1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
On Skypehaus: I think it would be a pretty cool idea to move it from Skype to Ventrilo/TS3, because everyone can still talk to their internet talkhaus buddies, but any user could come in and chat if they want to. Someone should mention that to the rest of Skypehaus.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
proof of conceptAUS wrote:Personally, I registered to the forums for A2MT. So, take that as you will.
group projects and events draw people in
this is exactly what we need to cut down on, and is one of the few points where I agree with thissaIf you're on the Skypehaus, either you're part of the "established people" on the forums, who post threads full of in-jokes and generally random talk that you can enjoy because you like the people you're talking to (in which case you'd still be active on the Talkhaus)
the hivemind/injokey behavior, as he put it, is incredibly off-putting for new members. I know this because I was a new member once too and trying to get into the "cool people" group (trolls and retards) was pretty difficult mentally for me since I am not exactly the most outgoing person out there, the barrier of indecipherable injokes and memes didn't really help one bit
basically, increase post quality
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
The problem with removing skypehaus or irc is that you can't remove it.
We can't say "alright, skypehaus is done" and they'll all come back here. They'd probably become more distant from talkhaus. And obviously, they wouldn't agree to removing it, if they did they would gather somewhere else, etc. etc.
So,
Yeah, and also this thread may be becoming counter-productive because posting ideas is worthless unless people follow through with them.
Yes, I'm a hypocrite.
We can't say "alright, skypehaus is done" and they'll all come back here. They'd probably become more distant from talkhaus. And obviously, they wouldn't agree to removing it, if they did they would gather somewhere else, etc. etc.
So,
and maybe more importantly, increase post count. Cool events are preferable, too.basically, increase post quality
Yeah, and also this thread may be becoming counter-productive because posting ideas is worthless unless people follow through with them.
Yes, I'm a hypocrite.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Figured I'd give my two cents, seeing as I am the referenced "new member".O-Card wrote:the hivemind/injokey behavior, as he put it, is incredibly off-putting for new members.
I agree 100% with this post. While I've been active on a lot of forums, some of them full of similar crowds (i.e. people who have known each other for ages and post with that in mind) it's always been pretty easy to establish myself. And while I am drawn to those events and etc that you listed above, I feel like I have to raise my post count +100 to feel like a member of the "in-crowd" here before joining, which is something I never felt before.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Yeah I was hoping that this thread would actually get some things accomplished and not just turn into an echo chamber with a couple members taking turns agreeing with each other (not targeted at anyone.) I'm gonna try to get in touch with TLs4, and you guys should bother him too if you can. Also, if anyone has an idea that's actually novel and not just a slight modification of something already posted, by all means, tell us. But if you can't think of anything constructive to post, just help out in some other way. Perhaps by following through on the ideas you agree with?
(seriously this post wasn't directed at anyone just trying to preemptively stop people from doing this)
^^yeah I realize that people like me contributed greatly to the state of talkhaus today. I am definitely trying to stop being an idiot troll and hopefully if we see less of that around here then people will feel more comfortable getting active
(seriously this post wasn't directed at anyone just trying to preemptively stop people from doing this)
^^yeah I realize that people like me contributed greatly to the state of talkhaus today. I am definitely trying to stop being an idiot troll and hopefully if we see less of that around here then people will feel more comfortable getting active
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Although I've been here since the forum opened and was pretty much there to see it created, I haven't been much of a regular. Despite that, I'd still like to share my two cents on the matter though.
The biggest thing to note is that it's not just the Talkhaus that is in a downwards spiral. Several smaller forums (and even larger ones) seem to be taking a toll recently in terms of activity and quality (mostly forums that have at least some kind of relation to ROM hacking). I wouldn't be able to deduce an exact cause, but it's a little disheartening to see it, even from my point of view. Since this appears to be a mostly "serious" topic, then I'll "seriously" agree with the others who have said the hivemind nature of these forums was very offputting, especially last year and the year before that. I would consistently read comments from people on YT who actually flat-out bashed this place and its userbase, as well as others where people simply refused to register. If people on this forum are serious about improving the quality of things around here, desisting from being a part of the "trolling and retard" group, as OC put it, would be the best path to begin with. I'm glad to see some are already taking this route.
A2MT was useful for drawing a fair amount of people in, but to no one's surprise, a lot of them posted once (or not at all) and then left. Even now, the collab forum seems exceptionally dead, especially when you compare it to a couple of months ago. Sadly, there isn't much that can be done to alleviate this. It's really the same thing on SMWC - people come, post once (or never), and then never come back. Those who have wanted to register would have by now, and unless raocow starts making videos begging people to come in, the rate of new members will gradually decline.
It's really hard to add anything else to this. I'm generally a doom-and-gloom pessimist when it comes to .. well, pretty much everything, so seeing any hint of a decline in quality would instantly trigger my "it's all over, we're screwed" response. Since other people on this forum don't share that view (and clearly have an interest in building it back up, if it's possible), then I wish you guys the best of luck.
The biggest thing to note is that it's not just the Talkhaus that is in a downwards spiral. Several smaller forums (and even larger ones) seem to be taking a toll recently in terms of activity and quality (mostly forums that have at least some kind of relation to ROM hacking). I wouldn't be able to deduce an exact cause, but it's a little disheartening to see it, even from my point of view. Since this appears to be a mostly "serious" topic, then I'll "seriously" agree with the others who have said the hivemind nature of these forums was very offputting, especially last year and the year before that. I would consistently read comments from people on YT who actually flat-out bashed this place and its userbase, as well as others where people simply refused to register. If people on this forum are serious about improving the quality of things around here, desisting from being a part of the "trolling and retard" group, as OC put it, would be the best path to begin with. I'm glad to see some are already taking this route.
A2MT was useful for drawing a fair amount of people in, but to no one's surprise, a lot of them posted once (or not at all) and then left. Even now, the collab forum seems exceptionally dead, especially when you compare it to a couple of months ago. Sadly, there isn't much that can be done to alleviate this. It's really the same thing on SMWC - people come, post once (or never), and then never come back. Those who have wanted to register would have by now, and unless raocow starts making videos begging people to come in, the rate of new members will gradually decline.
It's really hard to add anything else to this. I'm generally a doom-and-gloom pessimist when it comes to .. well, pretty much everything, so seeing any hint of a decline in quality would instantly trigger my "it's all over, we're screwed" response. Since other people on this forum don't share that view (and clearly have an interest in building it back up, if it's possible), then I wish you guys the best of luck.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
This exactly. Pretty sure this happens with just about every forum out there. I see how forum games/competitions/etc. are capable of encouraging participation, but it's easy to get caught up the "oh, this competition consists of 90% regular members, I'm not sure if I'd really feel welcome" kind of mentality.O-Card wrote: the hivemind/injokey behavior, as he put it, is incredibly off-putting for new members. I know this because I was a new member once too and trying to get into the "cool people" group (trolls and retards) was pretty difficult mentally for me since I am not exactly the most outgoing person out there, the barrier of indecipherable injokes and memes didn't really help one bit
What does everyone think of a ZSNES matchup thread? Everyone would post details including what games/genres they'd be open to playing, as well as the ideal way to contact them to play something (PM, IRC, Skype, so on), time zone, ideal time to contact them to play, and perhaps their type of internet connection. If done wrong, this has the potential to split the community as it sounds like the IRC/Skypehaus has, but perhaps a message in the OP saying something akin to "feel free to contact any member from any page, new players welcome" help? If it were me, I'd still feel a bit of anxiety, but that's something that I think any new member here is likely to experience.
The thread could serve as a way to create both short and long term friendships between Talkhaus members. If a new member played games with a person or two, they'd have someone they "knew" within the Talkhaus. This may just be my logic, but I think that if I saw a post from someone I knew, I'd go check out the topic and considering making a reply as well. I've mostly lurked since I joined, and I'd say that it'd certainly be easier to feel like a part of the forums if I had a friend or two here.
If it turned out that few new members were to post in the topic, perhaps the welcome PM new users receive could be appended to nudge new members toward the gazebo to play ZSNES/Minecraft/mafia with other users? Might want to stick in an "everyone is welcome, especially newbies". Maybe it already says something akin to that, but it's been a while. Heck, for all I recall, there might not even be a welcome PM.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
People who have it set to not show them online show up as guests instead. (Although I wouldn't think so many people would be using that to be honest.)kilon wrote:That's actually quite a lot of guests. So either they count bots for some reason, people log out for some reason or there is definitely potential for new users.In total there are 34 users online :: 6 registered, 0 hidden and 28 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Yeah probably three out of that twenty-eight were.
- AUS
- Toni#4796
- Posts: 483
- Joined: 14 years ago
- First name: Toni
- Pronouns: they/them/their
- Location: アース
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Nah, they show up as 'hidden.'
I imagine some are waiting to be activated.
I imagine some are waiting to be activated.
