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Post by Blademaster Mystica on Jun 3, 2008 9:15:57 GMT
repeated bad experience with that tends to demotivate people from trying over and over again unendlessly, Sam. When we're lucky and we don't get told off, belittled, looked down on, mocked, or blatently told to suck it up and get over it the best that happens if we do is that it will be talked about for a bit and then ignored. The reason why so many of us are so gloomy about it is because we tried just that and gotten our heads offered to us on a plate on more than one occasion. And not just one person, but several and not all of them ill thought off by the happy few that make out the cliquety clique sorrority of DM. Or at least not on the surface anyway.
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Post by M-G Corki on Jun 3, 2008 9:24:10 GMT
Well based on bits of info here.....has anyone asked about the upgrades...and maybe the possiblity of an improved PB to SMF converter? Well, I know that questions were raised when some of the Staff found out that there was an upgrade available, but nothing has been done. I may raise it again this week. As for a PB to SMF converter, I did find one. I even created a "spam" board similar to this (sadly without as many posts) so that the DM admin team could run the converter on it to see what it was like. This is where all the trouble begins. Jason said/promised me that we would have a subdomain at DM. I thought that sounded fine, as I would have the admin account (like I do here) and could control things. Yet, somewhere along the line, Jason conveniently forgets this idea (even though I have all the email correspondence between us so he does not have a leg to stand on) and screws us over. Despite all our hard work creating the spam board, me sending it to the admins to run the converter, and then me constantly chasing up the admins to find out what was happening, nothing was done. It was only Kath who told me the truth. Now you can see why Jason has a lot of grovelling to do to me, and why he will end up with a rather unpleaseant email from an extremely unhappy and annoyed ORG Leader.
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Post by daetirion on Jun 3, 2008 9:44:06 GMT
That explains a few things Corki - i wondered exactly what happened with that in the end. Oh and i did check Tay - discounting Talya for the spammer she is ( ) your second top. Oh and congrats on 6000 posts over there *looks at his paltry post count - 190th poster* Shows just how much i dislike posting on DM
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Post by Blademaster Mystica on Jun 3, 2008 10:00:58 GMT
Most Popular Boards By Posts Red Ajah 933 The Band of the Red Hand (Org) 596
dunno where to look to find that out but, as you can see, regardless my low post count on the Band, it's still my top posting spot behind the red ajah. Given that we no longer have offsite boards as Ajahs (at least not that I know of anyway) and my position as Ajah Head which brings it's 'obligations', I'd say I'm doing pretty good here.
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Post by Northie on Jun 3, 2008 15:49:47 GMT
the more i think about this the more ludicrous it is. and atm i am very tired and have probably just lost a house that i really love so im in no mood for tact...
first and foremost this is a WEBSITE. it is not life and death, it is not a job, it is something which all of us could easily live without.
second: speed of websites? COME ON!! it wasnt that long ago all of us were on dial up and you all remember how slow that was! im sure all of hotmail users here complain about how slow that site is even with broadband and yet they still use it. its a matter of what a few seconds? patience is a virtue. consider the benefits of exercising that - we would be more active at DM, more activity = more members who are also active. is a few seconds worth that extra activity, extra prowess among the orgs? yes it darn well is. why dont i post at DM? BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS HERE. so what would make me post at DM? MOVE STUFF OVER THERE!! the regimental public boards would be excellent for this.
admin: lets face it, its not going to change. people dont give up positions of power when they are at the top. kath has been here for...what getting on for 10 years? jason created the darn thing so hes not leaving! learn to live with them. they all have priorities too. maybe they have their priorities sorted better than people here if they care more about their RL lives than DM and only make time for DM when their RL lives allow it. thats the way it should be. anyone who thinks otherwise needs a head check.
as for moving over...i have nothing to do this summer except work in a boring supermarket. the DM admins obviously dont want to do the work, fine. we dont need a converter - all you need is time to copy all the official threads over and whatever else people want over there. im quite happy to do that - it gives me something to do thats actually useful around here. you want to regimental boards over there? great, excellent, give me the blank boards over there and i will copy every thread and every post the CG's tell me if that is the only way of getting things done. and right now it looks like it is the only way. maybe then the admins will feel better about us and be a little more understanding...
that is a serious offer, take it seriously. you want me to do it, whatever it may be? ill start monday at noon after my last exam.
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Post by taymist on Jun 3, 2008 16:10:58 GMT
*chuckles* Thanks Dae and yes I was discounting people like 12th, Talya, Nyn and Twin either through spam or inactivity. Sorry to hear about the house Northie, that's pretty rotten and your offer on moving threads is appreciated but that's not really a problem. There's no lack of willing hands to do that if it needs to be done and I'm sure if it comes to that, every pair would be gratefully accepted. I don't think anyone is saying that DM is life or death. Or that it's more important than real life. And I doubt anyone thinks the admins are suddenly going to change either lol. People's concerns are still genuine and valid though as they do effect the quality of our online time. As for the speed, we're not just talking seconds... we're often talking minutes. Those minutes add up. It's not merely a matter of patience. That's time that I for one could be spending on other things. Most of us have limited time and those minutes are highly frustrating when you have a lot to get through.
