well'p, we've discussed a lot on how to improve your own forums by adding rewards or conversation topics or various posting strategies, etc, etc...

soo...

how should ubbdev go about improving itself -- to expand THIS community, not so much in quantity, but in quality?

ideas?

ok, ill bite

a significant issue here at ubbdev.com is the "selfish poster" scenario (and i'm certainly one of them).

users get a message board and come here to make it better -- they want the latest "who's online" or "PM inbox" hack, ask for it, and leave, never to return, sometimes not even for a thank you.

and it doesnt matter how many warnings or tag lines or headers that get put up here, people still ask the same question over and over and over (without realizing its been already asked 50 times that same day)

so how to fix this specific problem?

would this community be better aided by disallowing posters access in a specific forum (say, the MODS forum) until they've contributed something?

would users here be more inclined to stick around if, for every 50 posts here, a bunch of ubbdev users "had" to become members on their board? (increasing their traffic?)

what about a "best ubbdev post of the day/week" contest, where the winner's site is flaunted and freebie-advertised upon ubbdev's entry page?

are there any other things that would intrigue you enough to visit ubbdev more frequently?

And here I was thinking that because no one responded to you everything was perfect!

I'm not sure we can ask people to contribute if they're newbies or if they have no coding knowledge. Hopefully they would help in other areas if they could.

-"best ubbdev post of the day/week" contest-
I like that idea.

First you have to garner traffic and the administration has to be active. UBBDev lately looks like a ghost town. Even the admins seem to have taken a vacation. Just look at this months spotlight winners. Oh wait who are they Last months is still up and we are already half way through this month

Ahh...A "Truth" thead.

This is true, however I think if their interests are strong enough eventually they will learn and assimilate much better into the community without feeling the pressures of looking like a "noob". Maybe with encouragement people will step up and explore outside of their comfort zone. The way I see it is to try (and help/interact), make a mistake, learn from that mistake and improve. No egos, just people coming together with a common interest.

1QuickSI made a point about the recent atmosphere here. Hmm...I guess that's why this thread was created. Just to add I noticed most of the hacks are previous ones either ported or modified over to the next version. I'm grateful for it because I love to work on my board. It would be cool to have new hacks though. Portal support? Many cool ideas in the Mod Suggestions forum...

I am what I consider to be an "active" member. I have to admit that I'm one of the people that's talking about how slow it's gotten here. It's true that the pace here has slowed significantly, but that is to be expected when you consider the fact that the newer versions of UBB are basically maintenance releases with some added functionality that UBBDev members already had via hacks.

The one thing that sparked a lot of interest was the Portal. If you look at the original thread that started the whole thing it took off like wildfire. You have to remember though, the reason that there are 19,000+ members here is the fact that we can't code these for ourselves. Look at the ratio of givers and takers here and you'll see why UBBDev has been so popular in the past. Most of the hacks in the 6.3 Mods forum are hacks that have been ported from earlier versions. We have Allen porting hacks like mad (gotta love him for it) and we have LK writing great hacks as well but aside from that there are not very many things being written.

I have to admit that my attention has been drawn away by a CMS system that I'm adding to a couple sites that I put my heart and soul into. I'm not a talented programmer or a graphics god but I muddle through pretty well. If there was a way to allow us common folk to integrate a UBB.Classic into our web sites more easily then there would be a whole lot more activity here. The internet is in a constant state of flux, and there are projects that are making it easier for less talented people to have more and more dynamic sites, UBB.Classic isn't keeping up.

We are typically slower during the Summer months when people are busy with activities away from the computer. Also, now that school is back in session, we will get more activity from students, who in many case have been some of our more prolific programs.

The Spotlight Winners will be announced soon, as well as the release of our September U-Zine.

In terms of the board traffic. Hey, we are here to provide an outlet for you guys. No reason why people can't start more topics about interests of theirs. Post about your cat in Chit Chat or start a new game...play a game of chess against a friend.

About the "Giving something back" idea... I like that idea. I was like that once, took everything and didn't give everything back in return... Then I came back, posted a couple of times, went again, reregistered (with this account), and started (trying? ) to help people out. I hope I've given back what I've taken in that way.


The only problem with it is, this is supposed to be a free-for-all repository for UBB...

I’m a taker (blush) but it has been the 'taking' that has genuinely sparked something. I had admined a UBB BB for almost a year before I knew hacks existed. I went from 6.0 to 6.3 and WHAM. I saw my site traffic begin to grow and in looking at ways to improve my site, I stumbled across this place.

I have taken 6 or so hacks from here and done so with NO perl/cgi knowledge what so ever. Now I am signed up for a 10-day class on Perl and one for XML. So I will be able to 'give' more as time progresses. Please be patient with those of us that cant hit the ground with a 50/50 split. And I certainly have sympathize for you when someone downloads a beta hack on their Main BB and it crashes, and they get all pissie.

But please, be mindful for what people like you give to people like me. When I grow up I want to be a programmer

Well lemme take a shot into space..

what i think is really frustrated is that alot of links to good hacks are dead, thats a shame.

wont it be noce to have your own upload script running, and only place links on your server (thats what i do with my site) My site is for Dj's they can upload their own remixes to my server and i will place the link on my site.

Remixes are big in file size, all the hacks are really small , so you can really have that bandwith.

cheerz man!

and all the best!
And keep up the damn good work!

I think maybe more hacks. The hacking forum have the most activity browse-wise and with some more new hacks I think that can spark some activity. As well as what TheX mentioned the portal development was another spark of activity. But up to you.

I'll echo this, 18 months I have been admining a site after the old webmaster pulled the plug. Only a couple of weeks ago I was pointed in this direction.
Once I came here and realised what could be accomplished I too have begun to learn perl. If it wasn't for the guys who are good enough to put the hacks together, I don't think there would be so much traffic as now.