57 replies to this topic

[supermom]

You demonstrated my point. Instead of saying, 'I don't see it that way', or 'I disagree', you say 'That's a cop out', implying that I am not being honest, unless you think 'cop out' means something else.

I thought cop out meant avoiding action or culpability

[folsombound]

Going back to the original topic, I think there are several factors at work. From my perspective the forum is more difficult to navigate now.
No matter which thread, it does not go to the last post read, you have to go through the whole thing. I have to click on one of the items on the left before I click on a topic or it kicks me out.
I used to enjoy the political posts and back and forth. That got increasingly nasty until it had to be separated. Now if I go to politics and change threads I have to go back and click the political heading again. It's a pain.
And, I think one of the big reasons that interest is down is that some of the really fun individuals who used to post a lot are gone or near gone (Ngilbert, Mylo, DaveBur). What ever happened to Mylo, did he move back to the UK, or New Zealand or is he traveling the country in that VW Van?
At any rate, I think a lot of people have moved on or their lives have taken a different turn and new users are fewer because there are so many types of internet communication vehicles now.

[FolsomEJ]

Why MyFolsom is not as useful, not as receiving the same traffic, and not fun:

1) Politics. Seriously. Yes, there is a dedicated forum. Yes, I have the filter. It does not cover everything. Proper Moderation does. I live on other boards that do not have the same problems we see here time and time again. Proper moderation includes moving and removing posts, warning and banning users and making it count. I'm sure the moderators are going to give themselves an A for effort, but this is about results. The results are not A-list.
1a) Moderation without explanation - stuff just moves, disappears, often without comment. The baby is thrown out with the bath water. There's no forum dedicated to how the forum works or how we want to make it work. We are stuck with this thread, and commenting in other threads that go haywire. But those comments get nuked with the offensive posts too. Good content gone.
2) Tone, including my own. This is not a family oriented message board. It is mean. It is confrontational. It is divisive. Contrast the tone here with conversation at our very own parks. Wildly different.
3) Content. Yes, good content takes work. John - you've admitted that you've given up. It is hard. It is not worth it. Ok, but there's a good bit of your missing traffic.
4) Technology. I know you've tried, but the idea that the forum doesn't work right because of the Intel corporate reverse proxy, and that's not your problem - this is a cop-out. The new web 2.0 is hard, but it works. Figure it out. The last upgrade was terrible, things are worse, the interface sucks. Finding new content should not be a chore.

I'm giving this feedback in the spirit of a gift that needs to be given. I hope it gets fixed. Folsom deserves this wonderful resource. It used to be great. It is now a shadow of its former glory.

Ed

[john]

1) I can't argue that Politics have always been a problem here. We have tried numerous things to keep things civil. Moderation only works so far, it's not a job many people want. I have gone through many mods who eventually get fed up. This leads to 1a. We will get ruthless if we have to. Then people get pissy. We can't really win. You want us to moderate, but dont moderate. This is not a unique problem, many forums have this problem.
2) It used to be better... when the forums started, a lot of us met each other at get together and such. They stopped as attendance dropped and nobody wanted to organize them. I'm open to having them again. However I can't control how people anonymously (mostly) post on a message board.
3) It's been difficult the last year but will be something I will be working on. I plan on re-formatting the front side soon.
4) OK, there's 2 issues here, the front page (with the blog) and the forums.
The front page has been a pain, it's run by Wordpress, this is what is hacked. I plan on migrating OFF of Wordpress which should solve the problem. It's a major effort, but will rid us of this pesky spam issue.
The forums are a sore spot for me. I have to use a particular software and they update their software and interface every do often. Somtimes it's buggy; this is not something I can control. However I will be updating this soon, which will (cross your fingers) hopefully fix some things.

I may be reaching out soon with a survey to see how/what people use when it comes to twitter, facebook, instagram, etc... I would ideally like to create an environment that can stand alone. I envision we'll be offering much more crowd-sourcing when it comes to the content in the future; how that will look I am still working on.

It's a process... however I'm not giving up. This site will be reborn soon, I think everyone will welcome it.

Why MyFolsom is not as useful, not as receiving the same traffic, and not fun:

1) Politics. Seriously. Yes, there is a dedicated forum. Yes, I have the filter. It does not cover everything. Proper Moderation does. I live on other boards that do not have the same problems we see here time and time again. Proper moderation includes moving and removing posts, warning and banning users and making it count. I'm sure the moderators are going to give themselves an A for effort, but this is about results. The results are not A-list.
1a) Moderation without explanation - stuff just moves, disappears, often without comment. The baby is thrown out with the bath water. There's no forum dedicated to how the forum works or how we want to make it work. We are stuck with this thread, and commenting in other threads that go haywire. But those comments get nuked with the offensive posts too. Good content gone.
2) Tone, including my own. This is not a family oriented message board. It is mean. It is confrontational. It is divisive. Contrast the tone here with conversation at our very own parks. Wildly different.
3) Content. Yes, good content takes work. John - you've admitted that you've given up. It is hard. It is not worth it. Ok, but there's a good bit of your missing traffic.
4) Technology. I know you've tried, but the idea that the forum doesn't work right because of the Intel corporate reverse proxy, and that's not your problem - this is a cop-out. The new web 2.0 is hard, but it works. Figure it out. The last upgrade was terrible, things are worse, the interface sucks. Finding new content should not be a chore.

