Feedback and Suggestions, please.

The forum is dead, any ideas as to how to bring it back to life? It should be a great forum, but something just isn't working. All (serious) suggestions welcome.

Overheal

"You dip it in chocolate and say it has no calories."

Expand your Horizons just sounds airy and whiffy. I have the forum subbed, yet refrain from clicking on it very often. Im beginning to wonder if it isnt in the Name of the forum. It needs a cool name, like ......


I dunno.

ToniTuddle

Didn't even see this place!:eek:

I think alot of people get into a habit of visiting certain threads and then never venture out of them.

This place covers alot of stuff! It could be a simple thing as a name change I don't know yet as I've only a a quick glance. I'm going to have a nosey through the posts and investigate more.

Overheal

well the other thing is my interests are catered to elsewhere. theres almost always some meaty issue going on in politics to occupy my time with, and then TV and Films, and the odd Comp and Tech. It really doesnt leave me much time for cloud thinking as it were.

...that must be it. I need to go find an ounce of really good weed. Then Ill do a lot of gibberational philosophising. Thats exactly what this forum needs :rolleyes: /notreally

I don't know what it's about, tbh

Overheal

I asked for serious suggestions Robbie, not smart remarks, thanks.

Overheal wrote: »

"You dip it in chocolate and say it has no calories."

Expand your Horizons just sounds airy and whiffy. I have the forum subbed, yet refrain from clicking on it very often. Im beginning to wonder if it isnt in the Name of the forum. It needs a cool name, like ......


I dunno.

That could be it. Although, I don't think a name change would turn it into the forum that it should be.

ToniTuddle wrote: »

Didn't even see this place!:eek:

I think alot of people get into a habit of visiting certain threads and then never venture out of them.

This place covers alot of stuff! It could be a simple thing as a name change I don't know yet as I've only a a quick glance. I'm going to have a nosey through the posts and investigate more.

That's true. It's a very broad and wide ranging forum. If after your nosey around you have any feedback, be sure to drop it here.

Overheal wrote: »

well the other thing is my interests are catered to elsewhere. theres almost always some meaty issue going on in politics to occupy my time with, and then TV and Films, and the odd Comp and Tech. It really doesnt leave me much time for cloud thinking as it were.

That's what I think the problem is. Most issues that could be dealt with here have their own specific forum, so they're not dealt with here.

Papa Smut wrote: »

I don't know what it's about, tbh

There's a passage in the charter that explains the purpose of the forum:

EYH Charter wrote:

Essentially, Expand Your Horizons is a forum for the sharing of articles, videos, websites, etc. that examine aspects of anything that you find interesting. It strives to expand your mind by allowing access to the very best articles on the internet, without having to filter through all of the useless rubbish that typically prevails on the web.

This forum welcomes articles containing ideas and concepts that may not be accepted, fit anywhere else or are not often shared. Anything worth reading, regardless of how complex or simple, is welcome on this forum (within reason). There are a few exceptions to this, of course: the article must, in some way, be capable of expanding your mind; of improving your general knowledge, or knowledge in a particular area.

There are two sides to the forum. The first, as detailed above, is for the sharing of information that is capable of Expanding Your Horizons. The second is for the discussion of these articles in an intelligent and reasoned way.

That's, essentially, what the forum is about.

--amadeus--

My understanding of the point of this forum was that it was to act as a sort of central repository of the "best of the web". If you found a good article then you shared it here, replies on thread would then usually be in the form of comments on the article rather than a discussion of teh subject itself, though they often end up going in the same directions.

So if I want to talk about travel I'll go to the forum for it. But when I find a cool article it comes in here.

By it's nature this will be a low volume forum - lots of people read articles but don't see a need to comment. And it's actually getting plenty of traffic, in 4 days my last thread has had almost 190 views for example. That's not bad. And not getting lots of replies to good articles / threads isn't the end of the world

What would be the end of the world (well, this forums world) would be a lack of new articles & threads. And that is clearly an issue - a lack of new threads makes the place look dead so fewer people look here, fewer threads get posted...

The solution is pretty obvious - there are plenty of people who pop in here for a browse. Stop browsing and get posting!

[edit] I've been shy about posting too many new threads as I didn't want to have loads on here leaving it looking like my personal library. I think if a few of teh regulars & lurkers made a commitment to start a couple of threads a week each this place would pick up pretty quickly.

Earthhorse

Yes, that's probably a good suggestion, amadeus.

It's a tricky one. It's always going to be difficult find new content worthy of the forum. And to contribute isn't as easy as in other forums because your really want to put some time into what your posting and not just chuck in a throwaway remark.

I also think some of the more recent threads probably have a better home in philosophy or humanities. They're not bad threads, just not at the heart of what this forum is really about.

I guess one thing we could maybe do is organise some offline stuff. I was at the Science Gallery today, they're currently hosting a What if...? exhibition and some of it was very interesting. Even having a thread dedicated to stuff like that, to promote it and make people aware of it. They could then discuss it here.

