Cairnsman wrote:Principle of Q'uo wrote:i'd like to see a list of 'these toxic posters'
Gaz I hope that we don't get distracted by that issue, I think what would be more beneficial would be for us to have a look at what statistics/data the phpBB software can provide and interrogate it so we can see if there is any useful information we can glean to base our decisions on because at present I feel we might be basing some decisions on incorrect or insufficient information. I think it might be helpful if we can find out things such as:
How many registered posters are there in total?
==> this information is available on the board index.
Total posts 985252 • Total topics 46590 • Total members 4822
Our newest member TRENTDENNISLANE
How many registered posters are active and define what is active in terms of frequency of visits and posts? i.e. daily, weekly, Monthly.
==> this information is available in the members tab ... just click on the LAST ACTIVE tab and it puts it in date or reverse date order. If you want this information ... copy and paste it into excel and tabulate for days / weeks / months ... this is open information and you are welcome to it ... let us know what you find
Of the posters that are believed to have left the site when was their last visit or post?
==> well I am trying to determine who of the mainstays of the site has left and then we can look at their posting history but what would this prove? How does it answer WHY they have left or read or post less?
A list of posters and their number of logins to least number of logins? (Login but not post though)
==> this might be available in the admin panel - I am not sure
A post count by user and ordered from highest number of posts to least number of posts?
==> this information is available in the members tab ... just click on the POSTS tab and it puts it in order from highest to lowest or lowest to highest
I think the issue of how many registered posters is good for SS needs to be researched and discussed in more detail to better understand the situation. I'm not saying it needs to be capped or anything like that but I wonder if that is the whole problem which is what BackfromUSA is arguing.
==> there should be no limits ... however we do need new members ... last member joined 6 months ago!!!
I have argued that another way of attracting more members or encouraging those that mostly read than post is to attract posters to the site with a club profile (past or present). An example of this is when Grant Thomas popped in early last year, members out of the woodwork. So maybe we should be looking to see if it s possible to invite people with a club history, whether it be from Admin, Coaching, recruiting, players, medical etc. I think a trying to create discussion with these types of posters will possibly not only encourage more to register but it could also encourage and revivalist existing members. BackfromUSA argued that our "toxic" members would not allow this idea to be successful and I countered by saying that we would need to get certain aspects of the site improved first, namely ownership, administration and moderation.
==> actually I stated that Grant withdrew from contributing because of the behaviour of some posters and his desire not to cause or be part of such conflict
==> I stated my belief that no official or ex official would put themselves in a position on the forum to be open to abuse and that high level of moderation is required if they do
==> I have also stated that such people may be more willing to make editorial or opinion contributions to a website (rather than forum) where they are more protected
As a side note to the above, I recently was listening to some guys that do a segment on SEN about IT in sport. I believe they are IT consultants for sporting clubs and the big stadiums around Australia and they have done and are doing work with the AFL and various clubs. Anyway one of the things they recommended when it come to preparing an IT and/or social media website strategy was to only pick one or two sites and focus your management and finances on those only because if you try to adopt too many social media tools and websites for your market audience then you could spread yourself too thin and spread your market audience thinner. This really struck a chord with me because I think this advice is on the money and that is another concern I have about pouring what little management and finance resources we have into what really looks like a speculation website, when I wonder if it would be better to direct our available resources into the SS website.
==> the saints fan market is already spread! It is on the Saints official website, twitter, facebook, instagram, if is on SaintsFooty and other fan facebook sites, it is linked into the twitter feeds of players and media commenators about th saints, it is reading the Age, herald Sun, the Australian, AFL website and in terms of forums there is always Big Footy etc ... it is spread. What I have proposed is to unify them and introduce each element to each other and helping each to grow with exposure to a wider audience.
==> our available resources (funds held in trust from donations on Saintsational Fan Forum) are only being used for the Fan Forum and nothing in that regard is changing
==> the "speculation website" you refer to is being donated by me so zero financial or other resources are being used other than my own at this stage and I have stated clearly for the past week that I would build it outside of the framework to deal with your dissatisfaction and then everyone can judge it on it's merit from there. It won't be a Saintsational site.
Questions I have relating to SS membership are:
-Could it be that our membership base is linked to the clubs membership base? Is there a ceiling on what can be realistically achieve in terms of registered members and should we be looking just to improve what we have to work with.
==> No. the club has many more fans than members. Look at their official facebook site as an example. More likes and followers than actual Saints members.
-Could we learn something by using Google Analytics to better understand traffic to and from the site and other data. BackfromUSA by his own addmission is not IT savy nor does he have admin rights so maybe if we can fix these issues we can get some real stats collected.