How do you use notices?

In vBulletin, the little messages you can display depending on certain criteria (user's group, what they're viewing, date, etc.) are called "notices". I'm not sure what they're called on other platforms, or if any other forum script even has them, but I'm curious to know what everybody uses them for, and how they incorporate them into their community.

Personally, I use them for guest messages (registration prompts), community news or announcements, and birthday wishes (displayed only to the user whose birthday it is on that day).

 

I was using it as a welcome banner, registration notice, and a few other helpful things... But I was starting to see a few post not exactly complaining but it was getting close so now I'm going to think a bit harder and re-design it...

 

Unregistered people see a message about needing to join.
People that have not posted before see one encouraging them to post.
We have a group for mis-behaving people that are reminding them what the rules are, with their name in it for special effect.

There are also location specific notices for specific forums.

Things like that.

 

I mainly use them to announce contest, or events.

 

Share you secrets...

 

Not a huge secret really. In vb3.8 there is a user name field (forgot the formatting) and if you were visiting my forum putting up things that should not be on it, I could put you in the group that would see a notice such as:

"Mopar1973Man STOP doing _____________!" It is a bit creepy! Only the people in that group see the message, so if Alvin/Joe/Fred were in the group they would also get the same message except with their names. Other people do not see the notices.

 

Ahhh... Ok... Never that of that but its a awesome idea... I'm going to have to play with the forum a bit and see if I can figure that out...

Thanks Abomination for the wonderful ideas!

 

The only notice I have setup right now is to those who haven't confirmed their email address.

 

I just noticed the blue sentence you made in my quote. This is what I see in my vb3.8 adminacp when adding a new notice, I don't know about vb4:

You may include the following special variables in the HTML:
{userid}, {username}, {musername}, {sessionurl}

Since it is html, the sky is (almost) the limit in regards to what you can do. Put up pictures, fill up the page, whatever.

Also you could create static pages in a specific forum and allow threads in that forum for comments/feedback about that specific html page. Like a blog almost (kinda).

 

If you want to annoy a particular usergroup, you could insert a meta redirect to Google or something into the notice. It would be more annoying if you apply a 15 second delay to it. The user essentially cannot browse your site for more than 15 seconds at a time.

Code:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="15;url=http://www.google.com">

 

miserable users vesion 2? I like it....

 

omg nick you come up with the cruellest troll punishments :lmao:

omg i dont want to get on your bad side, although i agree that some forum members deserve it :lmao: and for some members doing that would be a very bad idea......5 seconds would be so much better :lmao: