Hi all,

Well, with the official cancellation of SFGAmZone.com, I think I'm going to take SFGAmZone in a new direction, to start, I'm going to clean up some things.

First, the number of forums we have. We have too many that are simply not needed in their own forum and will be able to exist within other forums.

I think the re-organized forums will be something like this:

Six Flags Great America Forums
-Six Flags Great America
-Hurricane Harbor
-GREAT AMERICA History
-Trip Planning, Meetings, and Trip Reports
-Guest's Reviews

The big change here will be the change from Ride Reviews to Guest Reviews. This is where us, the park guests, can voice our opinion on everything. This would be split up into five sub-forums that would include:

-Rides/Attractions
-Food
-Shows
-Games
-Everything Else

For example, the Rides/Attractions SubForum would basically remain the same as Ride Reviews with another subforum for each themed territory, then a post for each of the rides in that area. Food would be the same, it would be split into subforums for each territory, then in those subforums, a post for each eatery in that specific area. The Everything Else subforum would be for things such as park cleanliness, employees, and the such. The Guest's Reviews forum will take awhile to build.

General Coaster Forums
-General
-Gaming

The Other Chicago Parks forum will be merged into the General forum as it's really not that active. Otherwise, things will remain the same.

Non-Coaster Related Forums
-Totally O/T
-Introduce Yourself

Spam Room would basically be merged into the Off Topic forum (renamed Totally O/T), and the O/T forum would continue as a forum to post everything not related to the amusement industry. Random "Spam Room-type threads" would still be allowed. We'll get to the Dumpster shortly.

Site Forums
-Announcements (formerly News)
-SFGAmZone Videos
-The Vault (future status unknown)
-The Dumpster

The main losses here are the Problems/Suggestions Forum and the Chat Room. Problems/Suggestions will be dealt with through Private Messages. If we ever had the need to add a team of moderators, then this forum will be re-made, but right now, it's not needed since I'm the only one running this show. If the site has a problem and goes down, details will be announced in the Announcements forum, which was formerly News.

The Chat Room hasn't been active in over a year and will be eliminated to reduce space.

The Dumpster will be moved here and will be where all locked threads are moved to. You won't be able to make new threads in the Dumpster, but they will be unlocked so you can continue (if you must) any online bickering there. Really it will be for testing things such as signatures.

Speaking of signatures,
I think I am going to add a new policy on signatures. I've seen this on several forums and it may work well here. Users running on a modem have complained that it takes forever for a thread to load because of all the images in signatures, and really, I don't think everyone cares what your signature is in every single post.

So to reduce clutter and to help those with 56k Modems, signatures will no longer be automatically checked for every post. That means if you want your signature in your post, you will have to hit the "Enable signature?" check box at the bottom of your text box when posting. I'll say keep signature use down to three uses on a page.

Of course, everything is still being finalized and this thread should not be considered an official announcement on the future of these forums. Any and all opinions on this reorganization are welcome and will help us revive this site.

ALL SUGGESTIONS ARE WELCOME TO BRING SFGAMZONE BACK TO LIFE!!

I think losing SFGAmZone.com was unavoidable when your system KO'd or whatever. It's sad, but it happens. I guess the whole "spring cleaning" thing is good, but it won't bring people to this site. I also would like to keep the SPAM room and Off topic seperate...


Many original posters have just either stopped or significantly reduced their postings, and people aren't coming in to replace them. We haven't had a new account in a LONG time...perhaps part of that is because you need admin approval. I suggest lifting this until if and when the next SPAM attack is.

New registrants now need to only validate their email address. If things get bad again then this will be changed back.

Have you ever thought about doing a monthly podcast? It's something SFGAm World does not offer, and would keep this forum alive without a problem. I could probably help you get that started up if you were interested. With the season coming to an end, and people curious about new attractions for the 09 season, I have no doubt in my mind you could put together a 20-30 minute show. Give it a thought, and let me know if you have any questions about it.

That's a very good idea, problem is I have no clue how to podcast and what to say.

^A monthly podcast could consist of park news, events, ride reviews, new attractions, Fright Fest, ect.

You could basically write up a bunch of stuff you want to mention in your show, and go off that while you're recording. As far as recording the actual show, I'm unsure of what equipment can be used to make a nice quality podcast. I know you'd be looking for something cheap, as I would be too, so I'll talk to a friend who knows a bit about it.

That's a good idea to do Podcast Jon & FRD714.

Id like to hear a podcast too.

Tonight I am going to start changing some of the forums around, primarily the Site Forums.

The Problem/Suggestion forum will be eliminated and its threads will go to the dumpster. All problems/suggestions can be sent to my PM Inbox.

Once we figure out what the future of the Spam Room is, the Dumpster will either stay as a sub-forum of the Spam Room, or will be spun-off into the Site Forums when the Spam Room gets merged into the OT Forum. Spam room-type posts will be allowed in the Dumpster and in the Off-Topic Forum, it will just be a new name.

Chat Room is gone. If there's high demand for a chat room again then I'll put the link back up. In the meantime, though, we don't need it.

Still figuring things out with the Vault.

Construction of SFGAmZone will now be discussed here:
http://z12.invisionfree.com/SFGAm_Zone/ind...?showtopic=1332

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