[Kerry]

Hi All - to those of you who still remember who I am!

Firstly, apologies for dpforums deteriorating so much in both support and a general loss of activity. I've had my hands tied with my other projects for last couple of years - until now! I've decided to try and revive this website otherwise its just going to go further downhill. Before I describe exactly what is going to happen I want to say a big thanks to those that have tried to keep the forum alive, especially to Steve who I have been in contact with occasionally to talk about ideas.

Right, so I feel there are 3 main problems to fix to try and get this site back firing on all cylinders again:

1. Old Software and Sloppy Integration
I think one of the issues with the current site is we're using 2 separate bits of software - vbulletin merged with photopost. To me it doesn't integrate very well. So a big decision is to migrate the whole site to a new hosted platform using an invision board and gallery.

To me this looks alot more streamlined. I think some of the functionality in photopost is a bit clunky and useless anyway so we are going to migrate all the forums and galleries to this new platform. This should be happening within the next 2 weeks.Also there will be the posibity of people posting blogs on the new platform!

2. No Traffic
There is very little traffic coming to the website as the SEO for it has been left by the wayside. So I will work on this and also ask if when the new website is up if as many members could link to us as possible will help get us up in the rankings. I will also put a budget towards advertising in popular UK photography mags.

3. Admins and Mods
I think we need to really assess how much time we all have to manage, post and enjoy dpforums and then we can work out who to put in charge of what so when the new website goes up I will setup a thread asking for volunteers for the new community.

Anyway, I've already started the ball rolling with invision so hopefully once I give them the go-ahead to migrate everything it shouldn't take too long!

Best,
Kerry x

[SteveH]

:smile: Sounds good :smile:

[Kerry]

Welcome to the new look DPF.

I hope everyone likes the changes that have been made - I've been hard at work trying to improve the overall look and feel of the community. There is a new logo as you've probably noticed - very different to anything previous I know but I wanted to go with something more contemporary and different to try and emphasize the updated look. Also notice that I have shortened the name from "Digital Photography Forums" to "Digital Photo Forums" and this of course can be shortened to "DPF".

The new tabs just underneath the logo show the 4 main areas of the site. The "Forums" tab takes you straight back to the forums homepage. The "Members" tab is useful to jump straight to a profile - note that you can also see a mini preview of a members profile by clicking the little green popup icon next to a members name. The "Calendar" tab will get more useful when we put more competitions and events in the diary and the "Gallery" tab takes you straight to all the fantastic images that we have migrated over from the old DP Gallery.

I will continue to make changes and additions to the new site over coming weeks.

Feel free to reply to this thread with your thoughts and comments. It will take some time for us all to get used to this new system but I think it will be well worth it!

[SteveH]

Looks good so far, I will ahve a good look round and let you know :-)

[Kerry]

Just a note to say I have started the ball rolling with the SEO. I am quite knowledgeable in this area myself but I am putting a budget towards some outside help so we should start seeing the benefits in the coming months. Any help is appreciated, any links from your personal blogs or recommendations will help DPF!

Will keep everyone updated.

[Kerry]

I'm going to start looking at setting up rules for link posting to stop spammers - I think alot of forums set a minimum number of posts before you can add a link to your your signature and we should do the same. Any suggestions or help in this area would be welcome.

[Kerry]

have been working hard on the SEO and we'll also be putting out an advert in Photography Monthly.

[konia34]

Kerry, on 30 September 2009 - 10:21 AM, said:

have been working hard on the SEO and we'll also be putting out an advert in Photography Monthly.

Let's hope the hard work pays off and we get lots of active members!!!

[Stevedevil]

With regard to " Spam " this will always be an ongoing battle, but something that "Good Moderation " will of course help appear..

I have linked all my sites to here, but would appreciate the new GIF image as for me to upload and show on the sites, so if thats poss please ping it to me..

Cheers, sites looking great, maybe some new content on the forum pages, like " Meet the....." as in Photographer, canon user, nikon user, Owner!!! something a little off topic but still related to the site.

[Girish]

Hello everyone i am completely new to this forum.
Interested in learning many new things. Hope we all will share our
knowledge and talk about different concepts in this forum.
hello buddy i read your comment i agry with you dear thanx for this information.
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Girish
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