Any site improvement?

[Rinto]

I really don't want to poke my nose on this kind of things but I'd really wanna know what sorts of adjustments or modifications could happen around the site. I mean, what parts of it could change?

I'm not telling that it needs to be changed, I'm just asking what could be the things that could change here sometime in the future. I saw a few threads about the site being inaccessible at times and the welcome page thingy. Just curious, I hope you don't mind. (o.o)

[Nazo]

There were planned improvements that some members took a survey for months ago.
I thought they were supposed to happen over summer, but something must have come up.

[Chandra]

The plans are still in the works. Things are just taking a bit longer than expected. If you have any suggestions, Rinto, please feel free to mention them.

[Chip]

There's a whole bunch of stuff in the works. Much of it revolves around the upgrade to vBulletin version 4, but there are other things going on as well. We should be making an announcement fairly soon.

But as Chandra said, if you have any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions, we welcome them as we don't see the upgrade process as a single event but a continuing series of improvements.

[Filip]

Originally Posted by Nazo

I thought they were supposed to happen over summer, but something must have come up.

That's what you have with any plan: it's always taking twice the time and twice the budget

Especially if you work with a team of people who have to still fit jobs and families and other hobbies in with running EC (where answering to threads and doing day-to-day routine takes up a lot of time too).
Though there have been a lot of discussions about what we want (and what the survey showed the members want), so it's proceeding!

As the others said: sugestions are still welcome, though!

[Rinto]

I finally came up with the best of what I could suggest, after that long while of thinking about it .

So here's it (placed in [SPOILER] tags to minimize space, and coz I'm shy )

Spoiler

I. Mods' Stories (and also the others)
---This maybe the worst suggestion I may have, but I thought of this the best that I could...
Since we're on forums where most likely support and interaction between LGBTs occur, I think it'd be great if there was some kind of thread where the mods can tell about their experiences, struggles or whatever else that relates to their life as a LGBT or LGBT supporter. Mods are like fathers and mothers to the community here, and most likely, children get inspiration from their parents. Giving some inspirational instances about you are already a form of support. I though of it since I noticed that during giving support to a person, a person being asked support from tends to share his/her own experiences as an example then gives a personal POV or solution as a conclusion.

Cons:
1. It's slightly of a privacy intruder but I guess you're pretty smart to exclude very personal parts already.
2. Completely a bother for the mods

II. Motto
----Does EC have a motto? You know, something like "Helping the LGBT people for XX years"? It would be more welcoming with one, in my opinion. It would be nice if it were displayed below the logo, in the Welcome page or something.

III. News and Resources
---The tabs aren't regularly updated, am I correct? In my humble opinion, it would be best if any recent announcement is to be found below the Notices banner. Any outdated news can be seen at a EC Community Announcements sub-forum or anything like it.

The Resources can then be found on a new sub-forum, like Resources.

IV. Sub-Forum Arrangement
----Again, in my personal view of things, it would be easier and better to contact the EC staff if the EC's own group of staff contact sub-forums could be found on top of the rest
including the additional recommended sub-forum ones I mentioned above.

It would also be better if there would be a direct link to a list of mods, advisors, admins and others found on the main page of the forums. It's quite hard to find them if they aren't online.

V. The Theme Thing
VI. Calendar Events
I'm not really imposing any sort of a grand makeover of EC^^ These are all my personal views^^

[Eric]

I actually like the mod story idea. My life isn't really that interesting, though. xD

As far as staff contact goes, there's a link juuuust above the 'What's Going On?' section where who's online is displayed that says 'View Forum Staff'. You click on that and you have a list of the staff members as well as a button with which you can PM them. There's also this thread right here that lists the current staff and the issues they can help most with.

[Chip]

There are some great suggestions in there which I'll add to our bigger list-o-suggestions from which we'll be deciding what to implement and in what order.

The biggest holdup, as mentioned before, is the conversion to vBulletin 4, which is in itself a huge undertaking because EC as it currently operates is a highly customized version of vB 3 and all of those customizations need to be re-done for vB4. Once we switch to vB4, then we can start making enhancements.

Martin was spearheading that project, but he got sort of sidelined by his family's move which took forever, and he was then without Internet for almost a month. But now that he's back on track, I think we can hopefully start moving forward with the vB4 upgrade.

[Ben]

I love the ideas Thanks for sharing, Rinto!

If you have anymore ideas, or anyone else has some they'd like to share, do feel free to let them be known! Ideas <3

[Rinto]

I'll try my best to help ya guys out ^w^

[Keelin]

I've got an idea. What if EC had a welcoming committee? There are always those newbies who have no idea how to use the site and no one ever writes hello on their wall. More people would stay if they felt even more welcome.

If you want people, I'll do it.

[Chip]

At one time, that was the role that the Advisors originally served. But over time, the Advisors have become more of, uh, advice-givers, and so most of us have become more focused on those who ask for assistance rather than welcoming new members.

However, you make a really good point, and it's something we should definitely discuss. It's a little complicated because new members don't have access to PMs (except with staff) so to allow anyone other than staff to contact new members would require setting up new permissions... but it is certainly something we can consider as part of the software upgrade.

[fiddledeedee]

What I do every so often to welcome newbies is go to the Welcome page (linked in the bar at the top of this one); at the bottom, there is a list of the 10 newest members and I can go through and welcome them on their walls, in particular if they haven't posted. Would having a way to list members from newest to oldest (we can do it by Post count and all already, so it shouldn't be too hard to implement another "sort factor") and then a group to welcome the newest on their walls be a way to have a welcome comittee without more PM privileges?