Well…I propose Freedom fixes itself up before making new features. This feels like a great opportunity to give my two cents on the Freedom community and how interaction could be improved alot.
@LW001 covered some good points on his post too, but I’m also gonna cover smaller problems and unprofessional things I see made by Freedom that should be changed.
This is gonna be a long post, fair warning.
I’m gonna start with the Freedom Dashboard
Problem: Well…its needs work, half the pages only open to half width pages, some things are REALLY OLD ($20,000 Car Giveaway is still there), other things are just outright broken. This really need a fresh start in my opinion.
Fix: Something like this maybe? (
MCN Management Platform | ScaleLab). Its clean, simple and modern. The layout would still be similar to help those who used the old dashboard and overall it’d make the network look a lot better to newcomers.
Now on the The Freedom Central Youtube Channel
Problem: I’ve been watching this channel for a while and I’m seeing trends when it comes to who the channel features and the style of content they make there. What I’ve come to notice is that only the larger channels in Freedom seem to get spotlighted, featured or shouted-out in these videos. A good example would be a video that on the C.R.I.B from 2 months back
In this video, firstly there is literally no background to the video at all, just a blue wall, not very interesting. Maybe try actually making sets? Even a few shelves filled with stuff in a corner would do. Anyway, he only shows stuff made IN HOUSE at FREEDOM!!!!! showing nothing that other have made at all. A week earlier a similar thing happened
This video showcases a higher subscribed channel and the little to no work that was put into his C.R.I.B resources when it was first launched (he has done nothing on the C.R.I.B since then really).
I’m gonna quote Anthony on what he says in the video. “Treat studios has been posting assets to the C.R.I.B (or collaborative, resource & idea board) here on the freedom forums for quite some time and I wanted to give them their own segment their own shoutout because they have contributed a lot”. If you know me at all on the forums you know how much more I’ve put into the C.R.I.B and the time and effort I’ve put into the resource pages. A commenter on this video sums up my opinion there and there.
Mainly the “dumped their assets there, nothing else”. Sums up what they did on the forums, yet they get a shoutout, full video and dashboard page?
Enough of the rambling on. The other problems I have with the channel. THUMBNAILS!!! there SO BAD! Like really bad. This is mainly focused on Geroge’s content (soz George), but your thumbnails are as bad as a kid starting on YT thinking his stretched minecraft thumbnail will get his 1 Million views. A good example would be this:
Can’t even remove white from the background on this face? Even I could make better thumbnails that him given like 5 mins. I'd expect something like this at least:
Compared to these examples:
Fix: Well for the content itself, make it more engaging, encourage involvement & have more shows. Back in the day there was impulse and stuff like that, where did it go? Freedom! Looked so much more appealing back in those days, its one of the reasons I joined Freedom! Come on Make Freedom Central great again. Hire someone to do the GFX & Thumbnails for the channel if you can’t do it yourself to a high standard. Give shoutouts and do R4U as videos as well as livestream to allow people who live it awkward timezone (such as yours truly in the UK) to be able to see them and not have to stay up till 1 AM just to get a review. Shout-out the smaller channels when they do great content & produce a well edited / funny video e.t.c I think you get the idea.
Well glad that bits over, No where near done yet 
Now onto probably my biggest point The community forums
Point #1: New members, simply put they have no idea what to do 90% of the time and ask really simple questions that have been answered thousands of times.
Fix (suggestion): Use a xenforo addon which I think is called “welcome new user” (
Welcome New Users) which sends a customize message to new users when they make their account, this message could have useful links to the F.A.Q & Support area’s as well as suggest to them to introduce themselves & engage in active discussions. Its really easy to setup and is a great way to help new members get around
Point #2 (Wiki): Its looks SO BAD!!!!, seriously, I could do better than that with Xenforo’s page option from the node tree. Its basically a mess of text.
Fix: If you want a good example of a well layout out and managed Wiki the Spigotmc forums once again has gone a great job (
Wiki Index | SpigotMC - High Performance Minecraft) It also allow members to contribute to it, something I’m sure people like
@LW001 & myself would certainly do (along with many other active members).
Addon they use (
[8WR] XenCarta (Wiki) PRO)
Example of what the Wiki front page could look like:
Wiki Index | Dev_J's Forum
Point #3 (CRD Store): simply as is doesn’t give much back to the users who are active, neither has it done any good to the GFX users (myself & @Mr Price) who used it as a form of payment and have lost all the work on the change with currently no compensation at all. It also remove purchased things from the old system which we worked towards . I've even gone and changed my GFX Services to have higher prices and a Real world currency option just to make it worth my time.
Fix: Add more features for users to get in the store (feature resources, feature media, add stuff to wiki for CRD? (mod reviewed)) just a few suggestion there, as well as maybe CRD to real world currency (I know that was turned down due to forum spam but it would be nice to get a full reward for being an active member even if the payout CRD amount was high (like 1K CRD = $5) its still a good goal for people to reach).
Point #4 (C.R.I.B): while I’ve personally posted a lot in the C.R.I.B and it has gotten better since I pointed out its flaws a few months back it needs some love still.
Fix: Mainly promotion is the problem, like no-one goes there, I haven’t made anything new recently cause I’ve been focused on getting ready for University (rather a big thing). But still, its had like no promotion and the only way to get to it outside the forum tabs is in a under a page in the dashboard. Maybe have the resource get promoted on the #FreedomFamily twitter when posted and actively share like top 5’s for resources e.t.c. It might encourage more people to use it and make their own GFX to post there as they may get a shoutout. Also the sudden removal of gameplay was a bad move, Gameplay posted in the C.R.I.B was for others to use, it doesn’t belong in the Media section at all.
Also more sub categories, the one thing I mentioned in my last C.R.I.B problems post that didn’t happen. It needs to happen to allow for people to narrow down GFX templates to what they are looking for. Maybe base it on channel aimed at; Gaming channel, Life / vlog channel, Music channel e.t.c. (IT CAN BE DONE WITHOUT DELETING RESOURCES) I know from a mini forum setup I'm working on in my spare time, admins can change resource categories, just make 1 category and dump them all there for a bit while you add the new categories (just make the category no able to have any file type at all to make it a un-selectable place). Then once done put them all in the categories made. Simples
Example of what it would look like once edits are done:
Resources | Dev_J's Forum
Point #5 (Media Section): I feel this is gonna turn into promote yourself 2.0 unless a fair few things are done to it.
Fix:
Well I think that covers most of my problems with Freedom! Man that’s a lot of words. I’ll still be with Freedom! For another year as I have my channel active for another year, after that I may consider changing network if I don’t see a vast change in the network to improve.
Fianlly DONE!....................man that took a while to write.
