Could mods move the property investment - other section back to the top
- Thread starter eggnog
- Start date
Sim
Administrator
Sense of community?
The forum IS the community. It is a bunch of people who come together to share and learn about property investing.
Where people post doesn't define the community. The community happens just as much in "Property Finance" (for example) as it does in any other forum area.
It is the threads which make up the discussion and that is where the community derives from - the discussion between people, not the topics under which the threads are categorised.
The threads get categorised so that they become a resource for people who join later and for those who want to focus their attention on topics of interest.
It is a balancing act between having a single stream of discussion versus a valuable investing resource for future reference. We can use the forum features to effectively achieve both of those aims.
All forums generally have a sub section that is more active and posted in than any other subsection of the forum. For Somersoft this was the general investment subforum.
I think that by moving the subforum and being more vigilant with moderating the threads that go in there that you are driving away a community spirit that practically lived in that part of the forum.
What happens now? Either people will adjust, leave or they will find a new subsection to congregate in...possible the coffee lounge (hardly ideal for an investment forum).
I know for sure I won't be on here as much if the changes remain.
Sim, I'm not sure how many forums you visit, but I visit plenty and I agree with you when you say that the entire forum is a community. HOWEVER, each subforum is a sub-community and the biggest sub-community has just been destroyed.
I think that by moving the subforum and being more vigilant with moderating the threads that go in there that you are driving away a community spirit that practically lived in that part of the forum.
What happens now? Either people will adjust, leave or they will find a new subsection to congregate in...possible the coffee lounge (hardly ideal for an investment forum).
I know for sure I won't be on here as much if the changes remain.
Sim, I'm not sure how many forums you visit, but I visit plenty and I agree with you when you say that the entire forum is a community. HOWEVER, each subforum is a sub-community and the biggest sub-community has just been destroyed.
Sorry Im not letting this go 
A sign of a healthy and vibrant forum is forum that moves fast. A really good forum moves so fast that you can barely keep up with the front page. When you log on the next day there is a whole new menu of tasty items to consider.
When you split the forum up (by adding new topic areas) or by deemphasing the "central zone", the individual topic areas move quite slowly.
I log onto Property Economics the next day and theres no new threads, and only half a dozen postings the next day.
Ditto I log into other topic areas and theres only a couple of new threads in each area. This is boring. Boring kills forums.
But if there were less areas then there would be more threads in each area which is exciting !
Making a forum interesting is more important than making it a convenient reference source. After all we have a search function.
Yes some topic demarcations are justified because they are highly specialised (accounting / tax / legal etc). But there is no need to have a Buying Selling section - that just slows down thread creation speed in Property General. You dont seem to realise that nurturing thread creation velocity is critical to forum success. The RenoKings forum died because it seemed like no new threads were being created (even if they were).
Rant over for now.
A sign of a healthy and vibrant forum is forum that moves fast. A really good forum moves so fast that you can barely keep up with the front page. When you log on the next day there is a whole new menu of tasty items to consider.
When you split the forum up (by adding new topic areas) or by deemphasing the "central zone", the individual topic areas move quite slowly.
I log onto Property Economics the next day and theres no new threads, and only half a dozen postings the next day.
Ditto I log into other topic areas and theres only a couple of new threads in each area. This is boring. Boring kills forums.
But if there were less areas then there would be more threads in each area which is exciting !
Making a forum interesting is more important than making it a convenient reference source. After all we have a search function.
Yes some topic demarcations are justified because they are highly specialised (accounting / tax / legal etc). But there is no need to have a Buying Selling section - that just slows down thread creation speed in Property General. You dont seem to realise that nurturing thread creation velocity is critical to forum success. The RenoKings forum died because it seemed like no new threads were being created (even if they were).
Rant over for now.
I'm sure there are plenty of examples in life where things don't turn out the way it was intended, but I don't think that is a good enough reason on its own to change things.
Some people bought PPoRs intending to live in them, but they ended up becoming IPs. Does that mean they should sell up because that was never the original intention? Heck no, let things run their course.
It was never intended for the Tassie Tiger to become extinct, but that's no reason to go cloning it back into existence.
Run with it!
The forum certainly didn't feel broken to me, so along with others, I too would have preferred that it wasn't 'fixed'.
Boomtown
For every change, there are good and bad things.
The change has not been structural- one forum has been renamed, and it's been shifted.
The change has come about because people who come onto the forum (or who have been on the forum for a while) have special interests.
And we mods have not been very good about putting threads where they properly belong.
So if someone comes in here looking for stuff about renovating (for instance), they will naturally look in thge renovating forum. But they may miss out on some really valuable and relevant stuff which has been posted in one (or more) other forums.
The same if someone comes back to try to find some stuff which they know has been posted.
For every change, there are good and bad things.
The change has not been structural- one forum has been renamed, and it's been shifted.
The change has come about because people who come onto the forum (or who have been on the forum for a while) have special interests.
And we mods have not been very good about putting threads where they properly belong.
So if someone comes in here looking for stuff about renovating (for instance), they will naturally look in thge renovating forum. But they may miss out on some really valuable and relevant stuff which has been posted in one (or more) other forums.
The same if someone comes back to try to find some stuff which they know has been posted.
Sim
Administrator
Why can't that spirit live within the entire forum ?
Why ? Is the content not the same ? Are the members not the same ? Aren't you the one who loses by not continuing to be part of the broader community ?
I run 6 forums (all very different in the way they operate - vastly different community styles) and regularly visit about a dozen others (although I don't participate as much in them - I mostly use them as a resource centre).