--amadeus--

--amadeus-- wrote: »

My understanding of the point of this forum was that it was to act as a sort of central repository of the "best of the web". If you found a good article then you shared it here, replies on thread would then usually be in the form of comments on the article rather than a discussion of teh subject itself, though they often end up going in the same directions.

That's exactly it. It's very difficult to seperate the two, though.

So if I want to talk about travel I'll go to the forum for it. But when I find a cool article it comes in here.

By it's nature this will be a low volume forum - lots of people read articles but don't see a need to comment. And it's actually getting plenty of traffic, in 4 days my last thread has had almost 190 views for example. That's not bad. And not getting lots of replies to good articles / threads isn't the end of the world

That's true. There are, I'd imagine, numerous regular readers who don't post, which is a pity.

What would be the end of the world (well, this forums world) would be a lack of new articles & threads. And that is clearly an issue - a lack of new threads makes the place look dead so fewer people look here, fewer threads get posted...

The solution is pretty obvious - there are plenty of people who pop in here for a browse. Stop browsing and get posting!

Indeed, that's the solution...

I'm going to start posting more articles myself, anyway.

[edit] I've been shy about posting too many new threads as I didn't want to have loads on here leaving it looking like my personal library. I think if a few of teh regulars & lurkers made a commitment to start a couple of threads a week each this place would pick up pretty quickly.

Yah, I think you're keeping this forum with its supply of new threads, which is a good thing! Hopefully if a few of us start posting regularly, it won't seem as if one user is dominating the threads.

Earthhorse wrote: »

Yes, that's probably a good suggestion, amadeus.

It's a tricky one. It's always going to be difficult find new content worthy of the forum. And to contribute isn't as easy as in other forums because your really want to put some time into what your posting and not just chuck in a throwaway remark.

That's another thing: I sometimes refrain from posting certain things because, as you've said, I'm not sure they'd meet the standards that I'd like this forum to have, which brings me on to your next point...

I also think some of the more recent threads probably have a better home in philosophy or humanities. They're not bad threads, just not at the heart of what this forum is really about.

Since there has been a low volume of threads suited to this forum, I know I've been letting threads in that are more suited to humanities or philosophy etc. I.e. compromising so the forum doesn't die.

I guess one thing we could maybe do is organise some offline stuff. I was at the Science Gallery today, they're currently hosting a What if...? exhibition and some of it was very interesting. Even having a thread dedicated to stuff like that, to promote it and make people aware of it. They could then discuss it here.

That's a good idea. I'll give it a bit of thought and get back to it.

patff

I've just joined, and this is the first forum I picked, but if it's dead........

patff

patff wrote: »

I've just joined, and this is the first forum I picked, but if it's dead........

Well, it's not that the forum is dead, it's just that it's a low volume forum with only very few regular contributors. There are still plenty of high quality articles throughout the forum. So, not reading it because it appears dead isn't an excuse!

Oh, and welcome to Boards.

patff

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Well, it's not that the forum is dead, it's just that it's a low volume forum with only very few regular contributors. There are still plenty of high quality articles throughout the forum. So, not reading it because it appears dead isn't an excuse!

Oh, and welcome to Boards.

thanks, I'll stick around then

Aurora Borealis

I have only just discovered this forum and I have to say, even at first perusal, it fills my geeky heart with much joy. I shall definitely revisit.

Irlandese

Hey, just see this.
Jammy, don't give up. It's one of the two most interesting sections on the site.
If you keep up the good work, that I see now, after stumbling across your section, I am sure others will help out too.

Irlandese

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

The forum is dead, any ideas as to how to bring it back to life? It should be a great forum, but something just isn't working. All (serious) suggestions welcome.

What about what group work facilitators call a "buzz session" where anyone can shout in any number of suggestions for topic directions and inclusions to widen the horizons a bit, with you, Jammy, as the facilitator who helps the thread users to refine an agreed list or approach?
I could start the ball off, a bit lamely, by for instance suggesting that we could nominate discussions of interesting people we have come across for whatever reason, whose "interesting-ness" might not be so well known but might merit a bit of airing?

lil_lisa

Hey, if its a section for interesting articles and sites I will have it on my subscriptions. I thought it was just a place for new and extraordinary things that would "Expand your Horizons" and I'm slightly out of touch with the world so I thought everyone would already know the stuff that makes my jaw drop. How and ever I shall put it to the test. Consider this my commitment post!

WanderingSoul

In response to the topic that many things are posted in specialized forums (articles to do with WW1 in the WW1 forum etc.) perhaps if anyone who reads anything suitable for here over in another forum they should repost it here with credit to the OP and a link to the OTopic.

Regarding the name, I personally didn't visit this forum until maybe 3 months after I started frequently visiting this boards when I saw it mentioned in prison. I had already seen the forum name in the dropdown menus but I didn't really bother checking it out as I didn't think it sounded interesting (I was very wrong!). I only visited because in the particular thread in prison someone was banned from a science forum and told by the admins & relevant mods that they were banned from posting there RE a particular topic but they were free to discuss it in Expand Your Horizons. This spiked my curiosity as I started to wonder what was actually in this forum. I think maybe the name should be altered to give a better idea of what is in this forum.