BuckeyePlanet-Style Forum
I humbly suggest the next step in the MGoEmpire be a BuckeyePlanet-style forum. For those who have yet to venture to the Dark Side that is the Ohio State interwebs, I shall provide a link. Please shower to cleanse yourself before returning to the MGoShire.
http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/
Reasons why this will work:
1. There is a huge void for a free, organized forum for Michigan Athletics. Brian's current forum is functional but lacks the firepower necessary to make it really take off.
2. There are a cadre of MGoDenizens who would be willing to moderate, organize, and generally keep the forum professional.
3. It will be a link jackpot. When I Google recruits, I very frequently see the BuckeyePlanet thread rank highly.
4. You could still keep the MGoBoard sidebar which I'm betting drives much of the current board's traffic.
That is all. Congrats again Brian on your MGoAcquisition
I agree in principal to VB and have been petitioning on its behalf for quite some time, but there are a few issues
1) For whatever reason, VB really attract bottom feeders. There would need to be some heavy poster moderation from the start.
2) Innovation - I don't know what kind of flexibility VB has with respect to art style, but I would hope that there are some talented people here to help make it look snazzy. It would like rather meh if it was just a standard VB template with maize and blue on it.
3) Emoticons - I'd really just like to see text when I go through a forum. Please see RCMB's custom emoticon set on all things Michigan for a thorough demonstration.
But yeah, I think we've outgrown this board. I'd like to see VB. Implementation is going to require quite a bit of work, however I very much agree with what you said - I think there is a huge opportunity here to bring Michigan fans under one roof with VB.
For the most part.
I really like the simple look / functionality of these boards, and I HATE HATE HATE when people have ginormous picture signatures and moving smiley faces all over the place .. just... ugh.
Keep it simple / sleek, but maybe some enhanced capability would be in order.
I personally like simple boards for forums with large membership. MGoBoard for example basically consists of what people write...that's it. So the focus is on posting good content. I think the reason you see a lot of bottom feeders on more complicated board systems is because when you can post images, emoticons, fancy sigs, embed video, etc it just invites more mindless posting.
So with that type of forum you need either heavy moderation or restricted levels of membership or something else to keep things functional and drama-free. I like things the way they are to be honest...MGoBlog is primarily a blog rather than primarily a forums site.
Those things can be restricted on a normal forum very easily just by changing a few settings. If needed, the same limitations seen here could apply to a VB forum; although with a much more user-friendly layout.
to accomplish both. I do agree with your statement about preferring a blog over a forums site. I absolutely come here #1 for Brian and information, and a distant #2 for forums. The Buckeye site template IMO is too much like a giant community with a million different interests-nothing wrong with that at all, but not preferable for me. I think the number one thing that differentiates this blog is Brian's writing and personality--that should dominate the blog in the future no matter the size.
Brian uses Drupal which has the ability to create a forum just like that. It's just a matter having the know-how to do it. And actually, from my understanding, Drupal should even be able to create a superior message board to VB since its open source and extremely flexible.
I personally prefer Invision Power Board to V Bulletin, but either one would be a large step in the right direction.
It looks complicated. Maybe this is because I am computer illiterate and am by no means an expert on the interwebs.
It's surprisingly easy to set up an IPB forum. I can't speak for VB, but virtually all you need to do for IPB is name and create the forum and category groups. Many things are more technical, but even a default version of IPB/VB would be FAR superior to what we use now.
Well if we switch to it then I will have to learn to use it because I am sure not going to quit coming here!
There was some talk about this sort of thing in the "With This Army We Push Into Crimea" comments. I think it is a good idea as it would help organize stuff. But I don't do the coding on the back end of this site, so not sure how things are done and what amount of work this would require. Ideally if it was integrated seamlessly with this blog it would be freaking sweet.
If Brian and Crew do decide to go this way, I would be supportive. But if not, that is cool too.
Hailvictors.com uses VB. I prefer it. Much easier to respond directly to a persons post without stuff getting out of order. Oh, if anyone wants to check out the site, I created the banner.
I've used vBulletin and Invision boards. vBulletin is better.
I like BP's setup. It's really organized and it cuts down on the amount of repetitive threads.
The posters, OTOH,....
I like that look.
that is pretty decent at umgoblue.com - I was relatively active there before mgoblog really picked up steam. (It used to be easier to get to - now you have to click through on the forum link.)
Anyhow, if you're really looking for one, check it out.
(Sorry, brian for directing folks to another site, but I don't think it will dent mgoblog's traffic!)
Ditto to this, I was more active there before grad school/life got more crazy but it's an excellent site and I really like the layout there. When I started posting there, I mainly also looked at Scout/Rivals and couldn't believe how much better it was than their boards--both in terms of layout (and how easy it was to see what posts and responses were new, etc) and content.
Can someone explain what the advantages are of having a forum like Buckeye Planet? This is an honest question--I'm not trying to be annoying.
