Chat vs. posting: the death match

[Hatshepsut]

I think part of the evolution of this board is determining how much traffic constitutes a "healthy" level of traffic. I've been on boards where there are over 1000 registered members, but the actual number of active posters is more in the range of 50-75 and that was perceived by the Powers That Be and the membership as just fine and healthy. Is that enough for here or do we need to have a few hundred regular posters to feel like things are going well? This isn't the SDMB and we're not going to have a couple thousand people as active posters at any given time -- at least not any time soon. Once there is a definitive answer to that question, we can then start to assess what needs to be done.

I think these are wise words. When I came here the SD was my only real benchmark, and so I regarded our lower activity level as something to be overcome, so we could be more like the Dope.

Now, I'm starting to take a slightly different view. As long as you like the people and have an opportunity to participate in some interesting discussions about things that matter to you, read a few well-written posts, enjoy some quick wit, and share a few laughs on a regular basis, why does the board "have" to churn as quickly as the SDMB? Sure, it is unlikely that domebo will instantly sate my curiosity or relieve my boredom if I check it ten times a day, but on the other hand, I won't waste nearly as much time when I should be working as I did when I was Doping. To keep up with a board like the Dope requires an almost scary investment of time (if you want to keep up with board politics, know who the frequent posters are, and stay abreast of fast-moving threads, that is - you can always dip your toe into the occasional MPSIMS thread and ignore the big picture, but then you find yourself wondering why half the board is sniggering about buckeyes and no one knows who you are). Domebo is manageable - you can be part of this community, keep track of what's happening here and feel that you know and are known by the committed posters, and also have time for real life.

In other words, had my initial expectations not been set by the SD, I think I would be pretty content with how things are here now. Of course, I'd still like to see us grow, and I am fearful that we are in danger of a long-term slide into nothingness. But if we can maintain what we have and perhaps grow slowly, I can be happy with that.

[Myrnalene]

There are currently 20 posters with 1000 or more posts on Domebo, 30 with between 500-999 and another 31 with between 300-499 -- several of the members in that bottom category are very regular participants in chat. That makes 80 people I'd call "regular" participants, give or take. Is that enough to sustain the board? Is that way too few? Figure out those questions and we'll at least know what direction to move in, even if we don't have a game plan yet...

Looking through the top 50 names I see at least 10 that don't post here anymore, and quite a few that post less than they did. I see more posters like that filling out the top 100. Now that list doesn't include some regular chatters with low post counts, or newer posters. But IMHO, the activity on the forums has dropped below an ideal level because fewer people are visiting and posting. It's as simple as that.

I would never want as many posters and the SDMB. I don't know what the magic number is to make us feel more healthy, to ensure there is always interesting conversation to be found in the forums. 50 more active posters? 100? I don't know. How do we get them? I don't know.

I'll tell you one thing, though. Whatever our problem is - it's not chat, people. Chatters are the ones that are here when no one else is. Chatters do start threads. We advertise our threads in chat and point out interesting things on the board to one another. If you see 17 posters online and 5 of them are in chat, that doesn't mean that if you took chat away you would have those 5 posting in the forums. More than likely, those 5 would have come online, seen hardly any new threads and posts, and moved on leaving only 12 online.

[Dangerously Unqualified]

I think this is true to a point, and I know that there are sometimes worthwhile converstations that happen in chat that would make interesting threads. We do occasionally suggest that a thread be started if we notice something like that is going on.

On the other hand, like jimbo said the most active chatters are also the most active posters. Those of us that are chat regulars (and there aren't really that many of us) can't carry the whole board. We need fresh faces here, in the threads and in chat. We need those who slipped quietly away to come back. I just don't know how we make that happen.

One word: Exit Interviews

Um...

Ok, two words: Have Exit Interviews

Ah, that's not right either.

Meh...

What I mean is, those who've slipped quietly away have, more often than not (and it would be interesting to see something factual on this but I ain't the one, bub) have slipped quietly away to somewhere else we are all (most) somewhat familiar with. I'm not saying we should be trying to recruit them back from "There" but rather these are the people that we should be asking about what we can do to improve the "Here".

In some cases the answer may be "Nothing". In my case, my time/opportunity/desire/libido to participate on the boards varies widely so sometimes I'm around a lot, sometimes I'm around a little and sometimes I'm just a round fellow.

