Namely this entire site?
It could only get better, my friend.

I agree with Freebase here. I would be surprised if someone managed to redesign this site and somehow make it worse .. and even if it didn't turn out beautiful, at least the system would be in place and the design could be tweaked later on.

I really don't find MB's look to be all that ugly. Have you seen Muzic Forums, Prog Archives or RapDogs? They're all incredibly harsh on the eyes, and most are very poorly designed. MB is nice and soft and the layout is super easy to follow - I think it could be screwed up and made worse.

I think the amount of votes this poll has despite my furious advertising is a testament to how badly we need some kind of front page.

I voted yes. I would definitely like to see this happen, I'm just cautious about it is all.

p.s. to help I added that blurb to my signature as well.

Woah, woah! Careful there.
Tis forum actually works really great compared to lots of other forums.
You can change the background color, but please don't change the forumsoftware. There's been just one thing I didn't like so far and that's the fact that you can't add dimensions to image tags.
On my own forum (SMF) you can choose at what resolution a picture should be displayed, like this:
You can also create clickable resized images.
Like this:
That way you can make a 640 pixels wide clickable image.
Clicking will then take you to the image in it's original dimensions.
Which is nice.

But other than that, the software is just fine :)

Edit: Just discovered that the code function doesn't work. It actually created a link there... Strange.

How dare you all. I have grown fond of this blue. I associate it with all things wonderful and pleasing to my ears.

Use the [noparse][/noparse] tags when you want to demonstrate example uses of BBCode :)

Custom tags and so on have been suggested for the admins as well. Adding dimensions to img is of course easy peasy .. but they haven't been too keen on adding or changing BBCode functionality.

I agree that vBulletin is a good forum platform. I wouldn't want to change that!

:laughing: Your suggestion cracked me up, Tore.

I can just imagine the droves of people who would be drawn into MusicBanter if I actually had a front page spot from which to spout my feminist, atheist, cynical yet hopeful vegan views, rather than simply from my songwriting thread. :rolleyes:

But I *do* feel it is great that you are all motivated to organize to try to get the Front Page you'd like. I'd like to see this happen, if only to make right-track's long-held dream come true. Listen to him in this thread...he sounds so positive, so excited, almost hopeful! It is a right-track I've never seen before! ;)

I think I'm going to cry! I'm surrounded by...sniff...fellow activists!

Radical? Did I hear "radical" used in a positive way by YOU??? :D Heh heh. Seriously though, I like to see you have kept your dream alive. If you don't TRY to get what you want, you never will. So it is worth trying...and the more people you have on board, the more likely it is that the owners will listen.

The goal of getting a Front Page should be achievable, right-track. My experience with petition drives in the "real" world makes me think MB will probably need 1,000 "signatures" to get the owners' attention.

In a real world community with 40,000 residents, 2,000 petition signatures seem to be necessary to get a city council to listen. This was the case when I set up a petition drive to help residents whose homes or yards were slotted to be destroyed by a highway widening project. We were successful.

So, for *our* online community, you may need all hands on deck to achieve 1,000 poll votes in favor of a Front Page for MusicBanter.

I recommend that all people who read Tore's thread and support this cause should temporarily make their signatures link to this thread, like Conan did, so that you can raise awareness of the cause.

TORE...would you please post the exact wording of your signature so people can cut and paste it into their signatures quickly and easily for those of us who can't figure out what link to use to get: Please, show your support! MusicBanter Needs a Front Page!

When I used the permalink for this thread while trying to change my sig, it didn't give me the words "MusicBanter Needs a Front Page!" and I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Your experience with an increase in membership is EXACTLY the sort of bargaining chip that MusicBanter should be able to use with the owners.

Also, if 1,000 members express themselves, the owners will probably *want* to do something, if not out of human kindness then at least out of the desire to protect their $20,000 investment in the site. (Either that, or ban the lot of us!)

I'm also a little scared I wont be able to find threads as easy to find as it'll have a complex front page, I don't quite understand how I would get into subforums without it making this page look messy.

Which in turn causes a rift between members in the sense that nobody can communicate as easily. If that makes any sense at all.

Would you guys be getting shot of the shoutbox?