Site Improvement

[Barzooka]

Introduction

Alright, so, I thought that I would make a thread on this, in order to engage with our community on what they want as far as this website goes and what exactly they want to see happen with it. This is in regards to both site activity and site functionality. Now, I'm fully aware that this isn't the first time a thread of this nature has been created, to discuss furtherance in regards to Lets Beef and its community. Noble in fact just recently created a thread similar to this. We've talked about this many times before in the past. But I thought, as a moderator of the website, that I would give the community an opportunity to talk about their opinions, ideas and/or concerns, more directly with a part of official staff.

Link to Noble's thread:

https://www.letsbeef.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175232



DISCLAIMER

The purpose of this thread is not to promote anything other than Lets Beef and its community. This thread is not intended to infringe, put down or discredit Lets Beef in any fashion. This thread is not to put blame on anyone involved in the success/progress of Lets Beef and/or its community. I do not claim any of the ideas here to be of my intellectual property/personal creation. Certain ideas/opinions and/or concerns will be fully read but may not be taken into account if they prove to not hold enough relevancy and/or importance to the matter discussed. The topics discussed here are all real and genuine. This thread is subject to immediate change/termination without official notice.



Budget

"So why hasn't this website, after so many years, seen a solution already?"

And the answer is surprisingly simple. It basically comes down to budget.

That is the primary dilemma. Simply maintaining the website costs money. To create a new website? Costs money. Yes, we've had plans to change the website. For a while. A long while. But ultimately it comes down to the site's budget. To code/program a new website for Lets Beef will cost quite a decent amount of money. There is talk, hopeful talk, of current members teaching themselves how to code in computer programming languages in order to take on the responsibility itself. This is also something that's been promised for sometime. But we want to see something happen now, or sooner than later, correct?

So as staff, or just as members of the site who've been around for sometime, it gets rather annoying when a new member, or a member who's returning after a long time, starts throwing out ideas that have already been previously discussed. It's as if they really thought no one came up with these ideas before or that these ideas are just as easily executed as it is discussed. With this being said, we have a damn plan but simply lack in the financial department. It is not cheap.



New Website

A major thing that turns potential members away from this website, is the outdated architecture and software that the site itself relies upon for operation of battles and the engagement of the community. A while ago, X (the original owner) created a rough draft of what the new website was supposed to look like. It was an interactive GUI which included a modern, updated look, a new navigation system that appeared to be much more user friendly, and battles that would feature the emcee characters that are optionally created by site members, rather than their avatars. It looked pretty dope honestly.

Now, we have plans for a completely different version of what will be the new Lets Beef website. This will involve easier site navigation, new status levels for membership, features for each level of membership, and other things that I feel I'm not quite at liberty to discuss. But great things. If we continue on with the forum system, the old forums will be archived (or possibly even integrated into the new site, somehow) and the new forums will also be easier to navigate and interact with, integration systems such as embedding YouTube links will be far more simpler, the old school smiley symbols will be replaced with modern emojis, etc.



Lets Beef App

Now here's another fairly talked about idea. What if we programmed an app for the website, to make it easier for mobile users to use the site as a lot of people nowadays are on their phones? Well, that also has to do with the budget. It's not free. It will more than likely be a while before we can see that happen just out of nowhere, for free, by someone who wants to do that for the site. But this is another idea that people who are new to the site, or just returning, have suggested to the staff or community, again, as if no one has ever thought of the idea before. It's a GOOD idea, but it's been discussed almost endlessly for sometime.

This would make an excellent feature. More people tend to use the internet on phones, rather than computers, because more people have phones than computers still and it's simply more convenient. Having to use this website in its current state using mobile devices is not a walk in the park. It's functional, just not as nice as using it on a computer laptop/desktop. This also turns potential members away. The official staff team has been looking into this and a means of actually making it happen.



