Most appropriate place to put forward ideas to help bl that are not technical

[Forum Moderator]

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[alasdairm]

the support forum is the appropriate place for such discussion.

alasdair

 

[zephyr]

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[zephyr]

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[zephyr]

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[alasdairm]

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now is fine

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i don't really understand what the issue is but happy to discuss.

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i don't understand this question. what update are you seeking?

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where they always are: TheLoveBandit; Sebastians_ghost

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i disagree. the whole transition was focused on a pretty specific problem and i believe that we solved that problem. we discussed it at great length and knew that we'd lose some traffic but the kind of traffic we lost was not a great loss, imo.

lounge traffic dropped around 35% between july and november 2016. this year, between july and november 2017, lounge traffic is up around 80%. it's still down compared to the same period last year.

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we'd discuss and take appropriate action, same as for the lounge.

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you seem to think that's some silver bullet. if staff don't want to participate in the lounge nobody is going to force them. people find their favourite forums and participate. it's organic. we can encourage people to diversify their bl interests but, beyond that, i am not sure what you think we should be doing?

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again, i don't understand this. we changed the system to address people pushing boundaries and endlessly causing trouble when points expired.

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how long are we going to have to talk about this? it was a mistake over 3 years ago and it was rectified immediately. why do you feel it's relevant?

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the lounge's forum description is: "The Lounge is Bluelight's off-topic gathering place."

what do you think we need to do in terms of direction?

[Removed at the request of user]

when you modded the lounge, you barely posted in psychedelic drugs, cannabis discussion or m&ed. so you obviously don't give a shit about those forums? what should we have done to force you to participate more in those forums? obviously, i'm exaggerating to make the point but there is a parallel.

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i disagree. there are close to 100 bluelight staff, the majority of whom show up day in and day out to moderate their forums. it's a thankless task and i think, for the most part, they're doing a great job.

[Removed at the request of user]

sure. hindsight is 100% and we definitely made some mistakes. but we dealt with it and we moved on.

the regional forums are always going to be parochial because of their very nature. what are you suggesting?

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well, for a while it was. we addressed it with the lounge->social->lounge transition.

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there's a lot here. i mostly disagree with what you have written and suspect that we'll never agree on your last point.

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your feedback is welcome, [Removed at the request of user], but this reads like hyperbole and i disagree. we addressed what we believed was a serious problem and i believe we did the right thing.

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we're not planning any changes to the infraction system at this time.

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if you see posts which you believe are problematic, please report them.

thanks for the feedback, [Removed at the request of user]. i have to admit i'm a little confused by some of your points. there is some good encouragement here but, with some of your points, it's not clear what exactly you expect us to do. happy to discuss specific suggestions.

alasdair

 

[zephyr]

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[zephyr]

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[tathra]

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the post quota idea is bad because it encourages shitposting and a low signal to noise ratio simply to maintain your quota. should we prioritize quantity or quality?

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this is a good idea, even if its something only available to, say, staff or members that have been around for a certain amount of time as a test run.

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the problem here is that going into other areas of the board needs to come naturally, else it'll feel like a chore and lead to quicker burnout. most people are pretty limited in where they post because they go where their interests and hobbies take them, thats just how people are. user tagging could be a good way to tackle this without it feeling forced though.

 

[zephyr]

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[alasdairm]

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help me understand what that achieves? if there's a thread you'd like moved, just ask the staff...

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fixed.

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i get the feeling that you think staff posting is some kind of silver bullet? i encourage staff to post frequently across a wide spectrum of forums but if psychedelic drugs (off the top of my head) moderators elect to not post in the lounge, nobody is going to force them any more than we're going to force you to post in psychedelic drugs.

people will post where they want and the best thing you can do is to post the kind of content you want in the lounge.

for interest, i just ran lounge stats for the last 6 months and 25% of posts are by staff. i'm interested to hear opinion on whether that seems low, high or about right but it doesn't seem low to me at all.

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contribution in the forum they're moderating is the focus when selecting staff. you were on staff and you know this. if a staffer is interested in (again picked at random) psychedelic drugs, applies to become a moderator in that forum, gets the job and posts the significant bulk of their posts in that forum, i absolutely do not have a problem with that.

alasdair

 

[tathra]

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i'm pretty sure a lot of the worst of the lounge was directed at me ever since i came back, because i've taken a lot of shit in there (mostly from a small group of people), which you well know, but its improved a lot since then; hell, even phrozen has mostly calmed down and is pretending that he's a nice guy, and the most of the ones that couldnt manage that have left. change comes slow, especially for a really cliquey cesspool like the lounge, but its well on its way to being the kind of place SG, TLB, and ali said they wanted it to become.

