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Hello everyone, I've not posted in a while but I do still pop on for a quick read every now and then.
I don't want to sound like a completel git or a moaning you know what, however, I thought it would be worth while having a discussion as to what I think has gone wrong with TF, I think it's fair to say as I'm an experienced user and probably one of the few original users of the forum
Det has piled in a lot of work in the forum and this is by no means "an attack" on him, it's more feedback then anything.
I think the fact that the forum has been split so much is killing it, I mean there's now a "big debate" section and a "serious topical debates" sections, surely these are the same thing??
The gaming sections split up, the entertainment section split up....
When you segregate the forums so much it kills conversation, not everyone checks the different sections, who has time to do so? if everything was condensed people would focus on the same thing and it would simulate conversation as a result. At the moment, all I see is lots of different sections that are redundant because people can't be bothered checking them,
The forum has been a lot busier in the past, what do you guys think has caused it to be quiet?
Firstly, I don't see this as an attack, it's your constructive view of how you now see TF and I don't want to seem like i'm jumping in before giving anyone else a chance to say how they feel, but thought i'd give my personal view.
Personally I don't think it has that much to do with TF itself, as to why things have gradually got more and more quiet, besides maybe that I can't afford to pay full time staff to keep on top of everything i've tried offering over the years. I'd say what is mostly making TF quiet is more to do with sites like MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and various other social sites like that, that have massive teams, constantly updating, adding content, offering more and more and essentially being able to give everything that their visitors want and very quickly, I simply can not do that, I don't have the time or man power. That together with me at the moment personally attending college and not having quite so much personal time as i'd like to actually work on TF.
As it goes though, I am currently pondering what to do with and how to achieve further success for Total Format, in a manner that would be acceptable for myself, due to time constraints, potentially working full time and due to having other personal reasons, such as wanting to spend time with Robyn and not spending my entire existance working on the site, like I always have in the past.
I do understand and agree with what your saying about the various forum sections though, it is simply too much, with too little usage and it makes the forum seem very dead. The battle I am waging regarding that though, is trying to balance getting visitors off search engines like Google, to boost impressions and click thru income from advertising, which is essential to cover the costs, which otherwise would simply be too much for me to sustain for the period TF has existed and doing what would make TF more appealing for the resident community, which I consider just as important as I did from day 1. It's a tough one and something which I still need to find a balance for, something which I may never actually find a proper solution to.
vBulletin are due to release a new updated version (version 4.0) in the near future, I will consult the community prior to updating that, to see where the community would like to see me take TF. I know there are sections to TF that are completely useless, redundant, or simply never used and not populated, maybe the way forward is for me to take TF back a few steps and simply stop trying to do more than I physically can cope with, we'll see, I don't currently have all the answers, i'm open to suggestion, I always have been, just not when it's put forward more as a demand or aggressive critism, which has often been the case with various people in the past.
I don't think TF is actually dead to anyone though, maybe just dormant, not as important as in the past, or maybe as you've said, just too much stuff and not enough simple community activity. But yes, I acknowledge that things aren't quite as buzzing as they should be and it needs putting right.
Interesting suggestions/observations from Osborne. I agree that merging some of the sub-forums would be an interesting experiment. I'm not a gamer, but does TF cover too many games? Should there be more focus on fewer games?
One thing I've noticed is that most of you are a friendly bunch who seem to know each other. I think we can all agree that one recent member who made a big splash is Bilko. Most of us disagree with him on most topics, and he is stubborn to a fault, but he does create activity and discussion. I hope he's still around. We need a few more good rants.
Also, we tend not to ask questions of each other. Occasionally someone will post about a personal issue, and we dive in with advice and support. But it doesn't happen too often.
I still like coming here, though I post less often, as fewer topics catch my eye.
what about ranking the individual mmorpg forums? have a shortlist of the most popular 5 visible on the main forum? rather than having to plough through the entire list in alphabetical order? and maybe a small box on the TF main page. displaying the ranked mmorpg's and number of ppl chatting? it would give the impression that the site is more alive, and invite more people to those forums.
Ive always said there's too many sections to TF dilluting the atmosphere. Its like building a 50,000 capacity nightclub and having 2,000 wandering around wondering why theres no atmosphere and dont return visit. The mmo forums here are too deep in the site and theres noone posting on them anyway. Thats the main problem, the lack of people means lack of replies and a smaller pool of knowledge than youd get on a bigger forum or topic specific forum.
Ive followed TF for a long time, mostly as my main website/forum, but now i use other forums for things i would have used TF, its not really even a choice anymore.
I have no opinion on the amount of sections, but when the name is totalformat I suppose it should stand to its name in some standard. For me - being a quite regular visitor - it's still pretty easy to find my way around, but for a casual or a new user it may be just a bit too wide area to search from.
I can't say how the areas could or should be merged but as I try to imagine them from a new user point of view I am positive they should be somehow merged. That's just my opinion (I agree with Osborne for once!) and everybody has one.
The way you (Thomas) should change the site could be an answer from a poll/questionary, but only use the data from the fresh users' point of view. I haven't ran any site yet, but I made an educated guess.
what about ranking the individual mmorpg forums? have a shortlist of the most popular 5 visible on the main forum? rather than having to plough through the entire list in alphabetical order? and maybe a small box on the TF main page. displaying the ranked mmorpg's and number of ppl chatting? it would give the impression that the site is more alive, and invite more people to those forums.