General Activity

There's all kinds of potential things that could be done to generate more traffic for the activity of battles and community engagement. However, I personally believe that it all comes down to this, and many would agree with me. Could other things be done in the meantime to help out with the general activity of Lets Beef before we set our major plans into motion? Yes, absolutely. This is why I'm creating this thread. Not because Odin, Student or anyone else is telling me to. Just like the majority of you, I want to watch this website grow. It's died down, but interest in battle rap is becoming more popular again, so this website has another shot at growing back up. There are other apps with more modern programming, that people tend do look at for that reason alone, yet fail to realize the great things that the community and website of Lets Beef truly has to offer.

Lets Beef used to be blooming in activity. We were one of the very first to offer an online platform for battle rap via the internet. At one point, during 2005 or 2006, we were promoted in a XXL Magazine. It was pretty big, back when battle rap was arguably at its prime. Regular audio or text battles would receive up to 20-25 votes on average. Way more than a typical tournament battle would see on this day. A plethora of guests and members would be online and active daily. This has died down due to many reasons, but mainly for the reasons that I have stated so far within the contents of this thread. We could also do more things to spike activity, such as implementing another new credit system to prompt users into voting more in order to battle, thus creating more value in starting battles as well as generating more votes for battles that are already lacking in the vote department. Perhaps an updated reward system for winning battles, like new emcee items, or an updated streak system opposed to the flame that would appear next to our names.



Discord Server

Now before I start talking about our discord server I believe I should first talk about what discord.com actually is.

Those who don't care about discord can simply skip to the final section of this thread.

Discord is a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and instant messaging social platform. It was created back in May of 2015 for people to more easily communicate while they play video games with each other. It has since evolved into a fully-fledged social media platform where people use it for all kinds of different purposes aside from gaming. They will create discord "servers" for communities that engage in music, rap, battle rap, religion, politics, work, school, as well as other things. You are able to adds friends on discord. Our server is an official extension of the website created for the Lets Beef community where we offer a place to talk about general topics, battle rap & music, for the most part that is. We also offer voice channels for people to access and verbally communicate in.

A discord server, simply defined, is a space created on the discord website where the server creator can easily setup text channels and voice channels for specific topics. These are fairly easy for new users to operate and navigate through. It is somewhat, slightly similar to Tinychat except it is FAR more modernized, feature-packed and easier to use, in major opinion. Our discord server is not a replacement for the site, but a place to simply serve the things that the actual site is currently incapable of, although the server may continue to exist and operate ever after the new website and/or app is created. The discord server originally proved to be successful, and was even incredibly active during the Corona Pandemic. To this day it hasn't been as active, but it's still fairly used by members of the community.

I bring up the discord server to talk about how it could still be used to continue keeping the community more active and engaged. The staff team of Lets Beef also have plans to further incorporate the server into the community by using it to create more activities which will be tied to the actual website. I am not authorized to discuss EXACTLY what we have planned, but I am allowed to accept potential ideas that you guys may have for it. We currently use a third-party software for the discord widget that you may have noticed on the corner of the actual Lets Beef website but we plan on implementing the official first-party widget. We also plan on integrating a new music bot into the Lets Beef discord server that will play music and rap beats from YouTube for people to listen to and rap over with each other in one of the server's voice channels. We currently only have a bot that can play links from SoundCloud.



Lets B̶e̶e̶f̶ Talk

Getting down to it: What do we want to see happen? Feel free to throw anything on the table. No idea is really a bad idea unless it's poorly thought of and/or executed. I'm sure that there's other things that I left out in this thread, so I'd like to see if the community can fill in the blanks for me. What could be missing? What could be the secret formula to get the website popping, even if its just for the meantime? What do you want as far as the new website, app or server goes? Any ideas for possible budget solutions? Is there anything that's already going on that you don't like seeing? Are we currently doing something wrong rather than simply trying to do something that's right? New credit implementation? Do we want an option to add cover art for our uploaded tracks? I mean anything you guys. What do YOU want for this website?

Discuss Below

[Barzooka]

Introduction

Alright, so, I thought that I would make a thread on this, in order to engage with our community on what they want as far as this website goes and what exactly they want to see happen with it. This is in regards to both site activity and site functionality. Now, I'm fully aware that this isn't the first time a thread of this nature has been created, to discuss furtherance in regards to Lets Beef and its community. Noble in fact just recently created a thread similar to this. We've talked about this many times before in the past. But I thought, as a moderator of the website, that I would give the community an opportunity to talk about their opinions, ideas and/or concerns, more directly with a part of official staff.

