Forum/Site Reorganization and Improvement

[Arachne 25]

Sounds great to me. I never really understood the clan thing myself, so I just ignored it. Maybe a section named something like "The Ancient Ruins" could house archived threads.

[Rika Code 29]

We could move the recently added topics box down and put chat int the open space

[Cascade 741]

Also I'm curious... what would the Market exactly do? It seems to have just died long ago? I know Rupees were used for it and all but... what did they actually do? lol seems like we could just get rid of that part as well. Or maybe I'm just in the dark about it but yeah :<

I like Sahaqiel's layout idea though, but I'm willing to see other suggestions as well. Don't want to rush and everything :>

[Skippy 82]

I could go with that Saha, rearrange things to make it actually look like this place is Zelda oriented, and prune out the things that are no longer needed/ don't work.

Along with that, Jared is right about going into some of our content like that and rewriting and editing, just on first glance you can see some issues with your and you're, basic punctuation, voice, that kind of stuff.

But if this is going to happen, it needs to have the time taken to do it right and overhaul the entire place.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure many of the what to do for fun type things are just copypasted or wiki'd from random users.
And the emoticons have always sort of bugged me.
Even the Zelda oriented ones.
Well, except for it's da best.
In addition to that, I think the (: ): |: emotes being made into smileys automatically is sort of annoying.
If we could have those smileys being something like :sm[b][/b]ile:, then people would only use smileys when they 100% mean to? Or make it so smileys in posts aren't default or something?
As for the market, it's kind of important for major forums, I'd think. It's for when people who want art or media works commission other members to do them. They're really involved with the proper user base, but as we are now, we all just chill and talk. Which is cool, but it's like.
I feel like we're missing out on the full forum experience that I had when I was a youngin'.

The change doesn't have to happen all at once. If we can keep up at a steady pace, the forum can be all cool again.
I mean, I appreciate Dustin for all the hard work he's set forth for us, and I feel lazy to see the forum in such disarray after he's gone because no one wants to fix it.

We talked about this in the moderator section, obviously, but Kimmy has gone silent on it. idk She's the only one that's even partially active that has the power to really do anything.
I'm not the best at web design. I have a more critiquing eye. I wouldn't want to impose my cel shaded gradient/waveform MS Paint style to represent the forum as a whole. So if anyone has the ability to work on that, that would do us a lot of good.
But be ready for some crit. Even I wtf'd to Dustin personally about the brown haired unidentifiable Link on the front page, and the "Friends. Family. Fun." tagline.
Sahaqiel

[Jareddude 62]

That's supposed to be Link?!
I'll be willing to draw a new Link for the home page

[Rika Code 29]

Link doesn't have a scar though

[Sahaqiel 1232]

I asked him who the random person on the front was, and he told me it was Link.
And I was like wat.

[Shadowknight 54]

If you want, I can help out with the design/layout. I'm pretty good with that.

I agree that we need to reorganize. The main page needs a refresh, for sure. The forums could do with reorganization, though it seems that Sahaqiel pretty much has that figured out.

[Teto 2609]

Yes
No need to put the popular forums up the top, people will go to them regardless of what's above them. With the less visited ones up top, they'll be able to get some traffic.

woo

[Jareddude 62]

[list][*][url="http://twitter.com/hyruledotnet/statuses/27564279116/"]Latest Tweet[/url]: "Last LoN Episode Teaser: [url="../15904-legend-of-neil-season-finale-sneak-peak/"]http://hyrule.net/forum/...[/url]" - [b]6:19 PM Oct 16th, 2010[/b][/list]
We either need to get rid of our Twitter page that I bet no one follows, or use it for something interesting.

[Chase 390]

I don't necessarily think we need to draw Link. If we use a stock photo and build our design around it, I think it will look much better. But I'm a critic, not an artist, so do whatever works for the whole.

Rika's idea of putting the chat at the top of the forum was a good one. It is this way on the other forum I frequent, and I actually use it because it is convenient.

News needs to be on top. Otherwise, what's the point? No one looks at it. But we have to get some News Submitters or allow more than Zelda to be news. Maybe Nintendo as a whole? Including other games we're interested in.

And the green forum design is classic. No reason to change at all. But the front page needs to match whatever we decide to do.

Karma, rupees, deku tree, trading, etc need a redesign or need to go. The only one halfway worth keeping right now is karma, and that definitely needs to be tweaked.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

We do put up general Nintendo news.
Like the 3DS.

[Chase 390]

Barely.

[Kimmy 0]

I've talked to Tappy about this and he said it wouldn't be that hard, and that I should be able to do it myself.

I don't know if it's better to make all the new forums and then transfer the old threads in or to just rename and move the existing threads. It depends. I've had a ton of exams and it's been very time consuming but I'm going to try to start forum rehaul this weekend.