2017 Changes To The Website

[Scav3nger]

Hello Everyone.

Just want to drop this here to keep everyone up to date on the latest progress with the website side of things.

In 2017 there'll be a couple of changes rolling out. Firstly, and heavily involving, CANZ. The current subsite was to serve a purpose I feel was not adequately being used for that purpose, increasingly people continue to ask, either directly or indirectly, when an event is taking place and at what time despite that information being available and, in the case of start times, fairly consistent. So canz.screwedgamers.com in it's current format will be closed down at years end, with all news and articles to do with CANZ to now be featured on the main website along with Soccar/Rocket League and general community posts. We'll work in a better structure for all the content on the homepage while we're at it because it's been a bit of a mess this year.

canz.screwedgamers.com will then relaunch as the CANZstats section of the website. When the system is ready.

Also when the system is ready, soccar.screwedgamers.com will also launch, and will be the home of all the Soccar Championship information and stats aside from news which will continue to appear on the homepage.

These changes are all somewhat dependant on the Stats parts of the site being set up, but consolodating all the news onto the one site at the start of 2017 is a part of the plan we can execute in the meantime. As always anyone that is interested in contributing to content (even if it's just taking a few screenshots for news articles) is more than welcome to get in touch with myself or z00lu.

[Scav3nger]

Further to this discussion:

Now that I've added a shoutbox to the forums, in the coming weeks I will be closing the current Facebook chat. I will be slowly reducing the content I post to that chat starting with ceasing answering anyone who asks when the next event is or what time it's starting. Another chat may start in its place but it will not be one I'll be involved with (I will leave it any time I'm added unless it's vitally important for me to post in that chat and not here) and will be posting any of my important information to these forums.

It's important to recognise that as a community we will not be able to grow focusing our discussions to Facebook, while it started out as a place to discuss live events (i.e. V8 and F1 races) as they happened, it's slowly progressed into more things being discussed there instead of here. RGL didn't get to where it was by adding more and more people to a Facebook chat and it's time we realised we're not going to get to that level of involvement unless we start getting this place more active so more people want to get involved when they visit.

[Clasfied Hunter]

Do you still wanna run the Same TSG add for the Bathurst round with websites being changed...or do you wanna edit it?

[Scav3nger]

It's only got a link to the main website doesn't it? I honestly can't remember, haha

[Clasfied Hunter]

I think so...will have to check

[Scav3nger]

It just has a link to the main site, and logos for Soccar Championships and CANZ. So it's all good.

[Clasfied Hunter]

No problem

[z00lu]

I think it would be good to have the shout box visible once logged in. More reason for peeps to log in and join the conversation and also check out threads with new posts etc

[Scav3nger]

I've updated it to make it visible only when users are logged in and modified the requirements so you only need 5 posts to start posting in the shoutbox. This is, of course, a spam preventative measure.

[Scav3nger]

While I don't feel we have to fully explain our decision behind closing the Facebook chat, I feel it's important to cover the reasons why we've come to the decision and why we feel it's the best direction for us to go for the growth of TSG as a whole.

Ultimately the website provides one thing for us that Facebook can't. Control. Using Facebook limits what we can do, and what we can offer. The Screwed Gamers website, however, offers a breadth and depth of control over both our content, and it's presentation. While it is a drawback to have to register to the forums to participate in the conversation we feel it is a minor inconvenience to gain significant advantage over how we interact with the community as a whole and present ourselves to potential new commers.

That leads me to another reason why we choose this direction. It's open. While Facebook has added the ability to share public links to join a chat group so we don't have to be friends on Facebook with someone to add them to a chat, it's still a very closed off element. You can't publicly see discussions taking place or have a traceable record of those discussions to refer back to. I can't count the number of times there's been a suggestion in the chat buried among the GIF's and general banter the chat was being used for. Prioritising that content on the forums, especially in specific threads for certain things, means we have a history we can easily trace back to and search through without needing to wade through other discussions.

Lastly, I think it's important to simply say that we haven't made this decision without a purpose. When the time comes that we are doing more traffic driving content (such as highlight reels, top 10 plays, and maybe even a return of that bloody podcast) we want to have a vibrant and active community that new visitors would be potentially interested in joining. Forums with a post every couple of days while most of our discussions are hidden away in a Facebook chat are not an ideal way to show we have an active community.

As I've said in the chat it is ultimately your call whether you use the forums or not, but our decision on the future of TSG's Facebook chat is not open for discussion.