"oh no my best friend was replaced by a evil demon shadow monster"
"argh i am the evil shadow monster demon shadow"
Vip is pronounced "Beep"
nostalgic realtime nitroid let's play playlist
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Hm, I guess you're right actually. I've never seen it work that way on a forum before. Every time I've seen it on other forums they always showed up as guests.AUS wrote:Nah, they show up as 'hidden.'
I imagine some are waiting to be activated.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Okay, I gotta say I really like that idea. I'm not particularly savvy with SNES, but I'd totally be up for such a thread would there be someone that would be willing to open it. (If really nobody wants to, I guess I can do that too...)JumpKain wrote:What does everyone think of a ZSNES matchup thread? Everyone would post details including what games/genres they'd be open to playing, as well as the ideal way to contact them to play something (PM, IRC, Skype, so on), time zone, ideal time to contact them to play, and perhaps their type of internet connection. If done wrong, this has the potential to split the community as it sounds like the IRC/Skypehaus has, but perhaps a message in the OP saying something akin to "feel free to contact any member from any page, new players welcome" help? If it were me, I'd still feel a bit of anxiety, but that's something that I think any new member here is likely to experience.
Actually, this is an important part we've kind of skipped over during the debate.JumpKain wrote:The thread could serve as a way to create both short and long term friendships between Talkhaus members. If a new member played games with a person or two, they'd have someone they "knew" within the Talkhaus. This may just be my logic, but I think that if I saw a post from someone I knew, I'd go check out the topic and considering making a reply as well. I've mostly lurked since I joined, and I'd say that it'd certainly be easier to feel like a part of the forums if I had a friend or two here.
These sorts of "recognition points", where people go like: "Hey, that's a guy I know, and he's pretty okay, I'm gonna check what he has to say on this!" are actually pretty important for forum community development, so I think we should go for something like this as well, even though it's - by nature - a pretty hard thing to actually DO.
There isn't.JumpKain wrote:Heck, for all I recall, there might not even be a welcome PM.
- AUS
- Toni#4796
- Posts: 483
- Joined: 14 years ago
- First name: Toni
- Pronouns: they/them/their
- Location: アース
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Wait, do people actually care about automated welcome PMs?
"oh no my best friend was replaced by a evil demon shadow monster"
"argh i am the evil shadow monster demon shadow"
Vip is pronounced "Beep"
nostalgic realtime nitroid let's play playlist
- Jesuiscontent
- Tsundere
- Posts: 852
- Joined: 12 years ago
- First name: cool old field
- Location: France
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
This thread is kind of depressing in some way ! I don't really know what to add, being a relatively new member, so I'll just admit the same thing as AUS earlier -- I primarily registered because of A2MT, after beating ASMT (before I even knew about raocow). But I also thought this place was awesome after reading some threads, like, the "Argumentable draws things" thread got me to laugh uncontrollably for 10 minutes (and that doesn't happen to me often on the internet).
Also about the "injoke" thing, I didn't fell particularily "turned off" (not sure that's the right expression to use here... whatever) by it, I mean I read a bit the "Talkhaus mosts" subforum and quite enjoyed it, even if I didn't really know most of the people/jokes. Also I don't really notice an overwhelming amount of injokes in threads i'm participating, so to me that's not really an issue.
Now like a lot of people I'm saddened by the sudden lack of activity in A2MT, I mean after the "final" deadline and pretty much all the levels were submitted I was expecting a thread with sign-ups for Charles' Castle V2 so I could register a room, but it never came. What about that? At some point I almost went ahead and made a thread myself, but I had just no idea how to ask this. So yeah.
Man ... Writing in English about serious stuff takes me WAY too much time.
Also about the "injoke" thing, I didn't fell particularily "turned off" (not sure that's the right expression to use here... whatever) by it, I mean I read a bit the "Talkhaus mosts" subforum and quite enjoyed it, even if I didn't really know most of the people/jokes. Also I don't really notice an overwhelming amount of injokes in threads i'm participating, so to me that's not really an issue.
Now like a lot of people I'm saddened by the sudden lack of activity in A2MT, I mean after the "final" deadline and pretty much all the levels were submitted I was expecting a thread with sign-ups for Charles' Castle V2 so I could register a room, but it never came. What about that? At some point I almost went ahead and made a thread myself, but I had just no idea how to ask this. So yeah.
Man ... Writing in English about serious stuff takes me WAY too much time.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
You've got a good point there. I'm guilty of sometimes ignoring them even if they have a neon flashing "VERY IMPORTANT, READ NOW" label on the front. They may not be a very reliable way of getting the point across unless they were to pop up as soon as a user logged in for the first time, and some users would surely slip through the cracks even then.AUS wrote:Wait, do people actually care about automated welcome PMs?
I made the ZSNES thread thing, and though I'm sure you'll probably see it if you come to the gazebo to read this thread anyway, here's the link: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4760.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Alright boys and girls... HERE WE GO. Strap on your reading glasses because this could be a long one. EDIT - After writing it, this ISa long one, so grab a glass of your favorite kool-aid and strap yourself in.
I'm not going to directly quote anything but it seems like there are some common themes within this thread so I'll see what I can do to address them:
1: "Unnecessary new rule for spam bots"
- What NONE of you see (except for admins and rao) are the number of user requests that come through on a DAILY basis, 98% of which are spambots what would be POLLUTING these forums, if at this stage there wasn't some kind of manual approval for their processing. Believe me when I say that the true CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA etc etc... do NOT fare any better than the 'test' we have here. Have a look to see how many PAGES of bots are "pending authorization" since we instituted the new rule. I encourage you to actually open this image in a new tab to see the "Page 1 of xxx" (yes thats THREE DIGITS of pages we rifle through to find and activate your accounts).
This being said - I'm open to the idea of some kind of "challenge question" that is raocow specific (that's essentially what we make you do in the forum anyway by posting something that proves to us you're not a bot). However I'm not sure how easily something like that integrates into the phpBB formatting of which this forum follows. If there's something obvious out there I'm missing I encourage you to let me know of it's existence so that I can find a way to work it in.
2: "Slow account approvals"
I applaud the efforts of mods like Argumentable, who honestly have no skin in this game aside from making the talkhaus experience as great as possible for you all. From what I've seen that guy has been mad diligent on new user requests. If you actually put a REAL e-mail in (which I assume you do if you take this forum seriously even 2%) then when you're activated be it 1 hour, or 10 days later you are NOTIFIED when your account is approved. If you're choosing to fake us out and not take us seriously - that's your problem.
3: "We need more mods"
We have a separate forum to discuss admin issues, and I would expect if he (and rao) were looking for some kind of 'help' that they would provide some kind of flag to me to say 'hey, let go get some more staff to support the forum'. At this point I haven't seen that, and aside from this one post I haven't seen many issues with the users who are generally active on this forum. I also challenge anyone who tries to co-relate the viewership or subs to rao's videos against traffic on this forum. The only people who see the true traffic numbers are myself, and rao or the admins if they want to know about them. It is clear to me there are MANY people who lurk this forum as opposed to people who actively post content - completely supporting Argumentable's comments about the fact there are a LARGE majority of 0 post users on this forum - period. And further to that, if they CHOOSE to be 0 post users, I'm completely supportive of that, because I have good vision on who's active and who's not. Believe it or not inactive accounts DO get purged, and inactive accounts with posts get an e-mail warning before they are purged.
4: This site needs Feature X or Whistle Y
I agree. I agree to the extent this place has been around long enough to need some 'improvements'. You all have to understand (and I'm sure many of you do) that depending on your age, place in life etc... many of us (myself included) have commitments outside of this website. The talkhaus 'team' is literally who you see in colored names. I'm the so-called "founder/owner" (I pay the bills, the domain is registered to me etc...), Argumentable is the global mod (and at this stage our only official mod - outside of some of the blueshirts who live in A2MT), Thissa is the brains behind the website design, minus the forum which I had someone implement for me in phpBB. I have another guy I'm trying to bring on board who might help with some aspects of site design (since Thissa is a MAD SKILL web site programmer, but not necessarily a guy who focuses on aesthetics). I've been trying to put together a big transition in this site (of which Thissa has basically things ready to go), however without getting into too many details - I have contracts with my web hosts and other factors that FINANCIALLY have not made sense for me to just up and switch talkhaus on a dime(be it 1 week, 1 month, or 1 year). Many don't understand there are financial aspects you need to take into consideration when running a website and trying to bring it up from large to small scale, and while it might be easy to say that we need to do X or proceed with Y, ultimately there is ONE person on the hook for the bill at the end of the day and that is ME.
And for the record - NOBODY (including raocow) knows what the operating costs of this site truly is. Yes it is subsidized with ads, but by the same token that does not necessarily make this website 'free' to run by any means.
5: raocow needs to disable comments on Youtube, needs to do X to attract Y, needs to plug talkhaus
While all of these might seem like they would promote traffic, experience has shown us they DON'T. Further to that I would argue that it's about QUALITY here, and not QUANTITY. I personally would rather the content in here be meaningful for those who actively are involved vs. watching post counts reach new heights or have a ton of useless crap being posted by Youtube kids who have no other means to interact with raocow to say "HYE raocow I LYKE UR VIDEO OLOLOL." The reality is (and forever will be) that talkhaus will be a small subset of raocow devotees who have more to share than the same 1-line comments over and over; embrace it, don't fight it. Maybe that's my ignorance speaking for not being as actively involved in the forums as I was in the past - but I can't see how getting MORE users in here would automatically make this place 'better'.
Any finally...
6: (On a more selfish note...) <Insert comment here about TLs4 being dead, non-existent, when is MATH2 going to be done, way to abandon us jerk etc...>
While I appreciate the love and the feedback on things like the SMW Race + MATH contents they should be irrelevant in the overall assessment of a successful talkhaus. Before I get into another rant for those who ARE curious (and now let it be known officially) I WILL finish MATH2 - there will be WINNERS, there WILL be prizes, and I WILL be returning to LPing; sooner than later at that but tat is NOT the point of this discussion.
Talkhaus was created in support of an LPer that I personally (and you all as well) enjoy to the core, and he's the reason this thing was ever created. The amount of dedication raocow puts into not only his videos, but this forum and the maintenance of the website is insane (for the record, the "everything raocow" listings get updated by rao himself manually each day through an interface Thissa created for him every time he posts a video). I personally am thankful he still does what he does, and feel BAD because I honestly haven't been able to put as much effort into this project as I had originally envisioned back in 2009 - such is the reality of real life commitments getting very serious. This outcry from the talkhaus faithful is well timed - because life is much more manageable for me, and in trying to balance everything I do, talkhaus (and raocow.com) is something I want to get back into. I love my Internets, and I love my raocow, and I will do my damnest (with the support of the raocow.com team, raocow, you the fans, lurkers, posters, avid posters, 24/7 posters, kilon-level posters etc...) to try and get the ball rolling to make this something freakin' awesome.
And in all honesty - if you're too impatient, or don't see the fact that things can't evolve exactly the way you want them to, in exactly the timeline you wish (because let's be honest, we will NEVER be able to make anyone happy) I encourage you to deactivate your account, remove this site from your bookmarks, and we'll be better off without you.
TLs4 OUT (but not in the peace out sense, more like the, I've said my peace let's get to work sense)
I'm not going to directly quote anything but it seems like there are some common themes within this thread so I'll see what I can do to address them:
1: "Unnecessary new rule for spam bots"
- What NONE of you see (except for admins and rao) are the number of user requests that come through on a DAILY basis, 98% of which are spambots what would be POLLUTING these forums, if at this stage there wasn't some kind of manual approval for their processing. Believe me when I say that the true CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA etc etc... do NOT fare any better than the 'test' we have here. Have a look to see how many PAGES of bots are "pending authorization" since we instituted the new rule. I encourage you to actually open this image in a new tab to see the "Page 1 of xxx" (yes thats THREE DIGITS of pages we rifle through to find and activate your accounts).
This being said - I'm open to the idea of some kind of "challenge question" that is raocow specific (that's essentially what we make you do in the forum anyway by posting something that proves to us you're not a bot). However I'm not sure how easily something like that integrates into the phpBB formatting of which this forum follows. If there's something obvious out there I'm missing I encourage you to let me know of it's existence so that I can find a way to work it in.
2: "Slow account approvals"
I applaud the efforts of mods like Argumentable, who honestly have no skin in this game aside from making the talkhaus experience as great as possible for you all. From what I've seen that guy has been mad diligent on new user requests. If you actually put a REAL e-mail in (which I assume you do if you take this forum seriously even 2%) then when you're activated be it 1 hour, or 10 days later you are NOTIFIED when your account is approved. If you're choosing to fake us out and not take us seriously - that's your problem.
3: "We need more mods"
We have a separate forum to discuss admin issues, and I would expect if he (and rao) were looking for some kind of 'help' that they would provide some kind of flag to me to say 'hey, let go get some more staff to support the forum'. At this point I haven't seen that, and aside from this one post I haven't seen many issues with the users who are generally active on this forum. I also challenge anyone who tries to co-relate the viewership or subs to rao's videos against traffic on this forum. The only people who see the true traffic numbers are myself, and rao or the admins if they want to know about them. It is clear to me there are MANY people who lurk this forum as opposed to people who actively post content - completely supporting Argumentable's comments about the fact there are a LARGE majority of 0 post users on this forum - period. And further to that, if they CHOOSE to be 0 post users, I'm completely supportive of that, because I have good vision on who's active and who's not. Believe it or not inactive accounts DO get purged, and inactive accounts with posts get an e-mail warning before they are purged.
