Science Portal

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

This is a rather radical suggestion, but anyways...

 

At the moment, I really think that the main page of SFN is rather dull. A newcomer would see a list of threads and not get much of an idea of what the forums are about. The "news" posts are few and far between (though they used to be used far more, I think) and so it's really a rather boring front page.

 

I think we can do better. A more custom front page including the following would probably make it nicer and more attractive to newcomers:

• A nice welcome message, like the one from Fafalone that was there loongg ago.
  
• More news articles. Not sure how you could get more activity in the news forums, but that's necessary.
  
• RSS feeds from places like BBC News/Science, NewScientist.com, nature.com, and other sciency websites.
  
• A nicer, more attractive template than the one currently used portal. Less crowded would be nice too, as in getting rid a lot of the little information boxes on the left and right and making the navigation menu cleaner..
  
• A link to our (hopefully) future project, WiSci or OpenScience or whatever it's going to be called, and a nice teaser about it to attract people to it.
  

 

This would be a rather nice way to get people to take a look at SFN, as first impressions really matter.

 

Secondly, I think we need more content. Forum threads aren't that interesting for someone new browsing around, and people won't come here just to read threads. Getting guests to visit regularly, even if they don't want to register, is another nice thing.

My suggestion to achieve this would be both the science news pages, and a science wiki. We have many intelligent members here, and it would not be hard to get a solid wiki up and running. It could also be used to post commonly-discussed topics and their arguments, rebuttals, and so forth. It would also attract people who are interested in science, but don't have the time to or don't want to join a forum.

 

Now, you're probably going to say that this would require large amounts of work and time and money and all that fun stuff. I won't try to argue with you. But the advantages of it are many, and we have a vast memberbase that can help get it where we want it. As for money, that's what my paid subscriptions idea is for--a way to get more money for the server, without big ugly ads on every page.

 

What does everybody think? Should we go for it?

[Dave]

I get the impression that blike will be setting up a Wiki, but he's really busy at the moment with med school and the like. I like your ideas of welcome messages and all that, and I'll certainly look into this as a "quick fix" for the time being. I'll also look into having a little bit more excitement on the front page, because I do agree that it's quite dull at the moment. We need some pretty pictures or something on there.

 

Besides all of this, I feel that we need to concentrate on getting more users on here. So this is a call to all of our users really: try and promote SFN! Obvously, we don't want you to spam it about everywhere, but if you're chatting with a friend or whatever, then mention it. I'd like to think that this community is one of the best out there, so whatever you can do to promote SFN would be great. Especially, in my case, the maths section

[timo]

@ Welcome message: Dunno the one you meant but it sounds quite nice, yes.

 

@ more news: I never found a news here that actually interested me. Isn´t it such that everyone can post a news? So if you want more news, post some.

 

@ setting up a science wiki: What exactly are the expected advantages over wikipedia?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Atheist:

Here's the message off of archive.org:

On behalf of blike and I, I'd like to say welcome to the Science Forums.

 

We welcome discussion in any topic on any level, from hobbyists to post-doctoral researchers and beyond. You are encouraged to post in the most appropriate forum. All users may submit news for the front page, and discussion is encouraged on all posts. If you have any kind of question related to these topics, please don't hesitate to ask; more than likely you'll get an answer. If you see a question you know the answer to, go ahead and help out. Science Forums is a community.

 

Fast and free registration is required to post messages and download attachments.

 

Feel free pass the word about this site to your friends, colleagues, professors, and anyone else who has an interest in science.

 

Please be sure to read the forum information and policy, and vote on the poll on your right column!

 

-fafalone

 

As for the wiki, I think the advantages would be that we could make it more detailed. If we're aiming for a scientific audience, we could go for more advanced material (being sure that the basics are covered for the layman as well) and try to cover more details.