Splash Page

I think right now it's not clear that we offer a weekly Parsha reading. This is lost amongst everything else.

When someone enters our site now they see:

> Uploads
> Online Synagogue for Men
> Pin
> Pin
> Pin
> Pin
> Pin
> Pin
>Thread...
>Thread...
>Thread...

Really what I think people should see though is:

> Weekly Meeting
> Forum Discussion

This makes it clear that we have a weekly meeting and also a forum discussion.

We shouldn't call it "Parsha" or "Online Synagogue for Men" because both of these are unclear. We can elaborate what the "weekly meeting" is in the thread but the title should speak to none bible readers. I was considering "weekly reading" but I think this isn't as good a choice because it could be interpreted as something that's done as solo studying but with a shared calendar schedule.

To achieve this I would suggest a splash page. It can use a URL like http://www.biblicjudaism.org/splash.

The idea is to have something that clearly highlights our parsha readings. It should also leaves a memorable impression instead of being a raw forum. It can have two text links, one that goes to "Online Synagogue for Men" thread and one that goes to the forum.

I'm thinking something like this:



I searched "old testament woodcuts" and found this one. I think this one is an illustration relating to Micaiah. I only chose it for aesthetics.

I think the idea of having a home page with 2 links is fine.  But I don't see why "Weekly Meeting" is better than "Online Synagogue for Men".  I think the latter is much clearer.  Anyone who clicks on the link, whatever the link says, will learn what it is about.  So if the person has no interest in the Bible, then they won't attend regardless of the title.  I think "Weekly Meeting" sounds tedious.  Why would anyone who doesn't even post to the forum attend a weekly meeting?  But "Online Synagogue for Men" may arouse curiosity, which is the point.  Also you should think about the audience.  Happier Abroad people may not have much interest in a synagogue but most of my posts advertising this will be in a "religion" subforum of some more generic forum, in which case the religious aspect of Biblic Judaism will be a draw.

If you'll mostly be advertising on religious sub-forums then I agree it makes sense to keep a religious indication.

But the two biggest selling points are:

1) Oral interactive discussion
2) Reoccurring event

I think this offering is what makes a person click or not click. My problem with "Online Synagogue for Men" is "Synagogue" alone doesn't make me think 1) or 2). My first impression from reading the title is that it will be a list of compiled articles.

So let's suppose we want to indicate three things:

1) Oral interactive discussion
2) Reoccurring event
3) Religious

How about:

"Weekly Parsha Talk"

"Parsha" is no good because most people don't know what it means.  Your idea that "Synagogue" would just be a list of articles is really strange to me.  A synagogue is just like a church, meating a place for regular meetings.  How about "Online Synagogue Services and Discussion"?  I think that covers everything.

Should we leave out "for men"?  If it really is for men, then I think this should be up front.  With all this explanation, we can do it like this:

Online Synagogue - Services and discussion for men
Forum

Since "Synagogue" is with "online", I don't assume it's going to be a meeting place. My impression is "Synagogue" is a fancy title for a sub section within the forum. I see it in the same way that Humanity uses "The Refuge" and "The Sanctum" on CoAlpha. These aren't places, just fancy sub-sections for categorizing threads.

But I think you solved this with "services". This implies regularity, some interaction and also attendance sounds more optional and therefore less tedious.

But I would leave out the "for men". The point is to get the people interested on the big selling points and I don't think "for men" is a big one. So "for men" just takes away from "services". Maybe some women will click, but I don't see this as a big deal because they'll quickly read the thread and find themselves disqualified by trying to find contact details.

So I would do:

Online Synagogue Services >
Forum >

Okay, we agree.  Do you know of a good online web hosting site?  If not, I will look.  Once we get web hosting, can you do the HTML?

I don't know anything about online hosting or HTML. I was planning on the page being just 1 jpg plus three text lines. If you know HTML I can give you the jpg and text specs or I can try figuring this out myself.

Okay I will do it, but it may take some time since I am busy with other things.

If I don't worry about aesthetics, I can do this basic idea in Nabble by having a board with 2 forums.  In the synagogue forum, I would have a big description and the have one toper per parsha where we can discuss the parsha.  I will try it and you can let me know what you think.

I tried it and it doesn't work, so back to looking for HTML hosting (later).