Sometime in the future I assume there will be a large site overhaul as this site contains to attract more and more tf2 players.

Some of the changes I'd like to see involve the layout of the site. I'll just make a point on what I feel should be changed and others could agree or disagree.
-Less Bloggy
When you first enter the site it seems like a big blog. Scroll down and you see more and more text. I think having one main attraction or possibly the slideshow of the top things right now.

The front page should really only contain things that most of the viewers will be attracted to, or something that is really important, not just some minor tip or small news announcement.



-Reduction in Links
It was nice to see community fortress reduce in forum links, but I still think there are too many. To some extent I like gotfrags way of doing things, with the "Main forum" then two or three other forums.

-Front Page additions
I think it'd be cool if the front page had a small area that contained matches happening that day, along with stv info and possibly predictions sometimes. Just click on the match and you'll see all the info. Many of the people who visit this site aren't huge competitive players and aren't willing to/don't know about all the various places to gather demos (gotfrag, ESEA site, etc) or where they can find info.
So people don't feel excluded when their article isn't placed in the front page, you could add a latest article thing (sort of like the popular articles) so communityfortress regulars don't need to search everywhere for the latest news and information.

-Demos
Just find some of the better demos from gotfrag or other sites and place them in the section. This way people who watch the demos know they'll get a quality selection.

-Forum change
Think (as volt stated) the forum should be sharper and I guess less pretty? I like gotfrag's just post after post concept instead of each user having pictures, etc.
I guess many of the ideas I got came from resupply.eu
The site is clean and it's easy for non-european regulars (like me) to see all that's happening in TF2 across the pond without going through their forums on various other sites. Basically can gather all the information I need from one easy and concise site.

I know most of these things listed can't/won't be done immediately, but I think it'd be a good improvement for the site. Also, a lot of this involves having many people dedicate their time to keep the site up to date (demos, match info, etc), but it seems like a lot of people from commforums are willing to give a helping hand.

(Wrote this real quick, could be a lot of jibberish)

I guess it's just personal preference. I don't think I'm alone on the fact that I actually like the overall bloggy-ness and general forum look. If compared to other popular forums though like ETF2L and league forums I think CommFT is much nicer looking, although I agree that the front page could be a little more animated. I think that forum links could be more organized yes and sub-categories should be as least used as possible. would be cool if we had a long list of demos posted with interseting descriptions.

i think that calendar idea from that other thread where just anybody can add events in the form of sourceTV and match info links as they want would be best. they could give sourceTV links and shit as soon as they know where their matches are going to be.

by doing that, we wouldn't have to go to esea all the time for match dates and info. it could be all the dates consolidated into one. esea would be the easiest one to do because they show all of their dates and times on the site, but for cevo and twl it would require those people on the teams coming here and annoucning the events so people can come watch. i think they'd do it if we let them.

plus i'd have another way to announce the mumble watching parties.

of course, there'd be some douchebag or whatever every now and then who makes a fake event, but that's what moderators are here for, right?

i agree with kemit about making the forum a bit more minimalist, but i think gotfrag is wayy too much. then again my opinion is biased, as i said before:

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/5905/problems.png

As a general feel, I really think CommFt should base themselves as far as content of the ESPN, FoxSports, or those type of sites of the world, but focused on gaming. Where we can see all the matches in the various leagues, scores (live stats from games would be nice but doesn't seem feasible at this point with the backend of the leagues).

ESPN houses Feature Articles, blogs on each league/conference, scores, standings, stats.. All the content that CommFt is trying to provide, but in a much more organized fashion. The only real offball is the forums, as each artcile/blog is where most comments occur, but I wsh they did have a forum at ESPN.

Just my thoughts on where we should take a queue from.

On ym comments above, thought I would expand on it a bit, I think everyone is on the same page just want to try to quantify things a bit more to further the discussion..

The front page can be divided into a few sections..

Main section (right below the menu), will be a animated section of Top Stories/Features and Top Video's podcasts. These will be chosen by the overall content editors as to what is placed up there

The following subsections to which the main section draws its contents.

Columnists -
Weekly or bi-weekly stories from writers on whatever they wish to write

Blogs -
A blog dedicated to each covered league with 2-3 writers each, this is where the power rankings, league stories and so forth appear. (ESEA, CEVO, TWL, ETF2L) and yes I would like to see more EU here on Comm Fort.

Specifically here, these writers should be able to talk to the various teams directly to get the scoop on certain situations in an objective manner also. (I spoke with xx management and was told yyy)

Recruiting -
Every now and then, some of the top players get together and point out lower teams, individual players and so forth worthy of a look. This is not the forum section for posting "looking for" or "looking" threads, but actual content on, xx is playing a very good scout as of late.

Podcasts -
Some discussion here lately on podcasts,

Live coverage -
When we cover matches on broadcasts, these can be found here.

Podcasts -
Podcasts relating to TF2 in some way, some can be

Wiki -
As we slowly add content to the Wiki, it can be viewed as a easy draw for content.

i think that calendar idea from that other thread where just anybody can add events in the form of sourceTV and match info links as they want would be best. they could give sourceTV links and shit as soon as they know where their matches are going to be.
This is a great idea. I think that Pwnage.tv already has a good calendar system that would be good to imitate: on the front page, you have sort of a "minimal view" where you just see which days have an event, and then you mouse-over them to see what event is on that day. Then, there's a link to an expanded calender page which shows everything without having to mouse-over to see the text.

Hawkeye, I've got to disagree with you, the harder we try to legitimize ourselves as a sport the less we'll look like one, especially if we go all out with an ESPN style site. I think the best thing we can do is have a header image for each type of article that's posted, that way at least the previews look less like walls of text.

If we add that calendar it'll significantly improve the general look of the home page though. I'm not sure of too many embeddable calendars though (I've never really had the need before) but if we can get one that looks nice and allows people to add stuff to it it'd be great.

Hawkeye, I've got to disagree with you, the harder we try to legitimize ourselves as a sport the less we'll look like one, especially if we go all out with an ESPN style site. I think the best thing we can do is have a header image for each type of article that's posted, that way at least the previews look less like walls of text.

If we add that calendar it'll significantly improve the general look of the home page though. I'm not sure of too many embeddable calendars though (I've never really had the need before) but if we can get one that looks nice and allows people to add stuff to it it'd be great.

Everything mentioned is already provided here in some fashion, all the model of an ESPN would be is content organization since they can dump a LOT of content in a very easily organized fashion.

On a philisophical note, define a "legitimate sport." :-)

The calendar should have an RSS capability so we can get things dropped on our desktop.