Improve Dieselpunks!

Steampunks! Dieselpunks! Lend me your gears!

As I look over this website, I see a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new friends.

Now I ask you, the community, how can we improve Dieselpunks?

Take the axe. What would you chop?

Take the hammer. What would you add?

Are there series that you're sick of seeing? Are there things you can't wait for each week?

Are our policies too strict or too open-ended to be understood?

I'm looking to you, because this website isn't a vanity piece. It's supposed to be an inspirational hub for artists and dreamers.

Without you, Dieselpunks has no way to grow. And unless we keep moving, we'll fall to rust.

Speak now. Your voice will be heard.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Larry on February 17, 2011 at 9:08am

I like the change of Help Wanted to "Projects." That was a good choice of titles.

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Permalink Reply by Tome Wilson on February 17, 2011 at 9:24am

I have to keep it simple, because the auto-translate feature doesn't handle compound phrases very well.

"Hola. Mi nombre es Tome. Por favor, ponga la mantequilla en mis pies en la biblioteca."

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Permalink Reply by David Mark Brown on February 17, 2011 at 11:32am

Thanks for all your work on this, Tome, and for keeping the broader community in mind. I like the changes.

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Permalink Reply by Clinton on February 17, 2011 at 3:24pm

I agree with Larry, I don't like how every discussion related to Dieselpunk is now all mushed into "Interact" I liked the ordering before. Maybe make general forums ( like Dieselpunk Media, Dieselpunk Fasion...) and subforums..(Dieselpunk Movies, Dieselpunk Music...) Having movie, music, cars and other threads mixed together makes it hard to sort through, in my opinion.

*Shrug* just my two cents

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Permalink Reply by Larry on February 17, 2011 at 4:01pm

I think Clinton expressed my concerns better than I could. Thanks, Clinton.

Another concern I have. Since we're "Dieselpunk + Steampunk Culture" shouldn't we have a Steampunk section?

Finally, I want to say thank you to Tome for all of the work he does for us with this Forum. I don't want to sound critical or ungrateful.

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Permalink Reply by Tome Wilson on February 17, 2011 at 4:12pm

Hi guys,

We can't do sub-forums. It's not in the framework, and I just don't have the time to develop a new forum.

As for the decision to lump everything together into the most general categories possible, it stemmed from the fact that people weren't posting because their topic fit more than one category.

For now, we'll keep the forums generalized and keep the specific discussions contained to the woefully underutilized Groups.

Did you know... if you post to a group, the members of that group receive a notification by email? That means your post/question is sent directly to the people who are interested in that specific category (music, art, books, cars, etc.)

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Permalink Reply by Larry on February 17, 2011 at 4:58pm

I don't use the Groups because when I post I want to read the feedback of everyone on the forum, even those who may not be part of one of those Groups. Someone might have feedback or simply want to comment because something caught their eye but they had never joined that particular Group.And if I want emails all I have to do is chose the option to follow a thread, which will do the same thing.

I can't speak for anyone else but that's why I don't use them.

Oh, I think for Clinton it was just a matter of terminology. He used the word "sub-forum" but technically what he described would be Categories. He could correct me if I'm wrong (again, I don't want to speak for someone else) but I think that's what he was referring to.

Bottom-line, if you think this is the best way to structure the Forum then that's fine by me.

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Permalink Reply by David Mark Brown on February 17, 2011 at 6:50pm

I sorta like the big interact forum. I like how it exposes me to stuff I would not have looked for on my own. But, I do see how it would be overwhelming if someone thought they had to skim through the 80 plus pages of material! On the other hand this might force people to peek in more regularly. The first page covers forums updated in the last week (when sorting by most recent). As long as people title forums and tag them well, I think it can work.

As for groups, I really like the idea of them, and I think we should encourage people to join them so that Larry's concerns are mitigated by the fact that most people who would have feedback would already be involved in the group. The most lively discussions should be happening there, in my humble opinion. As a newbie I found the groups pretty quickly, but then noticed that nothing seemed to be happening there.

Maybe simplifying the forums will push people there?

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Permalink Reply by Atterton on June 24, 2011 at 6:12pm

First off, thanks for the site.

I just noticed that Interact has been renamed "Talk with punks". Wouldn´t that make it seem more like some kind of chatroom(for male prostitutes?) than the bulletin board thing that it is? Actually at first I didn´t like how all the different categories got lumped together under Interact, but with the relatively few postings, I guess it makes sense to do it that way.

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Permalink Reply by Larry on June 24, 2011 at 7:11pm

I have to say I share Atterton's concern about the name "Talk with Punks" isn't the best. I'm sorry that I don't have anything to recommend other than changing it back to Interact.