There is also a chance that TZ can't do anything to fix this. Shock is the one who holds this site from what I understand, the elusive Kajin following just under his powers (again- from what I understand). The reason (for exampe) the front page hasn't been changed since Reach is that TZ simply doesn't have control over that.
Kajin owns the site. Shock was given root access to the site before forgehub was bought by RMN and since shock is a web developer, kajin let him keep the control. TZ only has admin access over the forum to change boards, user permissions and ranks, and change names. He doesn't have access to the vbulletin control panel which is required to have better control. Until shock or kajin gives that kind of control to TZ his hands are tied.
I argued this way back (if you recall, Hub Pubbers) before it was too late, and then went off to make my own site instead because the staff refused to listen. Without a complete rehaul (and that doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be returning staff, it means that you need to regard ALL members as "normal" and then start from scratch), I don't see this site going anywhere. I know that's harsh, but I'm 99% sure I'm right here.
You mean to host another application type process? I think it would benefit if you, the current staff, personally chose those that you feel were earnest in taking on the position instead of those that simply volunteer. I like where you're getting at with that, though.
We Journos had a few recommendations in mind and before we left. I don't know if the Mods were involved with that though, so they might have been forgotten. If not, promote those dudes Tz!
Screw that, Pick me pick me! lol One question say we did get the best admins/mods/leaders ever. To be brutally honest, Then what? -Gonna make forums look fancier? I dunno how much that's gonna effect anything. Can't polish a turd (not saying Forgehub is a turd but it's either a turd or it isn't and polish isn't gonna do much to fix anything) -Spread word about forgehub on other sites get our name out there more? No ones really interested in forge or Halo 4 so who would join a "Halo4forgehub" forum. -Host more custom games? No ones really interested in Halo 4 to play (besides usual players who play customs anyway don't need a new admin for that to happen) so why would outsiders wanna play customs here over other places. -Bring more attention to Forge hub favorites or featured maps? No ones really interested in Halo 4's forge to forge anything. Common denominator is Halo 4 forge been bad and that's the problem. (and probably why current admins/mods/leaders are "abandoning the site/ignoring issues or w/e there doing" because they aren't interested in Halo 4 and its forge enough to come to this site or moderate this site etc) I'm not saying this to be rude to anyone I want this site to succeed so I'm telling it how it is without sugar coating it so someone might be able to fix what i believe the actual issue is.
It's not one or the other or even a combination of the two. There are multiple facets that go into it. Interest in being a member of a forum (regardless of how pretty it looks), interest in the game the forum is about (which granted has waned significantly since Halo 3, but that isn't entirely the Halo games' fault, there are so many other quality games out now that it's hard to devote a lot of time to one of them for a significant amount of time). A presence outside of just the forum. Pyschoduck's youtube channel is doing very well showing off Halo videos, as did Darth Human's channel. Cooperation with the other forge communities brings in members from those communities and promotes a common halo spirit and it wouldn't hurt to have 343i's eye for our events as well. I know it's been tried in the past but never with the effort required for it to stick but social media is important. If I was running things I'd have staff whose job it is to solely in charge of things like twitter, facebook, etc. Letting people know when TGIF was and who's having lobbies as well as another other announcements or interesting forge developments. Lastly, being able to control the forum on a finer level is very important. I feel like you're underestimating that importance to be able to fix issues when they arise or be able to add improvements when needed. I'd also expand forgehub past Halo and include boards for other games content creation modes. The argument against doing that is that they'd just be dead boards but I think that's looking a it the wrong way. The predominant amount of people on a forum called "forgehub" which is branded as a Halo fan site means the members will be predominantly Halo players. If we open up that stigma to say any content creation within games be it Gary's Mod, Little Big Planet (playstation I know right, scary), Far Cry, whatever then I think we'd pull many more active members looking to share their creations. This kind of change would also be best necessitated by a database change which could do for those games what we do for Halo but again that would require a very active tech admin or multiple ones to get that change done.
There are over 60,000 players playing Halo every single day. There are other communities with plenty of activity -- admittedly not IDEAL, but still higher than here. There are plenty of vibrant, thriving websites, streams, and youtube channels. These people aren't lucky, they just bother to genuinely care. "But I care!", says the ForgeHub enthusiast -- but do you? "The game is bad" is no excuse for having like 30 total active members, I'm sorry. There's 59,970 more people that you COULD be getting right now, and saying "we need more journos/applications/writeups/contests/some other bs" is not the way to accomplish it. The only way you can get people is to care to seek out those people and to care to bring them into your community. Any and all care for the game has been lost from this site for months, and that's why I don't see this site coming back without a serious revamp.
Believe it or not, those 60,000 people playing the game are doing just that -- playing the game. It's not that hard to play the game and socialize. Sitting around complaining about "how awful the game is" (or in TZ's case, selling the game) isn't going to net you a single person who plays the game. You're trying to bring in members, but at the same time you're bashing what they like to play. It's extremely obvious as to why this site is failing right now.
That gets to the heart of at least one of the major issues, right there: we became a fixed and frozen community some time ago, basically maintaining our same core of forum-goers without attracting many new ones anymore. And as those people have become sick of Halo, they also became sick of the site - many of them did, anyway - and have drifted away, leaving the place dead and the remaining holdouts pessimistic and negative.