Site Direction: Everyone Get in Here

[Cthulhu]

Not a gallery; spotlights. As in there's a blog post saying, "Hey look at this thing. Here is a picture of the thing. Here is where you can find the thing," and if someone wants to find that again they can go look for the old blog post (or, more intelligently, whatever tag will be used on all such postings). Less deviantART, more New York Times Best Sellers List.

Ah, I may have misread then: Yes, this will be a valid contribution. ATM we have the FFVII fanart thread which occasionally gets / used to get valid content; a summary of that every X period (week? month?) would be highly valid, similar to the Weekly Roundups. I approve.

Re: FFVII content, it sounds like all of it is doable, it just requires someone to spend hours on it to gather and write up all the stuff. IDK, I could do it, but I'm known for CBA, . Sounds like a regular job, actually.

Re: Rav's last post, uh, what even .

 

[Kuja9001]

I have a suggestion of my own.

Regarding the Ultimania stuff for non-VII titles, is it possible to gather the information and organize them into sections like how VIII/IX are set up?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I don't see why not, so long as there's enough material to warrant it. I had thought about that before, but didn't really think there was enough translated material for games that aren't VII, VIII, IX or Dissidia.

 

[Claymore]

I still think of myself as a 'recent' member, so I have a few thoughts regarding this. Random thoughts before I hit the sack...

Like I mentioned some time ago in the 'Our Site' thread, I found this place via the forums, but if it had been a link to the front site page, then I definitely would never have clicked through to discover the conversations and community here. I can't put the exact finger on the mark, but it feels quite off-putting. I don't know if it's the way it's presented, or the layouts, or what, but it feels like it's hiding the actual content that the site does have. I dunno, maybe I'm just too used to modern Wordpress-esque sites that have all news articles presented in a certain way, with catching news-highlights-individual sections with frequent new posts for every scrap of new information (actually seriously, why isn't there a new post on the front page any time a new image, or interview, or piece of information about G-Bike is presented?). *Shrugs* All I can say is that the front site feels off for me and doesn't capture the 'feel' or content, or sense of community that this place actually does have.

It kinda feels bare. But when you do plough through the main site, you then find that there are some really interesting articles (if not everything that you feel should be on a niche VII site). *Shrugs* I don't know what could be done about the main site's look or presentation since it's a specific system you're using. But about content...

Nothing wrong with branching off to other FFs, as long as they are not the main focus. So having said that, there are still things that can be done with VII beyond the specialist stuff like unused fields or translations. I'm a huge advocate for fan art, galleries and fiction. I actually thought this place would have a ton of that when I initially came here and I'm still unsure why it doesn't since it is a VII niche site. However, I'm not a fan of the 'selective' content. I see no reason why everything VII can't be archived here - isn't it what this place should be for? If there was a rating system in place, then the merits of each piece would stand on it's own anyway, and / or the comments on each. *Shrugs*

Saying that, I did like Pixel's 'best of' selection of photos that was done in a video, though it was a little too long. That could easily be a regular thing.

Battle strategies, game thoughts / insights, npc dialogues, weapon / materia lists, character thoughts, music videos, ... there's still tons of stuff for the original game that can be done for people that can't do the more specialist things. (Heck, why isn't there a post with the game's original character guides and such? And if there is, why isn't that front and centre somewhere?)

All for scrapping RP ... really dead.

Contributors ... yeah I think there would be more if there was a set plan for things and more recognition in terms of the front page, accessing said content, and comments.

Er, random thoughts. Nothing really to put forward except the 'more content' everyone has been saying.

 

[Flintlock]

Great to see so much discussion here. I particularly agree with what Yop, Shademp and Claymore wrote.

If we keep FFVII as (at least) our primary focus, which I think everyone agrees we should, it might be necessary to move away from a "news"-style front page and come up with something that really highlights the fantastic content we have here. It could well be too much work to implement, but I'll put some more thought into it when I have free time and try to come up with an idea.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I still think of myself as a 'recent' member, so I have a few thoughts regarding this. Random thoughts before I hit the sack...

