Negative Member Feedback

[Maria]

Thank you Jay.

[Guest]

Thankyou Jay .

[James]

Maria said:

build a funky board to bring all the fun people back

 

look, i [censored] up mentioning 'its because of young hh people' - its got NOTHING to do with that.

 

The site needs to cover ALL genres and ALL clubbing age groups (including HH and including youngsters)

 

How we do this is being looked at - its mostly my fault for desiging the site so badly that people could take advantage and abuse it etc. This will change over time but this is now a LONG TERM plan. Kev also has some very good ideas for the new year. If you arent happy on here right now I suggest coming back in 6 months when we 'may' have it sorted.

[James]

Capn_Jack said:

Smaller communities within a larger community. Local area meetups for people living within certain areas and then large scale meetups that the site has and is used to.

 

agreed, but we've said this before - problem is NO ONE comes forward to arrange these local meets properly. Sure we've had wannabes come and go but we need TRUSTED people who are welcoming to everyone in that area and who can be arsed to spend hours a week planning meets properly. We've had 2 or 3 attempts at CTW Reps - but it just went to their heads and people start USING us again so we ditched the whole concept.

 

I guess its just a question of time now until we find out who can be trusted to do what and for the right reasons. I think the whole problem is we're too 'young' a site / in-experienced, and we've also grown our membership far too quickly for our own good - hence why I partly think all promotion should be ditched and we go back to word-of-mouth (the best type of promotion in the world, and what was the WHOLE basis of our initial success!).

 

You are all right - the site is attracting too many people for our own good - we cant expect to welcome them all - i know i dont anymore - its sooo time consuming - not to say i dont want to. The people i look out for though are the ones who have made the effort to go to anyhting but the local bar/club - basically anyone who joins for the reason on the front page.

[James]

Kev and I have a meeting once a week in London - you are all welcome to attend if you have constructive things to say and want to see a successful community formed.

 

I think people get the wrong end of a lot of sticks on the board - its not the best place for discussing direction - certainly not for me - i'm probably the worst at putting words down about what i ACTUALLY mean. In person I believe I come across correctly and we can all brainstorm out our points properly.

 

Of course we can get back into the situation whereby we have too many people involved again (and for the wrong reasons again) but i think there are a lot of people on here who do give a stuff about the direction of the site and believe in the same concepts as those who started it.

 

I reckon 2 or 3 open sessions with key members (not just long term members) is what is needed and count amount to progress which could only be made via 100,000 posts online.

 

sadly the meets will be in London - this is a MAJOR problem which we're currently trying to sort as well but we can only do what we can do and to be honest location doesnt come into it when we're talking about a web site which can be used anywhere.

 

[Capn Jack]

James said:

Capn_Jack said:

Smaller communities within a larger community. Local area meetups for people living within certain areas and then large scale meetups that the site has and is used to.

 

agreed, but we've said this before - problem is NO ONE comes forward to arrange these local meets properly. Sure we've had wannabes come and go but we need TRUSTED people who are welcoming to everyone in that area and who can be arsed to spend hours a week planning meets properly. We've had 2 or 3 attempts at CTW Reps - but it just went to their heads and people start USING us again so we ditched the whole concept.

 

I was thinking along the lines of meetups, say by county and they are suggested by the members as opposed to someone dedicated to the job. So it would be a member driven initiative, based upon any night that people can make it to. The events would then not be up to one person, but up to the community.

 

It may not always work and few people may turn up, feedback on the nights may encourage others to join in and may encourage people to join.

 

Just a few thoughts I've hastly come up with.

[James]

thing is Jack - we tried all this before and have learnt that its down to people like kev to get all the details up about the meet and with definitive meet up times etc. for it to be a success.

 

people organise their own meet-ups and this works well - they PM, MSN, post on the site etc.. - but for us to have properly organised CTW meets for NEW members coming to the site we cant just let the community take responsibility for this and hope that a few members come forward to sort it out - it doesnt happen mostly, but when it does people end up changing dates/times etc.. to suit people who cant make it etc - the whole thing ends up badly organised. We need to be more professional and forward planning for the larger county based meets - and this we hope we will have a good plan for in early 2004.

 

its all good experience at the end of the day

[Capn Jack]

Ah now I see.

[LiquidEyes]

Jay said:

REAL FRIENDSHIPS

Not internet banter and bullshit which means nothing.

Disagreed.

 

Ultimately, the main reason I came on here was to make more [real] friends (which makes CTW a success in my book).

