Hey look, someone who knows how to discuss ideas rather than try and push them aside completely. My suggestion isn't perfect, which is why it needs some more discussion and tidying from the moderators, which is essentially their jobs and why there's a staff room to discuss things. My main issue is that any ideas I've suggested are seen as insta-criticism of the site, and are thrown into the trash can by moderators. Idk, I think they just personally have a dislike for me because I'm more outspoken than most. And I totally agree, less is more, I do see my calculations were a little off in that regard. I do think pony and non-pony could be a little bit more set out clearly, and that the serious stuff should be moved away from the non-serious however, because it makes it easier to know where to discuss pony things and non-pony things, and Sugarcube Corner's meant to be a fun place, not one of people's problems and debates, which can be upsetting to see for some.
Alrighty, I just got back from quite possibly the cruddiest track meet I've ever been to so if I come off as callous or blunt in some form or another, it's due to my irritation. That being said, I relatively agree with Poetic's suggestion. The purpose here of the site, it being a My Little Pony fan site, is to prioritize discussion on show related aspects. This means creating a clear distinction between which sections of the site are designed for such a purpose and which parts of the site are not, and the simplest way to do this is through categorization which is what has been suggested. If you think about it, a simple site reorganization isn't that difficult of a job, so the protest to the idea is in all honesty a bit baffling to me. As for the reasons members join, that varies, seriously. Somebody could have joined because they didn't like another site and wanted to find a new place to hangout, somebody could have joined to listen to music, somebody could have joined because their friends hang out on the site as well, and others, a decent chunk of which I might add from inspection of the introduction section, join because they're new to the fandom. Poetic worded this quite nicely: We're a pony site first, our site name is literally "Everypony", so it would only make sense to make the sections designated to serve the purpose of these forums more noticeable. I'll be purposely blunt here: the pros of this far outweigh the cons, if there are any. You have better organization of the site which will aid both new and some old members, which will in turn make the site more well-rounded meaning more sections of it will be used as opposed to just one or two. Seriously, I always get ragged on for not being for an idea because I'm too caught up with the "What ifs" but I see everybody else doing exactly that. To summarize, the idea of simple reorganization sounds fairly beneficial any way you look at it. We've even been given a basic outline at to how it could work, why on earth would you not even consider this? Now as for the site-wide meetings, I haven't set one up in a while because at the last two there was next to no attendance, mixed with the fact that there hasn't been entirely all too much to discuss. However, with recent circumstance and activity in the site discussion section, I might open that up again and see how it goes.
I made a thread to get some research: http://www.everypony.com/forums/showthread.php?9033-Why-are-you-still-here Better to base the site's decisions on data rather than on assumptions and hunches.
I'm glad some discussion is going. This is what I wanted to see. And thank you Zephyr for not pushing aside ideas. The reorganization Poet suggested and changes to the home page are exactly the kinds of things I was talking about with laying the groundwork. I agree that both of these are good ideas and we should work on getting these done. What do people see the first time they go to "everypony.com"? That is where we need to make sure to have the best impression and get new people to want to find out more. This too! Build it and they will come. I know change is not instant. I never claimed it was, but change will not happen if you never take the first step. I'd like to think this is one of many steps to follow. As long as we are doing something and moving forward we will see progress and results. Thank you again.
To work off of what Frost said about user pictures and stuff, I actually made a suggestion a while back that I thought you guys might be interested in. Essentially, making better use of the EP Tumblr
I'll play around with the page layout more. But I just wanted to point out that the LS only displays the current song when you are actually playing the stream. That's just how Livestream's API works. Sorry.
I did pitch you guys a layout template for the radio page about 4 months back... It - more than anything else - needs some serious TLC.
I actually really like this, this can show that this site is active right as someone opens the page. I know a lot of people that open the first page of a website, and depending on that, judge the entire site. It would also show members that they can feature their works here, and that makes people feel welcome, and even appreciated. why not just make a folder called "trash" or something, it will remove them from the main screen, but it won't remove the post count, and you could even make the folder private so no one can revive any old threads from there (unless you guys are okay with necro posting and all that) I for one, don't use tumblr, and that is not part of the official site, so most new members will not see that. I know I didn't notice those buttons on the top right at first, took me weeks to find them. I also would love a cleaner radio page layout, I know you can change it and stuff, but It does feel cluttered in some areas, and empty in others. I feel like this could change depending on screen resolution though. As for initiating doing something, I feel like I can't do much to start anything, since I'm clueless to some areas. it takes a team effort (which I think I got from that thread), and eight star is working on a site wide RP, which sounds really fun to me The band of bronies show has also been replaced by a new podcast all about everypony.com, and the show/fandom. It's at the same time that band of bronies was on too (that podcast might come back, I think they just wanted a holiday break, I'm not sure though, so ask yeti) organization, teamwork, and focusing on a couple things at once are things I feel need to happen :derpe:
I felt the Band of Bronies show brought in more viewers than we expected, even though the numbers still weren't very high. It seems like on average, we get lucky if we can even hit ten viewers on our radios. With the Band of Bronies show, we were getting about 20+ viewers, and even one time got about 30+. The FOB: Equestria bronies we were doing the show with were falling behind on some of their own projects, and so bowed out of doing the show with us until they could get more staff for their site to free up more time for them to return to the show. So Band of Bronies is on an undetermined hiatus.
I don't mean to be tooting my own horn here, but I think it'd be a good idea to talk with your affiliates. Sure this is Everypony.com, but we as a whole are meant to be a part of brony community as a whole. The forums are a great place for discussion, but there's more to Everypony.com than just the forums. Want to organize gaming events? Las Pegasus can do that. Want to know the recent pony news? DerpyHooves.com and LyraHeartstrings.com can set you up. A UK convention going on? Talk to BronyBus about what they're doing so that our members know that's an option. I don't know how successful these attempts might be, but when I was on the staff I very much felt that we had to do everything for ourselves, show that we can stand on our own four hooves. Now I've spent time working on other things, I've realized that you can only improve when you take the chances needed to get help when you can. You can make a lot more friends in the process. Show that an affiliation is more than just a link on the page and make sure they know you're doing it. They might give you guys more of a heads up on their sites to show their thanks. That means more members and hopefully more friends to make and hang out with.
