Just a thought

I'm quite new here, ( Sunday) and it's taken me until now to work out that in the forum list, the folder with a number next to it, denotes sub-forums.

Would it not be better for the forum to actually show them, then the place may get busier ?

 

I like having them all listed out on the forum home as well. Nice change!

 

Gonna take more than that to get the forum busy. My opinion here, Bob needs to think about doing like what TAZ does, take on a few staff (and I mean a few like they have) to help get the post count going. There's no reason why this forum couldn't be just as active as TAZ now Admin Extra and Admin Addict is gone leaving only this forum and TAZ members from XenForo, vBulletin e.t.c like to visit as admin forums left. But there needs to be a driving force here (more staff in place) to help boost the site into activity.

You need to take a leaf out Howard's book, because that's how he keeps TAZ looking active, by keeping the staff member count very high who post a lot their daily, and that makes a huge difference. You should be looking to try and recruit about 10 new staff at least to start with, if you ask me and want to compete against the likes of TAZ. Do same thing they do.

 

There is a lot of activity on TAZ but imho a lot is fluff and I only actually read approx 20% of the threads there, there is the old saying ‘wise men talk because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something’. The trick I would say would be to reach a level somewhere between TAZ & AT to achieve a really good admin forum. No disrespect intended to either forum owners just my thoughts & opinions, and I will continue to visit both unless the ban hammer lands on me

 

Have pretty much same view about not expecting staff to keep forum post count going each day. It was an observation made about TAZ, who I think might expect it from staff members. And even if they don't, they do things to make it happen anyway - such as taking on review staff expected to post reviews of other sites their. So either way, Howard goes about it one way or another to make sure it happens from staff.

But my point is, TAZ would no doubt be a very different forum (much like here I'd guess) if it wasn't for all those staff Howard constantly keeps taking on, who in return keep a flow a new threads or posts going each day for people to read and possibly reply too. Without that constant flow of new threads and replies, well... you're going to struggle to get members posting anything at all when they visit daily and see nothing new has been added here since their last visit. Credit to Howard on that one, he knows the importance of that happening and why he keeps a large staff list in place to do it (to keep the forum looking active as possible).

I personally cannot see how this forum can hope to be any different "from what it is now", not unless you're willing to take note how other admin forums operate like that which works for them. I mean, what other solution do you think would change things here, or are you just not really bothered if this forum gets used much or not (as that's the impression I get, same impression got about AA)? I even see that CM30 hardly comes and posts here now, yet when Brandon owned this forum he posted a lot with new topics to help this site out. The extra staff that used to be active here under Brandon, who again helped in making this forum a little more active than now - they all seem to have gone.? Hate to say it, don't mean to be funny saying it, but Admin Talk has turned into another Admin Addict since you bought it, and simply because there's no "air of enthusiasm" to try and push this forum forward... same as on AA before. But thought when you merged AA with AT, you wanted to try and compete more seriously against the likes of TAZ.

I see Wonko and Ragtek liked your post, good for them, but why? All your post tells me is you have no plans (as I expected) to do anything really to try and revive this forum. You don't want extra staff because "they only want the position to be bigger than life". Not that I'm looking for a staff postion here, I'm not - but good luck if that's your view then, as you've got nowhere so far running AA and this forum single handed waiting for "just members" to boost things for you.

 

Whilst I agree with some of the things GTB has said, I also employ the rule that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
To copy what TAZ is doing is only admitting that they are doing it right, and I don't believe they are.

When phpBB Communities was going I was staff on there, ( under another guise), one thing it had that no other forum did so well was was a knowledge base, all those little snippets of code that made forums work better, or just look better, I want to implement one on TAZ, but it involved work, and they didn't want that. If AT were to start building one, that would drag people in, and keep them in.

Kept up to date it would be a valuable resource for all Admin, across all platforms.

 

Not about cloning another forum like TAZ, more about taking notice of what works for other sites and putting it into practice on your own board to see if it works. Especially so if things are currently not working out on your board the way things are. Then new ways should be tried out, unless you generally don't care either way how things are. But if you act that way, leave things as they are not working out, then members spot that and lose interest in the board. Why should a member stick with using a forum when seeing the admin makes no effort themselves to try and revive things back?

Again, I don't want to sound negative towards Bob, just being blunt. But he doesn't say much here, but then he doesn't on other forums either, that's the way he is and fair enough. But that doesn't fair well when running a board acting that way, never saying much when things are dead quiet, why this forum really could possibly benefit from extra staff that have a lot more to say. Howard is same way, he doesn't say much on TAZ most of time, it's his loud mouthed staff that carry the forum for him with their regular posts.

 

That sounds like a good idea to me, currently its a question of typing your issue into google or going to the forums for your particular flavour of software to hopefully find your answer, a forum offering a help center for different forum software could work well in that people can bounce ideas off each other across platforms which has to be beneficial to all in the long run.

 

But how does having a "knowledge base" section like phpBB has help a forum out much. People come read it, get information they wanted and leave. Forums are about posting, starting threads and posting replies (discussion taking place). Something like that might work on phpBB, because it means the staff don't have to keep repeating the same thing in topics to questions (asking same thing over and over), they can point them towards knowledge base. But that's phpBB.com, not Admin Talk.

 

A good rule of thumb when running a forum is for the Admin to be seen as part of the membership, here I don't see that. If the Admin can't be bothered to add content why employ others to do so? Taz as Wonko says are at the minute looking busy doing nothing, there is no real content on their that you want to add to, and it will quieten down soon. If I have to post on here more than the Admin I will not stay around to add content for him if he can't be bothered to do so himself.

 

Lets be honest... Howard sits in background most of time saying nothing on the forums (not as himself anyway). Instead he's clever enough to take on loads of staff to do that for him instead. He doesn't need to be seen as being active because of it, just lets his staff do it for him, why he always takes on a boat load of staff, then gives them "things to do" which means they'll post on forums.

 

The knowledge base was on phpBBCommunities, it had nothing to do with the official board, the idea behind it was to attract people, they joined and once they had a certain number of posts they gained access to the knowledge base, it worked because it got them into posting and kept them around.

 

Another thing to, don't understate Howard and how crafty he can be. When I stopped posting on forums before for around 3 months (was busy playing WOT), and got bored with forums. Then came back later and posted here first (not on Admin Extra). But in that time away Howard had taken over AX (when Brandon still ran this forum) before Bob took over it. I got PM's here from both Lisa and Howard "begging me" to go post back on AX under new ownership, Howard said he'd removed my ban ready.

He'll even come on other forums like this using the PM system trying to poach members, ones he thinks his forum can benefit from having back active their instead of here.

 

I was going to say Howard rarely posts even when someone specifically asks him a question or it takes a long time, as to why have a knowledge base in respect to bringing members in think of it as a bit like a shop window enticing you to buy stuff from inside.

 

An Admin on here has hardly posted in the past weeks, but he is over at TAZ posting daily ?

 

Who?

You mean an Admin of this forum, or a person who admins their own forum?

 

This!!

 

Ah right, do you mean Brandon by chance, seen him posting on TAZ recently after he left admin scene for a while when selling this forum to Bob. But didn't think he was an admin here now.