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Post by Northie on Jun 3, 2008 16:36:41 GMT
even so, you have to consider its a consequence of big sites - they will be slow. that can be down to a number of things: speed of servers (unlikely i would have thought in this case if there are 4...), number of users (we;ve seen that before), type and quantity of graphics, how much general data the comp has to download to make the website function, and peoples broadband and computers themselves etc etc
the point is, with the way DM is set up, the costs of running it etc etc and the issues and money surrounding moving domain names, huge amounts of data i would doubt if it would get much better than that. the admins obviously know these issues - i would guess the most likely reason behind the sig rules is the amount of added time it takes to load up the page so they are trying to do stuff about it. however the fact of the matter is moving domain names costs money, new bigger servers cost money (and if 4 cant handle one website i dont know what would...) or putting the website into a fast format if thats possible all cost money and its money Jason probably doesnt have. i would have thought all the issues surrounding the move back to DM from off sites gives an indication of the financial situation of the site...my guess would be its borderline. easy solution to this would be to make everyone pay a subscription fee, however no one is going to do that just for a fan site.
anyway, this is probably as good as it gets. and it has been ALOT worse in the past. when i was 15 or 16 DM went down for about 2 months if i remember correctly and frequently went down for a few hours to a few days at a time and was alot slower - people still went there. corki gets around the slowness (his laptop is truly awful...dinosaur doesnt describe it....) by opening multiple windows which means he gets everything done in about half the time. personally i dont have the problem but it has helped in the past.
main concern of people: if we move over to DM, how much slower will it make the site and how much longer will we spend on it? well if it has 4 decent sized servers behind it probably not alot. people will just have to get used to the slowness - corki manages it..i have no idea how as i would have thrown his computers out his window a long time ago. if he can do it, and if the other 3000 or whatever total of people use DM now can then im sure we can too. we just have to be less demanding and less arrogant and use what resources we have instead of complaining all the time. kinda brings me back to my first point of "its not a job, only a website".
i would be very interested to see how much the site actually costs to run and how much all the modifications over the last 3 or so years have cost, as i doubt advert income alone would cover it, which basically means its coming out of Jasons pocket. that is something to be thankful for, that someone is willing to do that to provide a hobby for others. maybe people should start accepting and using what we have instead of wanting more all the time - we have more than we used to...far far more. its up to us to use it.
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Post by kristine on Jun 3, 2008 17:06:04 GMT
even so, you have to consider its a consequence of big sites - they will be slow. Horse hockey pucks. I've run big sites, I currently run a big site... this is just ludicrous. If you have a big site, you get the bandwidth to support it, you get the servers that can support it. And sorry, DM is NOT a big site. It's a site with a lot of overhead that taxes their bandwidth and processors. Probably all the banners and refreshes that occurs before the page is displayed. The point isn't that people will be annoyed if we move over to DM - the fact of the matter is you will LOSE people when the move occurs because the interest will no longer be there. The environment will change and so will the atmosphere. Wanted or not, its a side effect because individuality that we currently enjoy will be stripped. But that is NOT what this topic is about, and its not what Corki was asking about. He asked if we believed posting on DM was a chore. THAT is the question at hand, not about DM and the great goodness that it is and all hail the wonders of the site and how dare we mere mortals question the all powerful Oz Jason. People have a right to their opinion, and if people see it as a chore, then to them it is. Moving everything that people enjoy doing to a site they don't enjoy visiting... It's called basic business. Cost vs Benefit. If you want to keep activity up over there, then its going to be a rough go, you'll have to sell people on the benefits of an unreliable site. Not so easy to do. No, its not life or death, no one said it was. What it is a matter of is fun and what suffering are you willing to go through in order to have moments of it? If you went back to dial up now, you'd cry. People become accustom to a certain level of net response - its not whining, its a way of life. Most people enjoy a site loading quickly and being able to write out what they want to say and hitting reply and seeing it on the page. They don't enjoy hitting a button to open a text box to reply to a post, opening another browser window and loading proboards, responding to 4 or 5 post, going back to check on DM and seeing that the page is half loaded, going back to proboards and responding to three more, finally getting the text box on DM - write your post, hit the reply button and then wait... and wait... and wait... and it ends up timing out and not posting at all. By that point in time you go back to proboards and say hang it, I'll do it later. And later gets later and later each day till you don't post save once a month for roll call. That is the spiral that we are in.
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Post by daetirion on Jun 3, 2008 17:11:36 GMT
I get your point Northie but the important thing is, you will lose activity and members
In all likelyhood, this will not be intentional, people just get so frustrated they can't be bothered to come online any more. It happens at fast sites as well, don't get me wrong, but people are going to see it as a chore more and more if its on a slower site, especially once they have become accostemed to some degree of speed.
I doubt this would be intentional on any ones part, but people would throw the towel in far quicker as they became more frustrated
Oh and much prefer our Sigs too...
