How to make SF even better (Attn Members)

Some forum categories are obviously used much more than others. For those that are not used much, these could be consolidated to make room for categories that are used more. Or the addition of others of interest. For instance, in the ‘Complementary Therapies & Traditional Medicine’ section categories w/ less than 5 threads could be consolidated as one category. This would still have retain them, but lessen the look of the site having inactive categories when someone scanned the forum listing.

The term ‘Paranormal & Supernatural’ is a little outdated. In the interest of making the nonphysical seem less weird & frightening & giving the idea that connecting w/ things like nonphysical spirits isn't abnormal, maybe other titles could be considered such as ‘The Unexplained.'

The ‘UFO’ category focuses only on the vehicle. It would be a much broader range that is more about what is really discussed to call it ‘ETs & UFOs.’ Some UFOs may be by our own governments. The subtitle description might be expanded to ‘Discussion about ETs, UFOs, ET Telepathic Contact, Alien Abductions, etc.’. Many are having telepathic contact w/ ETs or contact w/ energetic beings of all types. ETs could also be called Starpeople to destigmatize them.

The category, ‘Religions & Faiths’ includes the category ‘Light Workers & Earth Angels’ but seems very lacking that it doesn’t have a ‘New Age’ category. While many beliefs are encompassed in this broad term & it certainly isn't a set belief system, they don’t fall under any of the other categories. The exclusion of this almost implies an anti-New Age bias. While there are some kooks in New Age spirituality & some go ballistic w/ the term, what religion or belief system doesn’t have its fair share of whack-jobs!!! LOL. Much of what is already listed on this site is very New Age oriented.

The category, ‘Religions & Faiths’ might be updated to acknowledge that many have beliefs beyond the organized religion as ‘Religions, Faiths & Spiritual Beliefs‘ or simply ‘Spiritual Beliefs‘ or 'Beliefs.' This would give equal weight to Spiritual Beliefs w/ the organized religions. Or ‘Our Varied Beliefs‘ to imply that variety is expected & OK. Or ‘Belief Systems.’ How about a category for Agnostics/Atheists? This is a belief system for many who have found organized religion’s views unacceptable.

To prevent confusion between ‘Spiritual Beliefs’ & ‘Spirituality & Beliefs’ maybe the latter category could be something like ‘Exploring Our Energies‘ or ‘Exploring The Spiritual Universe’ to avoid using the word beliefs in both of them as this is a little confusing. Moving away from considering the topics such as chakras as subjective beliefs & just part of the energetic picture is useful.

Under ‘Complementary Therapies & Traditional Medicine’ a category of ‘Energy Work’ could apply to many types of energy work including working w/ the planet’s energies & Universal energies as well as our personal energies. Some types of specific energy work are listed there that are more in regular healing modalities or therapies, but this category is broadening & will continue to do so as people become more in touch w/ their energies, working w/ them. There’s allot of energy work I wouldn’t consider to fit in any of the existing categories or to be a therapy.

I like mattie's ideas. A site reformation will spruce things up and catch everyone's eye. Change the background, the forum name titles, etc. Think of it like a revamp of sorts

[Elfay]

The forum definately needs an over haul, a face-lift of sorts. I like how the themes change with the seasons but maybe you can add other skins like some other forums do, so you can chose the color theme you like instead of just one. One forum I was on had several seasonal skins to chose from that month along with the other skins/themes that were there. It gave the forum a lift a lot, with each new theme there were different smilies and graphics. One of the lady's on the forum did it all her self and it looked awesome (she created all the themes and added all the new smilies).

Exactly! You could even let the members vote on an idea to keep participation up so they feel involved.

Originally Posted by innerlight

Hi Everyone,

I would like to take this time to ask the membership a question about the forum. We are always striving to make this place the greatest place of its kind on the internet. We are already one of the most friendly places around. Trust me I have been to a few places.

But now we need your help to make it even better. So what can we do as a forum to make this place even better?

