Community Ideas

[Sydney]

point is.. with people constantly coming and leaving I don't think that the number of regulars will increase too much

cheers

[stratman]

Dyd & Ger make some good points.

I would guess if the 4741 "active" members could be polled, very very few would claim they were mistreated or abused.
Discounting the trolls and malcontents who came here looking for trouble, of course.

[Mother]

Id agree with that. You must remember that the vast majority of members have never posted, so we can hardly have mistreated them.

[GeraldTheMouse]

It's a shame, too. We missed the opportunity.

[Neshabur]

Originally posted by PearlWaters
Community Ideas: How can we make APFFN more welcoming?

I was a bit curious after the recent info posted here by Fulgers, so I decided to head out and do my own research in some randomly selected forums. As anticipated, there were a few bitter folks out there, who just had a bad experience with their visit here...(which in turn made my experience not so good at their forum ) I even got a "those people seemed cool". So it wasn't all bad. The main reason it seems, that some newcomers go without even posting, is because of alot of irrelevant off topic discussion, and also a sense that they will get ripped if they post. Now obviously not all feel this way, hence the success of the Welcome to the Machine Forum.

At first glance, I'd hope a new person gets more positive vibes than negative ones, as I'm sure all you would. Now I know when we get the occasional troublemaker that this will not be the case, which is cool. All in all, I don't mind what resentful past visitors feel about us, but it is a tool we can learn from. I mean, wouldn't it be nice to have 75 members logged in at once? Exciting!

So perhaps this is something we can all keep in mind when welcoming our new members. It is only natural that conversations will progress, but perhaps we could try to maintain it when not in the Just Babbling forum. What other ideas do you guys have about this? Your input is appreciated!

There is too much babble and not enough Floyd discussion. This will never change, because there are lots of people who use this forum as a chatroom or increase their self-consciousness by ripping "newbies", and less-informed people who ask a question. There are better Floyd forums around here (and I know I will get flamed for saying so, but it's what I think), where you don't have 5 pages of babble on 1 page of information and where most of the people who post regularly don't ignore the questions asked. This place is too big also, so it's often hard to find the answer you need, even with the search feature, so you post a new thread and get ripped. Discussion like "favourite kind of cucumbers" are irrelevant. The rest of the pinkfloydfan website is great, but the forum seems to me more like a chatroom of hundreds of people. It is big (but that can be hardly considered as a drawback).

[GeraldTheMouse]

Then go somewhere else. We do our best to answer questions and keep discussion interesting. The APFFN is a system of individuals, not a single entity on its own-- If you don't like it here, don't stick around.

[thorin13]

word to your mother.

[stratman]

I've never seen a good answerable question go unanswered. In fact, I'm regularly amazed that someone on this board usually knows the answer to the most obtuse questions.

Many questions get asked that have been answered before. If someone is unwilling to do a thorough search**before they ask something like "what does The Wall mean?" they deserve to be ignored, IMO.

Some Q's are just unanswerable. Like "what pickup setting was Dave using on that solo in Pigs At Madison Sq Garden on 2 Jul 77?" Well, Botley probably knows, but he's not here much.

**This means doing more than punching one word into search. Sometimes you have to try different possible words and scroll through old threads and posts looking for specifics.

[PearlWaters]

Neshabur, in addition to what the others said, this thread was intended for ideas on how to improve our community. Quite opposite of what you have done here, did you miss that part?

[Wing'd Icarus]

we should try that favourite kind of cucumbers thing, though. that'd be a riot.

[Bride of a Bull]

Let's not but say we did.

[Wing'd Icarus]

fair 'nuff.

sorry to derail the on topic train.


"Going off the rails on a [topic] train..."

[Bride of a Bull]

Nesh has a point, though, Pearly. But I hope Neshabur will notice that we tend to keep the chat discussion in the "Just Babbling" section of the forum and try to prevent the very real problem of off-topic chatter in the Pink Floyd-related areas of the site. Perhaps this is a responsibility which we must all assume for ourselves and the community if we're to prevent bothersome blanketeering and mindless chatter.

Paulo created Just Babbling for just that: babbling, and although even I had a bit of a problem with one thread in particular, I had to bite the bullet and accept that fact. There, within the rules of conduct and forum guidelines, anything goes and is sadly to be expected. Get over it or find a better place to hang out...pffft! good luck (IMO). We'll miss you.

[PearlWaters]

On topic, but that's how it goes
Millions of posters, off topic woes
Maybe, it's not too late
To learn how to post, and forget how to hate
Community not healing
Blanketing insane
I'm going off the rails on a topic train

[Simon]

By the by: Don't we already have a "chat" room? Suppose we actively encourage people to use that to cut down on mindless babble?

But it won't work. That was what PMs were supposed to be for. We already know how much THAT is being used...