opinions

[matthepepe]

Ok for those of you who have been coming to the site for a while now what is missing? I am looking for something to add to the site that will keep you guys interested and coming back. It seems like we have to many people coming and going and never coming back. I would like to see a lot of people always returning and make this community the best possible. So what features would you guys like to see. Keep in mind these have to be realistic. We can only feed you news as fast as we can get it ... which is never fast enough. But Im interested in hearing your opinions. I have got a few good suggestions over AIM , but id like to see what else we can come up with.

[C.Carles-AOG]

I think personalizing the experience more would bring them back. Would it be very difficult to have a database of avatars for example? Also, more "themes" and the ability to even crate your own of sorts in modifying the backround colors, text color, etc. I may be flying off the handle here.

[Fiction]

Porn.

Also : Fiction for moderator in 2k3.

[Ming]

Some localized forums like maybe by state. and some sort of chat server.

And some porn for Fiction so he can make some friction ...

Fiction grow up dude ....

[C.Carles-AOG]

I know Matt and Jason are overworked. I offer what little I can do and make myself an available resource. I know themes take a lot of work. I also know that on the prior versions of AOG people really loved that.
Fiction: did you just type that without thinking? Come on. We have one of the best if not the best member base around because we're actually knowledgeable and helpful. Let's keep it that way. P0rn will most likely revoke agreements with hosting companies anyway.

[C.Carles-AOG]

On another thread I believe Matt was mentioning having a "less graphical" version of the site. I take that to mean a HTML version?
Jason, while I myself am a horndog and my girl can't keep up with me, having this on an Angel forum where it's supposed to be a place for intellectual and information exchange...well, I'm not sure. It's up to you, you'll have our backing. Age and parents might also be something to consider.

[matthepepe]

To give a little hint it wouldnt be open to everyone ... details on all this later.

[Action75]

when the palm software comes out i think that it would be cool if you made a section where members could share their settings.

[Larry@IOG]

Allow other guns besides angels to be posted in F/S F/T forums. These ppl that post other guns are wanting to become angel owners help them out.


Larry

[Larry@IOG]

Originally posted by J.Fearing-AOG
Larry, you had PMed me the same suggestion and I responded several weeks ago with the following answer:

"The AOG is Angel specific, that no other marker will be dealt with, discussed, comparred or bought/traded/sold at the AOG."

This was agreed upon by the staff and sponsors of AOG. If someone would like to sell/buy other markers, we'll be happy to setup a banner package for you.

I know Jason just it asked for opinions, I think you it would allow for alot more traffic to the site and in the end make more angel users.

Larry

[Larry@IOG]

Originally posted by J.Fearing-AOG
Larry, if you would like you can email our sponsors and express this suggestion and see what they think.

In no way am I tring to tell you how to run your site. I like the site just giving my views, it doesnt make or break me just thought it would be a big help to all of the guys wanting to become angel users.


Larry

[Fiction]

If this is an opinion thread, my opinion is : GAY.
What would a sponsor care about used guns?

[Fiction]

I dont see much of anything for sale there, HINT.

[Furious George]

Yeah, I really have to agree with Larry on this one. I would love to pick up another Angel right now but the only I way I could afford to do that is to trade one of my other markers for one. I don't understand what the big deal is as long as an Angel is involved in one side of the transaction. I don't see how that is not Angel specific.

[vinrock]

Fcition: i'm with you on the Porn idea. More so, for search engine categorization (AOG exposure) than doin' the 5-knuckle shuffle tho...

The reason alot of sites see IP's come and go in the server logs are lack of new material; notice how some days here, everyone & their momma is posting new stuff, then it might just go dead for a week?

Possibly, offer things such as user review's that are lightly moderated/edited that can be posted to the server in another section. Not so much a forum thread, but to kind of entice an AOG user to write up something big and interesting to read... free new content for AOG that way and it'd make me want to come back each day to see what new stuff might be up.

Or current paintball news stuff, WARPIG is slow as balls when it comes to updating the front page... i know, there might not be much goin' on so you just throw some proprietary articles up there... duno if im explaining this right, im talkin about a news index thing like drudgereport.com, rense.com, theinquirer.net, etc.

Of course that might be a problem that you wouldn't want to 'feature' any news having to do with a competing company in the marker industry...

