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Well the new design seems OK, though the avatars are a bit repetitive and they do create a lot of blank space in the listings.
Do the avatars deter new users?
Work is progressing on the chat forum system to enable you (Freeola customers) to have ready made forums on your web sites.
Freeola Bingo is much improved now that it runs constantly. Originally suggested on the forums, Freeola Bingo was intended to give the forums a boost. By the way, it's not intended to be a permanent fixture and Google won't allow us to advertise it, even though it's free.
The site gets thousands of visitors and hundreds of new sign-ups per day, but this is hardly evident on the forums.
It does not seem worthwhile to me, to have eight different forums generating small numbers of posts. Maybe there should only be one.
As the rest of Gameaday is games orientated wouldn't it be better to have one focal point and declare this a games forum. After all you can still chat and post intelligent threads or stories, or talk about wrestling, regardless of what the forums are actually called. Back to our roots perhaps.
Or have chat forums "had their day"?
Do the avatars deter new users?
Work is progressing on the chat forum system to enable you (Freeola customers) to have ready made forums on your web sites.
Freeola Bingo is much improved now that it runs constantly. Originally suggested on the forums, Freeola Bingo was intended to give the forums a boost. By the way, it's not intended to be a permanent fixture and Google won't allow us to advertise it, even though it's free.
The site gets thousands of visitors and hundreds of new sign-ups per day, but this is hardly evident on the forums.
It does not seem worthwhile to me, to have eight different forums generating small numbers of posts. Maybe there should only be one.
As the rest of Gameaday is games orientated wouldn't it be better to have one focal point and declare this a games forum. After all you can still chat and post intelligent threads or stories, or talk about wrestling, regardless of what the forums are actually called. Back to our roots perhaps.
Or have chat forums "had their day"?
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Bleh! I'm too busy with work to bother with this but I'll let you have one more post from me.Tony
I'm not sure about the avatars detering new users but they might have put off old users. I've gotten use to them now so I don't mind.
The forums have become too hidden away from the rest of Freeola. So I can only see things getting worse, not better.
If you were to get rid of the majority of the forums I think it'll only speed things up. There are a lot more gaming communities than there were 7 years ago. You could end up with a forum full of people wanting to find cheats rather than talking about video games.
Your last comment gives the impression that you'd be okay with getting rid of the forums. I think that would be fine now that you're letting customers have clones of this forum. So if you did decide to get rid of it atleast the community can live on.
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Garin's Post #1
I agree with most of this apart from the comment about the Review forum which I'll address in your second post.
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FantasyMeister
Heh forum killer threads that's great.
Getting rid of the WLT is likely to increase new threads there's no doubt about that. Though it would be a shame to lose it.
I've always been in favour of invisible mods as long as they arent too strict. Nothing ticks me off more than seeing smug moderators threatening users and always having the last words with their Thread closed.
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Grix Thraves
Oh dear more attacking of the forum killer threads. =( Okay if it will make you and FM happy, we can always delete them all (including the "What are you Listening to Right Now?" thread). I really dont think it'll boost posts/threads, but I suppose it's worth a try. So moderators if you could, please delete all the "forum killer" threads. I'll re-title my own ones.
I agree with prety much everything Grix has mentioned.
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Garin's Post #2
I agree with Garin that it's probably the WLT and not the "forum killer" threads that are making people post less threads. On busy days we talk about so many things that you could possibly have created 10 seperate threads instead. Unlike the WLT they wouldnt have a short life span and people could contribute to them hours later, where you couldnt before on the WLT.
I disagree with Garin about the Review forum. I'm guessing this is because he wasnt around at the time we created it and thus doesnt understand why we decided to bring it back.
So Garin, allow me to explain everything. When Freeola brought the forums back it was a lot easier to win GADs than it use to be back on Special Reserve. Infact I would say far too easy. Every week as many as 3 or 4 people would win a GAD for posting cheats. Not 300+ cheats like Forest Fan needed to win a GAD, but as little as 10 cheats were required to win you £30.
