Which way is up?
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
|
Seriously, what's it gonna take to get some more activity on AN? I know we've had this discussion in the past, and the general answer seemed to be that most folks were busy with Twitter or some other social media thing. My counter to that goes like this: I am also a member over at AppleInsider, although I almost never post there because I do not like the ad-driven environment. However, they have a very healthy forum with regular posting. They also have a regular stream of articles and blah-blah-blah that drive a lot of that conversation.
So, how do we keep AN alive and thriving? Or maybe the better question is: How do we revive AN and get it thriving, again? I've been a member here for 15 years and this is literally the only "social media" I partake in. I have no Twittersnapface presence, other than a Facebook account for work, and I only use that to post linked articles. I share nothing personal. The old cats like Kickaha, Pscates, etc. haven't posted since the last election. That's over two years. Did we make AN too unfriendly and those guys just not want to be here, anymore? Did politics kill our site? I really want to know. I know some of those guys still hang around, peeking in through the blinds, but they no longer chat. I miss them. - AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :) - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9) |
quote |
Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
|
:eeps::
It's a good question. My own issue is bandwidth. The ability to divide my time between my personal and work projects is my major limitation. I really enjoyed getting into our Minecraft world and would love to return when I have the bandwidth. ... |
quote |
‽
|
Quote:
That's hard to say. People move on; it's important that new people keep coming in. (Which is not to say that we shouldn't also strive to keep people, of course.) |
|
quote |
Which way is up?
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
|
Quote:
There's a big giant space between "Forums" and login that could hold three or four buttons. We could maybe try 3 or 4 monthly articles to start? Obviously, we would have to find people willing to share their skills. Maybe, rather than focusing on rumors (although we could have a "Rumor Roundup"), we could focus on technical prowess? Self-help guides? Such like that? There are already enough rumor sites, and those joints need tons of income to support budding "journalists". - AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :) - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9) Last edited by kscherer : 2019-05-23 at 16:37. |
|
quote |
Sneaky Punk
|
I doubt it's just other social media platforms that made this place so quiet. That was one, but another is that many people who used to be exciting about what Apple is doing, just aren't anymore. There were several reasonably vocal users here who noted as such before drifting away from the forum. Others ended up being banned because they couldn't have mature discussions. It was really a combination of all those things that motivated people to move on.
I for one still buy Apple stuff, but only because I'm kind of locked into the ecosystem. I'm not excited about anything they are doing now days, and don't find much to talk about other than, ho humming another boring update cycle. |
quote |
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
|
What started driving traffic here was the link to Think Secret back in the day. It is what pointed me here. When they settled and shutdown we lost a steady source of new members. Now we need something that will drive people here again so we get more than bots joining and posting.
Those other forums mentioned have that and that is a huge difference. Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.” Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it. |
quote |
@kk@pennytucker.social
Join Date: Jan 2005
|
This same type of topic pops up occasionally and it's just something th I wish wouldn't have to be the case. I wish more people would join and more people wold post again, but I don't think that's going to happen without a major front-page of some sorts.
Some people did move to Twitter and we all still see each other's posts there, but others, like Scates, went to Twitter and then disappeared from there as well. No more Twitter. It's Mastodon now. |
quote |
¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
|
My headcanon is that he's trapped in Vera's sex dungeon.
|
quote |
¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
|
Oh shit! I just noticed kscherer's new title!
|
quote |
Which way is up?
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
|
Better watch it, pal. I haz me some powers! I was going to test it on you, but I like you, so I tested it elsewhere.
— Quote:
- Home Page ..... Linked Article .......... Comment Thread ..... Linked Article .......... Comment Thread ..... Linked Article .......... Comment Thread ..... Linked Article .......... Comment Thread - Forums Not a lot of work, and might get some action going on. I used to have some Dreamweaver/Fireworks experience but, again, that was over 15 years ago and I no longer have the software. I have iWeb on my current Mac, and that can be used for basic stuff to create the necessary bits. I would volunteer to do the work in iWeb and pass the resulting HTML over to Brad if he feels like publishing it. Considering our current situation, it will definitely require his assistance. I have a heart-felt interest in AN and want it to continue on. In order for that to happen, something needs to, umm, happen! - AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :) - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9) Last edited by kscherer : 2019-05-24 at 10:00. |
|
quote |
Sneaky Punk
|
Thing is the page would need some relevant original content, not the same old stuff that all the other Apple related sites are doing, in other words not rumors, tricks and tips. I just am not seeing an area that isn't already covered by larger, well established sites that is going to get search traffic pointed here.
