RE: Theme!
Deciding on the theme is obviously the first step. Once that is all decided on and everyone is happy, we can decide what features to have, what name to call the site, what colours/images we'll have, yada yada and yada.
To me, I always saw PE as a creative place where you could express yourself. Maybe that's just the way my life has been going and I have an obvious obsession there (I'm gonna be studying 'creative expression' at Uni >_>) but I love the idea of having a home where people can just express themselves. Creativity is a big part of that I think, but 'self expression' isn't exactly limited to creativity; we express ourselves within the posts we make and the community we bond with, with the opinions we share and the issues we debate. I always loved the 'Debate and Discuss' forum for that :)
I'm not sure if you would count social-networking sites as a place to 'express' yourself, but I suppose describing yourself and looking for new people to meet is another way, and whilst I don't want PE to turn into social-networking site, I do want a section of it which'll have some kinda of social hub, other than just the obvious forum, even if that just means an extended profile page or something.
But anyway, back on to the whole 'self expression' thing. Bethan told me, rightly so, that a person looking for a new forum doesn't just type into Google "Forum where I can express myself" cos yeah, all forums are a place where you can do that, it's the point of a community. So creative expression maybe. I too like the idea of a creative forum for all kinds of media, not just crappy MSPaint pictures and hundreds of poems! But that would depend on exactly what kind of creative things we get out of it. My experience is that people generally just to post, have fun, maybe kill a bit of time, and the creative boards didn't really get touched that much. But then, I suppose it depends on the medium; PE was a mixed bag of folks who just liked to chat, came to role play, loved to share their creative side, or who just liked to beat other people in the Arcade!
I mentioned it elsewhere, but with the old PE, I did think of having a e-zine, or something similar. A e-zine made by the community, for the community, would be integrated and would certainly help combat the website content issue.
But anyway, these are just my ideas. Please continue to post your own in comments, and don't be afraid to join the community and make your own posts containing what you would like to see. Then we can pool all these ideas together and hopefully come up with something!
Actually, if everyone has AIM, maybe we could agree to set up a chat sometime and talk in real-time to as many people as possible to get some brain storming going?
To me, I always saw PE as a creative place where you could express yourself. Maybe that's just the way my life has been going and I have an obvious obsession there (I'm gonna be studying 'creative expression' at Uni >_>) but I love the idea of having a home where people can just express themselves. Creativity is a big part of that I think, but 'self expression' isn't exactly limited to creativity; we express ourselves within the posts we make and the community we bond with, with the opinions we share and the issues we debate. I always loved the 'Debate and Discuss' forum for that :)
I'm not sure if you would count social-networking sites as a place to 'express' yourself, but I suppose describing yourself and looking for new people to meet is another way, and whilst I don't want PE to turn into social-networking site, I do want a section of it which'll have some kinda of social hub, other than just the obvious forum, even if that just means an extended profile page or something.
But anyway, back on to the whole 'self expression' thing. Bethan told me, rightly so, that a person looking for a new forum doesn't just type into Google "Forum where I can express myself" cos yeah, all forums are a place where you can do that, it's the point of a community. So creative expression maybe. I too like the idea of a creative forum for all kinds of media, not just crappy MSPaint pictures and hundreds of poems! But that would depend on exactly what kind of creative things we get out of it. My experience is that people generally just to post, have fun, maybe kill a bit of time, and the creative boards didn't really get touched that much. But then, I suppose it depends on the medium; PE was a mixed bag of folks who just liked to chat, came to role play, loved to share their creative side, or who just liked to beat other people in the Arcade!
I mentioned it elsewhere, but with the old PE, I did think of having a e-zine, or something similar. A e-zine made by the community, for the community, would be integrated and would certainly help combat the website content issue.
But anyway, these are just my ideas. Please continue to post your own in comments, and don't be afraid to join the community and make your own posts containing what you would like to see. Then we can pool all these ideas together and hopefully come up with something!
Actually, if everyone has AIM, maybe we could agree to set up a chat sometime and talk in real-time to as many people as possible to get some brain storming going?