This really ticked me off, even more so because they were usually won by the same individuals. Spoonbeast became infamous because he won a GAD every week for almost two months and hardly ever posted on the forum (like the other Cheat winners).
A lot of us would complain that we wanted the Review section back because on SR it was the main source for GAD wins and people loved writing reviews. Unfortunately Freeola had no desire to bring it back, so we had two options. Create a Review forum or let Freeola give as many as 4 out of 7 GADs a week to Cheat submitters.
As you can see (before the forums started to die this summer), the number of Cheat winners has been reduced to 1 a week (even before the introduction of Bingo). And because of the Review forum more people have decided to come back to Freeola and even people like Smedlos and ST have won GADs for their contribution.
The reviews generate as many replies as they did on Special Reserve (Unlike on Ciao there's no reward for us posting "Nice review" replies). I'll ignore your comment about the lack of Views they get because you can see with your own eyes that they do get quite a few. FantasyMeister's Blood Diamond review got as many as 89. I'm guessing that was a GAD win?
Garin if you want to get rid of the Review forum and the SSC, then when Bingo ends it'll go back to what it was. Never before has copying and pasting been so profitable. *sigh*
----
Okay I think that's everything from me =) Oh you'll have to let me know if you're earning much money from your 'Freeola Search' Hmmm ;) you naughty boy, using it as a signature now heh.
I'm off to a protest now, something about 'Stop building on our flood plains'. =/
Tony wrote:
> Well the new design seems OK, though the avatars are a bit
> repetitive and they do create a lot of blank space in the
> listings.
>
> Do the avatars deter new users?
If anything I'd have thought the opposite. Sure, some people here might not have liked them and the bloat they create but the site's interface before wasn't exactly pleasing to the eye. 99% of forums now do have avatars and as much as we may have grew accustomed to it I'd imagine your average internet forum dweller would think a forum without avatars looks pretty backwards.
> It does not seem worthwhile to me, to have eight different
> forums generating small numbers of posts. Maybe there should
> only be one.
I believe my thoughts on this are best summed up by: No!
I agree with what Garin said about usability. If you don't know where you're looking, this place can be a bit of a maze.
Also, can we have last post date/times back on the forum list page?
> Well the new design seems OK, though the avatars are a bit
> repetitive and they do create a lot of blank space in the
> listings.
>
> Do the avatars deter new users?
If anything I'd have thought the opposite. Sure, some people here might not have liked them and the bloat they create but the site's interface before wasn't exactly pleasing to the eye. 99% of forums now do have avatars and as much as we may have grew accustomed to it I'd imagine your average internet forum dweller would think a forum without avatars looks pretty backwards.
> It does not seem worthwhile to me, to have eight different
> forums generating small numbers of posts. Maybe there should
> only be one.
I believe my thoughts on this are best summed up by: No!
I agree with what Garin said about usability. If you don't know where you're looking, this place can be a bit of a maze.
Also, can we have last post date/times back on the forum list page?
Just my 2C...
I must admit I've got used to the avatars now. I wasn't sure to start with - I agree with the blank space bit. If someone only posts a 'one liner' then there's a lot of scrolling to do - but as long as there's a sentence or two it seems to be fine.
I can't see avatars as a reason for either encouraging or discouraging new people myself.
You want to get over to Freeola they have great avatars ?!?
I gave Bingo a short try but I've given it up now - not really my cup of tea.
Hopefully your 'controversial stuff' about just having one forum was just well, being controversial! From what I see we all come here for our own reasons - and visit the forums that interest us.
I regularly check the 'Webmaster' forum as I use Freeola's services (adsl and domains) so find this is the best place to keep up with developments and problems. So from my perspective I would like to see more Freeola posts about adsl and domains and Freeola services! At the moment some of the independent adsl forums have better information than yourselves when something goes wrong.
