I'll keep this brief. The idea for starting the entire Forum over been brought up before, and was shot down pretty quick, mainly by Ross. The reasons are obvious... No, there's too much history in all the posts, it took a long time to build it up to what it is, etc...

But Ross isn't here anymore... and the forum is in decline anyway. Imagine how it feels to be a first time guest, or new member to see that there have been over 100k+ posts, 2000+ members and only a few new posts a day? Whenever I've joined forums like that, I end up leaving pretty quickly... even if there is a small base of members still devoted, it still feels like posting in a dead forum.

The members we have here now are dedicated enough to not leave if we restart... so why not do it? Wipe all the forums clean, and start from scratch? We won't need to worry about Rezzing topics for awhile, and without the previous threads sitting around doing nothing, it won't feel like we're just repeating every discussion.

Anyway... that is my view, I say we do it. See? Told you it would be brief.

I dunno, a Restart really risks everything just dissapearing for good. I'm a little worried if we have no old topics or anything then alot of the dedicated members would leave. Its a good idea, we need a restart i think... it just worries me is all

I don't know, I'm pretty up for it I think. I mean it would be mean losing all our posts and stuff and status but I'ts a good idea that could get the forum up and running again. I mean if it doesn't then we are in the same place as we are right now but we all look like newbies. So yeah I'm up for it.

We don't neccessarily lose our status. I've deleted threads before and it didn't lower my post count, and these were Ross' Club Threads.

I'm up for this thing. Maybe we could make a back-up or something like that, so the old members can go there if they feel like it.
And I'm guessing that if we restart, we'll just restart the active threads(which are mailny in the Gnome Forum)?

Anyway, I'm up for this. I agree with RA, if you're new and see all this...small chance you'll stick around. We've seen that a lot of times now.

Probably not a terrible idea.

The problem is not the size of the forum.

The problem with FFF, and all other discussion boards, is that there is simply a lack of material to discuss. Everything that can be talked about has been talked about. Restarting wont help, because those who've already talked about it wont want to talk about it again. Also, in this generation of the web, people generally don't find entertainment in simply talking about something. FFF needs something drastically new.

The only reason I see this forum as being not very active is because there isn't any Final Fantasy news to discuss, so nobody is looking for a place to discuss it. Is there something wrong with having the active members we do, using this as a casual social site while waiting for FFXIII to come out and knowing that there will likely be a flood of new members then?

Deleting old, inactive members still isn't a bad idea. The large number of members shown gives a false impression of the close-knit nature of the small community FFF is.

Deleting all of the posts and starting from scratch would merely leave all of the Final Fantasy based forums empty, making newcomers wonder how we can call this a Final Fantasy fan site.

Perhaps a compromise would be to delete or archive posts older than a certain age (six months, a year, whatever) and allow those topics to be reborn as new topics. Even if it's a subject already broached in years past, the new topic will likely have a new twist and encourage newcomers to post more. Leaving topics that have been dead for months or years just provides clutter and discouragement from posting about similar subjects.

This is my thinking as well. Plus, when we go back to remember all of those awesome posts and such, and topics from the past, we won't be able to find them.

Are you saying we should delete EVERYTHING Relient A?

I don't like that idea at all...

^Aw hey c'mon man there's a shinny edit button right there.

I for one am totally up for it, but I have terms. We have to save some of the older really cool topics or just don't reset the fanfiction section because there are some neat stories in there that people have worked very hard on. Namely save K_D's fic, hopefully mine too (don't mean to be concieded) and my DMC fictopic because that topic has my notes.

I do like to read some of the older topics from time to time, but I'm probably the only one that does so anymore. Deleting everything would probably keep me from rezzing so much and seeing all the old topics that got cleaned out by the IF bug is kinda depressing. As Rikku say's memories are nice, but thats all they are. We've all gotta move on and let the past rest sometime. Lets make some new memories. We've got plenty of time to create topics before FFXIII is released to make the FF section look active again.

Besides I figure if a new member sees the forum empty instead of saying the hell with this inactive forum they will stick around and post a bunch. You know how new members like to create tons of topics and get thier opinions out there, all those "what do you think of so and so polls/topic" and everyonce in a while you get a creative one that thinks outside the box. "who do you think was the spy in FFVII?Tifa or Yuffie"

I like the idea of comprimise over deleting everything.

I just don't see how nuking the forums and starting from scratch will help. It would give people stuff to talk about again BUT at the same time there are a lot of memorable threads on here for a lot of the members.

I do think that Vaskal has a point with deleting inactive members. I've always been a fan of this simply because I don't see the point in having 2000+ inactive members (I'm not even sure if that's accurate I just picked a number off of the top of my head) that have been signed up for months with a 0 post count.

I feel that leaving some topics (not all though) maybe the most memorable or interesting in each section would be good so we are creating more things that people can disscuss while leaving some of the little gems on here still. I think having at least a few topics in each each section will give a kind of feel to new members maybe some inspiration for new topics and something so they can see what all the present members are like....

I feel like I'm rambling now but I think comprimise is definitely the way to go....

What's ticking me off though is that Relient A keeps telling me the only way to move on is to delete EVERY single thread and start it over from scratch like when Ross frist started the site back years ago.

I asked him if we should save certain topics and he said 'No'. Even ones from like a week ago that were started he wants wiped out...

I'm not liking this idea at all...

thinking about it...it's kinda scary, I mean this is the first and only forum iv'e actually been active on. I kinda consider you guys an online family, for real. And it would really suck if it fell apart. But hell, we need to take risks. I think it would be a great idea, if we all agreed to stay active.

There are alot of good things and bad things that could come of this, and well, you guys basically named them all...so theres no point in me making a list.

but...I think we should make a section, that keeps the best of the best old topics in there. Like a vault of course, but just keep the best of the best in there.

Well... yeah, like Busta said I want to ditch everything. I see the validity in archiving the forum, but I jsut don't care for it. When I say "restart", I basically want a new forum, completely and totally. This almost worked once before when Ross made a new forum off of this one, but at that time the members didn't like the idea so they wouldn't transfer.

That is what I want to do... but wiping everything saves the trouble.

RA this seems very unlike you, i remember you saying that the history of this forum was its most important asset in a previous post. what made you change your mind?

PANDAS MOTHER FUCKER!

^Alright as funny as the random spam can be at times don't take it overboard. We have a spam section if you feel the need to contribute absolutely nothing to a topic. Considering the importance of this topic I'd hope and expect you to treat it with a little more seroiusness please.

Well, when I said that it was half-truth and half-obligation. Most of the time I speak for the staff, not for myself. But anyway, I think the forum is still in major risk of totally dying. We have, what, 10 active members? So while I do believe the forums history is important... I don't think it is important enough. I was sitting around thinking of radical ideas that might bring some life back, and this one made the most sense to me.

If you look at my member number... I'm one of the absolute most senior members here... it isn't a decision even I will make lightly.