I have to be honest here. Ever since Kevin started charging for this site, (selling, dealers, etc...), this place has slowed to a CRAWL. I can appreciate why he did it but am dumbfounded as to why all the lurkers went away. The "General" forum seems to be doing okay but everything else has took a dump! I have noticed that over at Knifeforums, the "For Sale" board has increased by about 300% but I thought the traffic over there would increase by ten-fold. Where the hell is everybody and where did they all go? I am TOTALLY perplexed by all this. Let's all encourage folks to post here, (which I think is still FREE), and NOT scare them away with tirades of becoming gold members or whatever. Hey you lurkers out there, PLEASE come back! We welcome you! Man, do I MISS the RECENT old days!
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This Is REALLY Getting Ridiculous!!!
- Thread starter Gene
- Start date
Cougar Allen
Buccaneer (ret.)
- Joined
- Oct 9, 1998
- Messages
- 75,759
Moving to the Service & Support forum....
By the way,
Huh? I can't keep up with every forum on this website (can anybody?) but all the forums I read are doing fine, traffic continuing to increase as it has since the beginning.
Yes ... all the forums except the for-sale forums are still free....
By the way,
Huh? I can't keep up with every forum on this website (can anybody?) but all the forums I read are doing fine, traffic continuing to increase as it has since the beginning.
Yes ... all the forums except the for-sale forums are still free....
Okay Cougar, thanks for moving it. You are a top dog here but why would you move it to "Service And Support"? I was just elicting opinions from fellow forumites. Really, not trying to start trouble here, just wondering since I am a BIG supporter of these forums and have been since their inception. By the way and again just wondering, all the "quotes" are neat but for the life of me I've never understood them. If someone posts cohesively, what's the point? Just takes up bandwidth. I guess they look cool.
- Joined
- Oct 2, 1998
- Messages
- 15,223
Service & Support is the place for site feedback. Hiding it in another forum means it probably won't be seen until something takes a turn for the worse.
I've monitored the traffic extensively on both sites since the changes have taken place, and all appearances aside, it really seems that traffic hasn't changed all that much - the only noticable change has been to the For Sale forums, which naturally took a hit in traffic. The rest of the site is still ticking right along.
Heck, I think we're actually seeing an increase in information posts -
TOTAL POSTS PER DAY
April 12th, 2001 - 1157
April 11th, 2001 - 1280
April 10th, 2001 - 1171
August 30th, 2001 - 1352
August 29th, 2001 - 1228
August 28th, 2001 - 1274
Even after we shut down the For Sale Forums for free posting, we still see roughly the same number of posts overall, with a estimated less than 15% decrease on the slowest days (the weekends). Of course, school has started up again as well, so more people have access again.
The biggest change, naturally enough, has been in <b>new thread counts</b> which took a substantial hit when the For Sale forums were altered. Stats showed that we'd typically get 250-350 new threads per day, where now we're getting 150-250. Again, the For Sale forums can account for much of this.
Traffic has been essentially unchanged in the General, Reviews, Shop Talk, Himilayan Imports, Chris Reeve, Spyderco, Busse, and Community Center / W& C / Political forums, which have typically seen the most posting anyhow. In my opinion, the people who come here have certain key areas where they hang out, and only occasionally post anywhere else. Eliminating or significantly altering one area doesn't seem to affect other sectors.
Membership is essentially still growing at the same rate, though a bit slower than before, also attributable to the change in the For Sale forums. But we're still getting on average between 12-15 new members a day, which roughly is the same average we've had since we opened.
As for KnifeForums.com, you are correct, they have seen a substantial increase in traffic in their For Sale section, but that's about it. I can name about 5 or so obvious reasons why the rest hasn't changed, but I won't go into those details for again, <b>obvious reasons</b>.
Besides, there's no need to start any "which forums are better" or "X is so great!" pissing matchs, something I'm glad to see that we've avoided.
Kevin
I've monitored the traffic extensively on both sites since the changes have taken place, and all appearances aside, it really seems that traffic hasn't changed all that much - the only noticable change has been to the For Sale forums, which naturally took a hit in traffic. The rest of the site is still ticking right along.
Heck, I think we're actually seeing an increase in information posts -
TOTAL POSTS PER DAY
April 12th, 2001 - 1157
April 11th, 2001 - 1280
April 10th, 2001 - 1171
August 30th, 2001 - 1352
August 29th, 2001 - 1228
August 28th, 2001 - 1274
Even after we shut down the For Sale Forums for free posting, we still see roughly the same number of posts overall, with a estimated less than 15% decrease on the slowest days (the weekends). Of course, school has started up again as well, so more people have access again.