[Removed at the request of user]

some people are just more sociable and prolific at posting than others and have a wider range of interests (or just dont know how to shut up, ha ). for me, from the very beginning i've mainly stuck to a small handful of forums, first the focus forums and then as time went on i switched to the community forums. shit, i was the one that first suggested the creation of the Sci/Tech forum a very long time ago but i've barely gone in there after they finally got around to making it (i would have nurtured it like my child if it would have been created back then though), and while i know my immense knowledge and experience would be a huge boon to BDD, OD, and a few other forums, i just cant do it anymore (though i'd respond to a thread or 2 if asked/directed there, but i cant peruse all those threads every day like i used to). everyone's personalities, circumstances, and limits are different, and we can only work with who we are and what we have, and try to make the best of it and hope to do better over time. such is life.

i dont know how senior mod selection works, but for moderators they need to demonstrate immense knowledge, interest, and at least some baseline level of participation in the forum they wish to moderate, so even that is pretty insular; my HR and pharmacological knowledge wasnt relevant towards choosing me to be a mod anywhere but the focus forums.

then there's also real life stuff that everyone has to deal with, and thats typically prioritized over bluelight for obvious reasons, and as i'm sure you know there's behind the scenes stuff has to be taken care of in a timely manner to prevent or stop disruptions, repugnant drama and airing of dirty laundry that's nobody's business, and much worse, plus the cleanup involved when that kind of stuff happens, especially if its allowed to get out of hand due to apathy or any number of reasons.

help me understand what that achieves? if there's a thread you'd like moved, just ask the staff...

every forum has an archive, "The Old Lounge" is simply the archive for the lounge. i'm not sure what sending the archive back to the active posting area would accomplish either, or even sending a single thread. if there's a good thread idea in there that you'd like to see revitalized (like say color wars or i'm with stupid, to name a few personal favorites), simply start a new version of it and put a link to the old one in the first post. you could do the same with Best of Bluelight threads (maybe try asking how to ask a girl to do cocaine)

 

[CFC]

Yeah I'm not a good example to put on a pedestal I have ADHD so I'm interested in way more things than the average person by my nature. I've also had a load of free time recently due to some prolonged illnesses, but I'm likely to have less time to post soon as IRL takes over again

I do think folks could probably post around more than they do though. They just tend to forget we have a sci/tech forum, or LAVA for sharing cool photos and asking about life experience-type questions, or a sports forum and so on. We are coming up with ideas to try and increase awareness of these various fora though.

Regarding @tagging/mentions, which is a cool thing that we definitely favour, if anyone knows of a good PLUGIN for vBulletin (that isn't plagued with bugs and security flaws) do let us know!

 

[PotatoMan]

i appreciate your time [Removed at the request of user].

i hear your concerns and i will try to do better.

i think the team does well tho.

TL, like most things will never be perfect so let's not try so hard to strive for perfection because our ideas of perfect are all different.

what you mention is very important and i agree with some of what you have said.

we're trying over there but staff are only volunteers. we all got our lives in the balance and sometimes it can make it hard to post here but for the most part, at least for me, i don't wanna give up on it, particularly on TL as i think the other forums have been doing more or less the same.

but having said that, i believe that 2018 will be good for TL as we will get the help we deserve and things will flourish now that most of the dust has settled.

can't have peace without war.

"and sometimes money trumps peace"-George W. Bush

 

[zephyr]

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[swilow]

^When you were on staff- or even now- how broadly did you post? I struggle with the idea that broader posting habits would do much besides dilute a moderators input into a forum. Forums seem to benefit a lot from having a dedicated and persistent community rather than being comprised of heaps of members contributing very little. I could be wrong, I am making assumptions here. But I think there could be greater benefit in, say, 20 posts across 5 forums rather than 1 post in 20 forums.

I'm really curious how you think staff posting "across the board" is going to increase traffic (which in many contexts is increasing). I'm not disagreeing but I just wonder why you think this will solve this problem you see.

Membership of Bluelight actually continues to increase in terms of access to the Focus Forums and new sign ups. Of course, the social forums have declined somewhat due to the advent of social media, but we still get lots of new members signing up everyday to access the main services we are offering. I think its fair to say that the HR agenda of Bluelight is really moving forward and that is what its all about. Isn't it?

 

[swilow]

Thanks to CFC for generating this graph. This quantifies an ever increasing base of active members, notable during a time when you'd think there'd be a bit of a slump in membership.

 

[tathra]

I'm really curious how you think staff posting "across the board" is going to increase traffic (which in many contexts is increasing). I'm not disagreeing but I just wonder why you think this will solve this problem you see.

The idea is for staff to lead by example. there may be some benefit to doing something like, i don't want to say requiring, but strongly urging, maybe with a "prize" of some sort than could be earned or won, but something like having staff create one new thread once every week or 2 in forums they don't normally participate in. Nothing major enough to feel like a chore or anything, but a small nudge to help spur some activity into some of the slower forums, yaknow? What could be given as a 'prize' or 'benefit' for that kind of idea?

 

[zephyr]

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[zephyr]

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