The Future of BoL

[AndAy]

I completely agree, Tyler. The administration will give this some serious thought.

[Sarah]

Tyler, Tyler, he's our man; if he can't do it no one can! Gooooooo TYLER!

:woeh:

Seriously, though, I really like Tyler's idea. It's a more detailed and articulate version of what I meant to say in my original post.

[ninjacowgirl]

Solid. The only thing is that the branding might be confusing; but I'm sure the administration can handle a little bit of logo differentiation.

Also, starting a "new" message board essentially from scratch is no easy task, especially in this era. But SHU, STMB, CAH, all the big catch-all boards from the old era are all dead. I think the success of it would depend on what kind of support we had within the Seton community. What would be super swell would be if BOL could amoeba absorb the Seton Alumni Board. The only active Seton highschool boards of any consequence I know of (besides Seton Alumni) are SWC and DPA, and DPA has an incredibly lame and clunky forum script.

Also, I still have mild involvement with the administration of the Seton Writers' Club. They are interested in keeping it primarily writing focused, so if they get folks interested in spamming but not writing, they could potentially deny them membership and send them here. One of SWC's problems is that its purpose used to be more clearly delineated since there were boards like SHU, etc. to take care of the social aspect, but now that those are dead people come to us to chat. Sending people to BOL isn't something I've run by the current admins though; it's just a thought. I'm not really sure how much there'd be a conflict of interest for them in promoting BOL though as, to the best of my knowledge, SWC is about to launch a campaign to recruit more (writing) members and purchase IPB.

But as I said, without current Setoners to spear-head it, no easy task. Unless someone like Draper were to help.

[MichaelaAnn]

Nostalgic rush. @_@

Well...y'all know I'll post. BOL was my second home for a while there. :3

But I can't garuntee I'll post as much as I used to though, because, I confess...In the spirit of BOL I started my own Catholic Homeschoolers forum. And it's very active, to my surprise. o.o So I'm pretty busy with that ATM.

So yeah. :P

I might even be able to get you some older members though if you want (thing about the younger members...BOL is gonna have to go through some massive changes if you want them to stay :l )

My brain is still trying to comprehend that BOL is alive. XD

[Tyler]

:woeh:

[MichaelaAnn]

The Smiley codes don't work in here probably cuz it's a public thread...

AND OHMYGOSH TYLER YOU'RE ALIVE! O:

I've Missed BOL. :3

[Chocolate-cherry]

*coughahemcough* I missed you guys...meep...

Well as M said, if you want to keep members (Particularly younger ones) BoL is gonna need to change a bit..let's face it, Phpbb really isn't the thing anymore; mybb is.

Now now, I'm not saying that BoL should switch to mybb, (I saw that blow up in the making..Nope I'm not saying that) but I think a make over would be nice if it's possible...? (Though....I doubt that'd be possible cause aren't a lot of the phpbb themes really similar or something? Just...a little less bleak and maybe some 3d? Maybe a thin slice of tomato? no...nvm...that's up to you *dramatic sigh*)

Okay I think Tyler's idea is a good one. *nods*

ONE MOAR THING: SPAM. Okay lets look at the members forum. Spam where they should nawt be spam.


One last thing....last last thing...I will post, if this is kept up. And ah..yeah..that's it.

*crawls back into hole quacking* ^_-

[cak1-11]

In general they are, but themes are just html so you're only really limited by your creativity, more or less.

[MichaelaAnn]

I concur with Sarah...

BOL is going to need a LOT of changes in the future, I'm afraid. o.o

To be honest...not all the young people are on facebook. Heck, the teens my age don't even own a facebook account. XP Most of them are on forums or on Google+. Or Both. And most of them don't seem to mind being on as many forums as possible in my experience. So I'm sure I could find plenty of them who'd be willing to join the famous BOL. :P Yus it's actually pretty well known...I've come across lots of those members who joined and didn't make accounts and they ARE active on other sites, but they know about BOL. @_@ Most of them said they were kinda daunted because 1. There were only older people on here (as Tyler said) 2. it was so dang BIG (I'm thinking the topics from five billion years ago scared them :P) And 3. It was too lowtech. :l

As far as it being low tech goes...I can kind of see that. Where younger members are concerned I think they DO tend to look for the smoothest ride possible, if you will. :P Something that'll keep their interest at first.

Now I'm not saying sacrfice BOL's quality for the sake of flashiness. Goodness no. I've seen lots of other forums that have done that and flopped. @_@ However, I think BOL being so...I dunno...strict, I guess, is a little bit intimidating to first come into, especially if you're not a college-grad and you don't have enough to say to make novel-length posts. :P So basically I mean trying to shoot for a happy medium between the two would attract younger members more. It IS possible, but it would require a lot of work. @_@

I guess what I'm trying to say is the bored has the air of a college-grad forum whether it has young blood or not. :P Primarily because it has so many accomdations for older members (such as the "liked on facebook" thing on the homepage. :P), and frankly the layout hasn't changed in ages for old time's sake. @_@

Now BOL could just become a full-fledged college age/grad forum instead but that's what it had tried to be before a bit, and it hadn't worked. :l Plus it's hard to find college-age people who have enough time to join and be active on a forum.

