davesenesac
Trail Wise!
Our precious life is short within eternity, don't waste it!
Posts: 1,710
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Post by davesenesac on Nov 16, 2015 9:33:48 GMT -8
A key factor for a web discussion forum is an active community of members. Significant numbers of web discussion forums have come and gone. Some were vibrant for a time then interest waned for numbers of usual reasons. With the rise of social networking sites, particularly Facebook, many have migrated away with their time consumed so. However traditional discussion forums fill enthusiast needs in ways social sites cannot. Key is a critical mass of frequent active members. A primary reason boards disappear is gradual lack of activity. Some may relate that what we have already is fine as is and there is no need to further tinker. All input including that opinion on the matter is valuable thank you. Some felt the same several years ago when I suggested the forum software allow addition of images to posts that at the time was still somewhat novel.
I do have this start to an idea below that needs more member brainstorming.
I think member interactions on threads and trip reports might improve on this board if there was more incentive for others to comment. The current Like feature is a good start that has generally risen on boards across the web but there can be more. The same issue of course exists on all manner of web forums. The main issue is there really is little in the way of incentives possible. I'm on a lot of web discussion boards and some like dpreview dot com have such active discussions there isn't a need to stimulate activity. However most discussion boards are not so, even many large established boards.
Generally people active in web discussion board communities appreciate interactions to their inputs and images by others. Forum software could be set up to give points each time they comment on threads or images of others. Everyone including newly registered members might receive a modest number of points to start off. That would allow them to have other members comment on any threads or images they input in either their threads as the OP or as postees in other members threads. Each day they logged into the board and posted at least once their point supply would decrease by one. If they logged in 5 times in one day it would still decrease just one for that day. Once their point supply decreased to zero, they would not be able to open new threads or have other members comment on any of their image inputs.
To change that they would first need to spend some time commenting on other member's threads and images. Within a given thread by another member a person might receive two points regardless of how many times they commented within that thread but could receive additional points by commenting on images. The actual number of points subtracted and added per above would need to be tweaked to find a reasonable balance to stimulate activity. Posting a comment to an image might require opening up a post window different than the standard Reply window. In order to prevent abuse, comments would need to be sentences and not just WOW! or AWESOME! etc or some canned sentence a person repeated on inputs.
David
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Post by Lamebeaver on Nov 16, 2015 10:19:21 GMT -8
AWESOME IDEA! :(
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Post by Coolkat on Nov 16, 2015 11:03:30 GMT -8
I understand why some might want to explore this idea but I'm not so sure that this would be the solution. In my way of looking at it appears as a nice way to bribe people's participation. In general people will discuss what trips their trigger. Which seems to explain the flurry of activity in the political arena. Although I'm a bit perplexed at this since this is a forum aimed at backpacking, so why does that area seem to get more traffic than the rest of the forum.
To be honest I'm not sure I want people replying to my posts just so they can get points.
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jay
Trail Wise!
Posts: 152
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Post by jay on Nov 16, 2015 11:31:49 GMT -8
I am with Coolkat on this one. I tend to visit here for information sharing relating to outdoor activities and trip planning.
Personally, I would rather have 3 replies that pertained to my posts with useful responses and information than 47 that didn't.
As far as the political area, I avoid it like the plague. It does keep the partisan opinion type stuff off the other boards, though.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2015 14:45:33 GMT -8
Questions for DaveSenesac: From what I've seen, FreeForums is versatile and may allow plugins to increase versatility. But if such a point system would require these forums to again be moved to another hosting site, we may lose more participation than we gain by yet another change of web address — for an idea that has not demonstrated its effectiveness. You can start your own forum from free-forum software and prove (or disprove) that there is a way to enact your ideas in a test site. But until someone proves that such a point system can actually be constructed here or at another site, the question is rather moot as to whether we actually favor such a setup or not. I would like to reserve my opinion on the idea until someone such as you proves it can actually be done — preferably without another forum change of web address. But after the last forum fiasco, I'm not much interested in obscure speculation on software alterations that no one around here can prove workable.