Like I mentioned some time ago in the 'Our Site' thread, I found this place via the forums, but if it had been a link to the front site page, then I definitely would never have clicked through to discover the conversations and community here. I can't put the exact finger on the mark, but it feels quite off-putting. I don't know if it's the way it's presented, or the layouts, or what, but it feels like it's hiding the actual content that the site does have. I dunno, maybe I'm just too used to modern Wordpress-esque sites that have all news articles presented in a certain way, with catching news-highlights-individual sections with frequent new posts for every scrap of new information (actually seriously, why isn't there a new post on the front page any time a new image, or interview, or piece of information about G-Bike is presented?). *Shrugs* All I can say is that the front site feels off for me and doesn't capture the 'feel' or content, or sense of community that this place actually does have.

I think the layout simply reflects the sensibilities of the people who designed it. We're mostly an introverted bunch fond of soft, unobtrusive colors and find sifting through multiple categories of content a relaxing exercise.

Nothing wrong with branching off to other FFs, as long as they are not the main focus. So having said that, there are still things that can be done with VII beyond the specialist stuff like unused fields or translations. I'm a huge advocate for fan art, galleries and fiction. I actually thought this place would have a ton of that when I initially came here and I'm still unsure why it doesn't since it is a VII niche site. However, I'm not a fan of the 'selective' content. I see no reason why everything VII can't be archived here - isn't it what this place should be for? If there was a rating system in place, then the merits of each piece would stand on it's own anyway, and / or the comments on each. *Shrugs*

I do think those things should be here. I'm not the person to go about making that happen (because I don't have the depth of knowledge of FFVII fanfiction and fanart), but those things definitely have a home here.

 

[Lex]

Oh excellent, lots of discussion happening in here, hooray!

I have a few comments on what's been discussed, but I'm aware that the posts in this thread are becoming a bit tl;dr (understandably) so I'll try to apply my report/note writing hat here and be as concise as possible. But this is going to be long, and it's important.

Forum Splitting
My opinion: agree with separating entertainment sections. If I were to make a suggestion I'd say Gaming should become its own section entirely, with its own subsections to boot. Entertainment should become its own section also, with appropriate subsections. It might seem silly to have gaming outside of entertainment but gaming is in the main what we are and that's where a tonne of discussion happens, so lets do that.

Fanart/Fanfiction Coverage
Highly support coverage of these areas and always have. I think the best approach is what we've discussed - comb through the forums, create new threads/ polls for lists and authors can write articles that point to these and discuss their merits/ criticisms using quotes and their own ideas.

VII vs. Other Content
Quite frankly, what I think we should do here is keep going as we have been re: content. What I mean by this is that the site and its pages, compendiums and coverage should absolutely remain VII-centric, but if we have translations or excellent works by people here (such as the VIII and IX Ultimanias etc. - doesn't even have to be FF) we should absolutely host it and create a news post to promote it.

Coverage of non-VII content is also fine, but we should aim to keep it FF/Square-Enix related. If a person really wants to write an article outside of this boundary, we should discuss it first.

Bare in mind that by "coverage of non-VII content" what I mean is the likes of articles we've done already - we can cover non-VII news on the front page as actual news but the actual static content of the site is 90% Compilation of FFVII (exceptions are translations etc.) The news posts do not count as static content in this context, because it's simply news and goes in the form of a blog post in the archive rather than a "page". Shademp's unused text series is an article, but it's a page on the site and not a news post. I just want to make the distinction clear for anyone who's unsure.

To shorten that: we will remain a VII-centric site for sure, but news posts and articles on the front page about non-VII content should be welcomed now rather than avoided IMO. I don't think this loses us our niche, because it's simply news. Obviously the VII stuff is always going to get more focus than anything else (G-Bike, new analyses etc.)

We also need to chip away at the stuff that we've yet to fulfill - a full list is in the Our Site thread linked in the OP. It's probably quite boring, but it has to be done.

@Claymore re: Site Design
There was a lot of discussion about this before Flint posited the design and Fangu implemented it. I completely understand what you're saying about the design - a large part of what we all wanted to achieve was greater synergy between the front page and the forums.

The problem we have is that WordPress commenting is irksome and the software doesn't mesh well at all with vBulletin (our forum software). You have sites like Kotaku which have a large amount of discussion underneath the article in question - we have this here, we just have the discussion happening on the forum rather than on the article, and trying to get forum posts to show up on WordPress underneath an article is nigh on impossible.

One of the things that the design did was add the "Latest From the Forums" box to highlight activity and discussion on the forum.