I'm giving this feedback in the spirit of a gift that needs to be given. I hope it gets fixed. Folsom deserves this wonderful resource. It used to be great. It is now a shadow of its former glory.

Ed

[Revolutionist]

I am glad you're not giving up John. I have to admit, my contributions, and even my readership have diminished greatly over the last 2 years. But this forum was a staple for me for a very long time, and I've met quite a few wonderful folks as a result of joining this community.

Everything has a life-cycle. As an owner (SysOp, back in the days before there was an Internet) of community BBS sites, my sites all had a period of infancy, growth, golden era, decline, then death. I had a community site. A tech site. An interactive fiction phase. back to a tech site. Each had their own flavor, each their own followers, but all had finite lifetimes. So I like your concept of rebirth. I hope you have a vision, a plan to create something exciting, not just a plan to correct "flaws" in the current incarnation... You won't reach anyone new without something new to offer; oh you may pick up a quiescent veteran or two temporarily, but that's it for a "flaw-fix".

And if there is anything I can do John, please let me know. I am happy to lend a hand -- or free advice -- when I can

[4thgenFolsomite]

1300 views on the top of whether MyFolsom is dead.....hmmm, not so dead.

If you want more visitors, I think you're going to have to market.

if its dead, I think its because new people in the community dont know about it. I can not tell you how many times I have said to people, and I mean Chamber people, FHDA, City folks, etc., and they have never heard of MyFolsom. I tell storeowners and small business people, folks with non-profits, school teachers, etc., no one has heard of it!

Do you think the telegraph would do an article on it and its value to the community? maybe a story about you, John? The Telegraph is people-oriented and I would love to see that angle. then more people would actually hear about it and start joining in.

[Steve Heard]

John - I'd like to see a monthly email recap, digest, newsletter or other reach-out feature to get people reminded and involved. I'd be glad to help.

[4thgenFolsomite]

if everyone on the forum shared a few posts with about 10 Folsom friends, it might help spread the word that way too. I will.

[folsom500]

Two Ideas that worked for FolsomForum... Business Cards and Bumper Stickers- very low cost-- and very effective -Could either print them or use a service.
We would leave the cards at many places in card holders ( also not expensive on the net) and also hand them out to neighbors -

[The Average Joe]

I don't do bumper stickers...but I would put a magnetic sticker on my bumper. I also always spread the word to friends and neighbors. I would be glad to carry cards to give out to them when the subject came up.

[nomad]

Everyone is on Facebook and Twitter. Nobody wants to converse anymore on a forum (unless it's a specialty board for automobiles or such).

People these days can barely speak a coherent sentence, everything has to be condensed to 144 characters to be worthy to read because it's meaningful and poetic that way. These forum boards may just as well be bulletin boards from the late 80's no matter how you dress them up.

That said, I do enjoy coming here and the information that is passed along!

[Steve Heard]

Everyone is on Facebook and Twitter. Nobody wants to converse anymore on a forum (unless it's a specialty board for automobiles or such).

People these days can barely speak a coherent sentence, everything has to be condensed to 144 characters to be worthy to read because it's meaningful and poetic that way.

OMG. No U din't.

[nomad]

OMG. No U din't.

Didn't you read Kobe doing "play by play" during the Laker game on Twitter? It was the biggest thing EVER for 48 minutes.

[randb]

For those that have been around long enough remember a few of us left and started our own Folsom forum. We left because of too much censorship. So moderating is tough, too much and people feel stifled too little and people feel it’s an unfriendly place. It’s tough game to win.

I run a forum for Rancho Murieta. I have seen the same decline that MyFolsom has. I think some of the decline has to do with offsite factors. Many people are working more hours or because of layoffs they are doing more work during the same workday. There is less time to take a few minutes to catch up on your community. Places like FB have taken some of the general chit-chat type traffic. I am sure the political bickering has scared off some too, but that has never really bothered me. I know political topics have scared off some people from my site too. Another tough game to win.

I recently completely revamped my forums. I moved to a new software package. I made the move at the end of last week and so far it has been good. Registrations are up, traffic is up, and posts are up. It’s too soon to tell if it was a good move or not though.

Can someone post a screenshot of the hacked version of the site? I would like to see if I can help look at it. Source code would be awesome. The front end looks fine to me.

John I have used Wordpress as the front end as well. I like Wordpress, but I have never liked the disconnect between the forums and the front end. Currently I still have Wordpress installed, but it is simply a “splash” page for the front end. I am still trying figure out what direction to take. I want something integrated with separate articles, but I never seem to find the time to write the articles so the front page becomes stale. Have you tried IP.Content? I have a license that I am not using if you want to try it out.

[Darth Lefty]

Today has been a nice one, eh?  I was going to post something about bike-to-work-day but it seems kind of pointless now.