Status check on health of this site.

Originally Posted by Dragondad

Well lets see, almost 24 hours since my first post. Anyone care to review the number of off topic and personal attack posts in just this thread, in that time. And whats even more embarrassing is how many of the off topic come from our wonderful Warning System Mods.

God I am almost embarrassed for you.



Thanks everyone way to prove a point!!!!

Exactly!

I have been here for while now, but post less and less.

Am I a member of the so-called wolf pack? Maybe. What I try not to particpate in is the senseless bashing of other members, whether I like them or not.

I would actually like to have is the ability to warn for off topic posting. Threads on the BOI would be less entertaining but, would serve the original purpose the forum was designed for which is inquiries, good and bad business practices. I really don't care to see pictures of photoshoped members in dresses, gay porn or other such antics.

What I see for me personally is my ability to less tolerant on nonsense.

Originally Posted by Laura Fopiano

What I see for me personally is my ability to less tolerant on nonsense.

Coffee, Laura...drink more coffee

Thanks Harold for the clarification I didn't realize that the Moderators were Limited in that way!
So mods are just like the eyes and ears for Webslave
Man i would hate to be him...J/K

Originally Posted by llort

Thanks Harold for the clarification I didn't realize that the Moderators were Limited in that way!
So mods are just like the eyes and ears for Webslave
Man i would hate to be him...J/K

Not exactly. There are different levels of moderators. The site mods (aka supermods) have very few restrictions. The warning system mods can issue warning points and enforce behavior corrections, but cannot close/delete/edit (aka moderate) threads. Forum moderators can do those things within their specific forums. Not all warning system moderators are forum mods, and not all forum mods are warning system mods.

Now im Confused...haha
hopefully we have brought it to attention to whoever has the power to delete/move those annoying adds

Obviously things do not bode well for the future of this site.

Yeah, I know everyone will have their own opinions about this, but my main concern is whether or not the charging for posting classified ads on this site is being the main choking point.

This was the question posed in Rich's initial post on this thread.

*sigh* I guess I need to re-address this issue of dealing with rampant off topic posting in threads. I really hate to have to implement rules that have so much gray area associated with it, but it's pretty damned obvious that it is needed around here.

100 + posts later, this is the information Rich has.

If you went through this thread and deleted every post that didn't address the real questions asked in the first post, how many would be left?

I, too, have been here for awhile (5 years or so?) but post less and less.... for many reasons.....NONE of which are relevant to this thread, which is asking about the ramifications of paid classifieds.

Dennis - We've known about it for some time...but correcting it is a pain in the butt, requires frequent checks, and things will still slip through the cracks. We're working on it

Originally Posted by WebSlave

*sigh* I guess I need to re-address this issue of dealing with rampant off topic posting in threads. I really hate to have to implement rules that have so much gray area associated with it, but it's pretty damned obvious that it is needed around here.

Does anyone here ever go back and read what they wrote a few days ago and feel embarrassed by the way they have acted? I read stuff like this wayward thread and just shake my head at what this place has become. But thank you (most of you, anyway), for answering my original question. Even if it wasn't your intention.

Well Rich based on what I see, you do need to deal with off topic. I know its a fine line and tough enforce, but so many of the threads are hijacked with the fluff. A funny pic or personal attack has nothing to do with the thread yet that seems to be the means to handle any situation that brain power is lost for. Amazing how some of the most intelligent human beings can be reduced to simple ridicule when confronted with something that is beyond their grasp of reality...or just ridicule as a way of life.

I have a few thoughts about the general decline in traffic.

I believe a forum oriented message board will always maintain some exponential levels of participation when it comes to the membership. There are people who register and never create a post, there are people who register post a few times and dissapear, there are people who log in and participate infrequently and there will be members who are active and engaged and interested in shoving their two cents anywhere they can... and all kinds of nuances in between. For every hyperactive participant, there will be exponentially larger numbers who are less active. It also takes a certain number of active members to maintain the interest of the less active ones- some users will not create threads, but might reply to one- fewer active people means fewer inactive people bothering to log in and open a thread. Without login purges done on a regular basis, this only becomes truer over time. That addresses the issue of total membership versus site use but not the specific issue of a decline in site participation when looked at over the last year.

I'd explain the general decline as being primarily a result of schisms. This is not... and I want to be absolutely clear on this... saying that there is blame on either side. I am blaming the catalyst, not the participants. When debates were ongoing about site changes, people drew up sides and, if a decision didn't go the way they wanted it to, some people left. Some left loudly while in the middle of a heated argument, some just quietly wandered away and- this is an important part- given the level of personal investment I was seeing, *someone* was going to be walking away from the sandbox no matter which conclusion was reached because opinions ranged all over the place. When an active members walks away though, they take their participation with them, anything they would have contributed to various discussions, any comment that might have sparked the interest of a less active member and prompted them to reply themselves. So the loss of a person who checks the forums daily and responds regularly takes with it the interest and potential participation of theoretical additional people.

Unfortunately those debates have come more frequently and a few have seen both sides expressed in practice. I'm going to go back a bit longer than a year and throw out a specific example.

The BOI required a member to be a paid (low dollar amount but there it is) participant for awhile. There was debate, there were discussions, there were pessimistic predictions of doom and optimistics predictions of utopia. A decision was reached, a plan implimented and some people decided they no longer wanted to participate based on that policy change. Some more active users stopped using the site (I did, as an example. No animosity, just didn't like the decision and decided myself I wasn't interested for awhile) and stopped contributing. Time passes, the outcome is analyzed and reversed and there's more debate and more argument and some people decide they don't want to participate any more as a result of *that* direction. Some people who stopped or slowed their participation after the first decision hear about the change and come back, but not all of them. Subtract the returners from the new people who aren't participating and the net result is still a loss. So there's an initial negative impact on participation, then a change is mitigated by those who like the switch up, but still has a negative impact on participation... and figure that the loss of those active people can be applied to a general decline in the interest of others who are less active but are now seeing less content they have an interest in...

And apply it to every change in any policy, no matter how minimal the impact on the site itself should have been, about which there was debate and the cummulative result will be a decline.

I'm not saying that some of the threads that have gone harsher lately haven't had some impact, I just think the decline in the numbers that were given over the period of time they covered probably are showing as they are for the above reason, rather than any threads or posts that happened in the last month. Those posts and any resulting enforcement be it harsh or forgiving, may form their own catalyst for some individuals which will be shown over time to have an impact but can't be said to be solely responsible over the time frame covered.

And as it ties to the classified sections specifically... Fewer participants on the site mean fewer advertisers interested in posting ads, means fewer ads means fewer people bothering to check the ads... means less success with the ads and fewer user numbers, means fewer advertisers taking the time to post means...

Ctrl + A, Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + A, Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + V. Repeat until the text on your clipboard is actually eating processor speed.