What this forum needs..?

Well since returning it seems to appear apparent that the common topic suggested / discussed to no real avail the past few years has been that fewer and fewer people are using this forum.  This is due to numerous factors, having competition now with other sites and Facebook groups claiming users.  At the end of the day people will flock to wherever the most information / activity is.  And to rebuild / regather this userbase will be a task.

In my eyes from what I've observed with many forum boards and sites over the years, with the modernising of platforms and social media presence, the promotion of forums / sites / businesses with these aspects.  This site has fallen rather behind.  However this does not have to spell the end with a bit of effort.

The way I see it there are a few options but the most effective one may not be the best received.

|1| - For starters the best way to claw back users but also to promote yourself to an entirely new market is complete rebranding.  I'm not saying leave this site to sink under, of course you would add something along the lines of "Formerly known as..." and Migrate this place over given that it appears we're hosting the site cheaply due to domain issues anyway, this is not very difficult to achieve.

|2| - The site wherever it may be needs a face lift, no offence to the creators I understand that this was based on functionality, which it does pretty much just fine in my usage at least.  However when competing with other forums and trying to make the place somewhere people want to login.  We need to think about new buttons, new fonts on the headings, and possibly a new logo (especially if a rebrand occurs).  Right now it looks like an early millennium site, which I'm sure it is.  However years have gone by now and people want to see something more professional, smoother and nicer to look at.  You'll be amazed how easy building these nicer forums are, there are even hundreds of free templates out there that would be a nice start.

|3| - Have a logo / Watermark that reflects the professionality of the site, one that can be used as watermarking for images, logo stamping on images if need be, profile pictures stamps and Site banner + Facebook cover / profile photos if you think about starting up a successful group, as well as an instagram profile, which appears to be a niche so far unexplored.

|4| - Social networking - Facebook + Instagram.  These two tied to each other and then the site involves a much larger userbase, which encourages new people to discover you a lot sooner through the art of "hashtagging" -
An Example of an Instagram profile I just setup for this post (The most basic it could be right now):


5 Minutes spent on photoshop gets you something like:

It's worth noting at this point that most facebook group banners look just about as rushed as this one.

From this you can then make a group on facebook like:


And the URL of said group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ScorpionForum/

Please bear in mind this was 15 minutes work on Pshop + Facebook + Instagram just to provide examples of what could be done.

|5| - Logo design for water marking / images.  I could make thousands of these it just requires a lot of patience with shapes and swearing at photoshop.

Example 1:


On the Instagram:

I will go about renaming and reserving the Instagram to "TheScorpionForum" or thereabouts as and when needed.

|6| - Care sheet designing + Publishing to site.
When it comes to presentation and essay / publication writing I'm a bit of a champion.  What I do not have right now is the right level of experience with specific species and the main thing that I'm also in need of acquiring: A macro lense camera.
Anyone with either of these could even forward me images / notes and I could present care sheets in a clear, concise and enjoyable to read format, for the ease of use for new individuals, and also for the pleasure of looking at from others who may not need this information.

|7| - A more active group of Moderators (If this is an issue I do not know).  All I know is I've seen quite a few posts which state X or Y moderator / owner is busy currently, which seems to of been a regular occurrence right up until now where the forum is practically inactive.  I see recently moderators were appointed but as we try to grow this place again, or our new location whatever/wherever that may be, it would be worth having 4-6 active and dedicated mods/admins.  I would even volunteer myself forwards for this position as I've quite a number of spare time lately, however I'm on UK time so this may conflict with other admins also from UK who can cover this shift / post.

|8| - Perhaps when all of the above is handled and we have a few more users, we should consider some sort of business card / format.  I mean they're bloody cheap to get printed by the thousand, and if we have users travelling to shows and various places, word of mouth and/or a card like this containing, Website + Logo + Facebook + Instagram contacts, this would heavily increase the number of users you have.  I understand this is non-profit and I presume most people like to hold back on the spending when it comes to this site, but you would ultimately see the benefits.

|9| - Change in Slogan. I don't think we / you can claim to be the Only official All-Scorpion forum anymore, but I could be wrong. You are however able to adjust this to "The Webs ORIGINAL All-Scorpion Forum". But yeah I'm unsure about the clarification on this.

|10| - I have so much more to say / do / present but right now I just can't put it all on paper.  Any ideas of others that would like to build upon this foundation would also be welcome.  Might I add, I'm not a professional Photoshopper / Web designer, but with a little patience anyone can build a good looking Site, Logo and Banner.  Just a thought.

Thanks for taking the time to read through this.  I honestly do believe quite a few if not all of the changes I've mentioned would definitely kickstart the process of making this forum great again (no trump puns intended).

Cheers,

George

Hey George.

Much of what you've suggested has actually been suggested before. Unfortunately almost none of it was implemented.

I joined the Facebook group and would appreciate it if you could make me an admin of that (I'm Collin Clary). I was actually about to create a group myself, but you beat me to it.

We definitely do need more active moderators/admins. I've had the moderator group open for a while now, but until yourself, nobody qualified for the position has made a request.

I will have more time to dedicate to the forum later this week.

In the meantime, I'm going to make you a moderator here. We have a staff section where we can discuss things further. (Hopefully the others will jump in.)

Need to connect with other Facebook groups , shops, breeders, enthusiasts.