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desert dweller
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Power to the Peaceful...Hate does not create.
Posts: 6,291
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Post by desert dweller on Nov 16, 2015 15:12:11 GMT -8
Points remind me too much of school. Some folks just don't want to participate at all and some a lot and some on occasion. The Backpacking Forums have been active for 20 years. The only lulls have been due to site software rather than interest of the participants.
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davesenesac
Trail Wise!
Our precious life is short within eternity, don't waste it!
Posts: 1,710
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Post by davesenesac on Nov 16, 2015 16:21:09 GMT -8
Beyond my suggestion above which is just an idea I'm tossing out, looking at the old board listing:
Destinations International (643, 0), Mid-Atlantic (2,936, 0), Midwest (2,718, 0), Southwest (3,921, 0), Southern (3,917, 0), Rocky Mountains (4,329, 0), Pacific Northwest (1,151, 0), Northeast (1,340, 0)
On the old board there are 3921 topics listed on the Southwest forum over a 9 year period to a year ago or 435 per year or a bit more than 1.2 threads per day and listings fit on 262 board pages. Of course If one looks at half that or page 131, half those topics are older than 7.3 years and 75% are older than 5.3 years. And 88% are older than 3.8 years thus well before the software change many people had deserted interest in regional outdoor subjects and trip reports.
On the Rocky Mountain sub forum shows 4330 topics listed on the Southwest forum over a 9 year period or 481 per year or a bit more than 1.3 per day and listings fit on 289 board pages. The ratio of threads are very close to that of the Southwest over the period.
Thus even before the recent software change there had been a significant drop off in interest in questions about outdoors and trip reports on the regional boards. For obvious reasons we can ignore the current period since the recent change and the period of months before when the old software was painful.
Would agree there has always been reasonable activity in TR, TPA, and Gear Closet. However not in Trip Reports/Storytelling or regional boards. At one time Storytelling was separate from Trip Reports before the software change and it was as anemic as numbers above show. Before that when there was no image posting a few of those threads were entered here in TR. The problem at that time was all the political threads pushed everything else off the front page quickly so those became out of sight out of mind. Accordingly most trip reports were entered into the regional boards which during summer periods tended to be quite active a decade ago but since then has been a decline.
Some may chime why are outdoor oriented threads or trip reports important? Who cares? Well this is the discussion board for the oldest, original, largest enthusiast magazine for backpackers. So it is surprising how little members actually talk about outdoor issues or their outdoor experiences. My own personal experience is I use 3 other regional boards a lot more for hiking and backpacking outdoor discussions. And all 3 are quite active except during winter.
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BlueBear
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@GoBlueHiker
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Post by BlueBear on Nov 16, 2015 16:47:22 GMT -8
The "you're not allowed to post until you participate in other people's threads" thing isn't going to work. It'll only drive people away who aren't regularly active here, which is the bulk of new members. And I doubt it'd improve the quality of discussions if someone is only posting to "unlock" their account.
So yeah, I'm with Lamebeaver on this one. AWESOME!!!!
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tigger
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Posts: 2,547
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Post by tigger on Nov 16, 2015 17:22:37 GMT -8
People were driven away in droves due to nightmarish software. Now, most have moved on to Facebook or other places where groups are easily setup, photos uploaded directly, etc.
Either traffic needs to be driven here or we wait patiently for people to return. Myspace was once a vibrant community...
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Post by tipiwalter on Nov 16, 2015 19:12:06 GMT -8
Davesenesac says---
" . . .it is surprising how little members actually talk about outdoor issues or their outdoor experiences."
VERY TRUE. I come here infrequently and when I do and click on Recent Posts I get the usual clutter of left-field topics having nothing to do with backpacking or the outdoors. I sometimes find a trip report with zero or one response. It's like having a website forum on Cooking and everybody talks about Motorcycles. Very weird.
