have you ever tried setting up your site, where a few of your members do reports?

meaning once a day or week or month (etc), a poster (or a few) give a report on, say, their latest movie or what they think about the news, etc.

sorta setting up your boards as more than a place for conversation, but as a place for informative or opinionated articles, like a newspaper.

and have you found that this increased conversations, or just post-viewings? (instead of responses)

Actually I did try this once. I just failed though, because (a) my site didn't get enough hits for it to be worthwile, and (b) my reporters wouldn't work to impress a non-existant audience. Reports are great for UBBDev though, like the U-Zine

Some of my members are happy to create feature articles that are posted on my home page. It brings them prestige, as well as feeding the overall learning environment on my site. I've had great success with it so far.

Check it at www.catcherman.com

i've actually started doing this at my own site.

i used to do it myself, with maybe 2 or 3 weekly (or monthly) reviews/articles. they started to develop their own little following and build forum traffic over all.

in the past few weeks, i've gone around asking my users if they were interested in doing the same (in exchange for mod status and a custom avatar, amongst other things).

i now have about 6 weekly articles running, which has really helped out my site!

i recomend it!

That's a really great idea We've tried to make our site available to the members to write artciles of interest to them and garner their site a little traffic as well. We might not be presenting it in the best light

well, its definitely having some effect. i've noticed a decent increase of traffic, plus a whole buncha posters have returned (apparently, they've just been "lurkers" for the past few months)

if anything, the articles stimulate conversations and come from new perspectives and view points, which gives off a very open atmosphere.

granted, no one does any of this for "free"...

the rewards (bribes) i've handed out include a custom title, mod status, a custom avatar, a "headline" graphic, (restricted) ftp access, and some other little goodies. the freedback and response from this has really gone over well with everyone.

and all of which started from just a generalized "member drive" (a general thread asking users for help / feedback)

I like what you did with your site drkknght. I recall a few sites that had a similar layout with the Flash and I've always admired it. Thumbs up.