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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
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Otherwise, TFP isn't broken, with the possible exception of photos being stolen out of Exhibition and posted elsewhere. Exactly what are we trying to fix?
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A) The moods.
B) The member numbers
C) The restoration of its 'edge'
Not in any particular order, but they're all inter-related.
As far as a mission statement, that's really for singular subject-based forums more. But what TFP could have and, I think, already does is 'thought provoking adult discussion with civillty'-more or less in those words.
How many of us have rolled our eyes at the newbie 'is my gf pregnant' thread starters or, upon seeing another Bush-bash, just leave thinking, "Cripes, here they go again".
Something that might help: Instead of archiving non-thoughtful threads that haven't been touched for, say, 12 months, just do a sweep-kill. Allow 'starting fresh' with subjects; the only thing noteworthy of really old threads is seeing who's been banned.
Make things like "is my gf pregnant'(or other oft-repeated threadstarts) a sticky of sorts so that newbies coming in here just for that can see advice and opinions and gather some information before posting their own story. Let's face it, the search function just isn't utilized because everyone thinks what they have to say has never been said before and they're not concerned with bandwidth usage.
So, when we who've seen the same thing 100 times say we have, we're treating the newcomer somewhat shabbily, even if it is unintentional.
Someone mentioned the Welcome Forum and is it something common-every forum I have bookmarked or checked out has one(personally, I don't ever go into a place and 'introduce' myself. I lurk, find things of interest to me and post), but agreed, we should be more welcoming as a community, not leave that job to mods or just ignore the posts.
Getting traffic: Who here does not go to any other forum? If a forum you visit allows siteplugs in your sig, use it. Not many do, but it's a way to get visitors if allowed.
Finally-an email server attachment, ie: ng(at)tfp.org Nothing says 'come on over' like an email addy
It's getting pretty common with other forums.