I thought about using the Advertisement plugin, but then you would have to create a new campaign each time you wanted to display the message, and you would have no "history" of previous messages.

Thought about using the Welcome Message as well, this has a little more features built in to the Admin side, but again, no history option.

Right now I am using the Welcome Message Plugin where it creates a button and when the user clicks on it, it will open a window with the message - pretty neat feature.

Downside to this plugin:

The message appears with the members name at the end ( making it look like the member sent the message - in my opinion ) second is it shows the username and email of the member reading the message at the bottom.

I do like this plugin - I wish I cold modify it to where I can edit the end of the message to remove the username at the end - I would also like to remove the bottom section where the username and email are listed. Not real sure why this is on there to begin with.

Which plugin do you use for your groups - this sounds like a plugin I would be interested in.

Thanks for your reply on this topic, its nice to know I am not posting into space :)

The reason behind my madness about the "mark it read" is that I have seen that this will increase site activity and also generate member ideas about the site features. As members talk about the "message" they seem to post ideas that "they would do" and by doing that you create a position of "I am really part of the community". By commenting and using suggestions, you are letting the members know that you care and are open for suggestions.

We currently have a static page that list all the changes and upcoming features for the site.

We place that there when we first started, this was to show a history of how the site has progressed. Members thought it was great. Now the page isn't visited except by me when I add a section with new updates. The page is pretty much a history page for me to keep track of what I have done, when and in what order.

The more you allow the members to be part of the site, the more traffic and activity you generate, your members will pass along that the site cares and listens, which in todays world is a far distant thing - most sites now are about the dollar and not the actual community that it was built for.

Users tend to ignore the boxes that do not affect their daily activity on the site. Even as an Admin, I tend not to pay attention to the boxes that never really change. where as if there is something "new" on the site that catches their eye, then they will go to it to see what it is.

Just my opinion and why I want a feature like this.....   :)