 

However, unlike yourself, I do not pour scorn on the idea of having an online social life. Sometimes I really like chatting with people (who I may or may not have actually met) about music or (god forbid) "serious" things that (believe it or not) some people find interesting.

 

Some of the most interesting people on here, I probably will not ever get the chance to meet, purely for logistical reasons.

 

In another of your posts you scoffed at the notion that people might actually discuss their "serious issues" online. Fair enough if you think you are too cool to have online friends; the fact is some people do like these forums, so why write them off as meaningless?

 

I agree that there is a lot of "banter and bullshit" as well as genuinely interesting discussion, but personally I still have cause to come on the site and chat.

[CreamyC]

Agreed with liquideyes.

[Wonky]

 

Ok, thats fair enough.

excuse me if i dont really take it on board though.

[Andrew]

James said:

...we've also grown our membership far too quickly for our own good - hence why I partly think all promotion should be ditched and we go back to word-of-mouth (the best type of promotion in the world, and what was the WHOLE basis of our initial success!).

 

You are all right - the site is attracting too many people for our own good - we cant expect to welcome them all - i know i dont anymore...

 

Hey all,

 

Personally I agree that 'rate of growth' and 'how CTW grows' are two key things that will determine the atmosphere and culture of the board/ community.

 

Rate of growth

High rate of growth: More commerically viable/ Increased profile for ppl who set up the site and CTW DJs

Lower rate of growth: More stability in the community/ More community spirit because of this

 

It would seem quite useful if there was agreement from the 'key members' about which of these two mutually exclusive options CTW wants to go for. Personally I see some of the big disagreements previously as linked to linked to this question. Getting agreement/ clarity on it might well stop these types of problems resurfacing in the fture.

 

How CTW grows

I also agree that the way ppl join and the site grows effects the culture. If ppl are recommended by current CTW members (by CTW cards, etc) they are more likely to fit in and get on, etc Whereas if ppl join via another route (e.g. see the website name on a banner, poster, advert, etc) there is definately less quality control (god that sounds a bit sh*t) on whether the ppl will fit in.

 

What i reckon

The main thing I would say is for the core group on the site to get a clear approach on these two things. For what its worth I agree with where I think James is on this. Personally I think the site works best as a slower growing community, where 99% of members join because they met a cool person in a club. (e.g. stopping all publicity accept CTW cards). Whilst this might not meet the objectives of some people (in terms of profile building, creating a commercial success) it is the approach that seems to support the community most (what I understand to be the main objective). And it also differentiates CTW very well from other clubbing sites (which have gone down the other route).

 

 

 

Just a couple of thoughts on the matter

 

andrew

[Wonky]

 

very true

[Daredevil Tony]

I only joined the site this year so I cant really comment on how it used to be.

 

Just wanna say Ive meet some fantastic people through CTW, honest and caring people who would do a lot for each other.

Didnt know anyone could be as nice as some of the CTW lot!!

 

[James]

Some very good, clear, words there Andrew - thank you. Totally agreed.

 

CTW is not after 'commericial success' - well not as far as I'm concerned anyway. Its not a numbers game to me and I've even moved away from thinking that CTW should be a brand. It should be a name that the true members respect, because they are part of it, but I dont see it as being something which everyone who isnt already part of the community should respect - until they are part of the community. I want people to make their own minds up about us and first and foremost join the site for the right reasons - because they want to go on more varied events and meet new friends - and not just as a 5 minute wonder but friends for long term.

 

Whereas some sites grow and achieve well by having their logo on 60,000 flyers, i dont think we do - i want everyone who is on this board to be a real part of the community and to go out regularly with sub-communities on the board (i now realise we cant expect to have just 1 large community, although i still think some kind of annual meet is do-able)

 

I think most promotion 'sucks' and in our case its casting a wrong image (negative or positive) about the site / the purpose. I will not join into these promotion games which I dont believe in.

 

One day I want it to be a case whereby if some random person on the street sees the CTW logo on a poster/flyer, they know that its a properly organised CTW meet-up with member DJs playing. It should gaurantee 'quality' and say to someone 'if you come along to one of our events you will meet more like-minded friends - who will be on-going friends'

 

Having said that maybe I just live in cloud-cooko land - but due to me going through years of clubbing on my own and realising that there are load of others in the same boat, who also want to try 'different' events & different areas I have a hunch this just might work - like it used to.

 

Word of mouth will always be the strongest and best promotion in my eyes - particularly in CTW's case. Its also works negatively of course, which is why we're going through this 'quiet patch' - but come 2004 we'll be FULLY back on track whether people like it or not.