hey, i was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to put something like "global forum for utilitarianism" or something in the header. its deadly like it is but it doesnt say utilitarianism anywhere.

what do yous think?:)

Right. It isn't clear from the outside that Felicifia is a forum that mainly discusses utilitarianism.

On Google you currently find a link to a post at place 8 when searching for "Utilitarianism forum" and place 20 for "Utilitarianism board". It's not like there's something to "buy" here, but some SEO (Search Engine Optimization) would be good to make it easier to find this place. A reasonable spot to place the keyword "utilitarianism" would be the <title> Tag.

It does sound like a good idea to add "utilitarianism" somewhere near the top of the main page. People who come here for the first time might not understand the current header. One obstacle is that the header is an image, which means somebody would have to create the new image.

As for search engine optimization (SEO), the header is an image that probably has no impact on SEO. Adding "utilitarianism" to the HTML tags for title and keywords would be good. Perhaps add something like "utilitarianism forum" or "utilitarianism bulletin board" in the title and keywords. What's the Google page that shows number of searches in a given word? If that contains phrases, it might help to indicate which phrases should go in the title and keyword tags.

Here are tags from the main page. All are deficient:
<meta name="keywords" content="" />
<meta name="description" content="" />
<title>Felicifia Forum &bull; Index page</title>

Maybe post your ideas for entries for the main header image, keywords, description, and title.

Felicifia.com could also use better keywords, description, and title.

You can use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to check the popularity of different keywords. Here are some examples of the numbers of monthly searches:
free: 755,000,000 (just to provide a point of reference)
forum: 151,000,000
what is moral: 6,120,000
why be moral: 6,120,000
happiness: 5,000,000
ethics: 4,090,000
what are ethics: 4,090,000
rational: 1,830,000
suffering: 673,000
morality: 550,000
kantian: 550,000 (hmm, this guy is too popular )
utilitarianism: 246,000
utilitarian: 246,000
utilitarians: 135,000
rationality: 90,500
consequentialism: 27,100
utilitarian ethics: 14,800
act utilitarianism: 9,900
rational ethics: 720
utilitarian bioethics: 140

I think the following keywords are most relevant: forum, ethics, utilitarianism, happiness, suffering, rationality.
You could combine them to something like this: "Felicifia Forum: Maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering with utilitarianism and rationality." That would be good as title or for the meta description tag. Don't put too many keywords (like more than 20) into the meta keywords tag. Search engines don't like that.

i dont wanna be rude but why exactly is it called felicifia? if you dont know anything about utilitarianism you might not think it had anything to do with it

Ruairi wrote:why exactly is it called felicifia?

I suspect that it goes something like this: "felicity" = happiness (which is an important part of utilitarianism). Combine that word with "philosophy" and some imagination and get "felicifia".

I think felicifia is Latin for happiness. Also, the Italian word for philosophy (filosofia) is derived from it. The same goes for Spanish, Polish, and probably a few other languages. Also, felicific calculus is a method of approximating expected utility.

Felicifia was named by Seth Baum, years ago. The word (or name) Felicity comes from Latin felicitadem, meaning happiness. It's combined with the word 'philosophy', derived [url]from old French filisofie[/url], in turn from Latin philosophia.
Changing the name wouldn't be particularly easy to do, so unless there's a big upswelling of support for some alternative, I wouldn't encourage a change.

Speaking of changes I made a few today. They were:
> Making a new forum for future issues in utilitarianism. I've done this on a provisional basis. I'll keep it provided it produces a steady stream of interesting discussion.
> Subtly changing the titles and descriptions of some of the subforums on the main page at felicifia.org. I tried to make the differences between the subforums a bit more obvious. Also, I tried to make it somewhat more obvious that Felicifia is a utilitarianism forum.
> Introducing keywords and descriptions at felicifia.org and .com. These are tools that help search engines like google to index our pages. Both main pages now have keywords and descriptions that I can easily change according to your suggestion. individual pages at felicifia.org are given keywords and descriptions automatically. Individual pages at felicifia.com can be given keywords and descriptions by administrators only at this stage. Let me know if you'd like to be given the privelege there.

We should always try to display what felicifia is as clearly as possible. We are a global utilitarianism forum. And that should be one of the first things people learn when they come here. So I'm open to suggestions.

I think it would be a good idea to have it in the metatext and title of the page - 'Felicifia - 'tilitarianism forum'. IIRC we had that at one stage and it disappeared for some reason.

RyanCarey wrote:Felicifia was named by Seth Baum, years ago. The word (or name) Felicity comes from Latin felicitadem, meaning happiness. It's combined with the word 'philosophy', derived [url]from old French filisofie[/url], in turn from Latin philosophia.
Changing the name wouldn't be particularly easy to do, so unless there's a big upswelling of support for some alternative, I wouldn't encourage a change.

ah right cool, its just when you see it as a google results you might not know if you didnt know much about utilitarianism, but now it says global utilitarian discussion beside it which is savage thanks:D!

Arepo wrote:I think it would be a good idea to have it in the metatext and title of the page - 'Felicifia - 'tilitarianism forum'.

Seconded. My browsing habits might not be very representative but I think if I was searching for stuff about utilitarianism on the internet and I clicked through to Felcifia, I'd give it a glance - long enough to read the big text at the top - then leave. Even if I was searching for a utilitarian forum specifically, I might do the same if I thought it unlikely that one existed.

DanielLC wrote:I think felicifia is Latin for happiness. Also, the Italian word for philosophy (filosofia) is derived from it. The same goes for Spanish, Polish, and probably a few other languages.

Wha'? "Filosofia" shares the same etimology with "Philosophy": love for wisdom, for knowledge.