Other people may have less esoteric motives for a recession in participation.

Either way I don't think chat is a bad thing for the board, I believe it serves it's purpose and provides an additional communication interface, one that is a little less focused and a little more immediate. Chat has and is the essence of ADD.

Of course I also don't think that humans as a species are capable of either destroying or repairing the planet other than with an intentional and malicious terrestrial attack, our incidentals are but a grain of sand on a beach, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

[McNutty]

I'll tell you one thing, though. Whatever our problem is - it's not chat, people. Chatters are the ones that are here when no one else is. Chatters do start threads.

You may be surprised at the impact of chat. Now, granted, interpretation of data like this is an art form and certainly there could be other ways to look at this data and other explanations for the trend, but look at this graph. That's the posting trends of the top 5 chatters over the history of the board*. Chat was introduced on May 4. It looks to me like there was an upward trend until then, and then a sharp drop, followed by a downward trend. I would guess the downward trend aftwarwards is nothing special and simply mirrors the overall downward trend the board is taking, but I can't imagine the large drop at the beginning of May is caused by anything but the introduction of chat.

Now, you can argue that maybe all those posts people were making were better suited to chat, etc, and I think that's a fair point. The drop by itself is not necessarily the problem if it was a drop in content that's just plain better suited to chat. But it has definitely had an impact on the number of new posts, and that probably contributes to people's perception of how "active" the board is.

*as obtained via:

mysql domebo -u domebo -p -B -e 'select post_time from phpbb_posts where poster_id in (select user_id from phpbb_chat group by user_id order by count(user_id) desc limit 5)' --skip-column-names | sort -n | ruby -e '$stdin.each do |line| puts Time.at(line.to_i).strftime("%m/%d/%Y") end' | uniq -c | awk '{print $2 " " $1}'

[featherlou]

Hmmm. If chat is indeed causing the message boards to slow right down, I guess the bottom line is, does it really matter if people are coming to Domebo to chat or to post, as long as they're coming?

[dread pirate jimbo]

Hmmm. If chat is indeed causing the message boards to slow right down, I guess the bottom line is, does it really matter if people are coming to Domebo to chat or to post, as long as they're coming?

That is precisely my point as well. If the board is active on chat and less active in the threads, does that really mean it is less active? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[What Exit?]

Hmmm. If chat is indeed causing the message boards to slow right down, I guess the bottom line is, does it really matter if people are coming to Domebo to chat or to post, as long as they're coming?

That is precisely my point as well. If the board is active on chat and less active in the threads, does that really mean it is less active? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Depends, if you are a member that came here for the posting, it is disappointing that Domebo has gone close to dormant as a board. There is no way around the fact the Domebo is a fairly boring place to post now. Chat is very good and I would love nothing better than to see both thriving.

On the other hand, a very slow board is good for me at the moment as I am way busier at work and home than I have been in years. I would not have been able to give Domebo any more attention this month that the little I have.

[dread pirate jimbo]

Well, I've dropped 8 posts so far today (9 including this one), so I'm doing my bit for the health of the site! Everyone else needs to step it up now!

[featherlou]

I've started three threads today.

[dread pirate jimbo]

Calgary represent!

[Glazer]

How much of this slow down can be attributed to summer. The dope always slowed down in the summer. But with a much larger user base it is less noticeable. I know I spend less time at the 'puter when the weather's nice. And post less when I'm here 'cause there's less threads to post to.

[dread pirate jimbo]

How much of this slow down can be attributed to summer. The dope always slowed down in the summer. But with a much larger user base it is less noticeable. I know I spend less time at the 'puter when the weather's nice. And post less when I'm here 'cause there's less threads to post to.

That's an interesting point to bring to the mix. One of the wee tiny boards I used to post to got pretty slow in the summer as well and ground almost to a complete halt every weekend. Will things pick up come fall? That's a very interesting question to which I'm now curious to see the answer...

[elmwood]

One word: Exit Interviews

Okay, I'll bite, as an early, somewhat active user who sort of gave up on DoMeBo after a few weeks. (I'll still visit to see if there's anything interesting from time to time, but usually lurk.)

So, why did I leave?

