No worries, I never made any effort to chase it up anyway, plus I've drifted away from the forum a little too. Nice to see someone up there though!

Well, straight down to business I s'pose.

I know that no-one really wants to see this become a forum that's only about school, university etc. At best I think it could be a sort of general enquiry forum where people can post threads or ask questions about topics that they've never really taken the time to find out about, and members can either link them to somewhere they could find more out about it or actually go through it themselves.

- Basically, handling inquiries into subjects that don't better fit into another forum. This would let the forum fit under the 'pursuit of knowledge' heading without being so narrow as to suffocate itself. I thought you guys might appreciate some insight into what I hope to do.

The way I see it, to get the forum bustling there's two areas that need addressing – first, making people aware that the forum exists and actually getting them to come here to see it for themselves.
Second, getting them to like what they see so they'll actually post here and come back.

(Yes, I know it's not rocket science, but it helps to have aims written down somewhere.)

Now, it seems to me that the best way to go about this would be to begin by organising the forum into something worth coming back for – there's no point in getting people to come here if they're only going to leave again straight away. Moreover, the stigma they'd give it might stop them from taking a look at it again even once we get the place up and running. So this is where I'll begin.

One more thing – I know how one of the biggest appeals of this forum before I was appointed was the sort of Communist, utopian feel it had with sensible members being able to discuss topics and keeping each other in check. I don't want to lose this – you guys will still be a massive part in establishing this forum. As I said when I suggested the idea of a mod, I'm largely going to be here to put our plans into action.

As such I really encourage you guys to make heavy use of this thread, post any and all decent ideas that you have so that we can have as many people address their pros and cons as we can – I'll do the same. If enough people think it's a good idea, I'll make it happen. Simple.

Cheers guys. Let's do it.

Lenin
PL

My suggestion is A thread for discussion of the college application process, that could possibly include an index of colleges whose applications who have been released and open discussion of tips and tricks, critiques etc. for the process. It sounds a bit easier said than done, but I feel it could be applied if approached in a practical manner. Thank you.

quote Galacticdramon

I'd like to make a suggestion. If a thread refers to the education system of a specific country, this should be mentioned in the title of that thread. I've already seen people becoming confused by internationally ambiguous phrases or words being used. SATs are completely different in America to what they are here. Their "college" is our "university", and they don't seem to have an equivalent of our "college". These are just examples of it.

I'd really like to see this implemented in some form P_L.

quote crimsom galantmon129

My suggestion is A thread for discussion of the college application process, that could possibly include an index of colleges whose applications who have been released and open discussion of tips and tricks, critiques etc. for the process. It sounds a bit easier said than done, but I feel it could be applied if approached in a practical manner. Thank you.

I thought this was an interesting idea. It would take a bit of work, but provided enough people are interested it could be a pretty useful addition to the forum. I'll wait and hear what the rest of you think about it though.

quote The Dave

quote Galacticdramon

I'd like to make a suggestion. If a thread refers to the education system of a specific country, this should be mentioned in the title of that thread. I've already seen people becoming confused by internationally ambiguous phrases or words being used. SATs are completely different in America to what they are here. Their "college" is our "university", and they don't seem to have an equivalent of our "college". These are just examples of it.

I'd really like to see this implemented in some form P_L.

Well, I'm taking a look at Sphinx's rules atm - I'll include something about it in there, and if any existing threads receive a sudden influx of responses I can edit the titles as appropriate.

I think defining what country the topic is related to is a good idea. It would be better to keep it out of the title and possibly have it as a thread caption so if they leave a little note in the original post then it could work well. It can help to save people time by avoiding threads that are irrelevant to them and can also do the opposite by bringing in members to a discussion or even if they're simply viewing to find out how different systems work in different countries.

I would like to suggest a new header for the forum. Either a header competition or you can ask somebody to make us one, [~*~nudge nudge, The Dave~*~ ] as I feel the current header gives the wrong impression on the forum for the direction the forum is meant to be heading in. I'm sure you all understand what I mean by that.

I don't... I like my header

LOL! Sorry, Sphinx...nothing personal.

It's ok, I'm only joking. I know it's quite a plain header, I just threw it together when the forum was first created. I totally agree that we should harass Dave into making a shiny new header.

Personally I love the current header. Has a really nice clean look to it although perhaps it suggests the forum is more the "Academia And Stacks Of Books I've Recently Read Forum" rather than the "Education Forum".

If we were to go for a new header I'm with R1DDL3S. A header competition is always a great way of encouraging interest in a new forum. I've got quite a few projects on the go at the moment so I'm not sure if I'd even get around to entering. Sometimes it's best to let others have a go, wouldn't want my Neo-Ego growing too big now would we...