Post proposals for a new front page

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Post proposals for a new front page

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SniperWoreConverse: Mar 20, 2010; Gun Saliva

LifeSunDeath posted:

Noticed we get popup notifications about PM's now, that's rad. Would be nice to get pings when you get replies/mentions on threads.

Xen I think can do this but it doesn't have mod stuff like our probation system or lepers / dump?

# ? Oct 15, 2020 21:20

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 22:19

SniperWoreConverse: Mar 20, 2010; Gun Saliva

Fast moving threads in xen are weird and ungainly and it's actually kind of more cumbersome on mobile than here, at least for posting

Odd that sa is actually kind of better in some ways

# ? Oct 15, 2020 21:22

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

Justin Godscock posted:

Yes, I think a big problem SA had was this belief the Front Page and Forums have to be kept separate. Almost like the latter was tacked onto the site and needs to be kept away from the Front Page because it will drag the site down.

Let's be real: the forums ARE Something Awful and have been since the early 00s. The front page just has not kept up since the first George W Bush term and its time to make the forums the focus. Make the front page revolve around the forums, show awesome threads and posts and things like that. We should embrace what we have here and show it on the front page.

In this very thread you have quite a few people saying they read the front page for years before they registered an account, and that makes sense. If you just drop people in the forums without any context, they're going to check out immediately rather than set to work deciphering the in-jokes and references of a 500-page megathread. Let people be eased into becoming goons. I think we should absolutely still have a front page, just a better one than we have today, and yes, more integrated with the forums.

No one is going to force you to browse the improved front page. You can continue to not read it and make jokes about not reading it. Personally, I have fond memories of laughing out loud, sometimes uncontrollably, at some of the better articles from the past, and I see no reason whatsoever why we can't attempt to recreate that with Lowtax gone.

# ? Oct 15, 2020 21:42

Danger - Octopus!: Apr 20, 2008; Nap Ghost

It would probably end up being an invitation to trolls, but something on the frontpage that made clear the forums weren't a home for the kind of grossness and far right poo poo that is (largely) kept out by the paywall and moderation here unlike every other internet would be pretty cool. That way it wouldn't just look like "reddit, except you pay for it"

# ? Oct 15, 2020 21:45

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

HateTheInternet posted:

The front page's heyday was probably 2005 - 2010. I remember the beginning of 2006 there were suddenly twice as many individuals on the writing staff and every couple of months there was suddenly a brand new regularly updated feature.

I'm obviously in the minority, but I adored the front page and would love to see it return to its heyday. It's becoming clear that the problem wasn't really the internet shifting to 4chan/reddit/twitter, but moreso that the site was being run by a lazy, greedy, lying piece of poo poo who didn't want to bother taking care of it properly. Fine, whatever, but this place is far from inactive and there are plenty of people who would love to get paid reasonably to contribute to Something Awful's front page.

CTS has been around forever AND he still cares about the site. Perfect. Put him in charge of overseeing the operations of the front page, actually (and this is important) loving PAY the staff for their work, and everything will likely bounce back quick. Why wouldn't it? Tying it all back to the forums is what the front page used to do anyway with user-submitted features and there are plenty of opportunities to get the ball rolling on more of this type of content while still keeping the spirit of the "independent comedy website" aspect alive and not devolving into a soulless Onion/Hard Times/Cracked clickbait rag.

Something Awful is just a plant in the corner that the drunk rear end in a top hat owner of the house hasn't watered in a while. Start watering it.

# ? Oct 15, 2020 21:47

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

BoldFrankensteinMir posted:

The revival got choked in the cradle. So many fun ideas, buried under so much bullshit.

I adored some of the ideas being thrown around for a front page youtube channel. New cartoons and dramatic readings from posts, forums-integrated D&D sessions and CYOA's, rotating casts of movie-riffers watching public domain shorts together, and even our own original short films and games. A whole new store was almost ready even, it had lots of cool poo poo designed, vendors picked and set up to go. It was a lovely dream.

If any of that can still happen for the front page in any form it might take, I'm for it. It'd be nice to still have a publisher's playground for goons to dream in.

A YouTube channel, also featured on the front page? Why not, as long as we avoid the trap of the current daily updates, where there is pressure on writers to deliver 'content' like clockwork, basically encouraging them to phone it in and exhausting/overwhelming the potential audience. Only make YT videos if you actually do something funny and/or informative that truly benefits from that format.

No one wants another Gaming Garbage. Better to have a limited selection, especially in the beginning when people are still finding their footing, than a ton of mediocre clickbait videos because authors felt that it was something they 'had' to do.

# ? Oct 15, 2020 21:54

Deep Glove Bruno: Sep 4, 2015; yung swamp thang

Phlegmish posted:

Personally, I have fond memories of laughing out loud, sometimes uncontrollably, at some of the better articles from the past, and I see no reason whatsoever why we can't attempt to recreate that with Lowtax gone.

As one of those longtime readers, yes to all you said, especially this.

There are phrases still echoing in my head from the old Awful Movie Database articles.

Incorrectly Regarded as Goofs: When grooming his horse, Red Cobra states that he used to "Ride down the French and pound their skulls into the Crimean mud". It is possible that rather than being almost 150 years old, Red Cobra simply killed French tourists visiting the Crimean Peninsula.

# ? Oct 15, 2020 22:13

Knot My President!: Jan 10, 2005

# ? Oct 16, 2020 00:47

BoldFrankensteinMir: Jul 28, 2006

Phlegmish posted:

A YouTube channel, also featured on the front page? Why not, as long as we avoid the trap of the current daily updates, where there is pressure on writers to deliver 'content' like clockwork, basically encouraging them to phone it in and exhausting/overwhelming the potential audience. Only make YT videos if you actually do something funny and/or informative that truly benefits from that format.

No one wants another Gaming Garbage. Better to have a limited selection, especially in the beginning when people are still finding their footing, than a ton of mediocre clickbait videos because authors felt that it was something they 'had' to do.

You could make a pretty steady stream of short animated films based just on the snippets of screenplay floating around the forums. Imagine an all-pilots show, where every episode is another goon's TV show pilot, voiced by other forums users and animated with charming cheapness.

Or, imagine if really good Phridays got the Judo Hobo treatment, like 5-10 times a year. It is all possible.

# ? Oct 16, 2020 04:07