Main site redesign?

[LarkSS]

I honestly agree with DW in that the current state of the site looks fine as it is, just that as Azu says, the submission forum's content really needs to be...submitted. I barely ever care to submit stuff there anymore since it just tends to wither away into the forum's history.

But seriously, the content on the site is very outdated. Sections like the sound section go to a page displaying no content possibly from it referencing to something not existing anymore (or a directory change of sorts, not entirely sure how the site works under the hood). I'm sure people see the site and its cobwebs, fail to find good content, and just leave it be. A visual change is really not gonna fix that. Priorities anyone?

[Asuma]

I wouldn't mind helping with the upload loading of files on to the site.

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

The only reason I say so is because really I think everyone skips past the main site and goes straight to the forums, it used to be the other way around back in the day

Hahahahaha what? XD

Dude, you're trippin', the site's always taken a back seat to the forum. SFGHQ is a place that has content that is primarily derived from it's own community (such as games made by said community), so the forum has always been the focus because the forum is more or less the primary communication medium of said community. Frankly, the site is and always will be a resource deposit for the most part, that's what it's good at anyway. No need to try and make it the focus of the place. Why try to fix what isn't broke?

As for the site getting redesigned, it's been through a number of incarnations here and there over the years, (seems like 50 but it's probably a more modest number like 7 or whatever) remaking it yet again just doesn't seem necessary at this point to be honest. Maybe an addition of some sort or some sort of skinning sure, but I can't really say much either way to be honest. It'd be nice sure, but I wouldn't say it's necessary. However if y'all wanna get together and put a new coat of paint on the place for us, there's probably room for discussion on the issue.

[sonicyoda]

Well I happily uploaded an absolute tonne of old demos (with some full games coming tonight) to a topic in the General Fangame Discussion board and would happily upload them to the site.

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

Well I happily uploaded an absolute tonne of old demos (with some full games coming tonight) to a topic in the General Fangame Discussion board and would happily upload them to the site.

Unless by demo you mean tutorial, I don't think the main site is accepting demos anymore at this time. IIRC, we decided on quite some time ago that we'd only be posting "full" games on the site from now on. Unless I missed a reversion back to the old ways (it sure doesn't look like it), I'm rather sure we're still not doing demos on the main site. Complete games only. =O

[tentril]

I don't even go to the main site to get here. The forum is bookmarked.

[OverbounD]

PCO there are tons of stuff in the forums that should be on the site and a lot of that stuff is hosted on different severs. If someone just decides they don't care anymore that kind of stuff could be lost forever.

[Perfect Chaos Zero]

PCO there are tons of stuff in the forums that should be on the site and a lot of that stuff is hosted on different severs. If someone just decides they don't care anymore that kind of stuff could be lost forever.

Correct indeed good sir. You must of missed my other post in GD on just that specific subject. I'm working on it but I don't know if I'm going to be able to do all of it on my own, there's quite a lot of stuff there and the uploading process does take a bit of stuff to do. If you wanna help out with that, volunteer in the topic SFGHQ Submissions Clean Out. I've sorted through a lot of the content and have eliminated a lot of the "already finished" stuff, but there's still around 70+ submissions to actually go through still, most of which will need to be placed on the site.

Putting something on the site does take a bit of work, probably about about, mmm anywhere from 4-8 minutes worth depending on how it was submitted. (File Factory and similar sites are making it EXTREMELY difficult due to their download limits and wait times especially) While that may not seem like a lot, if I'm lucky enough that it averages out to say, about 5 minutes each, It works out to about 7 hours straight of JUST adding to the site, when you take into account looking stuff over to make sure it's legit and that it follows necessary guidelines, that 7 hours turns into even more.

Now, 7 hours may seem to a few of you like it's not too bad, but keep in mind that's a generously low estimate, doesn't include file front wait times and I got a lot of shit to do these days. That said, I'm going to keep working to chip away at it, but a bit of help on it is going to really go a long ways. I'm going to try and dedicate anywhere from half an hour to an hour a day to it when I can, but I can only do so much on my own before my brain explodes from it all.

I'm sorry this happened and got so back logged in the first place, but it seems our old submissions maintainer mobbed out a while back and no one noticed before the problem got out of hand. Not that I'm bad mouthing that individual, because they did a great job for the period of time there were still about and put in a lot of work, so I can't really complain. Regardless however, fact is I need a hand or two with this and for all the people going on about how bad it is, I'm not seeing very many volunteers here.

It's easy to say "Dudes you gotta fix submissions" and I do agree with that entirely, but I'm not really seeing anyone stepping up to say, "I'll do it!", though understandably, because it really is a daunting task at the moment. As a result, this is going to take some time, a couple of weeks at least, maybe even more by the time Act 3 finally gets cleaned up all the way.

That said, we will almost certainly be seeking a new submissions retainer soon. This would be a somewhat permanent position and will offer certain mod powers and epic rep points. I will post something in the near future related to this so that people can apply for the position, once the details are ironed out with the administrative team and a proper application is written up.

However, if you're interested in the position go ahead and PM me with why you think you'd be good for the job, how well you could maintain the submissions and so on and I'll see about maybe getting you a bit of early consideration. It certainly won't guarantee you a spot but it'll put ya' first in line to be looked at for it more or less.