|
quote |
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
|
Really, it just needs to be content that is worth reading. The fact is the bots get here because threads come up in search results on Google. So the site is indexed and is out there. More than anything it needs relevant and current information. While it shouldn't be plagiarized, it can be similar to the topics that are being talked about.
I mean, CNet posts an article about the MBP updates so you think Engadget isn't going to post one too? The goal isn't really to be completely original, though that would be cool too, the goal is to get new traffic. Anything relevant and indexed by Google should do just that. Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.” Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it. |
quote |
Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
|
Creating compelling, unique, consistently published content is a job. I would recommend dropping no fewer than one article every week. If you avoid chasing rumors then you can build up a backlog of articles for several months before begining releasing them to the public in order to continue feeding the beast.
The content challenge is that there are already several good, well-established general Mac-user sites with established ad revenue to help pay for content. If we aim for a speculation theme it would need to be more long-term oriented, to jump away from the "what will the next iPhone look like" crowd. Technically speaking, To do anything serious you need a real coder working on a legitimate CMS platform, hardened, with backup. Dreamweaver is the last way to go. It's a mild cost. If you have the Brad Signal you might get him in here to give some guidance. ... |
quote |
‽
|
Quote:
Could be hosted elsewhere, like WordPress.com. (Given that Brad is hosting vBulletin, I doubt it's a question of skill; he just might not be inclined to do even more work, though.) |
|
quote |
Which way is up?
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
|
OK, so there's idea number 1:
Long-term speculation We can also go with the idea that there are other things our membership is interested in besides computers. Space, for instance? This may be a computer users forum, but we are more than just that. Quote:
— Also, I would prefer that it not become add-focused. I know that is what AppleInsider did, but not what we should do. Member contributed is difficult, but possible. - AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :) - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9) |
|
quote |
Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
|
You might consider introducing the ancillary sci-tech topics after you've been up a while - it's really important to focus on a tightbeam signal for your first stage. If all the articles you generate begin to look more sci-tech than Mac-centric then perhaps you concentrate on that.
It'll sort itself out as material is compiled. For what it's worth I'm friends with one of the hosts of RetroMacCast, a podcast that's been running for about 12 years, focused on ANCIENT mac technology. I'm certain they have existing affiliations with one or more Mac-oriented websites but we might be able to get a shout-out to get some attention once the site is ready to seek traffic. ... |
quote |
Which way is up?
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
|
So, idea #2 = Sci-Fi!
Could work. I'm thinking we could have 4 monthly articles devoted to 4 different topics: - Future Mac Technology - Sci-Fi Things - Space Exploration - Girls and Beer - AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :) - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9) |
quote |
Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
|
I'm just now catching up on this thread... forgive me while I rehash things for a moment just to throw my belated opinions into the mix.
