This place seems very quiet

Fed up talking videogames? Why?
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That
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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by That » Tue Jun 09, 2015 3:38 pm

Moggy wrote:I think I disagree with the idea of the forum being the place to publish content. Rightly or wrongly I don’t think many people see a forum post as a good way of publishing something that you have spent a long time preparing. Forum posts are more throwaway (even if they are serious in tone or have had effort spent on them). [...]


Good post and interestingly reasoned arguments. It's worth remarking that the volume and consistent quality of content to make a blog-alike website worth reading is incredibly high. We would be competing with people for whom writing Buzzfeed/Cracked/etc. articles is a for-real paid job.

I'm not per se against your idea. If a serious proposal for how such a site would work emerges, backed by a real and budgeted (in terms of people's time) plan on how to source the content required from our members, then I'm happy to lend it all the technical support that I can give it.

Ideas like this have been struggling to gain traction for years. If it's going to get afloat this time, we need to decide what our product is - is it the community itself (and stuff we might incidentally be up to), or is it hypothetical bespoke content the community might produce? If it's the latter, that's fine, but we need to outline how we're going to successfully build that product in a potentially saturated market.

When I describe GRcade to mates, I say that it's a fun place to hang out with a lot of interesting and likeable chaps that I consider good friends. If that's our product, then there are better ways to bottle and sell it than a blog; but if a blog itself is going to be our product then that's OK too if you come up with a functional blueprint.


EDIT: Curating a YouTube channel is a good idea regardless of the above considerations, though. Whether we go for a blog, some kind of community bulletin, or whether the channel itself is our only 'product', it would be a feasible marketable lump of bottled 'community spirit' (for lack of a better term).

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Poser » Tue Jun 09, 2015 3:40 pm

Moggy wrote:
What's wrong with posting Chris Pratt literature?


In one of my clients' lines of work, CP is cerebral palsy.

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Errkal » Tue Jun 09, 2015 3:40 pm

1>3>4>2 wrote:We can create articles with a distinct GR flavour like "THE ETHICS OF A MASS WANK: YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!



"HE DECIDED TO gooseberry fool ON HER TITS, WHAT HAPPENED NEXT HAD ME IN TEARS"

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Errkal » Tue Jun 09, 2015 3:46 pm

On a serious note, we could start using the thread idea to see how it goes with making regular content, if we can keep it up and there are enough "content" threads to feed a home page / articles page then we could work at migrating our work to that with the article linking back to the thread for discussion on what ever that weeks article is.

You could have an "articles" tag people use for their content stuff to easily show then when they have a new thing they either update the OP with this weeks / months / days whatever article and conversation goes from there to makes a new thread for this week so each article has its own chat content below, you just theme the titles to show they are part of the same series. That way when we go full on news/article page the page could be dynamically created from the OP's of the various threads in the "articles" tag.

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Moggy » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:02 pm

Karl wrote:we need to decide what our product is - is it the community itself (and stuff we might incidentally be up to), or is it hypothetical bespoke content the community might produce? If it's the latter, that's fine, but we need to outline how we're going to successfully build that product in a potentially saturated market..


I think calling things a blog make them sound shitty. Nobody wants to read other peoples blogs.

I was thinking more of articles that people here might enjoy writing and other people might enjoy reading. Less “I just ate a sandwich and I am going to tell you all about it” and more “A history of Sega” or “The Fermi Paradox explained” (to steal one from Wait but Why).

One of our most popular posts of all time was Brerlappin’s tour of Chernobyl. That worked as a forum post and was fantastic but would have worked just as well if it was a front page article that along with similar quality content (but not necessarily the same subject) could act as a way of keeping people on the site and encouraging people to explore the forum to comment on the article and/or post better pics than Lagamorph.

I don’t think this site is ever going to be a Buzzfeed (and that’s not a bad thing ;) ), but we have enough talent here to produce decent content which may help us attract new members in the future.

