The meanings behind the banners.

Plainview

I am a sinner.
Sep 11, 2013
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From time to time, when the video game industry is slow, I deviate from video game centric banners. Some may not understand the meaning so I'll use this thread to explain the meaning behind it. Often it will be based on history of the day, ala Google. Sometimes it will be thoughts of my childhood and I'll throw that up there. Also, it could be current news like it was for the Nepal earthquake.
 
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Banner on May 11, 2015

The Dust Bowl

via History.com

On this day in 1934, a massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta.

At the time the Great Plains were settled in the mid-1800s, the land was covered by prairie grass, which held moisture in the earth and kept most of the soil from blowing away even during dry spells. By the early 20th century, however, farmers had plowed under much of the grass to create fields. The U.S. entry into World War I in 1917 caused a great need for wheat, and farms began to push their fields to the limit, plowing under more and more grassland with the newly invented tractor. The plowing continued after the war, when the introduction of even more powerful gasoline tractors sped up the process. During the 1920s, wheat production increased by 300 percent, causing a glut in the market by 1931.

That year, a severe drought spread across the region. As crops died, wind began to carry dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed lands. The number of dust storms reported jumped from 14 in 1932 to 28 in 1933. The following year, the storms decreased in frequency but increased in intensity, culminating in the most severe storm yet in May 1934. Over a period of two days, high-level winds caught and carried some 350 million tons of silt all the way from the northern Great Plains to the eastern seaboard. According to The New York Times, dust “lodged itself in the eyes and throats of weeping and coughing New Yorkers,” and even ships some 300 miles offshore saw dust collect on their decks.
 
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I respect what you're doing and, IMHO this matters veeerrrrry little but count me on the side that thinks a videogame forum should only have industry related banners on the site. This industry is way too big to have a "slow" week. Something related to Project Cars should have been put up this week. I also don't think very many people are going to search out this thread whenever a childhood memory of yours pops up as a banner.

When I read the OP I instantly thought "Apple, Google, or Uber would never do this."

To each his own though. This place is fantastic and you do a great job with it. Just my two cents.
 
I respect what you're doing and, IMHO this matters veeerrrrry little but count me on the side that thinks a videogame forum should only have industry related banners on the site. This industry is way too big to have a "slow" week. Something related to Project Cars should have been put up this week. I also don't think very many people are going to search out this thread whenever a childhood memory of yours pops up as a banner.

When I read the OP I instantly thought "Apple, Google, or Uber would never do this."

To each his own though. This place is fantastic and you do a great job with it. Just my two cents.
Google does it every single day and where I got the idea from when I first started doing the banners. Apple does it also when there's something major. Don't follow Uber. I understand what you're saying though and I do appreciate the post, sincerely. I want this site to be different from all the other video game sites. I like that we're a little different.
 
I like all the little oddball threads you put up. I appreciate the effort you put into that. Although I don't participate in many of those discussions (I usually confine my time here to talking about videogames), I think they add a lot of variety to the site.
 
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I like all the little oddball threads you put up. I appreciate the effort you put into that. Although I don't participate in many of those discussions (I usually confine my time here to talking about videogames), I think they add a lot of variety to the site.
I feel if I find it interesting others here will as well since birds of a feather and all that. It's crazy how much I see in a daily basis on the intarwebz.
 
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Google does it every single day and where I got the idea from when I first started doing the banners. Apple does it also when there's something major. Don't follow Uber. I understand what you're saying though and I do appreciate the post, sincerely. I want this site to be different from all the other video game sites. I like that we're a little different.

I guess I meant that no one from Google, Apple, Uber (any cutting edge company) would green light your banner idea.

On my computer at least, the banner makes up about 33% of the screen. If I'm a newcomer (hardcore gamer looking for a message board), I'm looking at that first page and making a judgment.

A Project Cars banner shows that newcomer that the site they just landed on is fresh and those in charge know what's relevant (which you obviously do).

A dust bowl banner is just confusing all around and mixes up the message your trying to send to said newcomer. "It says Video Game Forums but there's some 100 year old black and white picture staring me in the face that has no relationship to video games whatsoever."

I think Google (a vanilla search engine) gets away with it because the Google brand is strong as f*** and the search engine aspect of it caters to people who are willing to seek out new information. You can type in "What is the dust bowl" in Google. You really can't do anything with the dust bowl on this site other than miraculously find your way to this thread, which I'm assuming 99.9% of newcomers never will.

Google, Apple, Uber are established megabrands. They don't have problems (at least not in this way) with product confusion. Small upstarts, I think, need to find a simple message and hammer it home.

I don't know, for some reason I'm putting you on Donald Trumps The Apprentice. You're project manager and you're in the board room explaining to the Donald, his daughter, and whoever sits in that third chair why the dust bowl is greeting people on the videogame message board you and your team just built.

Lastly, I think the community here is still very game centric. I wouldn't call the population here as having a variety of passions. I do think you are a person interested in a variety of topics. So I suppose it's about what you're trying to cultivate. I just think there are more effective ways to do it. For example, can you place a button somewhere on the banner that takes you to a post explaining what said banner is all about? That, I might click on. Clicking on Off Topic Lounge, then scrolling to find where the correlating thread is, clicking on that, and then scrolling to find the appropriate post, is never going to happen.

I would also like to point out that I could make a post highlighting about 100 things I like about this forum. This place is leagues better than TeamXBox and I honestly like seeing you change things here and there, regardless of my opinions. To Plainview!
 
I guess I meant that no one from Google, Apple, Uber (any cutting edge company) would green light your banner idea.

On my computer at least, the banner makes up about 33% of the screen. If I'm a newcomer (hardcore gamer looking for a message board), I'm looking at that first page and making a judgment.

A Project Cars banner shows that newcomer that the site they just landed on is fresh and those in charge know what's relevant (which you obviously do).

A dust bowl banner is just confusing all around and mixes up the message your trying to send to said newcomer. "It says Video Game Forums but there's some 100 year old black and white picture staring me in the face that has no relationship to video games whatsoever."

I think Google (a vanilla search engine) gets away with it because the Google brand is strong as f*** and the search engine aspect of it caters to people who are willing to seek out new information. You can type in "What is the dust bowl" in Google. You really can't do anything with the dust bowl on this site other than miraculously find your way to this thread, which I'm assuming 99.9% of newcomers never will.

Google, Apple, Uber are established megabrands. They don't have problems (at least not in this way) with product confusion. Small upstarts, I think, need to find a simple message and hammer it home.

I don't know, for some reason I'm putting you on Donald Trumps The Apprentice. You're project manager and you're in the board room explaining to the Donald, his daughter, and whoever sits in that third chair why the dust bowl is greeting people on the videogame message board you and your team just built.

Lastly, I think the community here is still very game centric. I wouldn't call the population here as having a variety of passions. I do think you are a person interested in a variety of topics. So I suppose it's about what you're trying to cultivate. I just think there are more effective ways to do it. For example, can you place a button somewhere on the banner that takes you to a post explaining what said banner is all about? That, I might click on. Clicking on Off Topic Lounge, then scrolling to find where the correlating thread is, clicking on that, and then scrolling to find the appropriate post, is never going to happen.

I would also like to point out that I could make a post highlighting about 100 things I like about this forum. This place is leagues better than TeamXBox and I honestly like seeing you change things here and there, regardless of my opinions. To Plainview!

The way Google does it, hover and info pops up, was how I wanted to do it. I haven't found a way to implement it. That's why this thread was created.
 
I also always check release dates first to see what big game is coming out during the week. I thought for certain Project Cars was next week.