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Community Council / GTAStunting should be a stunters hub.
« on: September 04, 2015, 08:06:59 AM »
As the title suggest. I think GTAS should make a radical change to become a stunters hub. WHen anyone talks about stunting in GTA, GTAS should come up in that conversation. This place is much quieter than it was before which is surprising given that GTA:V has created a huge influx of interest in stunting.
Forums aren't as popular as they were before
- Forums just don't attract the same kind of people as they used to, I've noticed across all fan-sites I visit and Administer that forums just don't have the same kind of pull as they used to. This doesn't mean that the community itself is dead in the water and has no hopes of growth though. It just means that there has to be a pull, something to draw people in.
The GTASunting.net website looks...bad -
- The GTAS front page looks bad. It's a clutter of boxes, has nothing that really pulls people in, and is essentially a front page pasted over a forum. I try to rep this place as much as possible when on reddit, I put the logo in my video. Honestly, any extra hits that come here probably don't stick around. I've been a member here since 2004, that's 11 years. The place doesn't feel like it has evolved or changed very much since then.
What I believe should happen is a complete revamp of the structure. Create a visually appealing website that is equally useful. The top bar is currently all forum centric, it even has "shop" which is completely useless. I believe the top bar should be as follows.
Home
It brings people back to the front page. The home page would have a short blurb about who we are, what we do .etc
Something like above, under the blurb you can have news with new crew videos, popular members videos that are worthy. Maybe even a "stunt of the week", "challenge of the week" or something like that to create a little more pull and return hits.
----------------------------------------
GTA:V(Dropdown)
GTA:IV(Dropdown)
GTA:SA(Dropdown)
GTA:ViceCity(Dropdown)
Have each of these be a menu option with a dropdown. Inside the dropdown include:
Introduction to stunting would be a small article about stunting in that particular game with very basic techniques to get a newbie started and able to hit small bumps, do small grinds and understand basic physics.
Techniques and tricks would link to a page with a list of tricks, (displayed either in list form or with pictures), each trick would be a link to a page that explains what the trick is, how to do it, why it happens and either a gif and/or video of the trick in action.
Popular vehicles would like to a page with all popular vehicles. Clicking on an individual vehicle links to a page explaining what makes the vehicle so popular and how to use it.
----------------------------------------
Crews
Have a page with all the active crews (maybe even a page for old crews in the future).Have a list of all the crews. Each individual crew page can have a little intro, who the members are, a graphic of their logo and all of their videos neatly organized with links to youtube. These could probably be pulled from the crews forum page directly. As long as you instill a format for them to follow. Maybe they could be sorted by game. Personally I don't stunt SA or IV, having just an alphabetical list of crews doesn't tell me what they stunt and makes it hard to discover new crews that I might be interested in.
----------------------------------------
Forum
A link to the forum
----------------------------------------
The reason for many of these changes is that most of this information is lost in the forums. People seem intimidated when browsing forums and get discouraged quickly. The above requires a lot of work, but I believe a lot of the required information can be pulled from the forum and presented in an easy and aesthetically pleasing way. The forum should be used for the community aspects, not as a replacement for a website. Information needs to be stored properly and made easily accessible.
The forums also need to be a place where you can just sit back and talk about whatever. For example, yesterday I landed a huge stunt with the Faggio in GTA:V. I was super excited but also wanted to complain about the fact that I needed a 1 minute runup. I didn't find a place to really express that. It's probably a sentiment that a lot of stunters have, wanted to do small humble brags, complain (jokingly) about some other aspect and have peers sympathise. A lot of small talk is what brings people together, they are small relatable things. I didn't feel like my situation mandated a whole thread, especially since I wanted to keep the specifics of my stunt to myself. We're all in a very similar situation where we are grinding at particular stunts for hours. There are frustrations, annoyances, things that make you excited .etc. These don't warrant a whole thread individually, they're small sentiments. There should be a place to do that. (The trollbox is very inactive and doesn't belong on the frontpage)
The forums are currently extremely messy and disorganized. There are stickied threads that seem to just remain that way for no real reason. There should be some cohesion between similar threads in different subforums.
Using a forum as a method of storing information never works, it's not what they're built for. There are no formal formats that people use, it's all posts and it's too casual. Information should always be categorised, accessible, professional, and easy to understand.
Additionally, somewhere on the website, there should be a link to the GTA:O Crew. Sure it's filled with a lot of unknowns but having a large crew spreads awareness. Stunting shouldn't be for just a core group of people, we should invite everyone to join and try.