1) DoMeBo just seemed "unfinished". The header image and graphic scheme was unchanged from default phpBB for a long time, and even now it still looks like a generic phpBB default installation, without any customization or theming. The main page is a default Joomla CMS theme without any DoMeBo customization. After so long, it just tells me "we're not going to invest the time into giving this site a personality of its own" or "Here's a site, now you guys go fill it up".

On a related note, using phpBB doesn't help. It tells me "we're not willing to spend the money on decent message board software, so we'll use a so-so open source program instead." There are busy phpBB sites, but many end up moving to vBulletin or IPB after they become successful because tey are more secure, more flexible, and scales up better. People are also used to vBulletin, and this general "feel". Investing the money into vBulletin or IPB would tell me, and likely others, that the founders of DoMeBo are probably in it for the long haul; if it fails, I feel like the founders would say "at least we're not out the money we would have spent on vBulletin."

2) Weird moderation and administration. For example, I've never seen another message board where the mod forum was open. I don't think the site management is any more transparent, but rather that the open mod forum provides a not-so-genuine illusion of transparency. Most message boards have hidden moderator forums, and the users know about them. Hidden mod forums are needed IMHO to provide an "executive session" environment for board leaders to discuss board issues, disciplinary action, and so on. The open mod forums are also just another place where more forum drama is visible to the public.

3) Most importantly, DoMeBo just seems like it's just a SDMB spinoff, without much of a personality of its own. A plus in DoMeBo's favor is that it's not a "vanity forum" in a similar vein as may other SDMB spinoffs. Still, there wasn't much to make it that much different then the SDMB, content-wise, except allowing photos. Giraffe Boards is developing a personality of its own that I think fills a niche between the SDMB and Something Awful.

I run a fairly busy message board (not a general interest site), participate on the SDMB (and, increasingly, GB), and lurk and occasionally post on SA. I also keep memberships on the vBulletin forums and a message board administrator message board (very meta, I know), visiting them when an issue on my site comes up. I'm message-boarded out, and I think others are stretched out thinly too. Given the choice of SDMB II or a spinoff board with a personality of its own, I'm going to go for the one that provides a new experience, not just the same experience in smaller doses with less churn. I already belong to one SDMB, after all.

Although I'm not staying away due to chat, it's hurting DoMeBo IMHO. Several years ago, members of my message board asked for a chat room. I said "no", because ...

* Users would be less inclined to post. Critical mass on a message board comes from the number posts, not the length of its chat log.
* The board would be taken less seriously as a professional resource (even though there's a very busy off-topic subforum); chat is just seen as something teenagers do); and
* Websense and other filter companies could reclassify the site from "Professional Forum", which is usually permitted at most workplaces, to "Social Chat", which is blocked more often than not.
* On a busy message board, posts are already close to a real-time chat.

Keep chat on the same domain as the message boards, and I guarantee you DoMeBo will become blocked at more and more workplaces.

[Myrnalene]

Elmwood, thank you for taking the time to come and give your feedback.

Just a note - the mods do have a moderation forum now that is hidden to the members.

[Hatshepsut]

Yes, thank you elmwood - that was very interesting. For me, the reference to domebo not being a vanity forum was especially notable - I've been thinking that one difference between SDMB and domebo is that we don't have "personality cults" here, which is a good thing as I find that very off-putting. I don't spend enough time at Giraffe to really be sure, but they also seem to be more prone to that sort of thing than we are (though I lurk there so little that it is unfair of me to say that - if there are any committed Raffers reading this who think I'm wrong, I probably am).

Not that it matters a lot - that wasn't the key point elmwood was making. Still, it's nice to know I wasn't the only one who noticed it.

[dread pirate jimbo]

elmwood does make some interesting points that I certainly would not have considered. Not paying for a particular kind of software will put people off? Frankly, I had no idea that the phpBB software was free, nor does it matter to me in the least whether anyone had to pay for it. But I can see where elmwood is going with that.

The item of this seeming too much like an SDMB spinoff I felt was much more of a concern in the early stages when the format was identical right down to the forum headings, but I see a very distinct culture forming here that is quite unlike the SDMB. Having said that, the three most popular topics of discussion around here seem to be a) what's going on at this site, b) what's going on at the SDMB and c) what's going on at Giraffe Boards. I believe that until domebo gets out from underneath the SDMB obsession (and, to a lesser extent, the Giraffe obsession), it'll never really start to find its way, so I don't disagree with elmwood there.