4: This site needs Feature X or Whistle Y
I agree. I agree to the extent this place has been around long enough to need some 'improvements'. You all have to understand (and I'm sure many of you do) that depending on your age, place in life etc... many of us (myself included) have commitments outside of this website. The talkhaus 'team' is literally who you see in colored names. I'm the so-called "founder/owner" (I pay the bills, the domain is registered to me etc...), Argumentable is the global mod (and at this stage our only official mod - outside of some of the blueshirts who live in A2MT), Thissa is the brains behind the website design, minus the forum which I had someone implement for me in phpBB. I have another guy I'm trying to bring on board who might help with some aspects of site design (since Thissa is a MAD SKILL web site programmer, but not necessarily a guy who focuses on aesthetics). I've been trying to put together a big transition in this site (of which Thissa has basically things ready to go), however without getting into too many details - I have contracts with my web hosts and other factors that FINANCIALLY have not made sense for me to just up and switch talkhaus on a dime(be it 1 week, 1 month, or 1 year). Many don't understand there are financial aspects you need to take into consideration when running a website and trying to bring it up from large to small scale, and while it might be easy to say that we need to do X or proceed with Y, ultimately there is ONE person on the hook for the bill at the end of the day and that is ME.
And for the record - NOBODY (including raocow) knows what the operating costs of this site truly is. Yes it is subsidized with ads, but by the same token that does not necessarily make this website 'free' to run by any means.
5: raocow needs to disable comments on Youtube, needs to do X to attract Y, needs to plug talkhaus
While all of these might seem like they would promote traffic, experience has shown us they DON'T. Further to that I would argue that it's about QUALITY here, and not QUANTITY. I personally would rather the content in here be meaningful for those who actively are involved vs. watching post counts reach new heights or have a ton of useless crap being posted by Youtube kids who have no other means to interact with raocow to say "HYE raocow I LYKE UR VIDEO OLOLOL." The reality is (and forever will be) that talkhaus will be a small subset of raocow devotees who have more to share than the same 1-line comments over and over; embrace it, don't fight it. Maybe that's my ignorance speaking for not being as actively involved in the forums as I was in the past - but I can't see how getting MORE users in here would automatically make this place 'better'.
Any finally...
6: (On a more selfish note...) <Insert comment here about TLs4 being dead, non-existent, when is MATH2 going to be done, way to abandon us jerk etc...>
While I appreciate the love and the feedback on things like the SMW Race + MATH contents they should be irrelevant in the overall assessment of a successful talkhaus. Before I get into another rant for those who ARE curious (and now let it be known officially) I WILL finish MATH2 - there will be WINNERS, there WILL be prizes, and I WILL be returning to LPing; sooner than later at that but tat is NOT the point of this discussion.
Talkhaus was created in support of an LPer that I personally (and you all as well) enjoy to the core, and he's the reason this thing was ever created. The amount of dedication raocow puts into not only his videos, but this forum and the maintenance of the website is insane (for the record, the "everything raocow" listings get updated by rao himself manually each day through an interface Thissa created for him every time he posts a video). I personally am thankful he still does what he does, and feel BAD because I honestly haven't been able to put as much effort into this project as I had originally envisioned back in 2009 - such is the reality of real life commitments getting very serious. This outcry from the talkhaus faithful is well timed - because life is much more manageable for me, and in trying to balance everything I do, talkhaus (and raocow.com) is something I want to get back into. I love my Internets, and I love my raocow, and I will do my damnest (with the support of the raocow.com team, raocow, you the fans, lurkers, posters, avid posters, 24/7 posters, kilon-level posters etc...) to try and get the ball rolling to make this something freakin' awesome.
And in all honesty - if you're too impatient, or don't see the fact that things can't evolve exactly the way you want them to, in exactly the timeline you wish (because let's be honest, we will NEVER be able to make anyone happy) I encourage you to deactivate your account, remove this site from your bookmarks, and we'll be better off without you.
TLs4 OUT (but not in the peace out sense, more like the, I've said my peace let's get to work sense)
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
*Reads TLs4's signature after his wall of text*... um... okay.
