Open Forum: Times They Are A Changing

In the beginning

It’s been some time since we jumped ship and created TAY2.org. This first version of the site was intended mostly to look and feel and mimic our old home as much as possible while providing a few new tools. But I think we need to face reality: TAY2 cannot survive like this. I think the core of TAY as an accepting, nice place to find and talk with accepting, nice people is a fantastic ideal that we must uphold going forward but we need to think of ways to bring in more people or entropy will claim us.

Future plans

1. Update the website design: We’re not Kotaku. We don’t need to emulate them anymore to the detriment of design.
   1. Color Scheme: The Kotaku Yellow (FBC000) is harsh on the eyes and looks kind of dated. Any suggestions for color schemes please include 3 colors and their hex codes. I’ll test each out on the staging site to see how they look.
   2. New Logo: The current logo was done by Nior and is great. Our little mini logo and the T2 all use the Kotaku type font that I’m trying to move away from though plus I’d like something a little more compact since…
   3. New Site Layout: I’ve settled on a rough idea which is more modern and more minimal. All the same information is present but we have a “featured” article that will stick to the top (poco please publish). You can get a peak at it on the staging site: https://www.tay2.org/staging then click the one that was modified more recently.
2. A New Approach. All of the above methods won’t bring people in. However, we have a > 57% bounce rate. People who come here basically take one look and peace out. It may help with conversions. More importantly to bring people in we need….*sigh*….content.
   1. I am working on a TAY2 subsite in collaboration with the TAY2 guilded server. The thrust of this is that the server is a streaming support server. We would contact smaller streamers and offer them their own group on our server in return for some rep. The server would offer resources in the form of guides and videos as well as technical support. In addition there is an opportunity to make money in the future charging for premium support and a la carte services such as setting up and hosting tournaments (guilded offers a challonge like tournament feature which is extremely nice as well as scheduling and calendar tools), or announcing streams on VIP channels.
   2. New Posting Rules: I will be writing a post shortly with a guide and posting rules. While not every article has to be a 10/10 pulitzer, they must follow a few rules such as must have a featured image, images MUST have alt-text, etc. This might elicit a groan but these are things which take very little time and are easy to put into place that will create a much more welcoming site. A coherent site is a welcoming site. An accessible site is a welcoming site.
   3. New Moderation team: I need help. With Zarnyx gone ( 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 ) I need an editor who can help enforce these new posting rules as well as provide feedback to authors. I’m looking for someone or someones who can help keep the site looking its best, who knows the ins and outs of WordPress and Elementor or is willing to learn. I’m going to need a new moderation team for the Guilded server as well. https://guilded.gg/TAY2 will get you to the server. When you join a new forum post will open in #applications. Just grab it and fill it out.
3. Community Input
   1. Here’s your chance to let me know what you think. I guess my only hope is that you’ll stick with it. I know that many of you are extremely resistant to change to the point where it angers you. For those of you I ask for patience and remember that I will never attempt to change the core ideals of TAY.
   2. Got some ideas for events? Events are the backbone of any community but I’ve had limited luck running them since the switch. What kind of things would you want to join?
   3. Got some ideas for posts? I’m thinking of implementing at some point a bounty board where people could post ideas for articles they’d like to see written and authors could pick em up and write them to gain community rep or some tangible thing?
   4. Other: Sound off! Let me have it or pitch your ideas below. It is after all a completely hijacked open forum!

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