Ideas, anybody?

Alrighty, so does anyone have any ideas on how to "spice" up the site to make it more exciting and hopefully more well-known? So far, I've been thinking of events, adverts, etc. These are, of course, just general ideas, but in the more specific matters, for example, the time we had a banner contest was pretty fun. The awards were also pretty cool. We could bring those events back. So, does anybody have any ideas, specific or in general?

Lemonade stand?

Yard sale where we sell off our members to other sites?

Gosh we're as desperate as SEGA right now when they tried to give out free Dreamcasts.

Jmh wrote:Gosh we're as desperate as SEGA right now when they tried to give out free Dreamcasts.

But still, Sega survived the game race, so can we

1.) Fan-art contest
2.) Free moderator status for a week (optional)
3.) More arcade games
4.) Best arcade gamer contest
5.) A person who "spices" this site every week at least (maybe me)
6.) A roleplaying room

I'm currently thinking of a few ideas such as new advertizement banners and even an advertizement video, but it will take some time before I can completely develop the ideas.

I still like my idea of a lemonade stand

SonicFanPS2 wrote:Alrighty, so does anyone have any ideas on how to "spice" up the site to make it more exciting and hopefully more well-known? So far, I've been thinking of events, adverts, etc. These are, of course, just general ideas, but in the more specific matters, for example, the time we had a banner contest was pretty fun. The awards were also pretty cool. We could bring those events back. So, does anybody have any ideas, specific or in general?

Here are a few suggestion, I am saying this from years of forum experience and the fact my tips has worked on my forum...

Here we go.

First, you guys got outstanding member count here
1,000 members? Nice accomplishment.

I have made a long return here because this is the one thing that TSC lacks.
Quality content.
Now you can bash, flame or deny it, but some of the quality content in both threads and Sonic discussion is poor.

I could point a couple I have encountered, but regardless, I gave my full input and quality post in the threads.


Secondly, you need to expand your Sonic forums.
I mean expand Sonic discussion wise, because off topic and non-Sonic gaming discussion forums still dominate over the Sonic forums.
For example,
There are Only 3 Sonic Forums and 9 Non-Sonic Forums? Why is that?

I am a pure Sonic fan here for some quality and decent discussion. I mean if chatting on Sonic is limited then I will most likely not bother coming to this forum, which has happened 2 times and when I suggest this, you guys bash and basically tell me GTFO then.

Well, you guys are now asking for help/suggestions and this is what I feel should be focus before you even think about starting events on the forum.

Fix up the forums and quality first, then worry events. If you need idea on what I mean in forum expansion, check out my forum layout and you'll get the idea of where I am coming from.

More Sonic Forums = More room for threads to breathe and expand on = More Sonic Activity for TSC
Trust me, fixing this will make a big difference. Saying from experience.

If you disagree with my suggestion, it's understood and respected. Just thought to give my 2 cents of advice to help out. No intentions of offending, flaming, advertising or trolling intended. (As some people can wrongly respond or take this the wrong way)

that's the thing most of us don't really play Sonic anymore. We just go here for the community

I've heard that excuse many times.
Including the one "People can't come up with Sonic discussion all of the time"

Well my forum proved that wrong, as my activity is 85% Sonic focus with just as much daily (maybe more as I notice my forum is outranking TSC on forumotion a bit).

I purposely blocked off topic forums for high ranked users at who has 100 posts or more.

Now how I do it?
Forums.
I know it's simple, but if you have the right forum structure and keep the Sonic spirit happy and going, trust me, I think the forum can do as well in the Sonic side.

I mean this is a Sonic forum.

It's like me coming to Burger restaurant and asking for a burger, but you guys tell me "Oh, we got tired of serving burgers, so we now serve chicken", ftw, I came here specifically for a burger, not chicken!!

Same metaphor idea applies here.

SonicFreak! wrote:

Auflodern wrote:that's the thing most of us don't really play Sonic anymore. We just go here for the community

I've heard that excuse many times.
Including the one "People can't come up with Sonic discussion all of the time"

Well my forum proved that wrong, as my activity is 85% Sonic focus with just as much daily (maybe more as I notice my forum is outranking TSC on forumotion a bit).

I purposely blocked off topic forums for high ranked users at who has 100 posts or more.

Now how I do it?
Forums.
I know it's simple, but if you have the right forum structure and keep the Sonic spirit happy and going, trust me, I think the forum can do as well in the Sonic side.

I mean this is a Sonic forum.

It's like me coming to Burger restaurant and asking for a burger, but you guys tell me "Oh, we got tired of serving burgers, so we now serve chicken", ftw, I came here specifically for a burger, not chicken!!

Same metaphor idea applies here.

It's not an excuse, we don't play Sonic 24/7, we play everything else more often than Sonic. (e.g. Battlefield, Gran Turismo, Forza...) As in, we don't go here for the Sonic discussion mate.

