Yeah, but then you have sick fucks like Cesario. Better just to nuke some of them from orbit.
We already disallow certain forms of hate and other speech. If you think that’s acceptable, then the only disagreement is where exactly the line should be drawn. Like many other posters, I think the board is at least a bit too permissive of outright racism.
There wasn’t even a warning. I made a thread about that.
So I clicked the link which says “advertise on the Straight Dope”, below, and two business days later have still yet to receive a response. Just sayin’.
Borrow good ideas from successful websites.
For example, study boing-boing’s twitter feed, as well as that of founder Cory Doctorow. Take note of the time stamps between posts promoting current material. Figure out whether 4/6/8/24 hours or 20 minutes is better (my take: 20 minutes is too short). Take note of their habit of showcasing old articles.
Don’t post manually on twitter. Use an automated device.
Five business days later, no response to my ad enquiry.
This will by no means make the SD awash in money, but may I suggest changing the “User cp” to “Subscribe”? I joined as a guest because I didn’t want to commit to subscribing without a test drive. After that, I couldn’t figure out how to subscribe. Also, seeing “subscribe” up there would be a constant reminder.
Adding a Subscribe link makes sense, but why remove User CP? It serves a purpose.
You’re right. I assumed the reason "User Control Panel was abbreviated to “User CP” was a lack of space, but obviously, that one can’t go, and I don’t know which others could, really. But “Subscribe” doesn’t belong under “User CP.” It needs a prominent place of its own.
I fooled a user for about five seconds when I asked if everyone had a user button with their name on it.
It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the threads I had posted in could be found in “User CP”. I didn’t realize what that was. I used to scroll the thread listing to find the threads I had posted in. Maybe a better term can be used (“User Dashboard”)? To a newbie, it’s not obvious that “CP” means control panel. When I first joined, I realized I could go there to change settings because it had “User” in the name, but I didn’t think to go there afterwards to find subscribed threads. But I think that button is from the message board software and I’m not sure the SDMB can change it.
The problem with the word “Subscribe” is that it can be confused with subscribing to a thread. And subscribing implies that you are paying for a periodic service. For what we are wanting to do here, it seems a better thing to say is “Become a supporting member”. That’s similar to what you hear on public radio during their pledge drives. And like public radio, there could be options for a 1-time donation and also recurring donations.
An improvement to “User CP” would be to put the number of updated subscribed threads with it like this “User CP(4)”. That would make it much easier for newbies to realize there are notifications for them to click on. And the benefit to the board is that it will increase the time people interact with the board and see ads. Facebook does this with their notifications as well to make sure you don’t miss anything.
If we’re going to improve things, that bar at the top would be a great place to start. Delete the FAQ, Community and Calendar links, they’re useless. Replace them with a Forum Rules link (where you put all the rules scattered across various stickies or that are just collectively known), a My Posts link (shortcut to a recent vanity search) and a link to any monetizing options you add, e.g. Custom Title, Subscribe, etc.
These are all simple style edits, I’d be happy to write out a detailed guide. I think they’d make that navigation bar a lot more useful and make it easier for people to follow the rules and support the site whenever the mood strikes them.
SEO is miles away from a household term — not yet close to DVD or ATM. I was glad to have the acronym explained.
What does it mean, “SEO”?
Search
Engine
Optimization
I can’t believe nobody’s said it; it’s so obvious.
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This one gets my vote.
Swear jar, by Thor’s hammer!
Well I’m sold! 