The biggest change, naturally enough, has been in <b>new thread counts</b> which took a substantial hit when the For Sale forums were altered. Stats showed that we'd typically get 250-350 new threads per day, where now we're getting 150-250. Again, the For Sale forums can account for much of this.
Traffic has been essentially unchanged in the General, Reviews, Shop Talk, Himilayan Imports, Chris Reeve, Spyderco, Busse, and Community Center / W& C / Political forums, which have typically seen the most posting anyhow. In my opinion, the people who come here have certain key areas where they hang out, and only occasionally post anywhere else. Eliminating or significantly altering one area doesn't seem to affect other sectors.
Membership is essentially still growing at the same rate, though a bit slower than before, also attributable to the change in the For Sale forums. But we're still getting on average between 12-15 new members a day, which roughly is the same average we've had since we opened.
As for KnifeForums.com, you are correct, they have seen a substantial increase in traffic in their For Sale section, but that's about it. I can name about 5 or so obvious reasons why the rest hasn't changed, but I won't go into those details for again, <b>obvious reasons</b>.
Besides, there's no need to start any "which forums are better" or "X is so great!" pissing matchs, something I'm glad to see that we've avoided.
Kevin
Cougar Allen
Buccaneer (ret.)
- Joined
- Oct 9, 1998
- Messages
- 75,759
We have so many forums here sometimes it's hard to decide where a thread belongs.... Often a thread is started in TGB&U because it's something the author wants the TGB&U crowd to know about or wants their input, and yet it's off-topic and there's a forum right here on this website where the topic would fit perfectly. The new vBulletin software offers the perfect solution -- I move the thread to the appropriate forum and leave a redirect in TGB&U. Now the thread is in both forums, essentially.
We recently decided discussion about Bladeforums policy and about the website as a whole should go in the Service & Support forum so Spark will see it. He can't keep up with all the forums, nobody can, and even if it isn't addressed to him directly he needs to know what people think.
By the way this applies to everybody who posts a thread that gets moved: Don't assume I'm mad at you or you've screwed up! The new software makes it so easy to move threads I don't mind at all, and when a thread is relevant to two forums it's often the best solution to move it from whichever one it gets posted in to the other one, leaving a redirect in the first forum. (Another way: you could post it in the forum where it's on-topic and post a link to it in any other forum(s) where they should know about it -- but not everybody knows how to post links....)
Sometimes quoting saves a lot of writing or a lot of scrolling back and forth between the two posts (if you can even find the post that's being replied to) and other times it isn't really needed, and sometimes it's pointless. Is the quoting in my post above really necessary? Maybe not. If I took as much time and trouble in writing posts as I do in my fiction the style would be better ... but I would have to post a lot less (well, some people might consider that a good thing)....
Yes, but I've sworn an oath to use my Super Powers only for the good of mankind -- if I were to break that oath I would be drummed out of the League of Superheros! I would have to turn in my cape! The ceremony also involves evisceration....
We recently decided discussion about Bladeforums policy and about the website as a whole should go in the Service & Support forum so Spark will see it. He can't keep up with all the forums, nobody can, and even if it isn't addressed to him directly he needs to know what people think.
By the way this applies to everybody who posts a thread that gets moved: Don't assume I'm mad at you or you've screwed up! The new software makes it so easy to move threads I don't mind at all, and when a thread is relevant to two forums it's often the best solution to move it from whichever one it gets posted in to the other one, leaving a redirect in the first forum. (Another way: you could post it in the forum where it's on-topic and post a link to it in any other forum(s) where they should know about it -- but not everybody knows how to post links....)
Sometimes quoting saves a lot of writing or a lot of scrolling back and forth between the two posts (if you can even find the post that's being replied to) and other times it isn't really needed, and sometimes it's pointless. Is the quoting in my post above really necessary? Maybe not. If I took as much time and trouble in writing posts as I do in my fiction the style would be better ... but I would have to post a lot less (well, some people might consider that a good thing)....
Yes, but I've sworn an oath to use my Super Powers only for the good of mankind -- if I were to break that oath I would be drummed out of the League of Superheros! I would have to turn in my cape! The ceremony also involves evisceration....