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Post by M-G Corki on Jun 3, 2008 17:30:25 GMT
And the other thing is...I'm not interested in looking at the problems. We all know what the problems are.
What I am interested in is possible solutions. While moving everything over to DM is the ultimate solution, how would DM cope with all the boards we have? It would probably die and be even slower. Since things have been moved over, that has happened - and how many people have commented on it? We Banders are probably not the only ones.
If we did move some things over (or create boards like Regimental boards), what do you want over there? What might draw you back to DM to post there apart from the technical issues? If it is nothing, so be it. I want to know, so that we can tackle this issue.
And please don't bring up my laptop into this discussion. It works fine - all I need it for is posting...and playing the odd game of Championship Manager.
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Post by Northie on Jun 3, 2008 17:42:21 GMT
individuality lost? erm....no. we are the band and nothing changes that.
we lose members? by moving a few boards over? tell me another one...
we arent talking about moving EVERYTHING. only a few things. and the best option is the regimental boards - they can be used to pull in new members, regimental activities and all the general spam and your not moving hundreds of threads - maybe 30 at the absolute max?
we have tried putting more activites on DM to the extent that the majority of the activities are on DM. we have got things like lotto at DM, bars, spam threads whatever else is over there. we have even tried to give people points for going over there to attract new members. obviously people arent responding as well as they should be so that is the next step. dont give people a choice. make them go. and if they dont want to? fine, leave, go complain someplace else. people have done it before. we always get new members, as long as we are seen as a part of DM and are active over at DM. we have members over at DM who DONT LIKE COMING OVER HERE!!!!!!! two way street. have half of the band here, half of the band over there.
so, in summary:
- move the regimental public boards over to DM. leave the private boards over here. delete current regimental boards, or leave them for archive purposes only.
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Post by daetirion on Jun 3, 2008 17:48:52 GMT
You tried putting popular activities over there - and attendance and involvement went down
fairly obvious, you put anything else over there - attendance and involvement go down
I don't see why we should move at all
And to tie that to your earlier post Northie, precisely because DM is not a job or RL, that is the reason we won't switch. We won't be less arrogant - at least some will simply not turn up
Are the Band members who only view DM really that concerned? I say they are hardly members of the Band at all, given the sheer amount of activity that takes place in these boards - they haven't been through the RR scheme, or the Regimental progressions, they're hardly inducted, let alone give anything back to the Band
And yes im exagerrating for effect - im sure they do give stuff back to the Band, it s just I for one don't see it. I'd prefer to retain the members we know we have here, than drop these for an unknown quantity on DM
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Post by kristine on Jun 3, 2008 18:04:41 GMT
Back to addressing Corki's main concern instead of slinging words around...
I think the only thing you can do is what you are doing. Try to make it more beneficial, keep it fun. The last thing you want to do is turn your user base against you by not giving them a choice. You think you won't lose people if you move things over... yeah, you will.
Right now the big concern would be that the site can't support the load over there. Not just board wise, but bandwidth wise as well. Just a technical observation - but more people on the site means it will be slower which means more frustration which means more people throwing their hands up and saying hang it and moving on to something else.
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Post by Northie on Jun 3, 2008 18:09:46 GMT
just for reference i found the time taken to post on DM almost exactly the same as the time taken to post on here. so ill stick by my original point of computer and broadband quality being a major factor in peoples individual experiences of the website.
i would be interested to see how many of our older members are actually on DM who dont post in these boards anymore - i would reckon an awful lot. so what does that say about the volume of potential members?
a very popular complaint is also that people already have too many websites to go to...would solve that problem...
we have always lost and gained members, fact of life. people get bored and move on no matter what you do...kinda shows by the numbers of old members we have here, and over DM as a whole. like it or not, we are a part of DM. if people want to leave, let them. we always get more members. always.
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Post by Paladin Bridmorgan UC on Jun 3, 2008 18:36:00 GMT
I haven't replied to any of this yet as I've had the dang stomach flu. To answer the original question...do I find posting at DM a chore? Yes. Reasons being the same as what most here have said. My number one reason is load time. I do not have a slow computer or internet connection, especially at work. I constantly only get the top of the page to load and the rest of the page is the lovely brown/grey. My second reason is the way the boards themselves are set up. Nothing is organized in any way. You have to scroll through pages to find threads. Had I spent more time at DM before coming here to the offsite boards, maybe that wouldn't bother me so much. As for the admins, I myself have never spoken to any of them. I only know what I hear and that means I have no opinion good or bad about them as I can not make assumptions based on others opinions. All I can say is Kath's posts at the WT have put me off on her in that capacity. Northie, I would appreciate it if you would cease with calling Banders arrogant. Not only is it unfounded and uncalled for, your posts here have been nothing but arrogant. As this really has nothing to do with the actual question, I will make this short. Moving the regimental boards to DM and deleting them from here would be nothing but disasterous. I am all for having Regimental boards set up at DM so DMers can get a look at what the three regiments are and what thehy do, but I am completely opposed to removing them from here.
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