I guess it’s like a bot only it’s a BATbot or Badtzbot or a bot-bot. Something with a pathologic, psychopathic or economic interest in what happens here.
mmmmmm n@ked ladies.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure it matters what ideas we come up with. The question I keep asking myself is, how much do the powers that be, who control the purse strings and make the decisions that matter, really care about the SDMB?
No matter whether the board is gaining some small amount (because I can’t see it generating a huge amount) or losing money, I can’t come up with any answer than “miniscule to not at all.” In which case, why should they put any effort whatsoever into doing anything to the board, positive or negative, at all (besides shutting it down entirely, I mean). Anything they could do would be unlikely to improve their bottom line significantly; therefore, why put in the effort?
(BTW, this applies for any point in this board’s illustrious history, IMO, except maybe the AOL days - but only because I don’t know how exactly it was run and who oversaw it.)
This has turned into a pretty good discussion, and I do believe the consensus is that the board is not what it once was in terms of participation. I’d like to clarify a few points:
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The whole “People have been talking about the Dope going downhill for years!” response is mere hand-waving. No one who has said this has also emphatically claimed that the actually number of posters and posts has stayed the same or risen. Can anyone credibly make that claim?
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The “This is still the greatest place on the Web” response is fine; I also agree that it’s still worth coming here. But it doesn’t change the fact that there posters and posts are getting dangerously low in number.
By “dangerously low,” I mean that any of the fora could, in the near future, tip into a vicious cycle of few posts, why bother, fewer posts, now really why bother, no posts, no bother. I used the term “critical mass” for a reason.
Well, presumably the Chicago Reader is a business and I further presume they wouldn’t run a message board unless they were hoping to have it help their bottom line. Unless, you think this whole place is some employment perk for Ed? lol. There are probably a number of different ways they could monetize the site* but generating higher traffic would be a smart part of any such plan.
*Now that the kindly grandfathers who used to own the place have been replaced by conspicuously hip sounding Creative Loafing, maybe they’ll give it a go. Or they could shut it down and start from scratch.
I’m not so sure. I don’t think this is a real venture for the Reader. I don’t think they really care. I think that this message board grew out of the Cecil fan base on the AOL boards and because the Reader didn’t want Cecil’s name taken in vain, they demanded a certain level of control.
They don’t seem to want to manage the board as a revenue center, they don’t seem to want to grow it. Currently the front page shows ~70 k members. Small change for the internet, but still respectable. I believe that at one time it had >200 k members. Not bad. Is having the daily attention of 70,000 people on the internet of value? What would a web based business or news site pay to get that kind of traffic at their site? Does the Reader actually have any staff that is interested in growing that number?
I am not in the biz, or for that matter in any business position, but that said I really doubt that the reader is serious about running the board as a business. I feel like I could do a better job of growing the subscriptions, and that, at least to me, seems to be the goal in making money off of a message board. I think the Reader is just interested in getting as much money from the board as possible without putting anything in it. Short sighted in my view.
You are mistaken. The 70k members means that there have been 70k screen names issued since the boards inception. That particular number always increases and has never been higher than it is now. Many of those 70k are people who signed up one day and never came back as well as socks and trolls who were banned.
Occasionally the PTB will disclose how many active posters that there are at any given time. It’s typically between 1000 and 2000.
But doesn’t that negate the point you were trying to make in the OP? There are good discussions still to be had here. And even in the past, not all threads were equal. This one had a little bit of everything (well, lots of things. . .no ladles or anything like that, but we can’t have that in every thread) 
And while I’d really like to argue with you, subjectively I feel it too even if I’ve only been here a year. Ever since this thread on Pit Manners, I’ve been thinking that this place has become really very tame. I’m waiting for someone to post an OP about:
I stepped on gum. It got on my shoe. I’m so mad. Grrr.
And the OP would stay in the Pit. Somehow it seemed to me that in the past, those OPs would be driven out or at least embarrassed out of existence. But this too is just my subjective feeling.
Actually, objective data on this is not hard to get. It’s not difficult to find the dates when particular milestones in posts and membership were reached. And while numbers have changed over the years, the data do not support drastic drops in over recent years. While somewhat less than they were at their peak, the number of posts has remained pretty much the same for the past 3 years, and the number of members registering has actually risen over the last year.