Link to Noble's thread:

https://www.letsbeef.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175232



DISCLAIMER

The purpose of this thread is not to promote anything other than Lets Beef and its community. This thread is not intended to infringe, put down or discredit Lets Beef in any fashion. This thread is not to put blame on anyone involved in the success/progress of Lets Beef and/or its community. I do not claim any of the ideas here to be of my intellectual property/personal creation. Certain ideas/opinions and/or concerns will be fully read but may not be taken into account if they prove to not hold enough relevancy and/or importance to the matter discussed. The topics discussed here are all real and genuine. This thread is subject to immediate change/termination without official notice.



Budget

"So why hasn't this website, after so many years, seen a solution already?"

And the answer is surprisingly simple. It basically comes down to budget.

That is the primary dilemma. Simply maintaining the website costs money. To create a new website? Costs money. Yes, we've had plans to change the website. For a while. A long while. But ultimately it comes down to the site's budget. To code/program a new website for Lets Beef will cost quite a decent amount of money. There is talk, hopeful talk, of current members teaching themselves how to code in computer programming languages in order to take on the responsibility itself. This is also something that's been promised for sometime. But we want to see something happen now, or sooner than later, correct?

So as staff, or just as members of the site who've been around for sometime, it gets rather annoying when a new member, or a member who's returning after a long time, starts throwing out ideas that have already been previously discussed. It's as if they really thought no one came up with these ideas before or that these ideas are just as easily executed as it is discussed. With this being said, we have a damn plan but simply lack in the financial department. It is not cheap.



New Website

A major thing that turns potential members away from this website, is the outdated architecture and software that the site itself relies upon for operation of battles and the engagement of the community. A while ago, X (the original owner) created a rough draft of what the new website was supposed to look like. It was an interactive GUI which included a modern, updated look, a new navigation system that appeared to be much more user friendly, and battles that would feature the emcee characters that are optionally created by site members, rather than their avatars. It looked pretty dope honestly.

Now, we have plans for a completely different version of what will be the new Lets Beef website. This will involve easier site navigation, new status levels for membership, features for each level of membership, and other things that I feel I'm not quite at liberty to discuss. But great things. If we continue on with the forum system, the old forums will be archived (or possibly even integrated into the new site, somehow) and the new forums will also be easier to navigate and interact with, integration systems such as embedding YouTube links will be far more simpler, the old school smiley symbols will be replaced with modern emojis, etc.



Lets Beef App

Now here's another fairly talked about idea. What if we programmed an app for the website, to make it easier for mobile users to use the site as a lot of people nowadays are on their phones? Well, that also has to do with the budget. It's not free. It will more than likely be a while before we can see that happen just out of nowhere, for free, by someone who wants to do that for the site. But this is another idea that people who are new to the site, or just returning, have suggested to the staff or community, again, as if no one has ever thought of the idea before. It's a GOOD idea, but it's been discussed almost endlessly for sometime.

This would make an excellent feature. More people tend to use the internet on phones, rather than computers, because more people have phones than computers still and it's simply more convenient. Having to use this website in its current state using mobile devices is not a walk in the park. It's functional, just not as nice as using it on a computer laptop/desktop. This also turns potential members away. The official staff team has been looking into this and a means of actually making it happen.



General Activity

There's all kinds of potential things that could be done to generate more traffic for the activity of battles and community engagement. However, I personally believe that it all comes down to this, and many would agree with me. Could other things be done in the meantime to help out with the general activity of Lets Beef before we set our major plans into motion? Yes, absolutely. This is why I'm creating this thread. Not because Odin, Student or anyone else is telling me to. Just like the majority of you, I want to watch this website grow. It's died down, but interest in battle rap is becoming more popular again, so this website has another shot at growing back up. There are other apps with more modern programming, that people tend do look at for that reason alone, yet fail to realize the great things that the community and website of Lets Beef truly has to offer.

