Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2014 16:31:30 GMT -5
Having had to wait a week and a half just to get my character accepted was a bit discouraging, as is the apparent very, very slow speed with which people post around here. It is my opinion that a few changes to the forum could help increase member count which might, in turn, increase activity.
These are just a few that I can think of at the moment, but what do you guys think?
- I love the color green, but the overall layout/color scheme of the site is rather dull, not exactly aesthetically pleasing. I was thinking that changing the default layout of the site could make people who visit want to take a closer look. Now, I'm not saying that we need a big fat banner made out of the best artwork we can find on the internet (used with permission, of course), but maybe change up the color scheme a little to make it look more interesting, less monochromatic. I run a forum of my own, and I know that the Color and Theme Creator section of the Admin Panel has a bunch of cool premade layouts that you can use, which you are free to adjust at will. You can also find background textures on GRSites. If you really wanted, you could poll the members and ask what sort of color scheme they would like to have.
- As mentioned before, it isn't fun having to wait a week or two for a site you're excited to roleplay on. I think that if the admins hired one or two more active moderators to at least accept characters for people who are trying to join, future joiners (and anyone else trying to create/adopt characters) would greatly appreciate it.
- Now, I really like the idea that this is a laid-back site and nobody really has to worry about getting booted out due to inactivity. But what about offering rewards for being active and posting a lot? Other sites have features like Of The Month awards for Character/Member/Thread/Couple/etc. of the month; others have a monetary system that allows them to buy neat doodads. Some ideas I have are: buy a random (or predetermined) egg and have it gifted to a caretaker of their choice, so the buyer could play as the Pokemon when it hatched; receive a monetary reward for coming up with a really neat plot; receive a reward for winning OTM; and payment for helping advertise Gaia Ranch on other sites.
The only downside I can see to this is that this may encourage spamming, although disabling the money system for OOC boards would help, as would more active staff, to punish players who make painfully short IC posts just to get more money.
These are just a few that I can think of at the moment, but what do you guys think?