Perhaps it's time to leave the Games behind as Freeola are no longer in that business!? Many other ISP's have active and useful forums for their customers, perhaps you could build on that side of things?
Since launching my 'Forum Search' I have started visiting other forums a bit more - it's quite interesting what you can find...
Search Freeola Chat
I must admit I've got used to the avatars now. I wasn't sure to start with - I agree with the blank space bit. If someone only posts a 'one liner' then there's a lot of scrolling to do - but as long as there's a sentence or two it seems to be fine.
I can't see avatars as a reason for either encouraging or discouraging new people myself.
You want to get over to Freeola they have great avatars ?!?
I gave Bingo a short try but I've given it up now - not really my cup of tea.
Hopefully your 'controversial stuff' about just having one forum was just well, being controversial! From what I see we all come here for our own reasons - and visit the forums that interest us.
I regularly check the 'Webmaster' forum as I use Freeola's services (adsl and domains) so find this is the best place to keep up with developments and problems. So from my perspective I would like to see more Freeola posts about adsl and domains and Freeola services! At the moment some of the independent adsl forums have better information than yourselves when something goes wrong.
Perhaps it's time to leave the Games behind as Freeola are no longer in that business!? Many other ISP's have active and useful forums for their customers, perhaps you could build on that side of things?
Since launching my 'Forum Search' I have started visiting other forums a bit more - it's quite interesting what you can find...
Search Freeola Chat
Its all very well saying get rid of "forum killer" threads, but what are going to do? Have a list of approved topics that people are allowed to start? Maybe add weather and food to the forum filter? :)
In any event, I think its totally wrong to suggest all these threads are "forum killers" anyway. WLT clearly is, as its open ended and thus anything and everything gets dumped in there. People can and will post in there about something instead of starting a new topic, thats a forum killer. You can hardly make the same claim for things like the weather, word association and/or what are you eating threads though. So not sure how you can accuse them of discouraging chat.
Anyway, Grix has the right idea. As I said in my original post, the reviews forum was a bad idea in hindsight. In past people wrote "essay" topics, and sometimes they would be GAD attempts. Reviews have polarised the whole process. We end up with loads of review topics which dont generate any views hardly, nevermind replies. And its compounded by them constantly winning GADs, thus encouraging even more to turn up. If you look at the winners list we've got people winning GADs for reviews who dont actually contribute to the forum in any other way. This is true to a lesser extent with creative writing too. I think if you want to reward people for this type of work then it needs treating separate to chat post awards rather than taking it over. As Grix said, theres hardly any GAD related incentive to chat/post at the moment.
In any event, I think its totally wrong to suggest all these threads are "forum killers" anyway. WLT clearly is, as its open ended and thus anything and everything gets dumped in there. People can and will post in there about something instead of starting a new topic, thats a forum killer. You can hardly make the same claim for things like the weather, word association and/or what are you eating threads though. So not sure how you can accuse them of discouraging chat.
Anyway, Grix has the right idea. As I said in my original post, the reviews forum was a bad idea in hindsight. In past people wrote "essay" topics, and sometimes they would be GAD attempts. Reviews have polarised the whole process. We end up with loads of review topics which dont generate any views hardly, nevermind replies. And its compounded by them constantly winning GADs, thus encouraging even more to turn up. If you look at the winners list we've got people winning GADs for reviews who dont actually contribute to the forum in any other way. This is true to a lesser extent with creative writing too. I think if you want to reward people for this type of work then it needs treating separate to chat post awards rather than taking it over. As Grix said, theres hardly any GAD related incentive to chat/post at the moment.
On the http://freeola.com/ main page, why not have a 'Forums' tab at the top? It seems very difficult to get into the forums from that page..
I agree with these 'forum killer' topics FM mentions. It's.. drivel, as far as I'm concerned, and I expect many think this way too, the ones that don't post.
