WSM Forums?

PIRATE · Kickflip Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 2651

(holds breath and waiting for the typicial "wait, Esnow is a girl?")

Slapdown · Kickflip Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 4240 City: Austin

Wait. WHAT??? Crazy Eyes

electricsnow · cassette Joined: 14 Sep 2003 Posts: 10752 City: Jefferton

Whelp, i was going to make that message a sticky at the top, but i thought all 15 new members already knew this.

But really...

Cole munster

Slapdown · Kickflip Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 4240 City: Austin

So, you're not Thomas Horrell?

Randomhero14 · Frontside 180 Joined: 25 Aug 2009 Posts: 346

Maybe its all a plot to stir the pot over here since its been dead Shocked

wakeskate illuminati Twisted Evil

TTUFAN24 · Posted: Feb 11, 2013 9:40 pm Post subject:

electricsnow, 15 new members!!!! you're a girl?

flixmaster · Site Admin Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 824 City: Austin

midwestshred I really do not agree with your statement.. "If you click and post around on ws.com you support Ed of Wakeboarder.com".

You actually support wakeskating if you click around on wakeskating.com.

I do own both sites and I own a number of other websites but we have always let ws.com run and be a place where new wakeskate companies could come and post and spread the word about a new company. We have always supported Wakeskating from the start. We were on board with Thomas to support cassette, Remote, Integ, Oak, Blast, and the list goes on. Other companies have thrived off the fact that they have received free promotion from ws.com. And to this date I have never gotten a check or paypal payment from one single wakeskate company.

The wakeskate community is a really small community. You should be thankful that people are doing what they can to support it. We have done our part to keep wakeskating growing and hopefully the WSM crew can get some issues out and get to the point where they have a full-on magazine with paid ads and everything they need to keep on doing what they want to do with a printed magazine.

For those that have supported and contributed to the site we thank you!

Love
Ed of Wakeskating.com

tad · 360 flip Joined: 07 May 2006 Posts: 5031

Heyyyyy we do have a full-on magazine with paid ads, printed on real paper!

Wink

flixmaster · Site Admin Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 824 City: Austin

hmmm... Then why have you not sent me a free copy Tad?? Smile

Ed Harmon of Wakeskating.com
16628 N IH 35
Austin TX 78728

Frye · Guest Joined: 14 Sep 2003 Posts: 3335

Why do you have ads on wakeskating.com?

flixmaster · Site Admin Joined: 11 Jul 2006 Posts: 824 City: Austin

We have ads from our ad network so hopefully we can off set the cost of hosting. Ideal would be to be able to run all wakeskate company related ads but wakeskate companies tend to not have the ability to run any.

WERDna · Backside 180 Joined: 07 Jan 2009 Posts: 541

Unless the WSM forums change up their mechanics and all around aesthetics I don't see these forums losing any traffic..The whole layout is dull, and the text is dim and small. It just lacks clear navigation.

knox · Kickflip Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 4693 City: Gainesville

flixmaster, right, this website isn't free for you to host so you have to advertise. The Wakeskate Mag isn't free for Tad to produce either, so he sells it. Frye is implying that you should get a subscription instead of asking for one for free, he understands why there are advertisements on the site. Rhetoric ftw.

tad · 360 flip Joined: 07 May 2006 Posts: 5031

WERDna, our forums are exactly that, forums: a place with a bunch of text for people to talk about wakeskating. I'm guessing you have never been to Reddit and other popular chaos filled sites, because I thought ours was rather clean and easy to navigate. I'd love to see a web forum that isn't dull, shoot me some examples so I can get some inspiration. If 10 simple categories are really that hard for people to sort through, I can narrow it down. I will take your observation on link size and color into consideration to better our forums! Thanks dude. At the end of the day, I don't think aesthetics have a single hint of influence on forum traffic, I mean look at this site and how many people cry about the logo and colors, yet they keep coming back. (I love them, personally. Haha)

WERDna · Backside 180 Joined: 07 Jan 2009 Posts: 541

tad, Reddit is a cluster-fvck and using it in any web forum comparison is unreasonable. They get more traffic in one day than all the wake forums combined in a year, and Reddit would make any forum look clean-cut. I'm not telling you to make anything more than a monochromatic discussion board..it is just the way your text and various threads are formatted that needs to be adjusted.

It's not that it is difficult to navigate either, I just believe it should have clearer distinctions. For instance, the thread titles are a faded grey and the descriptions are solid black which for me personally draws my attention to the description before the title and is just disorienting. I understand that its not that big of a deal I can re-adjust quickly, and I'm sure others don't have this problem it just seems a little counter-intuitive. Adjusting color and font size will help in that regard.

I don't think the aesthetics of wakeskating.com is causing anyone to flee that is still here now nor does it hurt the daily traffic. However, I do feel a new mock-up here would be beneficial in bringing back old users who got burnt out on the current site and it could possibly draw in new users all together.

Here is a generic forum layout for a website called Secular Cafe that I frequent.
It is simple, clean-cut, has clear text distinctions, and implements a calm color tone which I enjoy.

tad · 360 flip Joined: 07 May 2006 Posts: 5031

electricsnow · cassette Joined: 14 Sep 2003 Posts: 10752 City: Jefferton

I don't think changing the colors of this site would bring old users back...I think part of it has to do with growing up and not having the time to visit the site, losing interest in wakeskating or just talking about it. Again, on every wake oriented web forum I visit, there's not a lot of discussion traffic. Even on the wakeskating discussion group on facebook, there's not a ton going on considering how many people have access to it.

WERDna · Backside 180 Joined: 07 Jan 2009 Posts: 541

electricsnow, I wasn't really implying color changes were all that necessary for wakeskating.com or at least not only colors. I would almost recommend a full re-model. There are a lot of changes that could be made to this site that would be great for the users, tapatalk compatibility, an updated and re-formatted home page that would motivate people to check ws.com for wakeskate related news.. I would be happy to do monthly updates with you and Ed, put together an edit and provide you guys with some content if I felt it was going to get viewed.

Unfortunately, I and many others I know have our bookmarks for ws.com set to the forum index and hardly visit the home page. If a remodeling occurred I think it would bring people back solely out of curiosity. Possibly out of that curiosity will come astonishment, after seeing the awesome new digs Cool

They might even enjoy re-engaging in the discussions.

dbanana · Frontside 180 Joined: 01 Dec 2007 Posts: 384

Sending Ed one free magazine seems like a very small token of appreciation for the amount of free exposure Tad's WSM has gotten on this site.

Obscura · Faceplant Joined: 19 Dec 2009 Posts: 37

So who misses the wakelist? I'm just saying!