New site suggestions

[admin]

Brand new site, few members and even fewer threads....hmmmm. Is there anything you would like added? Lets hear it.
Send us input, suggestions, comments and we will shove it all in for you.

Thanks

[wiimo]

new skins, colors and wallpaper maybe?

[admin]

Ok, thanks for your comment wiimo. Been busy doing all the stuff under the hood that you guys don't see. I forgot about alternate skins, wallpapers, fonts, and smilies etc. I stress that the front page is temporary, a half hour patch up job which will be fixed up with a new site entrance in due time.

I liked it untidy, just like a real construction site. :welcome:

[the_tapeinator]

Hows about a Q&A with an expert in the construction field? Or, what about asking some tool manufacturers for some input and get some feedback about each toolkit from the members here? Hand or machine taping would make another interesting poll.

[admin]

Thanks, will save that poll for later. Once traffic picks up a bit on the site, then we can maybe get an expert for the day.
Also noticed we are now listed on Google.

[the_tapeinator]

Also noticed we are now listed on Google.

and yahoo, windows live, and so on. It may take a while for guest users to find us, has traffic been busy?

[admin]

There's usually between 50 - 100 guest visits a day. A few have joined up and left good threads, while another couple left some spam a week or so before Xmas. The spammers had their accounts closed and we added a re-captcha verification to the registration process to try and keep them out.

We're aware that it may take over a year to get the forum buzzing with heavy traffic. Our website's still under construction and we are convinced that there's demand for a forum of this type for the taping and jointing trade. As far as we are aware, this is the first one based in the UK. There are good ones from North America and we saw an opportunity to build one for the European market. However, anyone can join in no matter where they live.

Thanks for taking an interest in whats happening behind the scenes, there's still so much to do.

PS. Check your email inbox.

[billbdb]

What about a subscription and exclusive members area forum?.
You know like prizes, exclusives, freebies and access to stuff that guest accounts cant see.

[admin]

What about a subscription and exclusive members area forum?.
You know like prizes, exclusives, freebies and access to stuff that guest accounts cant see.

Not a chance under the current ownership.

If you have too much money and you would like to give it away, send it to me by all means but this site is FREE!!!!!

I'm not a fan of paid subscriptions. Commercialised, money orientated sites and forums are two tiered and really get on my goat. The site owners don't want this, and there aren’t even Adwords or banners ads here to cover the administration, hosting, domain and VBulletin forum costs. It is provided out of pure generosity, a genuine love for the job and wanting to create something from nothing.

A private password protected forum is available for free for members who show they are responsible and have posted a certain number of times. Any prizes, freebies and exclusives will be available inside this forum once we have a sizeable number of registered members here.

Ask me again in a year. If we have 50,000 members and around 10 paid employees to administrate and moderate the forum, then we would realistically have to fund it somehow?

Until then, let’s hope the forum can make it to its 1st birthday.

[JPxTPxMP]

Have you tried using vBSEO? (vBulletin Search Engine Optimisation) This program will get your threads picked up with search engines far quicker as it renames your forums php files to html. For some reason search engines prefers looking through this type rather than archived php files and vBSEO installs to the mySQL server alongside your existing vBulletin program with no conflict.
As you mentioned a figure of 50 thousand, this may help you achieve that number in a shorter space of time.

[admin]

Thanks for the tip.

We knew about this and are sitting tight awaiting the arrival of vBulletin 4 which has search engine friendly urls included as standard. vBSEO costs around US$149 plus yearly updates which could be better spent elsewhere on the site such as designing a logo and developing a whole new site around the forum. This was our intention but we havent got around to it yet because of our day jobs.

[billbdb]

You could split the professional contractors forum and create seperate sub forums for tapers, painters, plasterers etc.

[admin]

You could split the professional contractors forum and create seperate sub forums for tapers, painters, plasterers etc.

We will do this if the forum categories we have at the moment get too cluttered. Good suggestion, thanks.

[2buck]

You need better smiley's on here, I just can't express myself enough

[amestaper]

I've been busy this morning doing some , and when the wears off and I deliver some much needed to my vital organs and I will soon feel

Cheers for the feedback. Now you come to mention it, the default forum smilies also need some work.

[2buck]

Now we need more time before the site says your idle amestaper, I know you said you added more time but, sometimes your doing stuff like cooking supper, surfing, 2 finger typing, reading , yakking on phone (doing home stuff). So you finally get your post all done, you push the enter button, then the " you are not signed into blahblahblah , there goes all that typing out the window, so your like piss on it. set it at 2 hours or something plz !!!!!!!!! or I may half to start whining a lot, which I'm good at, I am a taper eh'

[E.K Taper]

2HOURS??? Is that incase your sheep escapes your grasp, 2buck?

[amestaper]

Now we need more time before the site says your idle amestaper, I know you said you added more time but, sometimes your doing stuff like cooking supper, surfing, 2 finger typing, reading , yakking on phone (doing home stuff). So you finally get your post all done, you push the enter button, then the " you are not signed into blahblahblah , there goes all that typing out the window, so your like piss on it. set it at 2 hours or something plz !!!!!!!!! or I may half to start whining a lot, which I'm good at, I am a taper eh'

Do you expect me to believe a man can multitask all that?

How long does the other site give you before kick out? We could trial a period of one hour to see how it goes, any more time could cause site security problems if folks dont log out. I hear ye as this problem has also caught me out a few times.