Activity Stabilization - Suggestions - Forums : Best Ever Albums

mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News

Gender: Female
Age: 35
Location: Detroit

I know the pandemic might be playing a part in this (or summer in general), but I'm wondering if this spike in activity with the forums in particular is something we can maintain longterm. In fact, on the administrative end is there any thoughts on integrating things better to deepen the [vocal] community at large? I don't have a lot of ideas in this venue outside of chat avenues, but just a six AM thought.

albummaster
Janitor

Gender: Male
Location: Spain
Site Admin

Gowi wrote:

I know the pandemic might be playing a part in this (or summer in general), but I'm wondering if this spike in activity with the forums in particular is something we can maintain longterm. In fact, on the administrative end is there any thoughts on integrating things better to deepen the [vocal] community at large? I don't have a lot of ideas in this venue outside of chat avenues, but just a six AM thought.

There was a big dip last summer in terms of activity, but site now back to previous levels. Whether it stays there, I hope so, but site still needs improvement in lots of areas to compete with other sites/apps and this is difficult with the resources that the site can afford. Lots of background work happening on upgrading the forums and hopefully this will have an impact in making the site more modern/attractive, but not sure what you mean by integrating things better to deepen the community. Happy to hear ideas ...

mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News

Gender: Female
Age: 35
Location: Detroit

albummaster wrote:

but not sure what you mean by integrating things better to deepen the community. Happy to hear ideas ...

Obviously Spyglass has been the best newer user we've gotten in recent months, but they can only promote discussion so much. Here are some ideas I'd have from my experience running message boards:

- official discord integration: Discord is a chat/messenger service that has largely taken over from Skype and Ventrilo's waning popularity. It has many features (DJ Bots would be useful to facilitate co-opt listening rooms). It would have to be moderated which would take time away from somebody, but generally it might be more of a boon to the site than a needless distraction. To continue to catch the public's attention on equal terms with AOTY, RYM, and other sites it is necessary to "modernize" and "keep up with the times" and try different social media strategies.

-UI updates: The message board as it stands looks only a little better than a pro-boards. Most modern forums use hosting software like Xenforo or are entirely custom-made. This is the least important idea as RYM has a dated UI and seems to hold its popularity in its greater community without issue.

-New subforums: I've thought this awhile, but I think proper tournaments should have their own sub-forum underneath 'Games'. Non-tournament games often get buried and forgotten about when 1-2 tournaments happen at the same time. We are seeing a re-invigoration of popularity in these tournaments so this might be the best time to do so.

-Staff interaction: People get busy and don't post often, but it always is helpful and good for a site where moderators and other facets of the staff interact with discussions and charts like regular members do. Members who don't see staff presence outside of moderation tend to interact less in my experience.[/b]

albummaster
Janitor

Gender: Male
Location: Spain
Site Admin

Hi Gowi, these are all great ideas. I've been actively working in the background on upgrading the forums for over a year (it's was complicated/bad engineering on my part as forums are currently so tightly coupled to the rest of the site). Subforums could be added once the forums are upgraded, but to do that now isn't a good time (the work would be lost because the forums are being upgraded anyway).

This really shouldn't affect things directly but it does. The site doesn't have any employees, it doesn't have any monetary resources, any ad revenue the site generates is tiny because of people using ad blockers (and now coronavirus...); and out of the revenue the site receives, the hosting fees need to be paid (the hosting company haven't reduced their fees unfortunately). What's left over (a minuscule amount) isn't enough to pay an infant to help out, so the lack of progress and 'staff interaction' on the site is primarily because the site has no financial resources to provide all of this. All of the mods are volunteers and are not required to spend time here (any time they do spend is truly valued because there's infinite other things they could be doing instead), and why things take so long to implement (and I'm sorry about this) is that most people don't know how much time it takes in the background just to keep the site going and there's not much time left over to do anything. Doing twenty things at the same time is not conducive to getting things done quickly.

To "modernise" the site is something I'd *love* to do. I dislike the design as much (maybe a lot more) than anyone else here, but updating any website is a moving target (they need to be continually updated due to changes in technology), and I just haven't had time to do the design work by myself and the site has fallen behind. Because at the same time, I also have to add new features, fix bugs, respond to forum posts (some of which take a while...), PMs (some of which can also take a while...), emails (login problems etc), data admin, server admin, and the *endless* other things that go on in the background (if any of these stopped for even a couple of days, it causes more emails/PMs/posts etc so I haven't had more than a couple of days away from the site for a very long time)... and I also have a day job (40-50 hours a week).

One way to make progress might be to introduce a premium membership scheme, give up my day job and recruit people to help out, but the scope of the site is so narrow that I don't think it would be viable. I've been making tentative steps in the background to introducing some kind of premium membership scheme (with additional features) because it would help to pay the fees and maybe allow me to spend more time on BEA and get things done more quickly, but I don't at all know how this will work out with the narrow scope of the site and it's a lot of effort just keeping people happy with a *free* site (now - even with ad blockers)... let alone once people start *paying* for something, and the higher demands/expectations that will probably ensue. So this is BEA, and this is how things are right now. Sorry, didn't mean to digress so much and probably not even relevant to what you wrote...

mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News

Gender: Female
Age: 35
Location: Detroit

So, really the only thing we could potentially do is start up a discord -- and for your personal time it might be best to make it an unofficial one.

Valid and insightful answers all around. Thanks for sharing.