Note that many posts have been lost or deleted, so the totals below are not the same as appear at the bottom of the main page, but are based on post number and the date it was reached. Since few member accounts have ever been deleted, these correspond fairly closely to the number at the bottom of the main page. The number of months is ballpark; I may have miscalculated a few of these.
Number of posts and date reached, with the approximate number of months between milestones:
March 1999: 0 (Board starts)
20 months to
11/18/2000: 900,000 (Note: the posts around 1,000,000 are missing, so I substituted this number)
17 months
4/15/2002: 2,000,000
10 months
2/15/2003: 3,000,000
7 months
9/18/2003: 4,000,000
9 months
6/24/2004: 5,000,000
9 months
3/29/2005: 6,000,000
10 months
1/15/2006: 7,000,000
10 months
11/26/2006: 8,000,000
10 months
9/20/2007: 9,000,000
So the peak was in 2003, but the number of posts has held steady since 2005, and is presently averaging over 3,000 per day.
Similar data for new members joining:
March 1999: 0 (Board starts)
19 months
10/6/2000: 10,000
17 months
3/12/2002: 20,000
10 months
1/17/2003: 30,000
9 months
10/3/2003: 40,000
14 months
12/10/2004: 50,000
20 months
7/6/2006: 60,000
14 months
9/08/2007: 70,000
Again the peak was in 2003. There was a not-too-surprising fall-off in registrations after the board went pay. However, over the past year registrations have actually increased. Rather interestingly, it seems that a smaller number of posters are making about the same number of posts as before, which may reflect fewer trolls. We seem to be averaging about 24 new registrations a day over the past year.
Certainly there are differences between 2003 and now. But there is no evidence for a decline over the last two years. And I don’t think a board that is averaging 24 new members and 3,000+ posts a day can exactly be considered moribund.
ETA: By “members” above I am referring to all new registrants, both guests and paid members.
One change since I joined in 2003: I am now working for a (very good) Web development company, have been for two years.
My background is in marketing, not tech, but anyone can understand that the technological demands of running this board simply aren’t that great. Is it one server or two to host it? I don’t care if it’s ten, that’s still not that much money or fuss. So all of the pissing and moaning about how we can’t fund the server, can’t upgrade, can’t wipe after shitting or whatever is so much, yes, shit.
Second, yeah, everyone is absolutely right that this board has been managed as a product with grade Y ambition and grade Z intelligence. For example, long, long ago there should have been an e-commerce store up with t-shirts, hats, posters, books, etc. The sense of community should have been fostered, tickets to events sold, etc. As an example, Yearly Kos.
I have never understood the management’s insistence that this place is so expensive to run when a good number of people they’re telling this to work in the industry and know that’s bullshit.
I mean, give us a little credit.
Or a more clubby atmosphere, which I believe is the downfall of internet forums.
More posts from fewer members means more in-jokes, more cliques, more ingrown posters, taller soap boxes. All in all, a less welcoming place for newbs.
As I mentioned not long ago in another “the board is dying” thread, I saw this happen in another board I frequent. It solved itself all of the sudden, and I do not know that there is anything that can be done to solve this from the top. Ingrown posters cannot be addressed without punishing loyalty. A tricky bit.
Some background notes:
I visit this board every weekday during my lunch and have done for around 6 years now.
I first found this place after a Google search for some random fact linked me to Cecil’s questions. I thought they were great and even forwarded a link to many friends. Then I spotted a forum and had a look. The lively debate in GD was fab and as the rhetoric in Iraq was being increased, I wanted to know what Americans thought about the situation. It is still the forum I read the most.
My views on the current status:
A great thing about the board was the existence of some members with
rather extreme views. I wanted to hear what they think about stuff.
However, it seemed that their views were generally seen as trolling. I didn’t think all of it was. Eventually these people either flamed out or were banned after some sort of unspoken ‘totting up’ procedure.
Now you are left with Der Tris ( hi DT ! ) and a few others , who offer some interesting, but extreme views. At least he is consistent and is willing to backup his position. I think you need more people like Der Tris to keep the debate fresh.
Why I haven’t payed up:
It is due to some of the reasons elmwood ( post #227) detailed. But, it was obvious to me that any income generated from ptp would not be going into improving the board software, the look of the gui, or adding any new features. Where are the innovations? What new forums have been created ? Who is looking at other ways of generating exposure and income? No-one.