I think you guys are asking for too much. To me, the traffic on the forums looks fine. I don't participate all that much since I usually have nothing worthy to say, so I tend to just stay in the gazebo, where I actually do have something to say once in a while. But honestly, calling the forums in decline... I find that wrong. I don't see the forums heading to death, and it's not even close to be happening.
I think you guys are asking for too much. To me, the traffic on the forums looks fine. I don't participate all that much since I usually have nothing worthy to say, so I tend to just stay in the gazebo, where I actually do have something to say once in a while. But honestly, calling the forums in decline... I find that wrong. I don't see the forums heading to death, and it's not even close to be happening.
- GanonTEK
- Evil King
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- Joined: 14 years ago
- Location: Ireland. The Emerald Isle. (We got no emeralds though)
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Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
I post things now and again. mostly in the gazebo. i visit the irc from time to time too.
Skypehaus is where i spend most of it so i still feel a part of the community.
Skypehaus is where i spend most of it so i still feel a part of the community.
- morsel/morceau
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Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
The forums have always been quiet. But if you don't like that, a cool thing to do would be to edit all your posts to a dot, stop posting for several months and then return to complain that noone is posting.
dont wanna jihad no more
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Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Sortables CAPTCHA Plugin- ask customized question with customized answers that a person needs to click and drag into categories.TLs4 wrote:This being said - I'm open to the idea of some kind of "challenge question" that is raocow specific (that's essentially what we make you do in the forum anyway by posting something that proves to us you're not a bot). However I'm not sure how easily something like that integrates into the phpBB formatting of which this forum follows. If there's something obvious out there I'm missing I encourage you to let me know of it's existence so that I can find a way to work it in.
E: Also it looks like rudimentary Q&A is already built in to PHPBB 3.0.6 and up. Thread from official-ish PHPBB guy.
TLs4 wrote:Before I get into another rant for those who ARE curious (and now let it be known officially) I WILL finish MATH2 - there will be WINNERS, there WILL be prizes, and I WILL be returning to LPing;
raocow wrote:Next LP project - the entire hunter/scorpion series in chronological order
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
How is this even a response to the issue? You applaud the effort of the mod, who has been diligent in handling user requests. Then you go on and say "if it takes ten days to activate your account, don't come crying to us"? The problem isn't the users, it's the fact that you have one (sometimes two) people in charge of this. If only there were a way to fix that.TLs4 wrote:2: "Slow account approvals"
I applaud the efforts of mods like Argumentable, who honestly have no skin in this game aside from making the talkhaus experience as great as possible for you all. From what I've seen that guy has been mad diligent on new user requests. If you actually put a REAL e-mail in (which I assume you do if you take this forum seriously even 2%) then when you're activated be it 1 hour, or 10 days later you are NOTIFIED when your account is approved. If you're choosing to fake us out and not take us seriously - that's your problem.
Uh, as far as I can tell from what raocow has said (in this very thread!) he doesn't deal much with the forums. I think that might even be your responsibility, but that's another issue altogether. If you've got a site like this, especially with the registration system the way it is now, I would say you need more than one "official mod". Here to help.TLs4 wrote:3: "We need more mods"
We have a separate forum to discuss admin issues, and I would expect if he (and rao) were looking for some kind of 'help' that they would provide some kind of flag to me to say 'hey, let go get some more staff to support the forum'. At this point I haven't seen that, and aside from this one post I haven't seen many issues with the users who are generally active on this forum.
I understand completely that you have more pressing things to deal with than the site. Hell, I'd be the same way. And no one is asking you to make some kind of extravagant change with no regards to cost. At least, I hope it doesn't seem that way. I'm not representative of all the users, so I can't speak for anyone else's specific problems with the current site. My main grievance is really the lack of content-posters, a problem which I think was aggravated by the new rule and is worsened by the way the rule is handled. I understand that the majority of users make zero posts, but even at its busiest the gazebo (I never leave here so once again I can't speak for the rest of the forum) had maybe thirty regulars. It doesn't take many people to make something happen. So if the way we handle spambots has kept out those five or six regular, active posters, then yeah, there's something wrong with that.TLs4 wrote:4: This site needs Feature X or Whistle Y
I agree. I agree to the extent this place has been around long enough to need some 'improvements'. You all have to understand (and I'm sure many of you do) that depending on your age, place in life etc... many of us (myself included) have commitments outside of this website. The talkhaus 'team' is literally who you see in colored names. I'm the so-called "founder/owner" (I pay the bills, the domain is registered to me etc...), Argumentable is the global mod (and at this stage our only official mod - outside of some of the blueshirts who live in A2MT), Thissa is the brains behind the website design, minus the forum which I had someone implement for me in phpBB. I have another guy I'm trying to bring on board who might help with some aspects of site design (since Thissa is a MAD SKILL web site programmer, but not necessarily a guy who focuses on aesthetics). I've been trying to put together a big transition in this site (of which Thissa has basically things ready to go), however without getting into too many details - I have contracts with my web hosts and other factors that FINANCIALLY have not made sense for me to just up and switch talkhaus on a dime(be it 1 week, 1 month, or 1 year). Many don't understand there are financial aspects you need to take into consideration when running a website and trying to bring it up from large to small scale, and while it might be easy to say that we need to do X or proceed with Y, ultimately there is ONE person on the hook for the bill at the end of the day and that is ME.