Forums aren't as popular as they were before
- Forums just don't attract the same kind of people as they used to, I've noticed across all fan-sites I visit and Administer that forums just don't have the same kind of pull as they used to. This doesn't mean that the community itself is dead in the water and has no hopes of growth though. It just means that there has to be a pull, something to draw people in.
The GTASunting.net website looks...bad -
- The GTAS front page looks bad. It's a clutter of boxes, has nothing that really pulls people in, and is essentially a front page pasted over a forum. I try to rep this place as much as possible when on reddit, I put the logo in my video. Honestly, any extra hits that come here probably don't stick around. I've been a member here since 2004, that's 11 years. The place doesn't feel like it has evolved or changed very much since then.
What I believe should happen is a complete revamp of the structure. Create a visually appealing website that is equally useful. The top bar is currently all forum centric, it even has "shop" which is completely useless. I believe the top bar should be as follows.
Home
It brings people back to the front page. The home page would have a short blurb about who we are, what we do .etc
Quote
Established in 2004(?), GTAStunting.net has been a hub for people who like to stunt within the Grand Theft Auto game series. Here you can find information about how to get started, various techniques used, share videos, and join in on conversation about tips and new tricks on our forums (link).
Something like above, under the blurb you can have news with new crew videos, popular members videos that are worthy. Maybe even a "stunt of the week", "challenge of the week" or something like that to create a little more pull and return hits.
----------------------------------------
GTA:V(Dropdown)
GTA:IV(Dropdown)
GTA:SA(Dropdown)
GTA:ViceCity(Dropdown)
Have each of these be a menu option with a dropdown. Inside the dropdown include:
- Introduction to Stunting
- Techniques and Tricks
- Popular Vehicles
Introduction to stunting would be a small article about stunting in that particular game with very basic techniques to get a newbie started and able to hit small bumps, do small grinds and understand basic physics.
Techniques and tricks would link to a page with a list of tricks, (displayed either in list form or with pictures), each trick would be a link to a page that explains what the trick is, how to do it, why it happens and either a gif and/or video of the trick in action.
Popular vehicles would like to a page with all popular vehicles. Clicking on an individual vehicle links to a page explaining what makes the vehicle so popular and how to use it.
----------------------------------------
Crews
Have a page with all the active crews (maybe even a page for old crews in the future).Have a list of all the crews. Each individual crew page can have a little intro, who the members are, a graphic of their logo and all of their videos neatly organized with links to youtube. These could probably be pulled from the crews forum page directly. As long as you instill a format for them to follow. Maybe they could be sorted by game. Personally I don't stunt SA or IV, having just an alphabetical list of crews doesn't tell me what they stunt and makes it hard to discover new crews that I might be interested in.
----------------------------------------
Forum
A link to the forum
----------------------------------------
The reason for many of these changes is that most of this information is lost in the forums. People seem intimidated when browsing forums and get discouraged quickly. The above requires a lot of work, but I believe a lot of the required information can be pulled from the forum and presented in an easy and aesthetically pleasing way. The forum should be used for the community aspects, not as a replacement for a website. Information needs to be stored properly and made easily accessible.
The forums also need to be a place where you can just sit back and talk about whatever. For example, yesterday I landed a huge stunt with the Faggio in GTA:V. I was super excited but also wanted to complain about the fact that I needed a 1 minute runup. I didn't find a place to really express that. It's probably a sentiment that a lot of stunters have, wanted to do small humble brags, complain (jokingly) about some other aspect and have peers sympathise. A lot of small talk is what brings people together, they are small relatable things. I didn't feel like my situation mandated a whole thread, especially since I wanted to keep the specifics of my stunt to myself. We're all in a very similar situation where we are grinding at particular stunts for hours. There are frustrations, annoyances, things that make you excited .etc. These don't warrant a whole thread individually, they're small sentiments. There should be a place to do that. (The trollbox is very inactive and doesn't belong on the frontpage)
The forums are currently extremely messy and disorganized. There are stickied threads that seem to just remain that way for no real reason. There should be some cohesion between similar threads in different subforums.
Using a forum as a method of storing information never works, it's not what they're built for. There are no formal formats that people use, it's all posts and it's too casual. Information should always be categorised, accessible, professional, and easy to understand.
Additionally, somewhere on the website, there should be a link to the GTA:O Crew. Sure it's filled with a lot of unknowns but having a large crew spreads awareness. Stunting shouldn't be for just a core group of people, we should invite everyone to join and try.
?