PTP does more damage than stopping people from joining. It creates an
exclusive club, which turns many people off. Especially when they see what they get for their money: a monotone board in both appearance and attitude. This, in turn, will contribute to the boards slow death - which ironically was presented as the reason to go ptp ! Most people don’t want to be in an exclusive club. I would like to participate in an open welcoming message board.
The tagline for the Dope, together with ptp, implies that people should come here and pay to have their ignorance fought. I can see why that would not work as a business model !!
I wont mention the mods as they get enough abuse as it is ( some of it deserved )
What may ‘save’ the Dope ?
Well, assuming TPTB actually care / think there is anything wrong, the first thing you should do is target the people whose subscription has not been renewed and ask them why. You will have all their email addresses. You could target them with 1 thread which anyone with a username and password ( not those who have been banned obviously ) could post to, explaining why they came in the 1st place and what would encourage them come back. Put a link to it in your email. This would encourage lurkers both old and new - out of the woodwork. They are the people most likely to come back.
Second, update the friggin software already. Make it look like someone cares.
Third, allow Google in and allow searching for guests.
Forth, make it free to post and generate revenue in other ways. If you want to encourage people to pay, then do it. Give them something they want. Have a donate button. Use paypal.
Please help me to see why i should stay, because its only a matter of time before i find somewhere else to spend my lunch break.
HTH
I don’t consider that reasonable, including guests as members. What’s the conversion rate from guests to paid members? I think it’s abysmally, embarrassingly low. So people come as guests and leave as guests and never have a chance to become part of things.
And I’d imagine a goodly chunk of those “guests” are the same people, over and over.
Toon has some valuable insights. They will be ignored, but they are still valuable.
That may be, but the weakness of the membership stats that Colibri dug up doesn’t negate the strength of the post count stats he provided, which can be viewed as fairly steady since the spring of 2002, excepting a spike during the run-up to, and first six months of, the Iraq War.
They are valuable.
The problem, though, continues to be the disconnect between the people who care about this board and would benefit from its improvement (us) and the people who are in a position to do something about it (the CR). Until that’s fixed, all the suggestions in the world are meaningless.
Here’s my pony: we’d wake up one day to two identical SDMBs - one run by the CR, and another run by a nonprofit formed by some of the members. It would be an easy thing to spin off an identical copy of the board as of a particular date, and let the two diverge from there. In a world where TPTB were rational, they’d agree to this, with stipulations that the nonprofit’s clone would cease using ‘Straight Dope,’ ‘Cecil Adams,’ and other CR trademarks, and would change its look to be distinct from the CR’s SDMB.
Then the nonprofit’s SDMB clone would be free to evolve, find new sources of funding, improve the software, change the membership rules, whatever.
But we’re not in that world, and I see no reason to believe it would be worth pursuing in this one.
But fewer people making more posts isn’t good.
I know there have been times when I’ve posted because I was bored and didn’t have a thread that interested me. So instead of reading good content, I posted mediocre content. That isn’t a recipe for quality.
I’ll put it this way: Just because I get a ton of emails doesn’t mean I have tons of friends.
I agree that it wouldn’t be good, although I’m honestly not sure that’s what’s happening.
And I agree that this board isn’t what it used to be, and that’s not good. I just think it helps to be clear what the facts are, to the extent we can know them, so we can get a better handle on what the source of our unhappiness about the current state of the board is, and why it makes us unhappy.
I’m sure the number of active posters isn’t significantly increasing over time. I’m also sure that the number of new active posters is way lower than it was before pay-to-play. The likelihood of the latter was the thing that most worried me before pay-to-play, and I think we’ve arrived at the place I was worried about getting to.
In the debate fora, the relative paucity of new voices is tiresome. I’d especially look forward to new voices to my right on the issues of the day. Part of that scarcity is of course a consequence of the state of American politics, but mostly it’s just the lack of new posters. It’s hardly worth opening a thread on an issue, when I already know how it will go if Mr. Moto or Sam Stone or Weirddave or Scylla joins the thread - not just what they’re going to say, but how they’re going to say it, and what the progression of the thread will look like. By now, we should all be more drowned out by newer voices than we have been: I expect they’re as tired of me and some of the other lefty debaters as I am of them, and it would be better for all of us if we played a smaller role in debates, by virtue of being supplemented by a host of new voices.