I think Tyler's idea about splitting the forum is cool but it sounds tedious. :l

I sound really demanding but I'm just trying to help. o..o And I won't just lay down a bunch of requirments and then leave BOL. :P Heck, I'll even help if asked. XD

[Chocolate-cherry]

@corey yeah, I know that HTML can be edited anyway shape or form (actually, I've been doing quite a bit of HTML stuff lately) but I remember one time someone mentioned that a Bol theme change would be pointless because phpbb themes were all like this, I just assumed that HTML editing wasn't allowed or something. XD

And Michaela is right.

One more thing, in my experience, every successful forum lately has had something along the lines of a shout box. Not a chat box, a shout box. Pretty much the difference is that a chat box is a separate room, requiring login etc etc. a shout box however, is more out in the open so every sees what's going on as soon as they log into the forum. See, a new member logs in, they see a shout box with people in there (instead of that tiny link on the homepage that's hardly noticeable) and they chat and such..it just makes it a more friendly environment. So it seems that most people on newer forums (mybb) look for something like that...it might be worth a try. *shrug*

I don't know if phpbb supports something like that, since I've been using mybb I know very little about phpbb acps. @-@

[AndAy]

So I'm getting alot of 'BOL looks old'... is that what I'm hearing?
Also, this 'mybb' that you speak of looks almost identical, but without the BOL theme

@MichaelaAnn: Could you elaborate on 'strict'? You mean strict as in spam rules or as in the topics allowed to be discussed?

[MichaelaAnn]

Well...if strict was an accurate word for it (which it's not, courtesy of me failing at finding the proper description :P) I guess it'd be concerning spam rules, yes, but I meant the air of the forum is a lil...stiff? :l I mean...to people who are used to being on here it's not, but I think I've mentioned before that it's rather hard to fit in on here as a new member. @_@

Intimidating is more like it I suppose. :P

And yes. I'm saying BoL looks old. BoL IS old. XD Hey, I'm just analyzing what seems to be the problem. I'm tryin' to help. :P

And MyBB is much different. Not necessarily in terms of themes and such, but in terms of features...you can add a lot of cool features with MyBB that PhpBB doesn't have (features such as the "like" feature we have on here...except more advanced ones that go beyond posting. I admit having too many features can be impeding, but adding a few of them might be a bonus more than a hinderance ^.- )

[Chocolate-cherry]

*shrug* Eh, well forums that I've seen using mybb, and in my own experience of using mybb, it feels more high tech..or maybe BoL can be like that, but it just needs an update. ;)

And yesh it looks old. As Michaela said, it IS old. Forget old times, get rid of old threads, and change the look.

*cough* may have looked cool in 2007, but it's 2013 now. the industrial world has been building around and BoL hasn't even noticed!

[Tyler]

I don't know anything about forum stuff, but what's the skinny on this?
http://www.invisionpower.com/apps/board/

[AndAy]

I don't have $175 burning a hole in my pocket, Tyler
Corey and I will look into more eye candy for BoL to keep the young'ns entertained

[Tyler]

Oh, haha my bad. Didn't see the price. :P And sounds great!

[MichaelaAnn]

I don't know much about Invision, price aside. @_@

Um...I don't know how much Bluehost (that's what BoL's currently on, right?) costs, but Volcato is a really good host and it's $3.00 a month, plus $12.00 a year for domain costs. (You can have multiple domains for an added yearly cost without an extra montly cost.)

I feel like I'm running an infomercial. :P But I think Valcato will run with PhpBB or any script you want really (I've only tried MyBB on it).

[AndAy]

I'm sorry, how did we get into web hosting companies? We're staying with phpBB, but will look into changing the look. Do you have any experience in graphic designing, Tyler?

[Tyler]

Unfortunately no.. Just the usual Computer Sciencey type stuff. :P

[David]

[AndAy]

[cinny2]

*deep reflective sigh*

I'm ready to put my two cents in. I'd rather have a split BoL than no BoL. I'd also prefer/appreciate/hope that such a segregated BoL would be more than just the equivalent of the failed "Super Awesome" category where everything is lumped by "Posts by and for Old Members" without categorization, but would be closer to the BoL we know and love, just without the newbies. Kinda like conjoined twins sharing part of their brain but with separate limbs, hearts, fingers, toes, souls.

-Elizabeth

[ninjacowgirl]

MyBb is lamer than phpBb akshully except phpbb is a resource hog. That is why SWC left phpbb for mybb. If you have the resources for phpbb stick with phpbb though. Idk. :p In some ways it's shinier, but because all the mods are plug-ins instead of direct code edits, things tend to look more plugged in and less integrated. IMHO BOL looks pretty slick. Also phpBb can do things like shoutboxes. Better than myBb. What about it looks old, Michaela/Sarah?

Also, I'm intrigued by this catholic homeschooler forum y'all have apparently started.

[Draper]

me too, I like to keep abreast of homeschooling forums.

[CiCi]

AndAy wrote:
> I'm sorry, how did we get into web hosting companies? We're staying with phpBB, but
> will look into changing the look. Do you have any experience in graphic designing,
> Tyler?

If you need someone to do graphic designing and weren't just being sarcastic (:P) wasn't Brittany going to school for that? I think her sn was PunkRockLov or something like that on here...I can't remember! :( But maybe she could help with something! :D If you need her to, of course.