I can see obvious differences in the way that site looks, and I can see some advantage in having separate boards for different sports. But what is it specifically that makes that board easier to use or gives it advanced capabilities?
It would be much more organized and have many more features. IPB has advanced user profiles, which is almost like a mini-Myspace page every user has the option of building (comes with things like an 'About User' page, comments, visitors, etc). Top contributors could be easily recognized and listed based on things like our current point system.
The layout and ease of use would likely be the biggest advantage. Whenever replying to someone, you can quote them and have their message embedded in yours; all posts are the same width and don't collapse into nothing after a long quote chain.
I think I prefer the shrinking replies because it's easy to follow a conversation back and forth that way. I suppose that's just a matter of taste.
It is a matter of personal opinion, but quoting people and having the message embedded is much less confusing (for me at least) than some of the things that happen with the shrinking replies. Especially when someone forgets to reply directly to a post, and ends up getting several messages in between the original post and his reply. The same thing often happens when smaller arguments start up in a reply-chain, the original topic gets cut up and separated because the replys are inserted into the order instead of being out of the way.
I like the way BuckeyePlanet does their recruiting threads as well. They have a single thread for each recruit, and their moderators link in any new information (Scout or Rivals articles, for example) to make one coherent stream of information. Here's Justin Turner's thread:
http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/2009-football-recruiting/600760-09-o…
BuckeyePlanet also has different folders so threads are more organized.
I like it how it is, but an on-topic and an off-topic board would be nice.
Agreed.
have to seperate the off-topic post. Alot of sports post gets over looked.
Multiple boards is the main reason to go this route... imagine a place just to discuss recruiting or Detroit area pro sports or college football in general. It's a nice way to sort things and make the MGo experience much more customizable.
Let's not turn into spartantailgate where everyone has emoticons in every post.
Change is bad.
It ain't broke.
I am not excited about the prospect of advanced user profiles, which is almost like a mini-Myspace page every user has the option of building.
Call me a stick in the mud...or worse...epinion.
That board has a lot of unnecessary bells and whistles. Do we really need lists like "Top posters" and "Hot threads"? And there are way, way too many different message boards there. I can understand having separate boards for Michigan/college sports and off-topic stuff, but that should be it.
All those bells and whistles? No. Here's a great example of VB done right (albeit on a much larger scale then MGo needs)
http://hfboards.com/index.php
Excellent example. Clean design, functional, no stupid emoticons, multiple subforums for whatever you're interested in.
As another poster mentioned I think this would drive a ton of traffic to MGoBlog.
With some moderation, I think we could build an excellent community.
I just think it would be surprising how many more people would be drawn to Mgoblog and the community with some well-done forums.
That's what I'm thinking. I think you could really enhance the community aspect of the site even more.
Definitely. I'm wondering though if this would have to be separate from mgoblog.com - I doubt Drupal has VB support.
I was on the Drupal site a few weeks ago and from what I was reading (like I said above) it should actually be able to create a board just as good, if not better, than VB or any other service.
I actually like the way the board is currently set up. It allows for a lot of intelligent discussions that don't allow for much trolling or flame wars. However, I wouldn't oppose a few changes as long as the same self-moderation tools can still be used.
I can see how that feature might be popular, but honestly, I don't think it would make MGoBlog better. I'd vote for directing resources into producing more top-quality content because that's really what makes this site worth visiting.
Another issue with the current system is that once a thread is bumped to page two, they're pretty much dead.
I agree. It's probably b/c most people go to threads through the side bar and not the main page itself.
I'll defer to just about anyone when it comes to internet things, but aesthetically, I vastly prefer this commenting system. BuckeyePlanet looks ugly.
Yeah, I really don't care for the format there all that much either. I can however, see what people mean about this system getting out of control/unreadable as more traffic flows through these tubes. IDK much about teh intrawebs either though.
I'm referring more to the BuckeyPlanet way of organizing and moderating posts than their web design. I especially like BP's threads for each recruit and folders for different kinds of posts.
Is improved search tools, ability to quickly quote other posts and add "in context" replies.
I moderate a very active board with multi-national users, and it is a breeze to moderate such boards.
All of those sites are very cookie cutter. I like mgoblog because to be a useful member you have to check in at least once or twice a week and this gets rid of the mindless idiots who get drunk and want to start a fight. People like that on mgo are just ignored because most people on mgo care about sports (football more specifically). If there is an arguement it isn't a flame war. It's about something sports related even if it is with a slappy.
All of those sites are very cookie cutter. I like mgoblog because to be a useful member you have to check in at least once or twice a week and this gets rid of the mindless idiots who get drunk and want to start a fight. People like that on mgo are just ignored because most people on mgo care about sports (football more specifically). If there is an arguement it isn't a flame war. It's about something sports related even if it is with a slappy.