Moridin920 posted:

Ey here's some actual thoughts though being serious:

We don't have the popularity we used to, obviously. Now we have competition like Reddit and 4chan and such, too.

What are we doing to get new users? Who knows about SA? Like if you're a teenager right now, the only way you really know about it is if someone tells you about it. Then you get to the website, and the 'Forums' button is all the way in the top left, you can also get there through the directory drop down, and there's the popular threads thing, but it really isn't immediately obvious that there are discussion forums and they are the main part of the site.

Basically almost everyone I talk to says they heard about it from a friend, but as our user base and popularity declines we can rely on that word of mouth less and less. I'm pretty sure at this point the bulk of our new users comes from people in MMOs seeing the goon guilds stomp around.

Also, the front page stuff is great (imo) and I loved it a lot when a goon told me about SA, but I was reading the front page for a year before I even realized there were forums. I mean yeah maybe I'm an idiot but I know I'm not the only one whose done that. Maybe we can take some cues from modern webpage design to make the forums more accessible or readily obvious or something.

I think the format is fine. I love that we don't do the stupid upvote or - + poo poo. I think the forums are still (as forums go) one of the best moderated on the internet. There's legit great info in many of the subforums, and good discussion to be had in many others. We've got the product, it's our delivery/marketing that is lacking.

Granted the content has fallen off and that probably makes it a little more difficult (less photoshop phridays means less photos going around on the internet with the SA logo on em) but idk I feel like there's a lot of underutilized talent that could be given some direction with a free plat or avatar contest for the best shop or something like that.


longform snipe