Auflodern wrote:

SonicFreak! wrote:

I've heard that excuse many times.
Including the one "People can't come up with Sonic discussion all of the time"

Well my forum proved that wrong, as my activity is 85% Sonic focus with just as much daily (maybe more as I notice my forum is outranking TSC on forumotion a bit).

I purposely blocked off topic forums for high ranked users at who has 100 posts or more.

Now how I do it?
Forums.
I know it's simple, but if you have the right forum structure and keep the Sonic spirit happy and going, trust me, I think the forum can do as well in the Sonic side.

I mean this is a Sonic forum.

It's like me coming to Burger restaurant and asking for a burger, but you guys tell me "Oh, we got tired of serving burgers, so we now serve chicken", ftw, I came here specifically for a burger, not chicken!!

Same metaphor idea applies here.

It's not an excuse, we don't play Sonic 24/7, we play everything else more often than Sonic. (e.g. Battlefield, Gran Turismo, Forza...) As in, we don't go here for the Sonic discussion mate.

Alright, well lemme tell you this.

The key to avoid "I don't play Sonic games as much anymore" is to generate the feel and experience in the Sonic franchise, keep it alive with quality content everyone would enjoy, like Sonic Game of the week, whatever you can make use out of the Sonic franchise.

I am about to host Sonic TV episode clips soon and adding a forum movie theater.
I think it's the matter of forum creativity, but still..
Make use out of your Sonic sources and keep the Sonic spirit alive and going.

That's what's TSC is lacking.
The proper Sonic motivation and Sonic spirit. That's your guy's main problem. If you aren't meant for Sonic Discussion, this shouldn't be called Sonic Community, but instead, Gaming Community

I don't know if there's one here already or not, 'cause I haven't seen one, but I think there should be a role play section. :D

Sonamy43 wrote:I don't know if there's one here already or not, 'cause I haven't seen one, but I think there should be a role play section. :D

that's pretty much the fan fiction section

Fan Fiction shouldn't be clustered with Role Playing.
That's 2 completely different subjects as Role Playing is actually interaction while Fan Fiction is just literature.

I actually second to have a Role Play Forum added.
Like I said, you gotta expand and can't just have a cluster of topics thrown in a single forum.

SonicFreak! wrote:Fan Fiction shouldn't be clustered with Role Playing.
That's 2 completely different subjects as Role Playing is actually interaction while Fan Fiction is just literature.

I actually second to have a Role Play Forum added.
Like I said, you gotta expand and can't just have a cluster of topics thrown in a single forum.

Actually, a RolePlay Forum would be cool!

It should be like ours at SP, shouldn't it, SF?

(Explanation: Over at SP we have different forums for RP and Fanfics, it keeps the threads nice and organised, I think).

Yeah, I mean, role playing is really fun. ^.^

And like Sonic Freak said, fan fictions and role plays are two different things. Fan fictions are just stories, while role playing is pretty much a game and a story at the same time...

...I don't think that made much sense. :P

Get more active members....that aren't weenies.

Yioibon wrote:Get more active members....that aren't weenies.

You callin' me a weenie?!

Jmh wrote:

Yioibon wrote:Get more active members....that aren't weenies.

You callin' me a weenie?!

it responds to JMH

... All your wieners are belong to us.

I'm willing to make more topics. But they might be a bit controversial. That's expected from a fanbase as divided as ours though.

Schismatist wrote:I'm willing to make more topics. But they might be a bit controversial. That's expected from a fanbase as divided as ours though.

Don't worry, the majority here is cool and laid back. They won't get offended by your opinions.

1000 members in three years is not really incredibly hard to achieve. Yes, the fact that this place has active members after that long is good, but I bet at least a hundred of our members never posted, posted less than ten times, or are multiple accounts. Think of that.

I still think we should be asking ourselves a bigger question, since this debate over more Sonic or less Sonic has been going on ever since the very, very first consolidation of the forums I pushed for, which was the dissolution of the specific character boards (Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, etc.). That bigger question is: Are we even a Sonic forum anymore? Yes, we have Sonic fans, and a Sonic theme, and Sonic avatars and stuff...but what if we expanded and chose a new topic to center TSC around, and gave the forum a HUGE revamp? As in, new forum, new name, new theme/skin, and all of the members could come to the new place and we could all start anew. This place is dying...and the advertisement push could focus more on TSC merging with/growing into another forum.

Some will always disagree...but doesn't it excite you at least a bit? Packing up and moving to a bigger, different place?

I actually strongly disagree with the such. If we were to change the topic that TSC surrounds, not only can we lose possible new members, but we could bring in members that could cause harm to the community. The fact that it is a Sonic site is not the issue. Outside of the community and the design, there really isn't anything that differentiates us from any other Sonic forum. If we were to add something as a web-comic, commentary team, or even contests with actual prizes, then we could easily bring in new members without having to completely overhaul the site and jeopardize what the site has already established.