Almost every forum I visit (most are of a technical nature) has far higher post volumes and member numbers than Somersoft, and all of them have more topic areas than we have here. Most of them are even stricter in their moderation than we are. They are all successful and vibrant communities. If anything, the general discussion is an "off topic" area, and most communities I visit are very strict in what gets posted in the non-off-topic areas.
I am also in the process of completing a Masters of Education in Adult Education and have studied and written essays on the nature of community as a learning tool - this goes far beyond the here-and-now discussion and delves into the realm of knowledge management, which is a very different activity.
There are multiple approaches to the knowledge management aspect of learning - with modern natural language search technology (eg google) and community driven activities (eg tagging) leading to new ways of managing knowledge. We do have some of these features available to us now, but they are not yet widely utilised enough on our site to replace the old "librarian" style of knowledge management. Perhaps in the future the structure of the forum will become far less important - but I don't feel we are there yet.
We will get there over time - I haven't yet had the time to write about the new tagging features and encourage people to use them - there needs to be a certain critical mass before this becomes useful enough to be self-sustaining. Similarly with natural language search - there are some technical limitations I need to overcome before that gets implemented, and once it does, it should hopefully make knowledge retrieval far more powerful, despite the structure (or lack thereof).
The key thing I want people to understand is that we are serving two audiences here - those who are actively participating in the community, and those who are passive and merely browse for information. The minor changes we have implemented are designed to help build a greater resource for the passive members of our community - and it does not have to be at the expense of the active members.
Sim
Administrator
Why don't you just try it the way it is now? It can still work just as well as it did previously if you let it.
Sim
Administrator
Yup, we got to the point on Somersoft a long time ago where I could no longer read every forum post. I think only geoffw and a few other dedicated (read: addicted) souls were still trying to do that recently (we even had to put geoffw into rehab for a while to try and break him of his addiction for his own sanity!)
If you want a smorgasbord - try the "New Posts" search. I've just implemented the ability to opt-out of forum topics which you don't want to see in the "New Posts" searches (see the new section at the bottom of the "Miscellaneous Options" in the "Edit Options" section of the control panel: http://www.somersoft.com/forums/profile.php?do=editoptions )
This is how many people view the forums and why many of us don't feel that the "community" is restricted to one or two topic areas ... we can see all of the topics and just contribute to them no matter where they are posted.
Use the "New Threads" search - all the excitement you need, and with the new feature you can restrict it to just the topics you want to follow.
Nearly 75% of the posts on the forum have NOT been made in what was the General forum, so if that's all you ever followed, you're missing out on most of the discussion!
That may be your point of view (and is valid from what you are looking to achieve), but I don't agree that it is more important (or less important) - and I get to see the stats that show how many people lurk and don't necessarily follow or contribute. I also don't agree that the forum is boring - far from it. Nor do I consider than these changes will slow the forum down or make it more boring - there's just too much to talk about when it comes to real estate investing in Australia.
There were 25,000 posts when I took over management of the forums on Ian's behalf something like 6 years ago. We now have 450,000 posts. That doesn't seem like a failure to me - I think Somersoft is doing rather well and is widely regarded as the best real estate forum in Australia. That's not my doing (I just helped facilitate it), that's the community in action - posting in all topic areas or browsing and learning.
No, the RenoKings forum died for many other reasons - which I won't go into here (not relevant to the discussion). Somersoft is not about to die.
Sim
Administrator
A quick thought for Sim...
I don't have a problem with any of the changes - everyone will get used to them and the new people who come to the forum won't know any different.
Sim, with the current rash of moving posts, is it possible to say which area they have been moved to e.g. 'moved to adding value' The reason I suggest that is often the title of the post gives no clues to where it may have ended up.
Scott
I don't have a problem with any of the changes - everyone will get used to them and the new people who come to the forum won't know any different.
Sim, with the current rash of moving posts, is it possible to say which area they have been moved to e.g. 'moved to adding value' The reason I suggest that is often the title of the post gives no clues to where it may have ended up.
Scott
Got to be honest, agree with a lot of the sentiment here. The 'Property Investment General' was the link I had in my bookmarks for Somersoft. That's where most of the discussion went on and then I checked the 'Where to Buy', 'Economics,' 'Psychology' and 'Coffee' a few times throughout the day.
Going to 'General' now is like a ghost town, bit sad really. The reality is, I don't think the change is necessarily going to help SS, regardless of whether it makes sense or not (which most of the thread moves do - with the exception of which ever mod moved this thread into 'Where to Buy' - what the??!!).
Having said that, I understand why Sim has made the changes. I value the community and will perservere with the changes. Just don't like to think I'm missing out on good threads because I don't always have time during work to go in and out of 12 forums to check for new threads.
Sim, thanks for the link to 'Edit Options' page - I really should explore more! Having an email notification sent to me for PM's is a brilliant tool! Going to read your other thread and see if that 'New Threads' search is of any interest to me...
Going to 'General' now is like a ghost town, bit sad really. The reality is, I don't think the change is necessarily going to help SS, regardless of whether it makes sense or not (which most of the thread moves do - with the exception of which ever mod moved this thread into 'Where to Buy' - what the??!!).
Having said that, I understand why Sim has made the changes. I value the community and will perservere with the changes. Just don't like to think I'm missing out on good threads because I don't always have time during work to go in and out of 12 forums to check for new threads.
Sim, thanks for the link to 'Edit Options' page - I really should explore more! Having an email notification sent to me for PM's is a brilliant tool! Going to read your other thread and see if that 'New Threads' search is of any interest to me...
Sim
Administrator
Unfortunately the system doesn't show that. However, you could just click on the link to read the thread!
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