All opinions and ideas are greatly appreciated. Lets see how we can make this place even better.

All of the Spiritual Forums Staff.

More even handed adjudication of issues by staff between members that results in some sort of DA (Locked/Closed threads etc.) would be nice.

Specifically a policy whereby if a staff member has a personal issue with a given user here, she or he recuse themselves from adjudicating issues regarding that member and pass it along to different staff member who will handle said issue justly and without bias.

The above issue is the primary reason I have stopped posting here, in fact this is my first post on SF at all in many months. Likely I will remain simply a lurker henceforth until such time such a policy as I have suggested is implemented here.

[Deusdrum]

I suggest starting a thread asking members for ideas on how to improve the forums. That would be a good start- oh wait...

I thought of starting a thread like this awhile back, so really, all joking aside this thread itself is making SF better imo, at the very least because of the thought and inspiration. good call innerlight.

In general, anything that would strengthen the SF community.

A forums i used to frequent some years ago had the gold medal or gold star award, i cant remember which, where a person recieved a gold medal that appeared beside there name when posting; and then they passed it on to someone at the end of the week/month who they felt was deserving of recognition because of something. The drawbacks to this idea would be the feeling of exclusion maybe like 'why haven't i got the gold medal yet' or whathaveyou.

Another idea would be free long distance healing, where on a volunteer basis healers and potential recipients signed up to pick at random a person to get a free healing from all the volunteered healers for 10 minutes or more or less every month or second month or an appropriate period of time that could be would be decided upon.

Or i remember when devolution had a 'topic of the week' or something, where he would post in the admin subforum section about some spiritual subject of education or interest, or a newsletter, that member with knowledge/experience of could add to.

Recently someone posted about having meditation sessions or classes in the chat room once a week where anyone could join in and participate.

Obviously all of these require some amount of time and energy investment, so it would depend on how much of that people could afford and be available for, or are interested in.

Also cupcakes. Cupcakes and goodie bags for all members. And official SF cheerleaders and a mascot. A clothing line and a sports team.

That's it, that's all i got. Oh and use more variety in the smiley faces. Some of those smileys dont get enough love, we need to incorporate all the smileys at our disposal, come on people!

I also like mattie's suggestion of more streamlined forum subject headings, though i like that there are so many, maybe just combine a few, rename others etc.

[Silver]

Another idea would be free long distance healing, where on a volunteer basis healers and potential recipients signed up to pick at random a person to get a free healing from all the volunteered healers for 10 minutes or more or less every month or second month or an appropriate period of time that could be would be decided upon.

I like this idea but with a bit of a twist...Pick one week / day a month for all healers to practice their long distance healing powers for everyone. Since I know relatively little about how that works, I'll wait to see if any healers reading this have more knowledgeable suggestions.

Cool idea, Deusdrum.

[Honza]

What is 'the portal'? I'm not familiar with that term. What has changed since the crash?

Thanks.

[norseman]

Originally Posted by Elfay

The forum definately needs an over haul, a face-lift of sorts. I like how the themes change with the seasons but maybe you can add other skins like some other forums do, so you can chose the color theme you like instead of just one. One forum I was on had several seasonal skins to chose from that month along with the other skins/themes that were there. It gave the forum a lift a lot, with each new theme there were different smilies and graphics. One of the lady's on the forum did it all her self and it looked awesome (she created all the themes and added all the new smilies).

Elfay [and others ]. If you are using Firefox, there is an Add-On called Nosquint which allows you to personalise your screen - colours, font sizes - not a full skin but part-way at least.

[sound]

I would like to see pass-worded forums for less inhibited discussions. Members would need to apply for access and general rules would still apply, however for the most part, participants could determine when they had 'had enough' as opposed to that being decided for them.
In making that suggestion, please know that I am not devaluing the wonderful, and extremely difficult job moderators do on the open forum. I just feel that it would mean more 'intense' discussions/threads could run their course, without the risk of offending bystanders.