What's Up with the Main Page?

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I like the idea of a blog with many different writers.

 

For a good example of what we should model it after, I suggest this.

 

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($.12 royalty to KOAB)

[BUTT 0]

It's not my fault you can't appreciate genius. I mean, you don't have a whole board of people who parrot your political opinions, do ya?

[admin 0]

The articles on the site can be setup MANY different ways, I would imagine we will have an system setup which you can submit your articles, but an admin or someone else higher will have to approve it before it shows up on the main page or in whichever section it falls under. So it won't be like b l og s .

Second, I think the idea we did before for columns or articles, where all comments are not on the site, but in the forums, the writers will create topics for each article in a section and all comments, suggestions, etc will go there, so the main site will not be cluttered with comments and such, maybe just a link to the particular topic on the forums.

I got lots more to say, but i got to get some sleep.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Here's something that no one has suggested yet (or maybe I missed it): movie reviews. Not DVD, but current movie reviews. Don't call me creepy, but I like going to movies alone, and I'd be more than willing to attend one (or more) a week and post a detailed review/critique, as opposed to my "Hoff rambles on about nothing," which I'm sure ten other people will jump on anyway. Just a thought.

 

Yes, you did miss it. I definitely offered to do this, since I'm a film major and would like to keep my analytical side sharp with doing this. And I also go to movies alone (in fact, ever since I started, I kind of feel weird going with people and wondering what the fuck the point of it is, since you're going to just sit there and not talk to each other for 2 hours anyways...).

 

I think an analysis and a personal opinion on the film as opposed to an outright critique and "rating system" would be on par as well, since I fucking hate when critics HAVE to impose their opinion on people who haven't seen a film yet. A movie which is just awful though, deserves to be absolutely shat on, but I think even that can be conveyed through analysis rather than "OMG -***** SUX0R DONT SEE IT!!!1!".

 

Honestly, if you guys want to start a new main page, you should completely distance yourself from this board and start something completely new. As we've seen, a main page connected to this board just doesn't seem worth the time anymore because the board has always been the bigger thing (hence all the "We have a main page?" comments when it is brought up). The only way things can get rolling on a new site is to make it completely new; new name, new layout, everything. For feedback, allow user comments but A) Make people register to comment and B) Give a writer the power to delete unnecessary comments

 

I 100% agree with this man. You've got the right idea, PK.

[Art Sandusky 0]

A simple "talk about this in the forums" link at the end of each column or something is what many sites do, and it's perfectly fine.

 

Only the people who are writing for the wrong reasons would care about comments on their article pages. Call it a lack of direct feedback, but I don't see people get up in arms when there's no such option in print media. If people want to respond to a piece of work or offer suggestions, the appropriate thread in the forums would suffice. If it's such a bitch for certain people, the majority won't have a problem with a couple of extra clicks to get to the article's feedback thread.

 

Again, a fairly large pool of writers would work to fill holes created when these other people decide they don't like to write because no one's paying attention to them immediately. This won't be an overnight thing, it'll need a solid month to re-establish itself in the consciousness of the boards. Anyone who would write would be made well aware of the lack of initial feedback if they aren't aware of it already.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

That was the same rationale that people had when the main site was going a few years ago "it's to better yourself as a writer", and look how that turned out. The main site is dead. And don't say it's because of the main site being wrestling oriented, the site allowed for things that were out of the wrestling bubble and it still is dead. What I see here from a lot of people is "let's do it the way we did it before". Ok, do that. I can tell you exactly how it will turn out.

 

www.thesmartmarks.com

 

There's something called the Equity theory, it deals with the motivation of employees. It's simple to understand. When someone feels his/her inputs are not equal to, or above, the outputs one gets, they will become less motivated, and unhappy. Writer X puts 4 or 5 hours into writing a column. Writer X feels that this is an excellent column, he put lots of time and effort into researching it and proofing it and formatting it. High inputs. Writer X receives no feedback for the column. Writer X did, however, feel that he improved upon his last column. Writer X is unsure that people actually read his column, however, or appreciated his work. Low outputs. Now, how motivated do you think Writer X would be to write another column, much less one with equal to or more content than his previous one?

 

But whatever, dismiss it, it's silly. Let's ignore the reasons why the main board flopped (because dammit, it's because it was wrestling-oriented and there aren't wrestling fans on this board!) and let's relive and repeat the mistakes that the old/current site had.

