Reinvigorating the Forum

You could not be forgotten raito, we all missed you..In any case, as a moderator we'd like you to see all the proposals about reinvigorating the forum and, if you have any suggestions you are more than welcome to post it here..

P.S.: Welcome back

Ah well the whole signature being a link is a good one plus more advertisement is neede but in all I think is that we need is to expand the whole forum to add even more but that will require money...

Can you suggest some things we could add? I mean besides the ones already mentioned..

Welcome back Raito! Looks like I just missed you.

Post yer suggestions. Logging back on means being forced to do that.

I have an idea of starting "anew" which means to thoroughly clean the hole site in other words dispose of unnecessary posts, discussions and reorganize the whole forum and reorganize them by alphabetical order and make search engine on our own page that looks for stuff on our forum. also have links with other sites and make fellow parts for amvs makers, we already have for cosplayers and also have fun with new more improved profiles but not too much like anivide >.> that is what i say

That could work. Would you suggest a new layout or keeping the one we have? I wouldn't mind gutting the site: it would just get rid of my beautiful streak of posts.

Any other suggestions?

Hmm I'm always up for new changes and maybe a new layout would be good Genten

I would too agree with the new layout, though I remind you that no changes shall take place unless Saya agrees..That's why I want a full report by somebody consisting of many final thoughts and opinions so that I'll pass it to Saya and we'll try to change the forum according to the given suggestions..

I'd be happy to make up a final report. If someone would provide to me a list of ideas (and maybe expand upon those) with possible steps of action to take to make those ideas a reality then I'll compile a list.

I'll start: What kind of new layout do you think would work? Should we keep this basic one and change the colors? Do you have any forums you'd like to link to for reference?

hmm well the main page picture is great and we need to change the forum background maybe into like crystals on the side?

I too agree with Raito about the banner..though as far as the layout is concerned, I don't have anything specific to suggest..I guess it's just what seems most suited for the purpose of a forum about anime, be it related with anime/manga or not..About the theme, we need to have at least some hints so that we know what we are going to look for..

hmm our name is Anime Boulevard so maybe like a fancy street look? o.O

That's actually a pretty good idea..Though if it's possible to make a theme ourselves, something involving both anime and a fancy street look would be most preferable..

we can O.O I got the ideas, like have those street signs that say Anime Boulevard and like a few houses with chibi characters o.o

I like your idea..What do the others think about that?

I have no idea what the things in our background are now. Psychadelic plants?

The banner is very well made. I like it a lot. Perhaps, instead of replacing the picture, we could change the wooden looking sign behind the characters to a street sign that says 'Anime Boulevard'? That might look nice.

As for colors, I'm fine with the darker theme although we might want to change it to match the banner. A 'fancy street' look would be pretty awesome. I don't know about the houses (who would draw these things)? But I think it's a good idea.

hmm well this is where Tofa's photoshop skills come in handy

I don't have photoshop skills..never had..I have a few gimp skills but in any case Saya can help more than I can and once we reach a decision we'll see if we can make it happen..

ah ok and by the way I have an old dear friend who is helping me design a new background, she's a wonderful painter and drawer and she gratefully asked to design for our site^^

I hope one of you people is good at GFX and designing web templates because I can't do anything that great with it. Certainly, I'd be glad to help out wherever I can but. . . my GFX skills leave a lot to be desired.

If your friend could help us out, that would be great, Raito :)

Then I guess that subject is over, though be free to add something on that, if you have anything else to add..as far as buttons and other stuff are concerned, we'll try to find something that matches the background..What about the way to organise the anime and manga?[I know we've mentioned that before but what I'm looking for atm is a final decision]

also I found a great site that lets us have our own video sharing, so they thought of having animes on our site is reality now^^

I'll go ahead and copy my post on the subject or organzing anime and manga and seeing what you all think:

General Structure

So I was thinking we could keep the forums divided like we do now with different categories for Anime, Manga, and Misc. However, I think it might work better if we split up manga and anime into different sub categories. For example, the major header would be 'Anime & Manga' with the sub-headings of 'Anime' and 'Manga'. It keeps topics easier to organize and we can put groups like Anime and Manga Questions into these sub-categories so we can have more room for other things. The rest of the categories would be unchanged.

I like the separation of creative works (such as writings and stories) from the Misc section as I've seen that in other forums and it works well. What I think we should aim for with separating and restructuring the categories is that we reduce the clutter on the main page and allow users to browse it easier.

Anime

As we all know, there's a ton of anime out there. I think it would make more sense to get rid of the icon structure (as it seemingly limits the series we can discuss by grouping them into 'Anime & Manga not listed'. Plus, many of these categories have little to no posts in them anyway). What I think would work better is to use said 'Anime' category and list sub-categories like this: Anime News, Anime Questions (here we would include 'Looking for' and 'what anime is this' threads) and Anime Series. Anime Series would have the categories of A-H, I-Q, and R-Z and Currently Airing. It allows users to list series alphabetically and would reduce clutter on one 'anime' page. If we wanted to expand upon this idea we could have 'sub-sub categories' that list series names if they become popular enough for their own group.

Why the 'Currently Airing' section? It would allow us to keep threads related to popular on-going series (such as Naruto, Bleach, or One Piece) in one section without clogging up a different section. We could also post seasonal anime here as well: things like 'Spring 2011' threads or threads relating to anime that are currently premiering on TV. Regardless of it you want to keep the 'currently airing' I think we should have seperate groups for things like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece.

Basically what I'm envisioning is a more detailed version of our basic structure now: when you click on a series name the categories 'characters, episodes, manga, and anime' show up. This suggested structure would follow this basic plan but with more categories and the like added. Ask me to clarify if you have any questions about this grouping.
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That's my suggestions for organzing this section. As for hosting anime on our site, would that affect other features on the site? For example, how many sections we could have or something.

love it now also if we can get somehow donations for these type of things and expand even more...

I have nothing to add on Genten's suggestion, if somebody wants to add or change sth, feel free to do so..

@Genten: Considering your question, I have actually no idea whether we are too limited to add anime etc..Saya's more aware of the forumotion's abilities so once you have the report done [if that is you still want to do it] I'll notify her and then we'll see what we can do about the anime etc.