For spicing up the forums I have a couple of things going around my head.
The first thing is, since there is a general lack of Oddworld content, we should place an emphasis and add more facilities for fan created Oddworld content (fiction, artwork, games, etc.). Perhaps even invent some kind of persistent world that we all contribute to, like maybe some kind of second series of Oddworld following on from where Lorne and his lackies left off. I'm not going to make the ideas here because I don't want to limit the scope, I'm gonna leave that up to the others - just in general perhaps have the forums work kinda like how GaiaOnline does, with those sorts of things, that line of thinking and fun ideas etc. But I certainly think the recent increase in new members participating almost exclusively in FC is indicative of the growing popularity of such things due to the lack of new Oddworld related stuff.
The other thing is maybe some kind of points system or something, that allows us to funk up our postbit and/or do all sorts of other stuff. I can see this being an upopular idea, the most logical argument against it that I can think of would be that it may cause postwhoring. But the general idea behind it is to make the site more engaging, so that it isn't just about contributing ideas and opinions to debates and such, but it's also an experience and a game/form of entertainment at the same time. It can be oddworld themed or user themed or whatever - again open to ideas on this, I just wanted to kick off that line of thinking.
Those are the two main things that strike me. If we want to boost the popularity and therefore the userbase, we need to make plenty of content and plenty going on to draw in the crowds, and also have perhaps a broader range of interests promoted as well as make the site more engaging, meaning people will by almost drawn to the site because it's so fun.
My apologies for the lack of eloquence, grammer and such, I'm just letting my brain go nuts with ideas here.
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