So I’m not saying all’s well. But Colibri’s still right - the board isn’t dying. It’s just that its quality is degrading in a number of ways. We shouldn’t minimize that fact, but it’s still not the same thing as saying the board’s dying.
Obviously, we’re dealing with a lot of ifs. But if it’s true that we aren’t getting enough new members (real members, not guests who will simply leave after their allotted time, especially since we were threatened that without paying we’re dooooooooooomed), then the board is dying. It’s not sustainable if true. (I don’t know that it’s true. I’m going off of perception since I don’t know how to compile the real data.)
(One thing that I find a bit frustrating is that we were told “Without pay-to-post, the board will die!” So now they have pay-to-post, the board seems off-kilter, and they say it’s none of our business if the board is healthy. That’s like a poster giving too much information then whining when people have an opinion. They made it our business.)
I’m one of those who joined up and started posting when the SDMB became a paid-subscription site. I still remember the first thread I posted to that made me feel both that I had something to get from the board and something to give back (besides money, of course): and that was when I was hooked. I’d bet a lot of people feel similarly, although it shows more in some posters than in others: we’re paying to read, sure, but, more, we’re paying to be read – our subscription is buying us an audience, and our words a semi-permanence, we wouldn’t have otherwise. And when we think about the quality of the SDMB, whether we admit it or not, we’re apt to think in terms of the satisfaction we get as contributors as much as the enjoyment we get as consumers. Some of us prefer positive attention and compliments, some want to raise a fuss, some just aren’t picky.
But that’s something for which Management Is Not Responsible. Are ads annoying? Searches limited and slow? The look of the site unhip? Maybe. But I have to believe that these things can’t matter as much as fresh, interesting and fun content and rewarding feedback does. Surely that’s part of the shadow behind the wish for new members: we want their money (actually, I don’t – I haven’t seen much correlation between subscription dollars and more fun for me) but we also hope they’ll know some stories we haven’t heard yet.
But that would be admitting that, as its authors, we’re the biggest problem with the board. If we ever do this, by the way, I’ll go first. I used to be a lot funnier, a lot more often, than I have been lately. And I don’t do my part by starting the occasional thread. And it’s my subjective impression that there has been a slight trend away from funny, interesting threads about pedestrian subjects toward flat, unimaginative, and sometimes mean-spirited threads with ever-more lurid and provocative themes. Better to discourse brilliantly about a dull topic than stupidly about vital issues, and all that.
No disrespect intended to anyone. I just think we’re not going to get much more mileage out of being able to spell better than some other boards’ members can (which is something I’ve seen thrown out so often and so confidently I’m beginning to believe it can’t be true, anyhow).
I know I belong to a small minority, but I would really like to see avatars and some limited (read: strict limits on size) image posting allowed. Keep in mind I grew up on various low-tech BBSes and Usenet, so the look here isn’t really bothersome, but is is “quaint”, to be polite (oh I’m in the Pit? Then “Looks as dull as shit”).
Interesting that virtually every post in this thread is from a Charter Member (or at least someone long term)-well, 6 pages later, we already know what they think, ad nauseum. Who we need to hear from are the young bloods here on these issues-what is it about the board which attracts and/or repulses you? Someone should run a poll or something…
Absolutely. I can’t say anything right now that would surprise anyone. I can’t even think of something to say that would be surprising. I’ve been here too long. New voices give a new perspective. They tell new stories and ask new questions. It’s an effect we can’t just produce on our own.
I’ve replied to threads just to keep conversations rolling, which is ultimately a silly thing to do. But I’m here for conversations, not to hear myself talk.
There’s another aspect to it: I’ve been on a couple of poetry boards for years and know most of the players. I can write a poem tailored to those people. I can predict what each of them would say. So what happens? I don’t bother to post the poem, or I even find myself tweaking it against my better judgment to fit the audience.
I’ve written OPs here then deleted them because I already knew what responses I’d get. I’ve rewritten and tamed down and adjusted others to fit the “audience.” Conforming for the sake of conforming, really. It’s not purposeful, but it’s a measure of familiarity. And I’d bet I’m not the only one who does it.