Talkfreelance steps into 2005, opinions? Improvements?

As talkfreelance steps into its first full year i would like to hear your opinions of the forum so far, what improvements you would like to see etc.

At the end of the first month in charge, the final traffic count is around 11,500 uniques and over 150,000 pageviews.

I think this month has been a total success, we have had enourmous traffic, a growth of over 200 members and in such a short space of time!

I would like to say thankyou to all the members of this community, i am very excited about what 2005 holds for talkfreelance, where do you think this forum will be this time next year?

I think this place has the potential to be up there with the yaxay's, WHT's and sitepoint's etc by this time next year That is if the current growth rate keeps up and i think with your advertising expertise it will

out of the above forums mentioned this is the only place i would feel hapy to come an post up any problems i am having, or if i have a dumb question i know i could come here to get help rather than get flamed to death over at yaxay

overall i like the way TF is heading, keep up the good work Robson

[EDIT]

oh yeh as for improvements you could start by getting me a thumbs up smilie!!!

You are doing a great job on improving this community and bringing in new members Robson.

Improvements: Thumbs up smilie as mentioned by Bazza.

Just make sure that none of the immature folk over at yaxay come over here and start trying to take it over... that's my fear. I'm only saying they are immature from the things I've heard multiple times... I dont have an account over there or anything...

most of yaxay is great, its just a small few that spoil things. . . none of that here at Talk Freelance tho

There's always this issue with forums growing up. When you're at a forum like this, which is far smaller than something like yaXay, people usually feel more comfortable, and feel like they can fit in easier. This place has all the potential with the rate that it is growing.

Well, in a year from now i would like to see this forum more like sitepoint than yaxay. I would like to see it alot more active than yaxay and with some decent discussions without endless arguments, flaming and advertisements.

I believe that in one years time talkfreelance.com will have stepped up as one of the better design/programming communities, we will hopefully have a few thousand members and a wider range of discussions and facilities for our members.

As far as this site goes. I would like to see more stuff off the forum. As this is essentially a Freelance forum. I would like to see regular articles on freelancing, tips to give those who wish to become a freelancer, etc. Maybe a Web Page Gallery, so that people can upload pics of their work and have people rate them. It'd be nice to see this place become more of an interactive community, in a sense that people can feel like they interact in the whole freelance process. Sure, it's nice to talk about freelancing, and to show works in threads, but it'd be something else to be able to demonstrate it to people using user pages and stuff like that.

There is just one more thing. I don't mind what happens to this forum, as long as you don't cave into the pressure, and go crazy with additions, hacks, modifications, etc. I like this place for it's simplicity and good community more than it's features. I hope that the community here is never overshadowed by features.

I don't mind what happens to this forum, as long as you don't cave into the pressure, and go crazy with additions, hacks, modifications, etc.

I couldn't think of anything worse...lots of hacks are cheap and tacky! We have one decent hack (the statistics one, everyone loves it) and that is the only one we are going to be using.

I sure hope it grows, I love this place.