Interesting perspective, though. I also appreciate seeing the input.

[Harlequin]

I believe that until domebo gets out from underneath the SDMB obsession (and, to a lesser extent, the Giraffe obsession), it'll never really start to find its way

Yes. I tried saying this early on, but it seemed that people would rather obsess about another board than give this one a unique identity.

[dread pirate jimbo]

I believe that until domebo gets out from underneath the SDMB obsession (and, to a lesser extent, the Giraffe obsession), it'll never really start to find its way

Yes. I tried saying this early on, but it seemed that people would rather obsess about another board than give this one a unique identity.

On the upside, if we figure out a way to lure more non-Dopers here, like Oliveloaf, the SDMB chatter will start to fade away due to lack of interest or connection.

[elmwood]

Too many typos in my post ... sorry! Thanks for listening, though.

[dogbutler]

How much of this slow down can be attributed to summer. The dope always slowed down in the summer. But with a much larger user base it is less noticeable. I know I spend less time at the 'puter when the weather's nice. And post less when I'm here 'cause there's less threads to post to.

It's my fault, I was in Vegas getting hammered. I promise I'll post more from now on.

[elmwood]

How much of this slow down can be attributed to summer. The dope always slowed down in the summer. But with a much larger user base it is less noticeable. I know I spend less time at the 'puter when the weather's nice. And post less when I'm here 'cause there's less threads to post to.

Every message board slows down a bit during the summer. On my site, it's slower during school vacations, even though it's not really a student site; students do drive some of the traffic, though, and adults are more likely to be out with their children. Traffic also slides during December, bottoming out between Christmas and New Year's Day before sharply climbing back up. Because most members of the site are urban planners and planning students, many of whom post from work, things are also slower on weekends and especially tree-day weekends, although that's usually not the case with general interest sites.

Summer lulls are usually just that, though ... lulls, where traffic might be down by 10% to 25% or so. Unless a message board is dealing with a seasonal topic (ice sports, for example), traffic shouldn't crash in the way it did on DoMeBo. Consider that a "summer lull" didn't affect GB to the same extent as here.

[Heffalump]

I've seen a lot of comparisons between Giraffe's and DoMeBo, giving the advice that if DoMeBo had done what Giraffe's did, they'd be more successful. I don't agree.

DoMeBo started with a lot of very prolific, high-profile posters from the SDMB who were very contentious to begin with and very angry at that time. Several of them brought with them their admirers and their peanut gallery. Many of them have since gone back to the SDMB. When Giraffe's started, most of those people were already posting at DoMeBo and decided not to move to Giraffe's. Giraffe's got a lot of people who were not very prolific on the SDMB, a lot of lurkers and a few who hadn't posted on the SDMB at all. Given the very different natures of the communities, different approaches were required.

If DoMeBo took a hands-off approach, there would have been and there was quite a lot of chaos here. Giraffe's was able to use the approach of enforcing less rules because there was less contention there at the time. I do agree, however, that there were way too many mod actions even given the increased rules here early on.

While it's great to look at other message boards to see what works and hopefully adopt some of what works, I think it's less useful to go back and second-guess what could have worked better, especially when the composition of the posting populations are very different. As the compositions of the posting populations changes, shifts in the culture are inevitable. Whether the rules and policies change or not also affects the culture.

As far as chat vs. posting, it seems that the culture here is that chatting in posts is not desired. If that's the case, post count will inevitably be low since it's difficult to come up with a sufficiently serious post with every posting. One of the message boards that I've participated on had the requirement that only non-chatty posts be posted. They also had a problem with very low poster participation with only a very few people participating. That may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it doesn't make a conducive environment for a lot of differing opinions.

One of the nice things about the SDMB is that there's a place for all of that. If you want to be chatty, you can go to MPSIMS and if you want to be serious, you can go to GD.

One of the things that might be helpful is to go back through DoMeBo's history and see what was happening when post count was highest. I seem to remember people changing their custom titles and changing their avatars with quite a bit of poster participation. If you're looking for more poster participation, you might consider if those things are still considered fun by the community. Or perhaps ask the community what they think might be fun for them to participate in.

[featherlou]

Thread pimpin' - speaking of messing with avatars...

[beebs]

I don't want to seem chatty, but I just wanted to say I liked H&R's post.