Politics Café.

Dav wrote: »

I'd dearly love to know why people don't think "I want to talk about the Economy, I'll go to the Irish Economy forum" etc, but I come from a time when this was how the tubes worked.

As do I D, but times have changed and are a changing still. What Permabear noted about the rise of mobile device use but one of those changes. It's a real struggle to type out considered responses with links on a phone. Though maybe I'm just old(though can text at a 14 year old girl level).

The other major change was in the demographic shift, compared to those using the tubes back in the day. Basically it was mostly "nerds" (and mostly male ones with it). The type of folks who like categories and sub categories etc. The types who would say "I want to talk about the Economy, I'll go to the Irish Economy forum". Even in the last 6 or 7 years there has been a shift to "normal people" and those folks are more likely to want to post/talk where the most talk happens. They're less rigidly subject orientated and go where the talk is and with the brevity of things like Twatter added in, AH is going to be more and more the place.

6 years ago if I wanted to talk about the economy I would have gone to the relevant forum. I would know there would be at least ten other regulars I could read, learn disagree with etc. Today? For many subjects their relevant forums are ghost towns or have the same two or three "locals" and you already know what they think so it becomes rapidly boring. You know the way a really long thread in AH can go where everyone else has pissed off but two users are playing debate tennis for page after page? That's redolent of many a specialist forum and why some might avoid them.

Over the years there are few enough forums I haven't posted in(outside of biz, sport and edu), but today I'd mostly post in and maybe more importantly for lurkers(and the biz) read 5 or 6.

On the other hand a place like Reddit has a ginormous amount of forums and it does very well. Partly because of its layout(which I personally hate. See Old reference above), but mostly because of its sheer size of readership and content producers. The problem Boards has IMHO anyway, is that the google stylee page/click numbers has always exaggerated the true size of the site and community*. Especially of the true size of the actual content providers, the triggers for others to read and maybe respond. AH which is the biggest forum with the biggest stats? I'd reckon a rolling figure of around 2-300 content providers. Now it's not the same people making up that figure over time. Some come, some go, but the figure is relatively static(slight climb in AH though).

There are a helluva lot of forums on Boards where that number is under ten or twenty. I can think of a few that aren't ghost towns that the number is under five. When I was modding The Ladies Lounge I reckoned that outside the chat thread(the most popular), the rolling figure was 20-30 people tops, with half of them very regular and at the time it was considered a high enough traffic forum. And it was, but traffic was high because of those folks(and the chat thread) and the people outside that group who would read and respond.

Private forums really illustrated that for me. The first one I was in had 10 or 12 members, obviously no lurkers by the very nature of things and had bigger "numbers" after a year on the go than some cherished forums in the place. One I'm in now would be similar.

This is one big reason why trying to shift subjects from one forum to another won't work. If there isn't a threshold level of these content types it's doomed to failure. I saw it happen within forums. Humanities a good example. Once it had a good headcount of maybe 20 rolling content types, when that dropped below five the forum died.


Is there a solution? I dunno, I'll leave that to better minds than my own, but I would say you can't turn back the clock, you go where the growth is. You don't ignore the stagnant areas, but you don't dilute the actual area of growth by trying to revive them. IMH if every thread in AH that could live in another forum was actually moved, AH would dilute and dilute rapidly and people overall will leave more and more and soon enough you could be back to 2005 levels of numbers for Boards.


TL;DR? Communities are things that grow in an organic and often messy way, you can only predict so far, so follow and support the areas of growth and the community will tell you how to work things, or not as the case may be.





*IMH long part of Google's overall BS number crunching to suit their biz model and it became everyone's interest online to swallow it.

Permabear wrote: »

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Indeed so PB and there's some irony in this too. Not so long ago AH was the "joke" forum, very freewheeling, very little serious bizness, lots of blast it with piss, your ma and mods havin the craic at times. It was still about the most popular forum, but other forums had decent traffic. AH was regarded sniffily and beneath them by quite the number of people, including a few of the "higher ups" and "Take it to AH" was an insult in other forums.

So AH grew up, fought against the sniffiness. Mods like Dr B and others drove for less locker room guff, more balance, less sexism etc and the community went along for the ride and grew more and more. For me a little was lost in the mix, but much more was gained. Basically AH became a really good catch all forum where you could have the craic and talk shíte, yet at the same time have a serious discussion with a load of people on any number of subjects. The moderation is generally more easy going, there are more people so lurkers feel less like intruders and "Local experts" on more local forums can't get "big" enough to discourage passersby and newbies.

So maybe if you want to turn back the clock bring back blast with piss/your ma/make me a sammich, feed the mods hard liquor and psychedelics and sit back.:D

The wider Boards became a "victim" of AH's success and the hard work of the community and mods. It became too good, too attractive for passersby. Where before AH was one of the "gateway" forums to the rest of Boards, it's now more a place where people won't bother to venture further for the most part. And that IMH is why the rest of Boards feels its presence far more than before and will continue to do so.

I think it boils down to this; do you "sell" your "product" where people, the "customers" actually are, or do you try to bend the "market" to your will, to what you want, or how things used to operate? IMHO(and better economical minds will I suspect likely back me up), the latter approach is doomed to failure. Evolve to the environment or the environment will evolve to exclude you and said environment will speak to you if you listen. If you think of Boards in relation to 2001, or 2008 and keep operating from those principles when it's 2014 and the entire landscape has changed, then that's a likely problem. Basically adapt to the environment or die. Just like Board's did in the past.