I'd personally like to see longer, personal topics. The reason that once upon a time these forums were fascinating and busy, was because there were fantastic, interesting people here, who took the time and effort to write long posts about themselves, or what was on their mind. You think down the legends of the SR days, someone like Goatboy for instance, and you remember the big, highly informative posts. There were people who wrote about politics, trials of life such as moving house and all that.. then you had the people that wrote about themselves.. the stories, the poems, the gaming news. Or news in general.
Nobody seems to do it anymore. Or if it happens, it's rare. Instead of being the highly populated, full of long and interesting posts, forum, that this place should be.. it's slowed down and become a admittedly boring, and quiet place, where people never write more than a few short sentences in a post.
If you're going to keep GAD running, why not try and force the direction of it towards a 'write interesting opinions about whatever you feel like' system.
These forums really are quite dead. I do like the redesign, but you need people here. So..
Firstly, get an easier access to this place. I can barely navigate into here from the main page easily. Get it in big writing at the top of the page or something, get it in a tab, 'WIN AMAZON OR ARGOS VOUCHERS COMPLETELY FREE!'. It really doesn't seem like you're advertising it nearly enough.
Secondly, encourage the forums to debate more. Encourage people who want to have their say to come along. Hopefully we might get a few intelligent ones, never know!
As for reducing the forums.. I can't work out if that's a good idea or not. Once you can get a group of people to work out they can get free money for writing things.. and NOBODY is bothering but them, it should start getting a bit more competitive in here.
Once upon a time, if you remember, GAD was awarded to chat posts only. I honestly think that's the way it needs to go. Nobody cares about the reviews, nobody cares about the walkthroughs, they're just being used for GAD. Return all GADS to chat posts, and I reckon you might have a chance of people really making an effort in topics, instead of these banal topics that I'm -sure- are driving people away.
I agree with these 'forum killer' topics FM mentions. It's.. drivel, as far as I'm concerned, and I expect many think this way too, the ones that don't post.
I'd personally like to see longer, personal topics. The reason that once upon a time these forums were fascinating and busy, was because there were fantastic, interesting people here, who took the time and effort to write long posts about themselves, or what was on their mind. You think down the legends of the SR days, someone like Goatboy for instance, and you remember the big, highly informative posts. There were people who wrote about politics, trials of life such as moving house and all that.. then you had the people that wrote about themselves.. the stories, the poems, the gaming news. Or news in general.
Nobody seems to do it anymore. Or if it happens, it's rare. Instead of being the highly populated, full of long and interesting posts, forum, that this place should be.. it's slowed down and become a admittedly boring, and quiet place, where people never write more than a few short sentences in a post.
If you're going to keep GAD running, why not try and force the direction of it towards a 'write interesting opinions about whatever you feel like' system.
These forums really are quite dead. I do like the redesign, but you need people here. So..
Firstly, get an easier access to this place. I can barely navigate into here from the main page easily. Get it in big writing at the top of the page or something, get it in a tab, 'WIN AMAZON OR ARGOS VOUCHERS COMPLETELY FREE!'. It really doesn't seem like you're advertising it nearly enough.
Secondly, encourage the forums to debate more. Encourage people who want to have their say to come along. Hopefully we might get a few intelligent ones, never know!
As for reducing the forums.. I can't work out if that's a good idea or not. Once you can get a group of people to work out they can get free money for writing things.. and NOBODY is bothering but them, it should start getting a bit more competitive in here.
Once upon a time, if you remember, GAD was awarded to chat posts only. I honestly think that's the way it needs to go. Nobody cares about the reviews, nobody cares about the walkthroughs, they're just being used for GAD. Return all GADS to chat posts, and I reckon you might have a chance of people really making an effort in topics, instead of these banal topics that I'm -sure- are driving people away.
I only really look at General and Gaming if that's any help, but that's just me. If I'm in 'essay mode' I might slap a GAD attempt in one of the other forums now and again, but for chat those two are my main ones.