[Hoff 0]

Somewhere, right now, the status quo is crying.

 

Rudo does make some good points.

[Sandman9000 0]

Too bad I have to stab him now.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Okay, Rudo. Again, you're making good points about the shortcomings of the main page. So what we have is a community with a glut of talented writers in various fields, and a website that has gone dormant. What is the best way to apply these two resources so as to get the site up and running, which will ostensibly lead to ad revenue for the owner?

[The Man in Blak 0]

Here's a crazy idea. If we're concerned about feedback on articles, how about using other metrics (other than comments) for tracking interest in an article? Maybe give the reader a chance to rate the article on 1-5 stars (i.e. Game Rankings)? What about putting a script in the page for readers to click to refer a friend to this article, and then tracking the referral rate? In fact, depending on the CMS / hosting provider, you may be able to track referral rate on a page anyway.

 

 

 

Edited by Admin - in response to your question, the server gives me whatever i ask of it besides the viewer’s money.

It can tell me what browsers are used, the time they remain on the site, what they click, who their ISP is, and if we didn't have so much traffic to do reverse DNS on all the connections, what city and zip you are from.

Just an FYI right now... The following is ranked the most viewed article in Dec so far with 1271 views. http://thesmartmarks.com/artman/publish/article_464.shtml

 

Ranked 6th is the latest DVD review.

 

Surprisingly, those older articles are just raking in hits... Somewhere we will need an archive and place these articles in it, for future reference and also search engine purposes for growing in new traffic because the expansive content.

Edited December 14, 2005 by admin

[admin 0]

Good Points made above... I have been looking at a new domain name, since thesmartmarks.com is a wrestling oriented domain name. On the revenue side of things, lol good luck at trying to make this profitable or at least for a while. The few sites I know which are actually making money get ALOT of hits a day, several times what the forums get, that’s not my goal. Yes, it would be nice to cover server cost, but to operate a site this big and maintain things is expensive. The server is ours, the CMS is purchased and I haven’t upgraded in a while, because it broke the structure of the current site, but in the next day or two, I will create a separate sub domain of TSM for testing the CMS out. It’s pretty nice, simple, yet sophisticated software. One thing I HATE about so many sites on the web is popups, pop unders, etc. I like how the current main page has 0 advertising, and it'd be great for the new main page to have 0, we may incorporate a place for it to go in the future, but for thee few dollars it may make in a month, I don't consider it worth degrading the experience that same percentage. Yes, on the forums I have tried a few companies so far, and Google seems to still be the least intrusive, the Clicksor @ the rate it was going would make more money, but it’s annoying. Google just sits up top.

Anyways, quality and the audience is some of the many goals for a new site.

I would like to think of the new site as not as my own, but as the “peoples” in this case the writers and the audiences. Personal I have nothing to gain from the site, except the fact that its nice to read the articles, recommend to friends for articles written by writers who aren’t influenced by the outside influences and state what they feel. Yes, there is a line where stating things goes too far, coming from the forum, you all know who those people are.

[The Man in Blak 0]

Anyways, quality and the audience is some of the many goals for a new site.

 

And that's something to consider as well. Are we going to eliminate wrestling from the front page entirely and do nothing but pop culture, or do we do a mix of all of them? The former could potentially alienate a large portion of the board patrons - the audience - that visit TSM regularly.

[Sideburnious 0]

While very few (if any) of the people who have posted in this topic, the man in blak is correct that a large portion of people post in the wrestling folders, and just the wrestling folders. I think it would be foolish to completely abandon the wrestling side of the board, but maybe bring pop culture to the same level as it (in terms of articles that is, as while there was always three posts on wrestling a week in the past, which was fine, there would only really be an entertainment article, like a movie review, once every two weeks). I'd see no problem with seeing Bob Barrons SNL reviews or Vit X's latest movie review on the main page along side wrestling.

[k thx 0]

I think you need a mix. Pop culture with a dose of wrestling will give something for everyone.

 

As much are there are people who don't venture outside the wrestling folders, the opposite is also true. Best for any articles to reflect the variety of the message board.

[Art Sandusky 0]

I think it can be a success with wrestling involved, I'd never say to get rid of that aspect. I'm certainly not the one to write about it (not in the "proper" way anyway), but it should still be a large part of the place.

