This place is becoming a video dumping forum only used to get a few extra views. We have to make it clear that this place is not for that and that other sections are used.
Don't dump other people's videos, I don't care if Jesus Mohammed Buddha can't be bothered doing it themselves or if you're a fan or friend, if they don't post here, don't post their videos.
That will cut down on all the shit posts in the video section and get freestylers coming here, posting their own videos and then checking out the rest of the forum when they get bored.
We have to be careful here. I don't think people "dumping" videos here is a problem. Think about it... what happens if you keep people from dumping videos? Nothing. You will just go from 20 posts per day to say 5-10. No videos does not mean more posts. It just doesn't correlate. I think it's completely fine for people to keep dumping videos. It still adds content to the page and some people still come here to watch the latest videos. We shouldn't take that from them. There might be no use of this forum if videos aren't being posted. In the end, I don't think this is an issue. The bigger issue is people don't post in other forums. This is completely irrelevant to video posts. Just because videos are being dumped doesn't mean other forums can't be active. The way I see it, people only see use in dumping videos here. That's a problem, but preventing dumping of videos doesn't do anything to fix the former problem.
Competition page sounds like a good idea. You might make some restrictions on how you can enter to make sure they are posting on the forum. Social Network is a bust, but I do think we need some sort of main page. I think the video and competition threads should be locked until you have reached some sort of post limit. This prevents people joining and only using those two threads.
I think the forum will pick up naturally. I don't think we have to force people to do anything. Forcing people to register, have X amount of posts, etc will only annoy people and keep them from participating in anything on the site. If we make a successful competition homepage and people enjoy the site, they will naturally want to sign up on the forum to talk about the comp and freestyle. I don't think we need to force people's hand. I think I've learned that the hard way.
I agree with LIS about not posting other people's videos just to help them get more views. Unless it's a big video that really is worthy of a discussion, don't post other people's videos that aren't members. Let them post their own videos if they want those views.
I don't know if I agree with this either. In an ideal world, we'd want the video owner to post his own video but that just isn't reality. Royal Freakiness has really helped the Video section with his topics. If you force owners to post their own video, you'll just get even less activity. I don't see how restricting things helps in any way.
It all comes down to people posting in the sections that are important to them. If you want the Freestyle Chat and Equipment sections to boom, then post there a lot and start interesting and new threads. Maybe post a link to the topic on facebook so people can see it. Slowly things will pick up but it requires proactive work and good posts... pretty much what you said in the quote below.
Last, but not least, the users that actually are active have to try to create some interesting content and support existing content. Try to open your mind a bit to things you may not usually find an interest in. If there are interesting discussions on here, other users may join. For example, even a few people I didn't expect to post on my K-1 and MMA threads posted. More good content means more good discussion.
