I never said I had it all figgured out, just that we will probably see more action in here in a week or so (if people choose to use it)

oh, for sure.  I was just saying we will probably see more activity on the forum after new games come out, but there is alot that we can use this forum for in the time being.

A public announcement will get everyone and their grandmother signing up for this. I can imagine twelve year old kids who think they can magically create the next CounterStrike, so long as they find a programmer, modeler, mapper, texture artist, sound engineer, animator, skinner, lumberjack, liontamer...

I'm just fearful that this great concept might turn in to another "off topic" forum that would have to be moderated for hours.

But, arguably, that's not a bad thing. We are, after all, seeking to improve the mod community, no?

Well, thats partly going to be overcome by the having to be verified in order to post, and in order to be verified, you need a member to vouch for you on the petitioner forum.

I think it may be a good idea to open up a third forum, that everyone can post to kind of like what you said.

The signal to noise will be really high, but I think it may help us get the influx to this messageboard.

I also wonder, is it possible to allow people to read this board but not post to it?

I think it might attract more people if they could read this board, and post to some third board.

I would even volunteer to help moderate the third board if needed.

Well, by "getting as many people as possible" there are of course draw backs when it comes to signal to noise, but at the same time, by alot of that being filtered out by people having to actuall be a developer of some kind, I think that will weed out alot of the noise, leaving a gathering of talented people.

Then there is the question of focus. My idea has always been that the focus should be more on theory than actual implementation. Now, while there is definately a benefit to seeing how someone added something to game X, I think it's also beneficial to see why it was added in the first place, how it was planned, and then finally implemented.

Hopefully with the influx into the boards, some of this will be achieved.

Posting works in progress (WIPS) should also help getting this community rolling.

We can hold exclusive mod releases to just meambers of this group.

For example, when Sprog and I release The Dirty 30s mod...we make it available to only this group for the first week.

For the mods that get popular, that might be something people get curious about. I know some people would join anything to get the latest CS update before others. Especially if each version had a new weapon included, like we plan to.

I'll talk with the guys from Dark Horizons and see if we can do it as well.

what about we have a screenshot day thing arround here too, where everybody can show whatever they are working on... to get produktive critezism