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!