 

And what I'm proposing isn't "what we did before and it didn't work then," it's what's called a pretty normal format. It still allows for plenty of flexibility and oodles of quality, just as we had before. I attribute its failing to what I said in an earlier post, that being no one filling the holes created in the site's subject matter. If something wasn't done anymore, there was no real effort to find a replacement or it was just looked at as "eh, oh well." All the while we were told that there were plenty of writers and no new talent was needed while the site itself was left to die on the vine because... tada! It only had a few writers left!

 

Am I the only person who doesn't want an instant solution? Persistence and quality are all we really need. Bring all the doom and gloom you want, but it's really the only safe route to take. Comments and blogs and all that dumb bullshit might be immediately successful, but that kind of stuff would be prone to burn out quickly because we aren't looking at a real expansion in audience size and origin for a good month or two. Probably for the best, as we'll still be working out formats and getting a general "feel" for the kind of place it's going to be. Then we can try and push outside the established audience. Ratings and comments and blogs might be acceptable at that point, but one step at a time. All of this hemmin' and hawin' doesn't mean shit until we move past the planning stage and into actual execution, of course.

[SuperJerk 0]

That was the same rationale that people had when the main site was going a few years ago "it's to better yourself as a writer", and look how that turned out. The main site is dead. And don't say it's because of the main site being wrestling oriented, the site allowed for things that were out of the wrestling bubble and it still is dead. What I see here from a lot of people is "let's do it the way we did it before". Ok, do that. I can tell you exactly how it will turn out.

 

I honestly wouldn't mind it being done the way it was done before, because I liked the way it was done before. Then less and less people kept publishing stuff. I see it as a lack of articles weakened the demand, rather than what the articels were about weakening the demand.

[The Man in Blak 0]

So the site was deadlocked; writers were wanting feedback, readers were waiting for more articles from the writers. I think it's worth noting that feedback doesn't have to come from the readers alone, though. I think Al's comment earlier in the thread speaks volumes:

 

I stopped posting columns in February and to this day no one has said anything.

[Guest Vitamin X]

I'd have to say I actually enjoyed reading Dr. Tom's movie and NFL reviews, but felt I could do the same and expand on what he didn't cover.

[k thx 0]

Personally I think it's better to start bunging stuff on the main page, then ammend the format at a later date if needed.

 

This thread has shown there's demand to be tapped.

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

I think this thread is misleading. I think the vast majority of posters don't give a fuck about the main page, it's just a vocal minority that makes it seem like there is a demand for it. The vast majority of people here liking coming here to shoot the shit about their interests and that's about it.

 

Of course, if I were organizing a new site, I'd poll the board for what they are interested in in terms of format, content, etc. But I'm crazy like that.

[jwpeer 0]

To update the main page.

 

A. You need a centralized location one could go to submit articles. I could write a wealth of articles on any number of topics if given a place to submit them (I spend most of my free time during my work day here and would love to help improve it).

 

B. You need to tie the 'main page' in with the forums. Listings of recent/notable articles could appear directly above the apropriate forums so interested people could read them, and links within the articles to apropriate/related forum threads to facilitate conversation on those articles.

 

That's all for now...if there IS a newfangled way of article submission I'd love to know because it would not be difficult for me to write any number of random things during my substantial 9-5 free time.

 

Also what Rudo said...I could write about any number of topics in an informed and creative manner...but a poll determining the content most desired would make it easier to focus my efforts on something people might actually read.

Edited December 15, 2005 by jwpeer

[The Czech Republic 0]

I think this thread is misleading. I think the vast majority of posters don't give a fuck about the main page, it's just a vocal minority that makes it seem like there is a demand for it. The vast majority of people here liking coming here to shoot the shit about their interests and that's about it.

I never cared about the main page before, but since there's an interest in rebuilding it, I volunteered to help out with that.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Why is there so much opposition to this every time it comes up, anyway?

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

A website killed my father.

[Ted the Poster 0]

Rudo Montoya

[The Czech Republic 0]

Websites ripped my flesh

 

 

RZZZZZZ

[Art Sandusky 0]

So Mr. Mike T. Admin, would we be able to launch this around the first of the year?

[Steviekick 0]

If we could get all our stuff together, I think January 1 would be a great launch date.

[SuperJerk 0]

Why is there so much opposition to this every time it comes up, anyway?

Because it will personally inconvenience them in some way to post on a message board that has a frequently updated main page attached to it.

 

Duh.

[admin 0]

The first would be great. Hopefully this weekend I can have a demo of the CMS software running.