Well, more a Geek Lounge Expansion actually. I have spent a bit of time on a few other IT / Tech related forums, and whilst they may not match the community here at Daniweb, they do have a bit more "Off Topic" discusion forums. Personally, I think the Geeks Lounge should be split off into a few forums as follows. (Note these arn't my suggestions for forum names, just ideas for content, I couldn't think of any good names). In no particular order;
News and Internet Discussion - There are quite a lot of posts which constitue a hyperlink as the subject for a following discussion, and I think they should have a seperate forum. The ease of posting and amount of stuff out there, means that so many of these posts are out-weighing normal posts within the Geeks Lounge, and the good stuff, (in my opinion, don't start on me), may be missed.
Thread Games / Quizzes / Competitions - Quite a few of these too, and since the old competition forum was abolished, (I think), might be an idea to include with this, and start a few off again.
Daniweb photo gallery - With so many people having camera phones, and digital cameras, the amount of this media is really increased. There are people from all over the world visit this forum, and a forum for people to post pictures of themselves, (if there vein), their pets, their PCs, their office, where they live, Wow, such fun.
Geek Lounge - That leaves the lovely Geek Lounge pure for Geekish pleasures, and enjoying the Daniweb community at it's best.
Well, I don't know how much people rate the importance of forum hang outs, but I think they are key to a good community, just look at the Music thread in the geeks lounge, to see how many people have made a post who arn't regulars in the Lounge, just showing how many people keep a watch of what is put in there. It also means that some people visit the forum more than just when they have a problem.
One last thing, I notice that if I don't visit the site, for about 24hours or less, the number of new posts is more than one page, which is a good reason to have some expansion imo.
Anyways, what do people think?