Another thing is our colours and general layout - again this was discussed before the current design was implemented. In general sites are bright, white in background to make the featured content pop and everything kind of easier to spot and read. We chose to stick with the darker design because essentially these are our colours, and I personally love that we're different from everyone else. It might not be best in terms of attracting people, but it keeps us unique. And really, we can't thank Fangu enough ever for putting in the time and effort to actually create it; because if she hadn't we'd be stuck with the ugliness that was there before (it was essentially a flashy blog previously, now it looks like an actual website). Which brings me to:

Staff Statuses
Maybe this is a discussion best had in the staff forum, but I'd like to hear from everyone with site contributor status in this thread. I have a list and I'll edit the post with everyone's names when I can, but I think the following is important:

We welcome contributions from anyone, but I am thinking that it might be time to tighten the rules regarding Site Contributor status, and maybe even think about a name change, or perhaps even the creation of new user groups - any maybe even the creation of a new private subsection for site staff only since we're messing about with forum stuff anyway. This would help solve the problem of mod discussion sometimes spilling into other staff threads.

Aaron - if you could teach me how to do this I'd appreciate it. It should really be my job anyway and it'll save you a headache, although tbh I think I know how to do it anyway.

"Site Contributor" doesn't capture what everyone does. First of all, we're creating "Community Manager" for Flint who'll do an excellent job unless anyone has any objections?

Although Fangu has mentioned she doesn't want the site contributor status anymore, I think she should have her own title. She's done more than contribute, she fucking made it XD. So how about "Site Creator" or something more creative?

Also Shademp - while a site contributor - does more for this site than we can give him credit for. I'm aware that you're kind of happy living in the shadows Shad, but I think something that reflects the level of digging into the game you do would be more appropriate.

Then we can have "Front Page Editor" "Front Page Author" "Audiobook Producer" (Pixel) etc etc. I'm terrible with coming up with good names right now, but I think it's important that we establish a hierarchy rather than all being just Site Contributors, because it makes directing the site a bit of a pain in terms of staff and appropriate forum titles is a way of addressing our recognition issue.

This is something I very strongly think we should do.

In addition, after thinking about it since I first suggested it, I do think some general guidelines should be written (by me) about the rules regarding these statuses and easily met quotas if people want to keep the status/ be promoted from author to editor if they like. I'm happy to do a quarterly review for all site staff and set quotas and rules but I obviously want input about precise stuff. i.e. 3 articles a quarter from Authors, number of edits and contributions to what is still to be done in our compendium from Editors, WordPress admin activity, etc.

For example, I'm not sure I see the need for Road, Mako or X to be admin on WordPress anymore. Mako has disappeared off the face of the earth and Road never uses it as far as I can tell. X sometimes writes an article or two but he doesn't need admin priviledges to do that. Fangu is admin on WP because she wrote the code, Yop is the Owner, I'm the Site Director and Flint also organises content. IMO that's really all the people we should need in there as admin.

If we implement all of these things I really think we'll be on track to tightening up how we handle things and promoting the creation of new and cool content. There's one thing

I need to add - when I first did the rounds with staff, I had people saying "I want to keep my wordpress privileges and status because I might write an article at some point in the future, I want to leave the possibility open" - if this new system is going to work properly, that can't fly anymore. The quarterly rounds thing ensures we all do our shit and unless a person has a good reason that they haven't been able to contribute, their WP logins are demoted and the forum title is removed. This isn't a punishment, it's just for the benefit of the people who are and have been contributing.

I realise this kind of goes against our inclusive community attitude, but I do think it'll benefit the site in the end. And asking for 3 articles in a 3 month period from each author isn't unreasonable . Different rules will apply to authors, editors and other user groups (our new Community Manager for example).

Each quarter may see the loss of old or addition of new staff members. Members here wishing to write for the site are absolutely free to do so, and have the help of everyone who uses WP to get to grips with the system. I will give Author status to anyone who has an idea or wants to try their hand at writing. At the quarterly review we can discuss adding this person to staff, and if they do so then they get the forum title "Author" and can work from there.

Phew. Sorry for the length there.

I'm aware "quarterly review" sounds dicky, but I'm happy to do it and I really think it's going to work well. I don't mean to sound obnoxious or arrogant either btw. For those of you that don't know me too well (yet) the most important thing to know about me is that I love this site and will work as hard as I can to make sure we're up to snuff and we're moving forward.

