OT -What's Keeping Rams fans Off This Site?

[Romanis]

No, not an attempt to take pot-shots or a witch hunt against Mods or certain user.
Rather I was looking another Derby forum, could be DCFC Army or something the like.
I noticed a number of former members from here.

A) Now what's keeping them from returning?
Or
Should someone re-invite them back?

1) We have 1 reason given by Ratflea - our continuous harassment of a certain user and petty bullying/ bickering with him. (No don't get into this questioning his opinion) Let's just take it as a possibility or part of the reason.

2) Of course we also have the opposite view, the user's conduct and lack of action.

These 2 may well be the cause, but I think it would only affect very few users. What then are other causes. My chief reason is

3) The forum itself! It's very un-user friendly for long spells especially if you surf from a hand-phone which most people do or use these days. Lots of pop ups, slow loading etc.

Other reasons would be

4) People have moved on, from forums generally. Why bother with a forum, where you have to login, type or create posts, then wait for replies, that to from a limited number of fans, when you got FB where you can reply immediately or post something and get an immediate response from practically the whole world.

5) Too much tinkering with the forum, it's layout has irked people so much, they don't want to bother or have to remember passwords and the original email addy given.

6) Poor moderation - either lack of enforcement or too much

7) Standard or Quality of posters has declined. - Too many boring unexciting posters with unexciting threads. Worse a kind of clique that's been formed and makes new members feel unwelcomed.

These are the 7 I can think of, offhand? Are they any more?

Of these 7, I think the real killer blows are points 3-5. These are the real reasons the forum is dying a slow death. The other points are just minor secondary causes. I think these are factors and points we can have a good discussion on and to see whether anything can be done to improve the situation. Of course we can do something about points 1,2, 6 and 7, but can it really help overcome the hurdles we face in points 3 - 5?

Finally to point B, should old users be actively sought to return? Who's willing to do it? Mods or ordinary members? Or should we just move on?

Your thoughts?

Btw, please refrain in going after certain users or Mods. Mention it if you must but without malice, just matter of factly. Input from Bloomer and Ratflea is welcomed.

[DerbyDaDream]

Posts such as this...

[Romanis]

Posts such as this...

Thanks for Point No 8.

[Bloomeram]

No, not an attempt to take pot-shots or a witch hunt against Mods or certain user.
Rather I was looking another Derby forum, could be DCFC Army or something the like.
I noticed a number of former members from here.

A) Now what's keeping them from returning?
Or
Should someone re-invite them back?

1) We have 1 reason given by Ratflea - our continuous harassment of a certain user and petty bullying/ bickering with him. (No don't get into this questioning his opinion) Let's just take it as a possibility or part of the reason.

2) Of course we also have the opposite view, the user's conduct and lack of action.

These 2 may well be the cause, but I think it would only affect very few users. What then are other causes. My chief reason is

3) The forum itself! It's very un-user friendly for long spells especially if you surf from a hand-phone which most people do or use these days. Lots of pop ups, slow loading etc.

Other reasons would be

4) People have moved on, from forums generally. Why bother with a forum, where you have to login, type or create posts, then wait for replies, that to from a limited number of fans, when you got FB where you can reply immediately or post something and get an immediate response from practically the whole world.

5) Too much tinkering with the forum, it's layout has irked people so much, they don't want to bother or have to remember passwords and the original email addy given.

6) Poor moderation - either lack of enforcement or too much

7) Standard or Quality of posters has declined. - Too many boring unexciting posters with unexciting threads. Worse a kind of clique that's been formed and makes new members feel unwelcomed.

These are the 7 I can think of, offhand? Are they any more?

Of these 7, I think the real killer blows are points 3-5. These are the real reasons the forum is dying a slow death. The other points are just minor secondary causes. I think these are factors and points we can have a good discussion on and to see whether anything can be done to improve the situation. Of course we can do something about points 1,2, 6 and 7, but can it really help overcome the hurdles we face in points 3 - 5?

Finally to point B, should old users be actively sought to return? Who's willing to do it? Mods or ordinary members? Or should we just move on?

Your thoughts?

Btw, please refrain in going after certain users or Mods. Mention it if you must but without malice, just matter of factly. Input from Bloomer and Ratflea is welcomed.

To be honest one issue, the mobile viewer has recently been addressed by HQ, removing many of the intrusive adverts, so hopefully if people want to come back that is now one problem less.

I will not actively be searching out and inviting back users. I never have done this and if the messageboard is to thrive then we must have a good spread of opinion, walks of life etc.

Having said that I wouldn't like to discourage anyone from inviting family, friends, former posters etc back to see just how well run the form has become (tongue in cheek there)......

[roger_ramjet]

...is becoming, Bloomer, is becoming!

[ramAnag]

To be honest one issue, the mobile viewer has recently been addressed by HQ, removing many of the intrusive adverts, so hopefully if people want to come back that is now one problem less.

I will not actively be searching out and inviting back users. I never have done this and if the messageboard is to thrive then we must have a good spread of opinion, walks of life etc.

Having said that I wouldn't like to discourage anyone from inviting family, friends, former posters etc back to see just how well run the form has become (tongue in cheek there)......

Standard of football doesn't help. We're in no danger of going down but we don't seem that likely to go up either.
That could all change, but at the moment it's all fairly mediocre. There's limited excitement being produced on the pitch and it's all totally uncontroversial off it...so, not much to shout about really.

[DerbyDaDream]

Bad lag and load time when typing messages on mobile and it’s a pain when you want to get your messages across.

[Romanis]

Can we really fight FB especially in the current generation who never really got into footy forums?
I mean where were we when the forums all just began - oh wow we said, finally chance to join a platform where we could interact with fellow fans besides those at games or knew personally.

Forums were the novelty for us, and I guess that explains the average age here should be well over 50
(especially when you lump Anagram, Roger and Andy together - that's over 200 years of Ram support there! hahahaha)

So we are used to forums but will it last? Anyway let's make the most of it while it lasts...

[Bloomeram]

Can we really fight FB especially in the current generation who never really got into footy forums?
I mean where were we when the forums all just began - oh wow we said, finally chance to join a platform where we could interact with fellow fans besides those at games or knew personally.

Forums were the novelty for us, and I guess that explains the average age here should be well over 50
(especially when you lump Anagram, Roger and Andy together - that's over 200 years of Ram support there! hahahaha)

So we are used to forums but will it last? Anyway let's make the most of it while it lasts...

Been thinking the same thing Romanis for a while now. We actually used to run a very popular chat room on the website some time ago and we had viewers and contributors from all over the World but for varying reasons that died a death. I fear the chatroom is going the same way with the advent of other social media sites.....................

[Romanis]

Aye Bloomer, FM won't last forever but I think it's something like over 20 years now, a very good run for a website.
While we can't fight destiny, we can do the next best thing -

Find Angryram , Ramstein and a few others like Super Derby, UTR to start posting again. Need not be as prolific as me of late ( I'm on shirt break, just lazing about the house all day), if they post like 3-4 times a week, that would be good and we'd get a lot more views besides the regulars.

And you can use your 'powers' to order certain members here to get their kids to sign up and post once in a while....
No not order, cajole.