Lets Beef used to be blooming in activity. We were one of the very first to offer an online platform for battle rap via the internet. At one point, during 2005 or 2006, we were promoted in a XXL Magazine. It was pretty big, back when battle rap was arguably at its prime. Regular audio or text battles would receive up to 20-25 votes on average. Way more than a typical tournament battle would see on this day. A plethora of guests and members would be online and active daily. This has died down due to many reasons, but mainly for the reasons that I have stated so far within the contents of this thread. We could also do more things to spike activity, such as implementing another new credit system to prompt users into voting more in order to battle, thus creating more value in starting battles as well as generating more votes for battles that are already lacking in the vote department. Perhaps an updated reward system for winning battles, like new emcee items, or an updated streak system opposed to the flame that would appear next to our names.



Discord Server

Now before I start talking about our discord server I believe I should first talk about what discord.com actually is.

Those who don't care about discord can simply skip to the final section of this thread.

Discord is a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and instant messaging social platform. It was created back in May of 2015 for people to more easily communicate while they play video games with each other. It has since evolved into a fully-fledged social media platform where people use it for all kinds of different purposes aside from gaming. They will create discord "servers" for communities that engage in music, rap, battle rap, religion, politics, work, school, as well as other things. You are able to adds friends on discord. Our server is an official extension of the website created for the Lets Beef community where we offer a place to talk about general topics, battle rap & music, for the most part that is. We also offer voice channels for people to access and verbally communicate in.

A discord server, simply defined, is a space created on the discord website where the server creator can easily setup text channels and voice channels for specific topics. These are fairly easy for new users to operate and navigate through. It is somewhat, slightly similar to Tinychat except it is FAR more modernized, feature-packed and easier to use, in major opinion. Our discord server is not a replacement for the site, but a place to simply serve the things that the actual site is currently incapable of, although the server may continue to exist and operate ever after the new website and/or app is created. The discord server originally proved to be successful, and was even incredibly active during the Corona Pandemic. To this day it hasn't been as active, but it's still fairly used by members of the community.

I bring up the discord server to talk about how it could still be used to continue keeping the community more active and engaged. The staff team of Lets Beef also have plans to further incorporate the server into the community by using it to create more activities which will be tied to the actual website. I am not authorized to discuss EXACTLY what we have planned, but I am allowed to accept potential ideas that you guys may have for it. We currently use a third-party software for the discord widget that you may have noticed on the corner of the actual Lets Beef website but we plan on implementing the official first-party widget. We also plan on integrating a new music bot into the Lets Beef discord server that will play music and rap beats from YouTube for people to listen to and rap over with each other in one of the server's voice channels. We currently only have a bot that can play links from SoundCloud.



Lets B̶e̶e̶f̶ Talk

Getting down to it: What do we want to see happen? Feel free to throw anything on the table. No idea is really a bad idea unless it's poorly thought of and/or executed. I'm sure that there's other things that I left out in this thread, so I'd like to see if the community can fill in the blanks for me. What could be missing? What could be the secret formula to get the website popping, even if its just for the meantime? What do you want as far as the new website, app or server goes? Any ideas for possible budget solutions? Is there anything that's already going on that you don't like seeing? Are we currently doing something wrong rather than simply trying to do something that's right? New credit implementation? Do we want an option to add cover art for our uploaded tracks? I mean anything you guys. What do YOU want for this website?

Discuss Below

[theTrophy]

i would say just like In a proffesional sports each rap text Participant should have pre planned opponents on a schedule rap battle. League made By somebody correctly and randomly matches and punches are of course good but someitmes other ways of battling should be considered And i think there should be 3 pro judges and rappers gets a point for interacting with the battles more ways to get points is needed.

[theTrophy]

i would say just like In a proffesional sports each rap text Participant should have pre planned opponents on a schedule rap battle. League made By somebody correctly and randomly matches and punches are of course good but someitmes other ways of battling should be considered And i think there should be 3 pro judges and rappers gets a point for interacting with the battles more ways to get points is needed.