So I go to Whiteblaze and Trailspace and odin help me even the backpacking threads on BushcraftUSA. Or god forbid the gram-weenie-gear addictions on BPL.com.
But this forum, or earlier versions of this forum, used to be robust with 80% of the discussions revolving around hiking and backpacking and gear. Now I'd say after a cursory study such topics are down to around 10%.
And Facebook backpacking discussions are not efficiently arranged to be like a forum.
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Post by Coolkat on Nov 16, 2015 19:17:18 GMT -8
VERY TRUE. I come here infrequently and when I do and click on Recent Posts I get the usual clutter of left-field topics having nothing to do with backpacking or the outdoors. I sometimes find a trip report with zero or one response. It's like having a website forum on Cooking and everybody talks about Motorcycles. Very weird. As a relative new comer here I would agree with this assessment. I stay because I keep hoping that as more people join things will turn the other way.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2015 20:09:22 GMT -8
Some may chime why are outdoor oriented threads or trip reports important? Who cares? Well this is the discussion board for the oldest, original, largest enthusiast magazine for backpackers. So it is surprising how little members actually talk about outdoor issues or their outdoor experiences.VERY TRUE. I come here infrequently and when I do and click on Recent Posts I get the usual clutter of left-field topics having nothing to do with backpacking or the outdoors.Well, since DaveSenesac and TipiWalter have voiced complaints about a lack of backpacking-related threads, let's take a look at some backpacking-related threads that neither one of them has even participated in — from the very first page of the Trailhead Register: That's 15/30 topics on the first page of the Trailhead Register — fully half the threads — each thread backpacking related. And neither DaveSenesac nor TipiWalter has participated in any of those. With others, over half the threads on the first page are backpacking-related. Someone could almost construe that to mean that the two biggest complainers in this thread, DaveSenesac and TipiWalter, might need to start practicing what they preach. Or are we to suppose that wildlife, land conservation, astronomy, forest fire, new hiking members, insect bites and so on are not "backpacking related," as those two people suggest? And DaveSenesac, I noticed that you completely ignored the questions in my first post above.
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Post by ecocentric on Nov 16, 2015 20:17:01 GMT -8
I'd post photos along with narrative, if I didn't have to have a photo site account to load photos from. I use the like button when it seems appropriate.
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texasbb
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Hates chicken
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Post by texasbb on Nov 16, 2015 20:57:31 GMT -8
A few quick opinions/thoughts: - I agree wholeheartedly with those who mentioned this forum's sparsity of actual hiking-related/informational posts. I don't know why, but this forum has always been dominated by mindless banter. Mind you, a forum of any kind needs mindless banter, but why doesn't it happen interspersed in hiking talk here (much)?
- This forum has waaaaay too many boards. Many of them languish for months at a time. If we had about a third as many, I bet things wouldn't look so stale and maybe there'd be more interaction. Maybe not.
- I appreciate the interest in finding a solution, but frankly, I think artificial status points and other gimmicks may have more negative effect than positive. Adding fluff will just make the real content seem that much more sparse and may hasten peoples' exit.
- I see a lot more hiking talk and a lot more interaction in a couple forums up here in the PNW. Both of them focus on hiking in a specific locale, so maybe that's the problem here--too broad a geographical focus to attract people. (Why do I care about trails way over there?)
- Ironically, the interaction that is here may discourage others to become full participants. From the outside it appears that the most frequent posters have known each other since childhood. That's certainly not a gripe, just an observation.
- Millennials may never see this kind of forum as anything but their father's Oldsmobile.
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cajun
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GEAUX TIGERS!!
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Post by cajun on Nov 16, 2015 21:02:37 GMT -8
The community was indeed vibrant before the last software snafu. Most of us used to pop in daily. Now, I'm out of that habit -- I think to check in periodically, but not daily. I suspect patience is key to getting people back here. Give us a score, and many of us will bail completely.
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