Get rid of the 'forum killer' threads, (word association, what you eat, what's the weather like, word association - none of them encourage 'chat'), or alternatively just merge everything into the WLT in general - biggest forum killer of the lot. Sometimes I dip into general, see no chat whatsoever then realise that it's all in the WLT.
And fire your all your mods, get an invisible staffie with experience to do it, that way when people get their posts removed/edited they can't go on a crusade against someone specific like in the old days and pure 'get your post count up here' threads can be nipped in the bud before they take up half of the front page.
Don't let people change their names either, About 75% of the people on here chat like old friends because they seem to know me but I haven't a clue who they are.
As for gaming forums specifically, that's what first brought me to SR forums, but I moved on about 2 months ago to another dedicated gaming forum because numbers just didn't pick up here, although most of the stuff I post elsewhere I still make an effort to post here just to keep things ticking over.
Hope this helps, even if it is mostly negative :(
Get rid of the 'forum killer' threads, (word association, what you eat, what's the weather like, word association - none of them encourage 'chat'), or alternatively just merge everything into the WLT in general - biggest forum killer of the lot. Sometimes I dip into general, see no chat whatsoever then realise that it's all in the WLT.
And fire your all your mods, get an invisible staffie with experience to do it, that way when people get their posts removed/edited they can't go on a crusade against someone specific like in the old days and pure 'get your post count up here' threads can be nipped in the bud before they take up half of the front page.
Don't let people change their names either, About 75% of the people on here chat like old friends because they seem to know me but I haven't a clue who they are.
As for gaming forums specifically, that's what first brought me to SR forums, but I moved on about 2 months ago to another dedicated gaming forum because numbers just didn't pick up here, although most of the stuff I post elsewhere I still make an effort to post here just to keep things ticking over.
Hope this helps, even if it is mostly negative :(
I'll comment when I'm not so tired...
Tony wrote:
> Or have chat forums "had their day"?
No. There just aren't enough interesting posts on here to spark an awful lot of discussion, or enough significantly active users.
The success of a forum is largely down to its userbase.
> Or have chat forums "had their day"?
No. There just aren't enough interesting posts on here to spark an awful lot of discussion, or enough significantly active users.
The success of a forum is largely down to its userbase.
Tony wrote:
> Well the new design seems OK, though the avatars are a bit
> repetitive and they do create a lot of blank space in the
> listings.
You could try out something like only display the user's avatar once per page. Their most recent post gets the avatar, any further posts of theirs displayed on the page dont.
> Do the avatars deter new users?
I doubt it makes any difference one way or another. Even if there was some truth in it, could just as easily switch the default to avatars off.
> Originally suggested on the forums, Freeola Bingo was intended
> to give the forums a boost. By the way, it's not intended to be
> a permanent fixture and Google won't allow us to advertise it,
> even though it's free.
Bingo was a good idea, I play it anyway. But the nature of it means it was probably never going to generate much user interaction. A few people post how many numbers they got that day but otherwise there isnt a great deal to talk about. When Bingo goes if theres a replacement, I think the priority has to be something that encourages interaction on the forum (no idea what though).
> The site gets thousands of visitors and hundreds of new sign-ups
> per day, but this is hardly evident on the forums.
Well in my opinion and to be blunt, the forums are simply too difficult to use and view. In your eagerness to promote your services, usability has been left behind.
> It does not seem worthwhile to me, to have eight different
> forums generating small numbers of posts. Maybe there should
> only be one.
I can see the logic but even so maybe 8 forums to 1 would be too large a jump. As a first step I'd look at the user forums. I think some of them were created with an eagerness to get back the previous forums we had without any real consideration as to whether there would be the volume of posts to support them. I'd get rid of the review forum too, in hindsight its had a negative impact on the rest of the place.
Having said all that, its also possible we're just suffering a summer slump. Up until a month or so ago, the post counts were pretty respectable around here I think.