[Barzooka]

Originally Posted by theTrophy

i would say just like In a proffesional sports each rap text Participant should have pre planned opponents on a schedule rap battle. League made By somebody correctly and randomly matches and punches are of course good but someitmes other ways of battling should be considered And i think there should be 3 pro judges and rappers gets a point for interacting with the battles more ways to get points is needed.

This is a VERY interesting idea. Perhaps it would be taken and modified to a certain degree, but ultimately I could see something like this being integrated in a future site-related event. We could possibly incorporate this into something related to tournaments, our discord, or we could orchestrate it into a fully-fledged online league.

[Barzooka]

Originally Posted by theTrophy

i would say just like In a proffesional sports each rap text Participant should have pre planned opponents on a schedule rap battle. League made By somebody correctly and randomly matches and punches are of course good but someitmes other ways of battling should be considered And i think there should be 3 pro judges and rappers gets a point for interacting with the battles more ways to get points is needed.

This is a VERY interesting idea. Perhaps it would be taken and modified to a certain degree, but ultimately I could see something like this being integrated in a future site-related event. We could possibly incorporate this into something related to tournaments, our discord, or we could orchestrate it into a fully-fledged online league.

[Barzooka]

Originally Posted by Concise

Just a quick thought. I've been text battling since the late 1900's and I didn't find this site until a little over a year ago. So possibly making it easier for people who are interested in this to find it through advertising could be a solution even though obviously that takes money too. But also I noticed when I did get here it wasn't very welcoming to members. I'm pretty sure I speak for everybody that nobody really feels welcome, appreciated or valued here even the champs.

It would certainly be beneficial of Lets Beef to run an advertisement campaign of some sort especially as the website would back in the day. However you are right. The problem behind that fall back on the budget. Currently we offer a forum badge for people who promote the website, however, I feel it would be feasible to offer more than just that to someone who successfully promotes the website. There's no one stopping our own members from going about promoting it themselves and we still self-promo on other platforms such as Instagram and Twitter.

What websites or services have you been text battling on since the late 1900's? Just out of curiosity.

I fully understand that the website is not the most user-friendly towards its community. We should definitely implement a more welcoming introduction system in the future update/expansion(s) of the website. This would make new users feel more comfortable with site-interaction.

[Barzooka]

Originally Posted by Concise

Just a quick thought. I've been text battling since the late 1900's and I didn't find this site until a little over a year ago. So possibly making it easier for people who are interested in this to find it through advertising could be a solution even though obviously that takes money too. But also I noticed when I did get here it wasn't very welcoming to members. I'm pretty sure I speak for everybody that nobody really feels welcome, appreciated or valued here even the champs.

It would certainly be beneficial of Lets Beef to run an advertisement campaign of some sort especially as the website would back in the day. However you are right. The problem behind that fall back on the budget. Currently we offer a forum badge for people who promote the website, however, I feel it would be feasible to offer more than just that to someone who successfully promotes the website. There's no one stopping our own members from going about promoting it themselves and we still self-promo on other platforms such as Instagram and Twitter.

What websites or services have you been text battling on since the late 1900's? Just out of curiosity.

I fully understand that the website is not the most user-friendly towards its community. We should definitely implement a more welcoming introduction system in the future update/expansion(s) of the website. This would make new users feel more comfortable with site-interaction.

[Barzooka]

I do like the idea of having battles that are pre-determined, similar to that of a battle rap league, and having only certain pre-selected judges to exclusively vote on these battles. Would make for a very interesting user title, which may possibly prompt users into battling on this website more.

[Barzooka]

I do like the idea of having battles that are pre-determined, similar to that of a battle rap league, and having only certain pre-selected judges to exclusively vote on these battles. Would make for a very interesting user title, which may possibly prompt users into battling on this website more.

[Masked-Reaper]

The website or budget isn’t the issue. I’ve been on other sites recently where it’s free to create them and there’s 1000+ members. The voting activity & the feedback given is the issue. I see on other sites selected people are chosen to vote & it works, plus they each give constructive feedback, what they don’t have is mods posting people’s shit into chat and criticising it or saying about the current lack of quality all the time. That shit don’t help nothing.