I hate that we've stagnated a bit recently, but honestly I'm excited for our future now that I've seen active discussion in this thread. Please post more! <3

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Few thoughts...

Shademp should be given the title "King of FFVII Game Research", but since that's a little long, we should shorten it to "Game Researcher".

If "Site Contributors" are going to be changing more regularly, we might want to come up with a title for people who used to be Site Contributors, but aren't anymore (Former Site Contributor maybe?). That way people on the forums will be able to know who has contributed to the site at one point or another even if they aren't contributing currently.

As far as colors go... On most sites I use a script to make the background black and the text white because it gives me eye strain otherwise....

 

[Ⓐaron]

Ex-site contributors are just chucked under Staff Emeritus or something like that for now. If someone wants to change that going forward that's fine with me.

I didn't read everything posted here yet because I'm going to bed (I actually already went to bed once but couldn't sleep so I put some music on my phone and checked the forums again). I'll have more comments on it later.

 

[Lex]

What I'm proposing is a bit of a logistical nightmare in the forum backend, but I'm happy to shoulder the burden alone. I don't think it'll take very long once I figure out what I'm doing.

I'm not sure if Staff Emeritus is right for everyone, but I'm also not sure we need two variations of "Former Staff".

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

You're overthinking it, Lexy. "Site Contributor Emeritus" or "Site Staff Emeritus" for former Site Contributors and "Forum Staff Emeritus" for former mods/admins on the forum.

 

[Lex]

That's simple enough, but they're a bit long? I think they'll fit in one line on the postbit but it also makes them really noticeable :/

 

[Super Mario]

Well I'm all for bringing RP back, it's just I only know Joe and I are the only writers here that can write something on it. I don't think it should be removed though, no site is a site without that thread and I'm kinda surprised there are no folks writing roleplays on FF or the sort.

 

[Cabaret]

Why not tack the RP section onto another area then? Like a sticky thread/sub forum of creativity... or put up a sticky for RP requests and when there's interest open it up? Or something?

 

[Cthulhu]

@Lex, creating new usergroups isn't too difficult; in this case it's probably best to give people a generic 'staff' usergroup for permissions, and a more specific one that shows up set as their 'Display Usergroup', so that it shows up on the forum pages.

Would you like to have access to the user system or would you prefer to tell people what to do? . Note that I won't be online as much the next week (due to stuff), so maybe Aaron can help you out with those (iirc he did most of the Donator visual usergroups too).

Same goes for the forum rejigging, once we've achieved some sort of consensus on that. What I'm reading is:

* Move Gaming to forum front page, then (maybe?) determine if it needs subsections
* Move Entertainment to forum front page (or will we?)
* Move RP under Creativity, or archive it
* I propose we rename The Venue (music and shit) to something that more clearly indicates it's about music and shit (I can never find it, ). How about calling it "Music and shit"?

Do the Compilation and FF sections need a review or are they good the way they are?

 

[Claymore]

I think the layout simply reflects the sensibilities of the people who designed it. We're mostly an introverted bunch fond of soft, unobtrusive colors and find sifting through multiple categories of content a relaxing exercise.

Another thing is our colours and general layout - again this was discussed before the current design was implemented. In general sites are bright, white in background to make the featured content pop and everything kind of easier to spot and read. We chose to stick with the darker design because essentially these are our colours, and I personally love that we're different from everyone else. It might not be best in terms of attracting people, but it keeps us unique. And really, we can't thank Fangu enough ever for putting in the time and effort to actually create it; because if she hadn't we'd be stuck with the ugliness that was there before (it was essentially a flashy blog previously, now it looks like an actual website).

Oh no, let me clarify by what I meant. I'm actually a huge fan of multiple categories of content (as that is exactly what I feel that the front page doesn't show off that well), and the unique colour does make this place very distinctive - it's just the presentation that I have an issue with.

If we keep FFVII as (at least) our primary focus, which I think everyone agrees we should, it might be necessary to move away from a "news"-style front page and come up with something that really highlights the fantastic content we have here. It could well be too much work to implement, but I'll put some more thought into it when I have free time and try to come up with an idea.

Yeah, this is what I kinda mean - highlighting the content that is actually here, but you only really find if you dig, but the problem is that there is no 'urge' to promote someone to dig through and find them. At the moment, the site has a main spotlight, three minor ones, then a huge box for news and then forum posts. More of the content needs to be highlighted, and permanently.

