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        riddles >> suggestions, help, and FAQ >> A More Prominent Route to the Message Boards
        
(Message started by: Eric Yeh on Aug 2^nd, 2002, 9:13pm)

Title: A More Prominent Route to the Message Boards
Post by Eric Yeh on Aug 2^nd, 2002, 9:13pm

Will,

As you know, I think most of your site is great! If anything, here's my one "big" suggestion: It's seeming to me that there is a huge amount of activity going on on the message boards at any point in time. For a long time, I didn't even look at the boards, but only at the problems. By doing so, I was missing out on a lot. Besides interesting solutions and clever alternative interpretations that re-open ones eyes on a problem, the boards are also, critically, a hotbed for new questions and puzzles. People add new problems, they generalize old ones, and they make up new sub-problems that arise from the old ones. I think this kind of activity is critical for a riddle site to be able to thrive.

The key seems to be in getting people who first drop by the site to visit the boards and see what interesting conversations are going on there. I think you should a) add links from problems directly to their threads (part of your upcoming automation if possible -- that'll also help solve your "duplicate threads" dilemma), and b) somehow "market" the boards further from the homepage, i.e. suggesting readers scour them for additional riddles or some such. Perhaps you could even create a new section a la CS/MSFT (I know, I've said those are bad :P )
where usesrs are allowed to post their own problems, or at least links to the boards. Perhaps the latter is even better, since that way you can link to small subproblems within greater threads, something which I've been doing a bit of.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help. I am really interested in this project -- it's something along the lines of what I've always wanted to do, but never had the time for. Again, great job!!!!!

Best,
Eric

Title: Re: A More Prominent Route to the Message Boards
Post by william wu on Aug 5^th, 2002, 8:11pm

I agree, this forum is definitely not something I'd want a visitor to miss out on. I've added a very visible link next to the riddle index suggesting that people check out the forum if they're stumped -- you've probably noticed this link already. If I ever get around to databasing all this stuff, I'll probably include a forum thread as one of the of columns in the SQL table. In the meantime, I will add a few direct links to particular threads which I think are stimulating. This should amp up bulletin board activity even more.

Thanks for the compliments and support! I will let you know if I need something.