The current titles are outdated, there isn’t enough on going titles. Should have monthly ones for scheme, concept, topical …. It’ll give people with different skill sets the chance to win titles & stay active

Crews play no part on LB no more, so I think that’s something that should be scrapped. Especially as the site is fucked & starting a new crew isn’t possible due to a bug in the site.

New mods should go in place also, I also think mods not being able to see who other mods voted for is something which should go in place as it’s usually highly unlikely mods vote different to other mods & it changes battle results far too often.

That’s just a few ideas, I’ve taken my activity to other sites for the reasons above … I found spending time writing verses on LB is a big waste of time currently… the above things would help.

[Masked-Reaper]

The website or budget isn’t the issue. I’ve been on other sites recently where it’s free to create them and there’s 1000+ members. The voting activity & the feedback given is the issue. I see on other sites selected people are chosen to vote & it works, plus they each give constructive feedback, what they don’t have is mods posting people’s shit into chat and criticising it or saying about the current lack of quality all the time. That shit don’t help nothing.

The current titles are outdated, there isn’t enough on going titles. Should have monthly ones for scheme, concept, topical …. It’ll give people with different skill sets the chance to win titles & stay active

Crews play no part on LB no more, so I think that’s something that should be scrapped. Especially as the site is fucked & starting a new crew isn’t possible due to a bug in the site.

New mods should go in place also, I also think mods not being able to see who other mods voted for is something which should go in place as it’s usually highly unlikely mods vote different to other mods & it changes battle results far too often.

That’s just a few ideas, I’ve taken my activity to other sites for the reasons above … I found spending time writing verses on LB is a big waste of time currently… the above things would help.

[Óðinn]

Originally Posted by Masked-Reaper

I’ve been on other sites recently where it’s free to create them and there’s 1000+ members.

Just wondering, out of curiosity. Which text battling websites you've recently been on with 1000+ members?

Would like to check them out.

[Óðinn]

Originally Posted by Masked-Reaper

I’ve been on other sites recently where it’s free to create them and there’s 1000+ members.

Just wondering, out of curiosity. Which text battling websites you've recently been on with 1000+ members?

Would like to check them out.

[Masked-Reaper]

Originally Posted by Óðinn

Just wondering, out of curiosity. Which text battling websites you've recently been on with 1000+ members?

Would like to check them out.

They’re on FB bro. Couple of others have asked me the same thing. They got no issue with activity on there.

[Masked-Reaper]

Originally Posted by Óðinn

Just wondering, out of curiosity. Which text battling websites you've recently been on with 1000+ members?

Would like to check them out.

They’re on FB bro. Couple of others have asked me the same thing. They got no issue with activity on there.

[Óðinn]

Ah I see... well, that is true... there a huge difference between LB and FB for user base etc... makes sense they'd have over 1000+ members lol

Thought there was an actual website dedicated to online battling that was pulling in 1000+ in user traffic.

[Óðinn]

Ah I see... well, that is true... there a huge difference between LB and FB for user base etc... makes sense they'd have over 1000+ members lol

Thought there was an actual website dedicated to online battling that was pulling in 1000+ in user traffic.

[Masked-Reaper]

Originally Posted by Óðinn

Ah I see... well, that is true... there a huge difference between LB and FB for user base etc... makes sense they'd have over 1000+ members lol

Thought there was an actual website dedicated to online battling that was pulling in 1000+ in user traffic.

They’re battle groups with 1000+ members. But every battle gets votes/comments etc. nothing is slept on. The interface isn’t as good as here but the level is good.

[Masked-Reaper]

Originally Posted by Óðinn

Ah I see... well, that is true... there a huge difference between LB and FB for user base etc... makes sense they'd have over 1000+ members lol

Thought there was an actual website dedicated to online battling that was pulling in 1000+ in user traffic.

They’re battle groups with 1000+ members. But every battle gets votes/comments etc. nothing is slept on. The interface isn’t as good as here but the level is good.