[vinrock]

BTW; Matt or Jason, whoever 'owns' AOG - what's your personal goal for AOG?

[matthepepe]

i dont own it............. but my comment is no comment ill only get myself in trouble by speaking .............................................

[vinrock]

that's cool fellas, didnt mean to 'pry' with the question about your personal goals... I just wanted to take something into consideration if I come up with any ideas.

(Don't know if your trying to make money, enjoy maintaining AOG just as a hobby, etc... yaknow what i mean.)

Have there been any solid plans with IRC chat for AOG? Maybe, rather than creating a server on some IRC Net, install ircd on this web server and provide a Java client right from here. That could boost hits... i'd personally rather jump on the Java client at this site that is preconfigured to the right server/chan than having to change my default server in mIRC to get off EFNet and onto the AOG server.

I personally only participate in the AOG forums because i'm just a lurker in the others (other sites & industries) I read. Too many flamers everywhere... but the people here are pretty cool, makes a big difference to me, the atmosphere.

[C.Carles-AOG]

We try to keep the atmosphere as such. And it's hard work to boot. Jason, Matt and the other Mods hardly sleep. Heck we literally do shifts to make sure some moron doesn't come on at 4am and then blast everything with flames and profanity. There have been a few attempts, just none successful thus far. We appreciate the comments vinrock. I myself post here, but only lurk in a few other forums ( car related) due to the attitudes...

[vinrock]

Do you use any automated moderating for such a case? I used UBB at my former employer. Don't remember is we used the built-in UBB filtering stuff, but there was a perl script written and added to the server so it would monitor UBB, say, if anyone were to attempt to DoS the machine with bunches of postings (e.g., disgruntled ex-employee in the corporate intranet) it would deny any connections from the IP for a set amount of time, enough time so that someone would be alerted to it or until the block is lifted.

I've been brainstorming stuff for a site of mine, but i'm personally interested in exposure and hits so I can make a buck on the side with advertising. Been having to come up with ideas of my own for a while now, i probably won't go ahead with it for a while still because i'm going to design a content management system of my own, something similar to PHPNuke but in ASP.Net, that being the basis of my site.

And SPEED bro, you've definitely made it easy for me to get comfortable here. You can joke around but are still very helpful as a Mod.

[Skream9]

I'd definately like to see more colors and an overall better appealing presentation of the site. The margins on the left and right side are much too small, it should be nice and wide open, with friendly colors on the eyes. IOG has a nice open forum that's much easier to read, and looks much more "visually appealing" something that AOG could do quite well.

[vinrock]

Ohhh... I just assumed AOG was colo'd somewhere and Jason actually owned the box.

That'd be cool if you can do it at work, I used to allow personal sites (limited of course) for IT department employees. One of them had a personal site, another one was into sailing so he ran UBB on his site for sailing, etc...

Then we hired Tom...

Tom was into S&M, that didn't swing with me too good, being that the IP for his nasty stuff website was the same as our corporate lan, so I was forced to renig on the offer :lost:

Maybe AOG should start a 'server drive' lasting howver long is necessary, taking donations to purchase a server and have it colo'd? $2,000 or so would be all that's necessary to handle the machinery for this sort of job. If the traffic AOG generates is enough, i'm absolutely sure it can be done free of charge, long as a banner for the ISP is displayed somewhere (or some sorta pitch).

[Skream9]

Originally posted by J.Gruber-AOG
I have been working with Matt a few times trying to figure out a new style for AOG.. I have a draft of it, but it is not avalible for public use on AOG.. only selected people have seen the style... Please remember that vBulletin is a very complex peice of php scripting that takes a long time to 'fine tune' a website using it, so bare with Matt and the other Admins, as we are tinkering with some ideas
Thanks
Cobra

It's actually not that hard to edit. I would consider my self far below an expert on php scripting (actually I dont' know jack :)) but I know I never had any trouble editing my aquired copy of vB. Just takes a little know-how and trial and error.

[freeloader12345]

Hey my minds up for the picking. if you guys need help on selecting equipment let me know i am a compaq fan and administer 20+ servers including Alpha boxes all compaq and various OS.

[Fiction]

vBulletin is far from complex as far as php scripting goes...