ame]

Problem is it's in beta and the early test was horrifically slow.

 

I'm not sure a fancy new look would change things SRW. We have our core members, most of us do our best to be active, we even try to bring others here. At the end of the day, we gotta all try harder to support ourselves from within.

I dont think theres anything wrong with the look of the site, it serves its purpose. Those are my two cents, Ill still support GIF regardless of the look you change it to.

 

we've talked about this before (how to get more people to post on a regular basis like our core members).

i wish i knew the answer to why so many people post on the 'big' websites (espn, cbssports, nfl.com). their formats are absolutely horrible for discussion and most of the people that go on those sites are just trolls.

i only know of one 'independent' website that seems to get more regular discussion than GIF does and their format seems very similar. the only difference with them is that their website seems to come up on search engines more often with football-related searches that i have done in the past.

 

I have been looking around and I have to say I am impressed with what I am hearing about IP Board's new 3.4 forum software (currently Beta).

Here's a review for the most recent release:
IP.Board Review | Forum Software Reviews

Plus, it can convert all this from vbulletin 3.8 to IP Board:

 

Crap, trying to read Chinese is easier than trying to understand that stuff. If you think it is good enough, then I trust your judgement SRW.

 

I don't know what kind of addons exist, but I was thinking about the vbooking addon, and I thought a cool idea would be a type of ranking addon. We could have weekly voting on how we see the league. This would be like a big community generated power rankings.

But just having the system opens up the ability for the members here to rank other things as well. Such as QB's or other positions. I think this would be open up some pretty interesting discussions, we know who the top 5 qb's are but where does the consensus put say Palmer vs Flacco vs Stafford.

Not even sure if this is possible, but the idea just came to me and figured I would throw it out there.

 

So would this basically be a Poll that members fill out and the site would automatically tally the votes and rank the teams in a thread/post to basically post the compiled results?

 

Well we would need to rank the entries rather than vote on them. I could rank Chiefs with a 1 (not really but since they are undefeated now I will say that) Seahawks with a 2, etc down to the Jags with a 32, and the site tally's up the numbers and throws out how we all see the league as an average.

 

bring the pourn section back?trololololol

 

I don't think that is possible because of the advertising (Google.) Maybe [MENTION=1]SteveRobWhatever[/MENTION] could confirm or deny?

 

I could be wrong but I think traffic/user activity started to go down when there was the switch from the Latest NFL News forum format to the team forums format. I'm sure SRW has his reasons for the switch but personally I'm not a fan of a bunch of different forums.

I know you can still find all the news in one place by clicking NFL News, but I don't think it's as obvious or easy to find as it was before when there was a dedicated forum for latest nfl news.

I know I don't post that often but that isn't really specific to this forum in general. I'll go through periods where I post a lot, then go through a stretch where I don't post at all.

 

That is correct. Google ad revenue keep the site's costs paid so we can't risk losing them just to have pourn on the site. Want ph0rn? There are plenty of sites for that. We are a football site, we need to deliver football content to our members and visitors.

 

Or just look at SRW's sig. :icon_eek:

 

I was just trolling yall. if you highlight the whole post, i have hidden text.

 

Dammit, you beat me to it.