IDEAS!!!!!

[James]

Thanks Betty - its great to see you so active on here so soon ! Thanks for your comments.

[betty boop]

Thank you James

 

just need to get the other members on line at the moment chatting a wee bit more now

[Alex]

QUOTE (Claire DC @ Sep 2 2004, 14:07)

QUOTE (Alex @ Sep 2 2004, 14:04) OT... Blimey, long time no see on the boards Claire. Well hello there.. have you missed me then? Yup, good to see you back.

[Claire DC]

QUOTE (Alex @ Sep 2 2004, 14:30)

QUOTE (Claire DC @ Sep 2 2004, 14:07) QUOTE (Alex @ Sep 2 2004, 14:04) OT... Blimey, long time no see on the boards Claire. Well hello there.. have you missed me then? Yup, good to see you back. It's good to be back.

[LiquidEyes]

The best thing that ever happened to CTW was the BAZ smiley.

 

You can use it in so many different contexts!

[Dance Music Society]

Hi all,

 

Being from Australia im not even going to start trying to tell you how to fix any specific forum problems you may have. However I can run through the actions we have taken in the past to stop what seems like similar unpleasantness on our board and other boards we have been involved with.

Maybe there is something in it that is relevant, maybe not. But ill let you decide:

 

We have a predominantly music based forum, and therefore we did make the decision not to include too many "chat", "lounge" or "general discussion" style threads with no clear set areas of discussion. This was because in our experence these threads seem to attract the "waste time at work" crowd who seemed to like the idea of something to do, more than they love the actual dance scene or the site. We also do not display post counts as these seemed to encourage members to post excessive amounts of crud to "go up a level" or reach a post milestone . These two alterations have definitely reduced the number of posts we get overall. However it does not seem to have reduced the quality of posts in any way.

 

The next thing we did, is we made the decision not to have members accounts as moderators. Moderators seem to attract a huge amount of abuse just for doing their jobs and keeping the board civil. We thought this was really unfair, so to counter we now have a single "moderator" account which a number of people have the password for. This means that moderating can be done according to the guidelines and moderators do not receive abuse. The only issue with this is that it is difficult to do a large amount of moderating.

 

Finally we felt the need to get rid of a minority of members who contributed nothing to the site but anger towards others views, or just made every post they did an attempt to fish for a reaction of some kind. While deleting these people was hard to do, it was worth it eventually (suprisingly enough, some even came back with different alias's and were 200% better).

 

That’s about it on the forum side. The only other thing I could mention as far as getting more members would be photos. This is probably the no1 cause of new traffic to any site I have been involved in. People love to see event photos esp if they think they might be in them. Of course getting photo watchers to stay on as forum members is a whole new challenge. A good event guide is also a massive drawcard

 

Finally the issue of cliques and groups was mentioned by someone in this thread, and this seems to be a factor in boards everywhere. However unless the groups are really bad and really abusive to outsiders I actually dont think they are a bad thing. People like to belong to something a little bit exclusive, so as long as there is a way for them to join the group in question with a little work (or some intellegent posts) then I think these groups can add character to a site.

 

Again, I dont know the particulars of the issues that this site may have had, but I hope sharing our experences may benifit this great board somewhat.

 

*edit, had to fix my speling

Edited September 2, 2004 by Dance Music Society

[Nick G]

^^^^^^^^ AMEN TO THAT

[James]

Hey thanks for this information - it does seem like you have experienced exactly the same issues as we have here - I will reply with my comments on each of your comments a bit later - some we have tried before but many we have not and all good suggestions !

 

The main problem I've had here is that I know most of the people and when people talk to me offline / via MSN or a meetup I often can get talked into changing things for them - but then affecting others unfairly - its now time to enforce some of the things you & others have spoken about and not to pressured into exceptions. Its a pity we have to have any rules or moderators at all but its necessary as things stand today.

[Rascal]

How about handing out cards to people when their picture is taken so they come to the site to view it.

 

It would mean a lot more work for those on the photography side of things, uploading pictures quickly and organising cards to hand out etc. But may well be worth it.

[James]

Rascal, this is what I have been doing but now we need others to help out as well. We do now have cards but they are a limited supply as they are quite expensive. I will start getting these sent out as soon as I can but ideally it would be at an actual meet - I'll bring some along to Ali's drinks in London for you.

[Rascal]

Coolio

[stavros]

set the background to a fix position so it does not move with the forum it stays in place

[LiquidEyes]

I'm not getting involved in all the personal disputes (who backstabbed who... whatever!) It's just like a crap soap opera.

 

I primarily come on here to chat. It's a damn shame the "serious" forum has gone completely downhill (-- that, and the music/DJ/producing forums, are the main reasons I came on the board regularly). This is not any one person's fault; frankly it's because next-to-nobody seems to be interested in having a stimulating debate these days. Most of the people who used to enjoy that kind of thing, no longer frequent the board.

 

I guess CTW attracts a different 'sort of person' to before, but I haven't quite put my finger on what has changed.

 

I have met a load of cool people through CTW, and I will always be massively grateful for that. I'm never stuck for somewhere to go at the weekend, if I want to go out. Naturally I'm less proactive in meeting new members now -- I'm not averse to making new friends, but I don't have a shortage of people to go out with any more!

[ChrisT]

QUOTE (LiquidEyes @ Sep 3 2004, 13:23)

I'm less proactive in meeting new members now -- I'm not averse to making new friends, but I don't have a shortage of people to go out with any more!

I think you have hit on something there, maybe we have become to much of a closed community so new members find it hard to 'fit in' ?

[Guest]

Well, things are gona change and hopefully more Members will come and sign up. At the end of the day, we aren't in any comepetition of any kind, which means no rush in gathering new Members. Also, as stated many times, it's not a numbers game either.

 

Let's get this show on the road !