How can I explain this? Um, take at random http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/ for example. Sections on the top stories, multiple articles in news, then categories for reviews, special features, books and audio stuff, etc... It's what you guys have in place already, but it shows off all the content in a better, more accessible way, that is always front and centre for people to browse through, whilst also promoting clicking through all these special categories and content.

Another example about what I mean concerning the presentation is where the content is actually located as well. For example. Someone (like myself) finds the site. I click on content, compendium, then click on the original game to find out what we have on it ... only to find out there's no information about the game itself, only a list of interviews, misc content and such. I only find information on the actual game by stumbling on the franchise guide which actually details each game.

Again, it's not that you guys haven't got the content ... it's just that it all feels so 'hidden' when it should be front and centre and easy to find, while gently urging people to read through and find more content or articles on the subjects that are here.

Anyway, I'm all up for helping somehow with content, whether that be thoughts on the games, or fiction reviews, or videos on something, but the way that content is found and presented kinda needs to be tackled initially. The unique content here just needs to be shown in a more accessible way I mean (honestly, I don't mean any insults to anyone who worked very hard on getting the site to how it is now from what people say it was before. Just trying to come up with some thoughts on barriers stopping this place from moving forward).

 

[Lex]

Those are some really good points Claymore, and it's definitely something we should strive toward if we ever get around to a redesign. Our main focus previously was keeping the actual front page from being too busy.

Reorganisation of content is something I do have control over, and I do see what you mean about it being hidden away. I'll try a couple of things to fix that as best I can.

@Lex, creating new usergroups isn't too difficult; in this case it's probably best to give people a generic 'staff' usergroup for permissions, and a more specific one that shows up set as their 'Display Usergroup', so that it shows up on the forum pages.

Would you like to have access to the user system or would you prefer to tell people what to do? . Note that I won't be online as much the next week (due to stuff), so maybe Aaron can help you out with those (iirc he did most of the Donator visual usergroups too).

Ideally I'd like the permissions if that's OK with you/ everyone. I think I might have them already. IIRC shortly after I became site director the usergroup itself was given forum admin privileges but they've since been revoked or dumbed down a bit, so I'm not sure if this is something I can already do. I'm going to look into adding Community Manager for Flint once I'm back home tonight

 

[Pixel]

Saying that, I did like Pixel's 'best of' selection of photos that was done in a video, though it was a little too long. That could easily be a regular thing.

Id love to do more of those. They're just a pain in the arse to credit everyone. I want to be able to name everyone, but I'm not really immersed in the fandom, so it's hard to reserch, unless I'm just using deviantart users.

I do want to do more for youtube. I just don't have time to create super indepth content. Editorial type content would be awesome as videos, but researching, writing and compiling everything into vid is time consuming.

 

[Lex]

Well you could always have a staff member willing to do the stuff do it and then you could deal with the YouTube side of things?

 

[Fangu]

Like I mentioned some time ago in the 'Our Site' thread, I found this place via the forums, but if it had been a link to the front site page, then I definitely would never have clicked through to discover the conversations and community here. I can't put the exact finger on the mark, but it feels quite off-putting. I don't know if it's the way it's presented, or the layouts, or what, but it feels like it's hiding the actual content that the site does have. I dunno, maybe I'm just too used to modern Wordpress-esque sites that have all news articles presented in a certain way, with catching news-highlights-individual sections with frequent new posts for every scrap of new information (actually seriously, why isn't there a new post on the front page any time a new image, or interview, or piece of information about G-Bike is presented?). *Shrugs* All I can say is that the front site feels off for me and doesn't capture the 'feel' or content, or sense of community that this place actually does have.

To be honest - I agree with this, and I put forward a similar comment when the current layout was decided. The new design suggestion from Flint (that I'm 80% done with) outputs more articles and has a separate sections for highlights (iirc?) which is something I wish we'd fit in back then. BUT - I understand the reason we did stuff the way we did. We wanted to bring focus on the top menu and let our users choose content by interest in a more traditional way, rather than 'look shiny picture click this click it click it!' Which is... kind of refreshing? But something in between is probably a good way to go.

