It also might be nice to have a forum FAQ.  Seems like everyone gets confused by things like "I can't post links" at first, and I notice that some people post photos that are visible, while others (like me) have no idea how to do that.

Any feature suggestions? Or just the standard "keep it simple"?

jooshs wrote:

I think Solidoodle should host some sort of competition on here such as the weekly print challenge. Maybe they can give away random prizes like filament, kapton tape, hot ends, printers, a million dollars, etc....  I guess a new competition every day might be a bit excessive , but maybe a monthly one would be cool and could give SD chances to source out experimentation on different profiles, speeds, mods, and the likes. Come to think of it, you could have a best mod month, best profile month, maybe best case for the 3 and so on. Just a thought of a cool way to get SD even more involved in this community.

Stoked to hear bout your company!

+1 on the weekly print challenge.  Maybe make this a monthly thing.

This is an interesting idea, and one we've considered before. The primary concern is that we don't mimic the print contests the done by the "other guys"

I wonder if they could get anymore of those Solidoodle toothbrushes as prizes.  Hex drivers would be another useful, but cheap prize.  I would go crazy trying to handle everything with allen wrenches.

I agree with maybe giving away cheap prizes for winners, but you should have a special forum for weekly challenges with the posts there.  Would also help people thinking about getting the machine to see samples and how different people can make the same idea or item.  You could even give away tools needed but that are made with a Sollidoodle that really wouldn't cost you cause could be made when testing a machine.  Things like scrapers, toothbrushes, tweezers, keychains with Solidoodle, etc.

And when I visit this site it's usually on my iPad.

Maybe John can run it by Sam and see if Solidoodle would like to sponsor a contest every 2 weeks, or every month, with a small token prize. I'm sure it would be good for them as well, as they can use the winner in promo material for their company.

I think Solidoodle should host some sort of competition on here such as the weekly print challenge. Maybe they can give away random prizes like filament, kapton tape, hot ends, printers, a million dollars, etc....  I guess a new competition every day might be a bit excessive , but maybe a monthly one would be cool and could give SD chances to source out experimentation on different profiles, speeds, mods, and the likes. Come to think of it, you could have a best mod month, best profile month, maybe best case for the 3 and so on. Just a thought of a cool way to get SD even more involved in this community.

Stoked to hear bout your company!

+1 on the weekly print challenge.  Maybe make this a monthly thing.

Stoked to hear bout your company!

This is to a great 2012, and an even better 2013! *Raises glass*

Brad

+1

I am ok with you shameless self promotion.

Things I would like to see: (I will add to this as I think of more things)

-A place on the site for nothing but stl files.
-Better management of sticky threads
-Some basic rules on what you can/cant post

First and foremost, I haven't been too active around here recently. I have browsed the forum at least once a day, but have not been making many posts. I have been a little busy with a new company I am launching soon that works with professional and hobby multirotor/multicopter systems. Just a little update for you guys about me, personally. I would like to pose a question to the community: Would you be OK with me doing a little bit of shameless self promotion about my new company here? (Without going all "polyimide tape" on you, of course )

Secondly, let me give you guys some traffic stats on the forum, because who doesn't like statistics

Since our launch in August, 2012 we have had over 28,725 unique visits to the forums. We have had over 720,593 raw forum pageviews. 70.36% of our visitors are repeat visitors, while 29.64% are brand new visitors.

These are the top countries for our incoming visitors:

1.    United States - 59.76%
2.    Australia - 6.59%
3.    Canada - 5.04%
4.    United Kingdom - 3.77%
5.    France - 2.97%
6.    Germany - 2.45%
7.    Norway - 1.72%
8.    Sweden - 1.69%
9.    Japan - 1.35%
10.    Switzerland - 1.28%

The three most popular cities for our visitors to be from are:

1.    Sydney - 2.86%
2.    New York - 2.27%
3.    San Francisco - 2.12%

The three most popular web browsers for our visitors:

1.    Chrome - 38.25%
2.    Firefox - 21.97%
3.    Safari - 20.05%

61.92% of our visitors are using Windows, compared to 14.88% using Mac OSX.

The most popular topic on SoliForum is the Order Shipping Thread in the "Solidoodle Discussion" section. We could have guessed this one though, right?

Here's a graph of our traffic, starting from the beginning:

As you can see, we are steadily growing, expanding, and taking over the world. A 3D printer in every home after all, right?

So Brad, why are you showing me these numbers? I don't particularly care.

That's fine, I just like to include you guys in everything, so I figured it might be cool to know some statistics on how everyone here has contributed to make this forum the greatest source of Solidoodle knowledge, and probably one of the better sources for 3D printer knowledge in general. Its all thanks to you guys to make the community what it is.

Your Turn

What would you like to see in 2013 for SoliForum, the community in general, and perhaps some ideas for Solidoodle as a company?

This is to a great 2012, and an even better 2013! *Raises glass*

Brad