> Or have chat forums "had their day"?
Not even close I think. Its fair to say users have greater expectations of them though. I always liked these forums because they were unique in comparison to many other implementations. On the other hand its fair comment that they've not evolved as much as other forums either.
> Well the new design seems OK, though the avatars are a bit
> repetitive and they do create a lot of blank space in the
> listings.
You could try out something like only display the user's avatar once per page. Their most recent post gets the avatar, any further posts of theirs displayed on the page dont.
> Do the avatars deter new users?
I doubt it makes any difference one way or another. Even if there was some truth in it, could just as easily switch the default to avatars off.
> Originally suggested on the forums, Freeola Bingo was intended
> to give the forums a boost. By the way, it's not intended to be
> a permanent fixture and Google won't allow us to advertise it,
> even though it's free.
Bingo was a good idea, I play it anyway. But the nature of it means it was probably never going to generate much user interaction. A few people post how many numbers they got that day but otherwise there isnt a great deal to talk about. When Bingo goes if theres a replacement, I think the priority has to be something that encourages interaction on the forum (no idea what though).
> The site gets thousands of visitors and hundreds of new sign-ups
> per day, but this is hardly evident on the forums.
Well in my opinion and to be blunt, the forums are simply too difficult to use and view. In your eagerness to promote your services, usability has been left behind.
> It does not seem worthwhile to me, to have eight different
> forums generating small numbers of posts. Maybe there should
> only be one.
I can see the logic but even so maybe 8 forums to 1 would be too large a jump. As a first step I'd look at the user forums. I think some of them were created with an eagerness to get back the previous forums we had without any real consideration as to whether there would be the volume of posts to support them. I'd get rid of the review forum too, in hindsight its had a negative impact on the rest of the place.
Having said all that, its also possible we're just suffering a summer slump. Up until a month or so ago, the post counts were pretty respectable around here I think.
> Or have chat forums "had their day"?
Not even close I think. Its fair to say users have greater expectations of them though. I always liked these forums because they were unique in comparison to many other implementations. On the other hand its fair comment that they've not evolved as much as other forums either.
Well the new design seems OK, though the avatars are a bit repetitive and they do create a lot of blank space in the listings.
Do the avatars deter new users?
Work is progressing on the chat forum system to enable you (Freeola customers) to have ready made forums on your web sites.
Freeola Bingo is much improved now that it runs constantly. Originally suggested on the forums, Freeola Bingo was intended to give the forums a boost. By the way, it's not intended to be a permanent fixture and Google won't allow us to advertise it, even though it's free.
The site gets thousands of visitors and hundreds of new sign-ups per day, but this is hardly evident on the forums.
It does not seem worthwhile to me, to have eight different forums generating small numbers of posts. Maybe there should only be one.
As the rest of Gameaday is games orientated wouldn't it be better to have one focal point and declare this a games forum. After all you can still chat and post intelligent threads or stories, or talk about wrestling, regardless of what the forums are actually called. Back to our roots perhaps.
Or have chat forums "had their day"?
Do the avatars deter new users?
Work is progressing on the chat forum system to enable you (Freeola customers) to have ready made forums on your web sites.
Freeola Bingo is much improved now that it runs constantly. Originally suggested on the forums, Freeola Bingo was intended to give the forums a boost. By the way, it's not intended to be a permanent fixture and Google won't allow us to advertise it, even though it's free.
The site gets thousands of visitors and hundreds of new sign-ups per day, but this is hardly evident on the forums.
It does not seem worthwhile to me, to have eight different forums generating small numbers of posts. Maybe there should only be one.
As the rest of Gameaday is games orientated wouldn't it be better to have one focal point and declare this a games forum. After all you can still chat and post intelligent threads or stories, or talk about wrestling, regardless of what the forums are actually called. Back to our roots perhaps.
Or have chat forums "had their day"?
Page: