Random and Featured Mods?

[hambil]

A way to call attention in the portal, or on forum home, to select mods. Especially recent releases, or even just random ones, might be nice.

Perhaps, even someone to write-up unbiased reviews of whatever mod(s) they select every now and then. Ones they think are worth of more attention, or whatever.

[Princeton]

The portal and the forum index are the most visited pages (in that order) here on vborg.

With that said, I agree that the portal needs a major overhaul ... I'm one that believes that a "portal" if utilized correctly can help convert visitors.

I will never say that the current setup sucks but it can be improved.

For example, the main focus on portal is vbulletin.com's news. Should this be our main focus? It's just a guess but I believe that most of our readers (99.9%) visit vbulletin.com or receive these announcements via email from them. (what a waste of valuable real-estate)

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying lets get rid of it.
All I'm saying is that we should place our focus on the community.

For example, we can help our visitors find what they want while helping members/service providers stand out by showcasing great articles and modifications.

Let me clarify what I mean...

Articles

All of our visitors want to learn. Emphasizing great articles on portal will help the visitor "take action". In many instances, the reader doesn't even know what they want to learn until it's in their face. Teach them and you will see an increase in your following.

We do not allow advertising but this is a great way for service providers to "promote*" their brand. The more positive the exposure the better it is for you.

Modifications

All of our visitors are in search of modifications. Emphasizing modifications on portal will help our visitors find great modifications and place focus on the modification and the coder. Release great modifications and you will see an increase in your following.

We do not allow advertising but this is a great way for service providers to "promote*" their brand. The more positive the exposure the better it is for you.


Do you see what I'm getting at?

We have different agendas but it CAN work for everyone.


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There are 4 admins here which means that any change or ideas take 4 times as long to get to the next step. How many of you ever worked in such an environment?

It sucks - yes, I said it.

But, I will say that it's needed on a "volunteer forum".

If it was up to any ONE admin - the site would be different.


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* For those wondering, promoting your brand is not the same thing as promoting your products/services. If you can set a positive light on your brand (entity), readers will value you more.

completely agree with you Joe, the portal and the whole site would need an overhaul, like planned for each upgrade...

so, as it's always 4 times work when done, wouldn't it be more productive to see if someone is completely devoted to that task, instead of spreading the tasks for the same goal ?!... see, you can have a situation for design/usability maintenance, that person would not be involved in other things than the look and feel of the site, with the members echoes and requests/suggestions, debating everything with the admins...

personally i think it would speed up the development of some of the features here that need a recode for upgrade etc... don't you think?

and no, i'm not thinking of any name to do the job, i thought you were the one in the best situation for that actually..

[Ziki]

Joe expressed my opinions,I sign his petition.

[Paul M]

Just to be clear on one thing, the main news on the portal is not actually forcussed on vb.com news - it is actually taken from our news and announcements forum - it just happens that a lot of posts in that forum are vb.com news because they are auto posted by the rss replication system.

hum, what would be to make more vb.ORG official announcements, like real News for a change?.. we have once per year a change of staff, and i think that's all...

would be great to have something more vibrant coming from the community.

[Michael Biddle]

Do not forget about the smilies nexy...

yeah, the no-end contest... lol

[DrewM]

Also instead of the whole vBulletin.com news just a block with the headlines would probably be enough for a user to know if it involves them