Deciding on stuff like this is hard because like with 'real life' projects, there's always the chance that there's some absurd incident that might end up affecting the final outcome. The best way to decide these things is to make three or four final suggestions and have people vote over them (and that's talking front page design only, which isn't nearly as good as making three or four proper demos, since navigation (user experience) is a HUGE important thing with websites) - but that takes more work than what was done last round - which was making one design, having everyone in the community present their comments in a thread, readjusting that design and then just go for it.

tbh I wouldn't mind reinvent the entire site - still based on WordPress, because unlike what Yop says (due to not having worked with it a lot ) WP is actually quite easy to understand and build upon once you learn how it's built. With WP you make sure someone else is taking care about all the boring stuff like updates and integration to new language libraries (JavaScript, PHP versions and whatnot) which reduces work hours spend on that crap + related bugs, security etc. Their online documentation is really good too; this matters. A lot of sites are based on WP without looking 'Wordpressy' at all.

tl;dr I feel like fiddling around with some stuff but I need to start out with ssh'ing into the test server and... then I remembered Yop did upgrades on the production server so the test environment no longer resembles prod...

YOP IF YOU WANT TO GET RID OF FHTAGN, NOW IS YOUR CHANCE! SET UP A PROPER SOURCE CONTROL, TEST AND DEPLOY SYSTEM FFFFSSSSSSSS; not sure what would be the best way to do it though

Also sorry if I ever harassed you enough to make you lose more interest in this than you already had - I know I can be a bitch but DEAR LORD, MR. OWNER, SO CAN YOU

 

[Flintlock]

If we were to reinvent the front page, why not base it off an existing design and then just change the colours, add some graphics and make a few tweaks? God knows there are enough WP themes to choose from already; there must be one that suits our needs. Correct me if I'm wrong, Fangu, but I think that would cut your workload down by a great deal. We'd obviously have to spend some time going through all our old content to make sure it looks right in the new theme, but that's a job that can be shared among many users.

I'm not sure how much responsibility I'm going to take for the graphics in future - there are definitely others better qualified than me here - but I can still help when necessary.

Lex, don't make me the community manager yet, please. I also don't think we should start fiddling with our forum layout just yet. Better to reach consensus on everything and then implement them together rather than do it piecemeal, in case someone makes a new contribution to this thread that changes our plans. I'd also like to establish exactly what the role entails before I take it on, and I'd like to know what roles other people will be taking so I don't feel like I'm working alone again.

Also, I think three articles per quarter per contributor might be a lot to start off with. Imposing any sort of target would be a radical change for us, so it's better to start as small as possible. Three every six months would probably be about right. You could still do a quarterly review if you wanted to, but you could use every other review to tell people they have three months left to meet their targets

 

[Lex]

^All of that sounds like a good idea. I have a bit more to add but not the time right this second.

And yeah I still want to hear from everyone before moving forward with all of this. However, I'm going to be creating a community manager title and I'm going to be adding it to your profile because I need to fiddle with it, so don't go crazy if it appears and then disappears over the next day or so. Ideally I'll catch you in IRC while I'm doing it so that I can make sure the permissions I've added etc. have the desired functionality.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Lots of great suggestions here.

And that's all I have.

 

[Ravynne Nevyrmore]

I agree with making forum activity more noticeable on the front page. Although if we can discriminate, I kind of think only the game related stuff should get front page "hey look at this" status and not, like, "FOREVER ALONE" and "What Pisses You Off Mk. 2."

Like, if we make blog posts announcing, "Hey everyone check out this neat discussion that's happening on our forums this week!" with a link then obviously we can decide which threads we bring attention to. But if it's an automated thing that just automagically lists the top 5 most active threads at the moment, maybe somehow make it so that it doesn't pull from any of the "General" forum? Just because it's mostly off-topic stuff, and I suspect that would be getting the bulk of the activity-related attention.

I would be willing to design graphics and whatnot while I am unemployed, being a supposedly professional graphic designer with a rather expensive degree and all, but I have to include the caveat that I know fuck all about how websites work. I can take care of the form as long as someone else takes care of the function and how the form integrates with the function.

 

[Octo]

I agree with making forum activity more noticeable on the front page. Although if we can discriminate, I kind of think only the game related stuff should get front page "hey look at this" status and not, like, "FOREVER ALONE" and "What Pisses You Off Mk. 2."

Actually that would kind of be hilarious THIS WEEK ON TLS: Octo's IBS flares up, Aaron still hates his job, and Fangu stays up for 9000 hours playing FFXII and is too tired to go to work.