I like that idea a lot, i'll put that on a new list that I will start, taking into account feedback from this thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puratech
Ive followed TF for a long time, mostly as my main website/forum, but now i use other forums for things i would have used TF, its not really even a choice anymore.
I take on board what you've said here, how and what do you think would turn that around, what suggestions could you give that would make it become a choice again for you, what do you think would make the things you have used TF for in the past, become relevent for you again in the future? I'm trying to understand what needs to be done, but need to know where you want TF to be, rather than where it's currently not, if you get what I mean. Have I made the interface and usercp to complex? Is the membersinfo page confusing? Is the frontpage completely out of date? Are pretty much all the sections a waste of time and resources? The more I know before I start a rebuild, the better chance I have of giving to the community what will get the community being active and enjoying TF again. If you like, give me examples of some of the sites you have replaced TF with, what makes them better? What works better on them? What draws you to them more than TF? Anyone else reading that feel free to join in and add to this, the more input, the better chance we have of getting it right.
All points from other posts noted too, I understand what is being said.
Last edited by Detomah; 10-10-2009 at 00:09..
Reason: Added some extra bits to the reply to Pura.
If i want to know about a specific subject like Aion then im much better asking about it on the Aion forums or on my guild forums. Same for most MMOs and there are specific fansites that go with them. For random general discussion or even general movie/music comments, other forums have way more people to reply with opinions or answers. TF has only a handful of users who post know and less or none on any given subject.
If i knew the solution to making a hugely successful forum and website id have done it myself Not overly constructive but honest. I think its a snowball effect in that once you attract increasing numbers, they refer more people and so on, viral style.
I wouldn't say that TF is dying or dead, but just going through a quiet period like it has a few times in the past! I wouldn't say I'm a regular poster on TF but I do check in now and again for updates!
The section I've always been most interested in is the Computer Forums, troubleshooting, security and that sort of thing. In the past this used to be filled with users posting there HJT logs, wondering how to get rid of spyware, malware etc but I do find that this section has been a lot quieter than normal. I can't say if it is down to the forums being split up or just down to users not being able to find this section but I do think this was a popular section for TF.
Another feature that I attempted recently is the reviews section. I thought that we could just go on and write a review about any album / game / film etc but didn't realise that these were set and you couldn't add new reviews. I would be very keen on writing reviews on games or albums but I don't get the opportunity to post. I mean there must be a way to have some sort of moderation of the posts before they are published or something similar to that and I wouldn't mind that at all but a bit of freedom to review what I have heard, played or seen is what I'd like to see rather than a generic list.
Also something else I found out was there is no way to delete my pictures in the gallery section of TF, delete the old ones to post new ones etc. A bit of functionality I'd personally like to see.
On the whole though I think TF has been quite successful it has grown and grown since I first joined and I would like to see it grow further.
Interesting thread. I've been an on / off user here for years (even a mod for a brief period - lol what was Det thinking!). I'd echo a lot of Puratech's comments, the amount of forums is a bit overwhelming - I even have trouble navigating to individual game forums still.
I come back here every so often to have a look for something about a game I'm playing, or to see if anyone I know is playing something. I used to enjoy having a good debate about things but I feel like the arguments here are old and tired. You can find more informed and interesting debate elsewhere, unfortunately.
For example, I was googling a few months ago about Fibromyalgia and Cannabis, because my mother suffers from fibromyalgia and I'd been reading a lot about medicinal cannabis and researching scientific studies published in journals e.t.c. One of the google results showed this link : http://www.totalformat.com/forum/gen...-cannabis.html
Now, I know this thread is a few years old, but a lot of the research I found was at least that old. There was so much incorrect info there I didn't even know where to start.
I came here today looking for some opinions on the news story about David Nutt being made to resign from the ACMD, a massive story being covered on sky news and all the papers, and there isn't even a thread on it
i usually pop in every 6months or so for a bit and i usually just check 2 sections, the lounge section which has been renamed (which confused me lol) and the serious topic.
The big debate section is a new one for me, and i would agree that i think its the same as serious topic section and should be merged.
Just an opinion.
Another thing is nurture your community. Yes, there were alot of us who were rowdy and always up for a bit of a fight, but it was usually with each other and in good jest (save for the minocin wars). Hell, it was through members like me that we actually got a serious discussion forum.
I know what happened with Soup split up the community, but nobody forced them to leave TF for soup. Everybody was so unhappy at threads getting deleted for the sake of advertisers etc or whatever reasons we got. And people being edited by mods to suit their arguments etc.
What Im saying is, you have to nurture your community if you want it to last. This is the first time in years that Ive heard you admit that the site isnt working in places.
And you cant let the site just be a wholesome site for Mirror readers. Part of the reason so many people got frustrated a couple of years ago is because stuff that normally was allowed to slide, was suddenly getting their friends banned. And it wasnt because people were posting tits or whatever, its because everything was interpreted as a flame war by the mods. Nobody was allowed to have a personality.
But which would you choose now? The community we had with all the vibrant personalities clashing all the time, but there was never a dull moment? Or the clinical link dump threads that this site has turned into?
You'd shake somebodys hand off if they offered you the former right now.
Im not having a go. Im past all that shit. But dude if you want to have a community in the future, you need to go back to basics, cut all this excess stuff, make the site look active again. Then when you do get people back/joining, slowly start to expand with your user base. And thats the top and bottom of it. You expanded too fast, then lost your userbase in the process.
It can be regained, but as you say, you need to go back a step or 2.
Why TF is dead for me
Not overly constructive but honest. I think its a snowball effect in that once you attract increasing numbers, they refer more people and so on, viral style.
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