I'd agree with several sentiments here about the reasons behind "death of the forums". To repeat and maybe add a few more thoughts:
What brought this forum together (going all the way back to the AppleInsider days) was the common interest in Apple and the technology world around it. Sure, there's always been (and sometimes more fervor in) the non-Apple discussions, but the Apple seed was always at the core of the audience. But today? If I were to speculate, I suspect most of us that are still here are here simply because we have a shared history and familiarity. It feels like old college buddies meeting up for beers every once in a while. Those personal connections are something that is really hard to scale for growth; it can't effectively be the foundation of new membership growth. There has to be a cohesive and interesting theme underlying it. That brings us to the idea of getting into the article-publishing game everyone is talking about now. Yes, it's true that waaaaaay back in the early days Jack, Gargoyle, and I toyed around with integrating the forums with a CMS (Mambo, RIP) or creating a new one from scratch. We had something working at some point, but we had a big problem: nobody really wanted to write quality, article-style content. Has that changed? We're really talking about the people in this thread stepping up and volunteering to come up with and produce regular content for general audiences. We'd also need people here to *cough* spam *cough* share links on the aforementioned social media platforms (in a way that isn't obviously spam) in order for the content to actually drive new visitors. Quote:
I'd be willing to put up a fresh install of something like WordPress and slap some CSS on it if people are honestly saying they will step up to the plate and take a swing. Talking about general subjects is a start, but who here is ready to write? I'm sorry to say that at least *I* am not. It's not that I don't think that this is a clever idea, but I just don't have the time nor the mindset to get into long-form writing nowadays. … Side note: Now that I think about it, there's a whole other can of worms to be opened if we do see a real uptick in traffic. We're running an ancient version of the vBulletin software. Last I checked, even though I have/had a paid license, it's so old that my account has been deprecated or lost, and I couldn't even get in to download the final patch version of our release. So, we are probably riddled with security holes that I just don't even know about. The risk of someone exploiting a vulnerability in vB (or my custom server setup) is by far the thing that has worried me the most about keeping this site running for the long haul. At some point I would need to look at migrating the forums to something else. I honestly don't know what that is. Over the years, I've occasionally looked into open source platforms (phpBB, Vanilla) or dropping $250 to upgrade vB itself. On top of that, of course, any data migration (even just to the latest vB) is going to be a lot of back-end work both to get the data shuffled and to re-skin the thing to look and feel anything like the current forums. Most recently I have actually been thinking about when the right time would be just to close the forums. So, this thread is actually rather timely for me. It's not something I would do overnight or without discussing with everyone here, but I've considered that if/when that day came, I would keep the forums in a static read-only mode with a sticky note somewhere to send people somewhere else entirely. The AppleNova subreddit that Drew snagged a few years ago is the first next destination that keeps coming to my mind. Closing the forums and redirecting visitors is a last resort, of course, but it's a solution that gets the technical maintenance, looming security risks, and tangible costs ($30/month currently) off my plate. The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
|
quote |
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
|
I would love to see a "front page" with good content added for sure. I'm also not in the position that I'm really going to be much help there at all though.
For keeping the doors open, I'm all for doing stuff there. I have many times wondered the same about the ANMC server. I mean, there for a while no one was playing it at all. I actually have my monitoring server track active users on it because I was working to justify keeping it on. In the end, I see activity and was easily able to justify keeping it going. AppleNova I'm sure is the same way. Sure many have moved on, including moderators. This mean our most current posts end up being spam and not removed. This in turn adds to that horrible downhill trend. Just like users provided me with cash to help pay for hardware upgrades for the MC server, I'm sure we could do a "fund drive" to cover the cost of vB upgrades and such. Maybe even every now and then remind people of the cost of hosting and that someone pays to keep the lights on and the domain valid. Maintaining the forums and such beyond initial upgrade could be something more of a team effort in some regards. I just hate the idea of going where there is no control. In the end this site will one day close, but to quote a very wise sloth: Well, I'd rather it not be today. OK? Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.” Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it. |
quote |
Sneaky Punk
|
Brad hit on some very important points, the biggest being how much time commitment is required for article style writing and the security issues related to this old forum software.
I used to write a blog regularly (photography, not Apple related), and even that was a big time commitment, and I was only writing a few short posts 3-4 times a week on a prefab blogger page. Higher quality articles would take days, sometimes weeks to write, because when you aren't earning money with the writing it isn't a big priority. The other issue is editing and fact checking any articles written, one or two people alone cannot do that reliably on a volunteer basis. Speaking of volunteers, I worked with an organization that relied heavily on volunteerism (for 8 years), and one thing I know for sure is that volunteers have a good habit of backing out at the last minute, or never even letting you know that they have bailed entirely. To find a group of people who can consistently do what we are talking about will require a great deal of dedication and effort. Not saying it isn't worth trying, but if people want to carry this torch, they have to be prepared for the reality of it. |
quote |
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
|
While all of that is very true, I think if going into a new "front page" we understand that this isn't going to be a new CNet then we would be just fine. Even if this isn't a daily article update it would be better than we have been seeing. Sure it should have something more than nothing, but the reality is at this point anything is a plus.
Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.” Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it. |
quote |
Sneaky Punk
|
My point was that even producing a weekly article could be challenge, not even going to touch daily. Challenges are good things though, so don't think I'm nay saying the idea. Question is, how do we get from 'wow great idea, somebody should do that, but I don't have time,' to, 'okay, I don't have a lot of time, but I could add something'. A little from everyone would go a long way!
|
quote |
Which way is up?
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
|
An option we could do is "Both Sides". In other words, I could write something compelling from my standpoint, and someone else could write something compelling from their standpoint. Say, no more than a thousand words, which is only a couple pages. Post them side-by-side. I always wanted to have a blog like that. Pick a topic and get 2 completely different points of view. Hell, the new MacPro comes to mind, although that will all be over with in the morning, me thinks.
As for "volunteering", I think we could do something like once per month. Not sure we need an article a week from everyone, but an article a week from someone. 4 per month to start. No click-bait BS. Decent editorial (maybe we grammar check?). I have written five novels (none are good enough to be anything, but still … ). Point is, I can write, and love doing so. I would contribute once per month on some topic. Don't know what that is, but it won't be politics. As much as I used to love to argue about that crap, I no longer have the stomach for it. Too damned divisive! But I could do a "what is the future going to look like computer wise", or some crazy thing. I don't know. We would have to sort that out. Anyway, I'm with Turtle. Let's slap a new front end on this thing and get four volunteers to write one article to start. Somebody can fact-check, I'll edit. We could even make it all opinion based, self-help, etc. There's more to Apple users than Apple. This is a forum with a lot of educated, sharp folks. We can do this! I know at least a few of the old hard-heads are still lurking anonymously (Pscates, we're looking at you ). Maybe they'll stop by to comment on our new digs. Maybe not. I'm sure Nina23 will be around. Besides, I just got my ban super-powers, and I haven't got to ban anyone yet. I always wanted to ban Kickaha. Maybe he'll show up and I can nuke him! - AppleNova is the best Mac-users forum on the internet. We are smart, educated, capable, and helpful. We are also loaded with smart-alecks! :) - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Mat 5:9) |
quote |
Sneaky Punk
|
A tech banter would be a great idea, with a wide range of topics from Apple itself, to the things coming down the pipe that they will likely be using, and of course the industry overall. A look at areas that are stagnating, and areas that are growing. Some of the startups from computex this year had some interesting ideas for uses of AI for example.
Some articles could be written in a reporting style, while others could be a well debated conversation on a subject between two people. That way you could have one article with a general overview of a subject and then followups, which would help keep things flowing. |
quote |
Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
|
Brad's long term concerns about the forum are still echoing in my head. Like him, my bandwidth is maxed out. Regardless of what happens here, I should probably make a few of you admins of the subreddit.
... |
quote |
‽
|
Quote:
(I'm not really sure we've agreed on a topic / an angle, though?) |
|
quote |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
|
Alternatively, find a good Mac-focused blog that doesn’t have a community, and work on a link-swap deal like how it was with ThinkSecret?
|
quote |
@kk@pennytucker.social
Join Date: Jan 2005
|
I think a deal like ThinkSecret would probably be the best idea, but if there was anything put together for a front page or writing type thing, I'd be open for doing something.
I have a lot going on, but I've been posting on Twitter much less lately and I feel like I could possibly have a few things to say every once in a while, especially in a back and forth type deal. Also, if the was something set up to contribute money towards the site, I'm down. No more Twitter. It's Mastodon now. |
quote |
Posting Rules | Navigation |
Page 1 of 7 [1] 2 3 4 5 Next Last |
Thread Tools | |
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Who ya' gonna' call? | Brad | Creative Endeavors | 20 | 2009-10-08 08:03 |
I'm gonna be a Daddy again!!! | turtle | AppleOutsider | 111 | 2008-06-08 21:59 |
Great! Now I'm gonna vomit! | Zodiac | AppleOutsider | 14 | 2005-01-19 02:24 |
We're All Gonna Die!!! | Akumulator | General Discussion | 2 | 2004-12-31 18:14 |
Apple Expo: Anyone gonna be there? | ZO | General Discussion | 0 | 2004-08-30 09:37 |