I don't have a lot to offer on this. I do like the idea of having a place to communicate with a few friends but as said we can do the same with Facebook. Since you are already using Google for email they have some basic hostig options for free. File Sharing, message boards (I thinkk) etc.
Any ideas on ways we could increase the value of this site? At the moment, it's getting maybe one or two forum posts a week, at most. Frankly, if that's all it's being used for, I'm having trouble justifying the $10/month the site costs.
I'm not saying I want to shut it down. I'm just wanting to make it more usable and expand it's use. But that's something I'm going to need your help to achieve. Offer you guys the ability to create blogs? Try to get movie/book/game reviews from folks? Try again to run some kind of PBM gaming? I know it was fairly awkward, but at least we checked in.
What can we do to make the site matter? At the moment, it seems like we're using it mostly as a repository for our old RPG sessions. That's great, but you guys don't even click on the ads for me! :P
Also the @cranialherbs.com email addresses are hosted by Google's Gmail service, if anyone would actually use a cranialherbs.com email address or email forwarder, let me know. I have no problem setting up addresses for active site members.
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I've wondered why you've kept the site running at 10$/month for the last year or two. Now that Eric has moved away and we don't seem to game anymore, the CHaR website has lost it's historical function. Not saying it can't morph into something else, but the things I used to use it for don't seem relevent anymore. If we can get some sort of forum going then great, but right now all it seems I use it for is to communicate with Shiva, Daniel, and Charles. Something I can do on facebook. It wouldn't upset me if you closed the web site down, since it does cost money to keep it alive.
One thing I can think of that is sort of close to its original purpose would be to usethe sitefor having a private dialog about the Steampunk book I'm writing. But right now I'd not want that open to a public forum since I'm still writing it and I don't want draft copies of the story floating around at public access. If the site still has that private forum section, that might be nice to use.
Shiva, is there anyway to play Settlers of Catan by post? Sort of like what we did with Diplomacy?
I can make areas of the site restricted to specific members (as are all the CH&R game design threads).
I hate to just kill the site, (and I'd back up and save the database with all of it's game design threads, at least), but I also hate to keep messing with it if we aren't going to make use of it.
I'd love to find some way to make it relevent, useful for others, etc., but I'm not a marketting guru to drive up site hits.
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