And for the record - NOBODY (including raocow) knows what the operating costs of this site truly is. Yes it is subsidized with ads, but by the same token that does not necessarily make this website 'free' to run by any means.
Disabling comments might not be the best idea. I don't see anything bad coming from a simple plug, though. All the commenters who register and make <5 posts will be gone after a week, and we might even get some new, content-posting additions to the community. I mean, think about it. That's how you got me.TLs4 wrote:5: raocow needs to disable comments on Youtube, needs to do X to attract Y, needs to plug talkhaus
While all of these might seem like they would promote traffic, experience has shown us they DON'T. Further to that I would argue that it's about QUALITY here, and not QUANTITY. I personally would rather the content in here be meaningful for those who actively are involved vs. watching post counts reach new heights or have a ton of useless crap being posted by Youtube kids who have no other means to interact with raocow to say "HYE raocow I LYKE UR VIDEO OLOLOL." The reality is (and forever will be) that talkhaus will be a small subset of raocow devotees who have more to share than the same 1-line comments over and over; embrace it, don't fight it. Maybe that's my ignorance speaking for not being as actively involved in the forums as I was in the past - but I can't see how getting MORE users in here would automatically make this place 'better'.
Just to be clear, I am completely on your side here. Don't take any offense to what I've written. I understand that real life happens and I'm glad that you said it's become more manageable. It's a good thing that you're back but I wanted to clear up a few things I saw in your post. And you're right, I have no idea what it's like to maintain the site, and you know what you're doing. I think you're wrong on a couple points, but once again, what do I know.
e: And I hope I don't seem like I'm being short or impatient about this whole thing, I realize it will take time and effort from a lot of people for anything to happen. Just wanted to get the ball rolling, and what better way to do that than a needlessly long effort-essay?
@m/m another "cool thing" to do would be to avoid being a sarcastic idiot in a constructive thread!
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
I was trying to think of a way to tell TLs4 that his post was useless and dumb, but I was beaten to it ^^
And by the way: "Let's get to work"? YOU are the one who needs to be changing stuff unless you promote Argu or get raocow to figure it out. It's not within our abilities to change the way the site works, obviously.
And by the way: "Let's get to work"? YOU are the one who needs to be changing stuff unless you promote Argu or get raocow to figure it out. It's not within our abilities to change the way the site works, obviously.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Yeah, uh, that's not what I was saying with my post. And "fixing the site" isn't entirely on his shoulders. We can't just sit back and scream at one person to fix the entire community. Because, you know, the community itself should probably be making a big effort as well.BTYM wrote:I was trying to think of a way to tell TLs4 that his post was useless and dumb, but I was beaten to it ^^
And by the way: "Let's get to work"? YOU are the one who needs to be changing stuff unless you promote Argu or get raocow to figure it out. It's not within our abilities to change the way the site works, obviously.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
Whether that's what you were saying or not, that's the message that comes across. You say you agree but all you did was tell him how he was wrong.Don Zanevsky wrote:Yeah, uh, that's not what I was saying with my post.
"change the way the site works"Don Zanevsky wrote:And "fixing the site" isn't entirely on his shoulders. We can't just sit back and scream at one person to fix the entire community. Because, you know, the community itself should probably be making a big effort as well.
Re: 1% of the Users Control 43% of the Posts: Fixing the Forums
You may notice I didn't respond to every point he made. That is because I agreed with them, you see! And yes, changes need to be made at the administrator level, but you must realize that everyone else needs to do stuff too (forums events, worthwhile threads, reasons for people to want to join and stay). If you think it's all up to the administrators then you may very well be one of the, let's say, "less-than-helpful" users TLs4 described!