To your first question, No thanks! - both options would have me running a mile. As to your second, who's Will Smith? - Give me Hamlet any time, I at least know who he was. But glad to know that you understand my point of view, that at least is a step in the right direction, and one that hasn´t always been there before, as regards finding each other´s viewpoints odd, that´s quite normal and perfectly acceptable.
I´m sure you´re right KIO about the situation being unlikely to improve, but that only makes it even more depressing in my opinion, with no light in view at the end of the ´cash crazy´ tunnel.
Back from holiday, so figured I'd add my $0.02. Traffic is definitely down, and that's probably the case across the site. Modding both here and the F1 board, it's noticeable in both places. I hope there's no common factor there... I think the main problem is that as a community we mostly originate from the old 606, well over half our members have a join date of January 2011, when the switchover happened. Since then, people get fed up, angered or whatever and leave, and we don't have the influx of new frequent posters to pick up the slack. I guess forums are becoming somewhat of an internet backwater as everything seems to happen on twitter, facebook, etc these days. As the number of posters drops, the site becomes more of an echo chamber and we're all somewhat familiar with each others positions on things, so when there isn't fresh news then there can certainly be a drop in activity. As to how we can reverse that, I guess the first thing is to appeal to any lurkers to sign up and get stuck in. Despite what I've just said, we're a friendly bunch and new input to debates is always welcomed! The other options are to "advertise" ourselves in some way, or to increase the quality of content and hope that leads to new people joining. On the first option, we have a twitter account bot which just churns out links to new threads with appropriate hashtags added. Perhaps having that account be more active in twitter debates and see if it can persuade people to join might work. Personally I don't have the time to really do such a thing, hence it being a bot. If anybody wants to try this route you're more than welcome, hopefully I can find the account details! I guess other options are persuading friends from the real world to sign up, or trying to get the site name out there when some of us comment online elsewhere. As to quality of content, I guess the summer is always a low ebb for that. If you don't like transfer rumours then there's meagre scraps available. If people want to try running forum games, please do, or start any discussions that come to mind. Unfortunately, as with many things, identifying the problem is much easier than solving it!
I don't do Facebook DH as I have a real life, but I do 'Tweet' ocassionally and generally pick up far more followers during the footy season then I invariably lose a few in the summer. Whenever I do an MDT I always post links on Twitter in the hope that it might encourage more City fans to sign up to not606
I don't do twitter as I have a real life! I like to spend enriching time in the pub and on here to enrich the lives of the regulars and you guys! Bah! p.s. might facebook a bit too!
I neither twit or book my face in, this forum has always been quite enough for me, but I think DH is probably right, we need more diversity, and it needs a bit of freshening up. There are too many on here, who, for whatever reason, are, or have become, passive members, they need to be encouraged to become active again. I heard someone (Cromer, I think) on here, say not long ago, that you need to be thick-skinned to be part of this sort of forum. If that is the case, then that´s a fault of the forum, not a fault of any members who happen not to be thick-skinned. Everyone, whether thick-skinned, thin-skinned or any sort of skinned in between, should be welcome, and be made to feel welcome, it shouldn´t just be those with a cast iron shell, who are allowed to have a view, voice it, and survive. Even those who would profess to be thick-skinned don´t react kindly to criticism, or personal jibes, and that might be well worth remembering at times. There ought to be room for everyone on here.
Not much at the moment, saw a tractor go past 10 minutes ago, the odd car occationally there after. Bah!
Interesting observations - and excellent, constructive comment, DH RBF, I don't recall saying that in any context but will take the rap - just this once I hardly ever visit other clubs' forums, but if we're linked with one of their players, say, I might drop in ... and there'll have been no activity on any thread for weeks / months. One thing we do here which many don't is have random threads where people can talk about cricket, holidays and travel, music, and, unfortunately, - and inevitably, politics on occasion. But as RBF and DH said above, when all you've got for almost 3 months is tabloid goss, and no NCFC football, there's not much to discuss on that front.
I do sometimes get frustrated on here, but most of the time it's people putting their own views forward. Personally, I come here to discuss football and most OT threads don't interest me. IMO, it works best when discussion dominates and is at it's worst when point scoring or pointless arguments drag on and on. It's still a mostly positive forum for me, though.
It can feel a bit like a school playground on here at times and making digs at posters can make it uncomfortable to read. When NCFC lose a few games people quite rightly get annoyed and angry, but it can make it unpleasant to come on here, at that point I tend to stay away to calm myself down or when these boards have cooled down. It's a shame we have lost a few good posters though, hope they'll make a comeback soon.