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Herdanos » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:21 pm

Moggy wrote:I don’t think this site is ever going to be a Buzzfeed


I can see it

27 TIMES THE CHAT ROOM THREAD WAS THE FUNNIEST THREAD OF ALL TIME

18 OF THE GREATEST EVER CHRISTMAS NAMECHANGES

10 TIMES KARLPROF WAS 10

51 TIMES DBLOCK JUST DIDN'T GET THE THREAD

16 POSTS THAT SUM UP WHY EARL GREY WAS GR'S BIGGEST BELLEND

2 TIMES FANBOY HAD A MOTHER

24 GIFS THAT PERFECTLY SUM UP AYAW

38 DIAGRAMS THAT ILLUSTRATE THE UNIQUE ENIGMA OF TODAY'S GRCADE MODERATION

125 TIMES A DIFFERENT FONT COLOUR WAS USED

etc.

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Moggy » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:25 pm

Dan. wrote:
Moggy wrote:I don’t think this site is ever going to be a Buzzfeed


I can see it

27 TIMES THE CHAT ROOM THREAD WAS THE FUNNIEST THREAD OF ALL TIME

18 OF THE GREATEST EVER CHRISTMAS NAMECHANGES

10 TIMES KARLPROF WAS 10

51 TIMES DBLOCK JUST DIDN'T GET THE THREAD

16 POSTS THAT SUM UP WHY EARL GREY WAS GR'S BIGGEST BELLEND

2 TIMES FANBOY HAD A MOTHER

24 GIFS THAT PERFECTLY SUM UP AYAW

38 DIAGRAMS THAT ILLUSTRATE THE UNIQUE ENIGMA OF TODAY'S GRCADE MODERATION

125 TIMES A DIFFERENT FONT COLOUR WAS USED

etc.


DAN SHOWED HIS TRUE FEMINISM AND MELTED HEARTS FOREVER.

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Green Gecko » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:37 pm

Brerlappin wrote:I think we should just face facts that gr will always be a rather small corner of the internet. Well never do neogaf numbers, and its always fairly quiet, but there will always be enough die hards to keep the place afloat. I doubt a YT channel will change that. That's just my rather pessimistic 0.02c

I sometimes feel this way, but it's worth remembering that with the right creative behind something like this and given that it takes a great deal of time and effort to build an effective online presence in any media, I try to remember that all those uber famous YT (and I am not expecting that level of success at all) personalities started by.. well, just uploading a video and pretty much seeing what happened.

I have worked in the online video industry and have seen stuff I didn't expect to do well go wild and attract 10s of 1000s of views in days.

Also the potential of re-investing ad revenue in our own promoted content is not (of course) discussed here, however that's a very real opportunity. It may not be obvious but the tools available for online promotion on a cost per click basis are really very effective these days even on the smallest budgets of dollars per day. And in terms of the long tail I have that very much covered as well as I am qualified in search engine optimisation and have plenty of strategies for this. Actually the new theme is a very important part of that spurred by the latest developments and it will receive all the right tricks with my intervention.

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Christopher » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:55 pm

I guess the reason new people don't stay long is because the personalities here are quite big and then when someone new turns up with a big personality we push them away.

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Eighthours » Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:20 pm

We don't need to be a NeoGAF. We just have to be self-sustaining as a forum and make sure that we're capable of replacing any leavers with an equivalent number of newbies. There is inevitably going to be some turnover of members on any forum. I really don't think that having a website/blog should be in our plans - there are a gazillion other places where people can get such content and I don't think that it would be a draw when, even with the best will in the world, our content would likely be inferior in terms of quality and frequency compared to our go-to sites. A GRcade Youtube channel, though, would be cool in fostering more of a sense of community among us, even if we don't necessarily gain many new members from it.

Making the forum itself a great place is more likely to keep us viable than concentrating our efforts on recruiting new members. If GRcade is an awesome and enjoyable place to come to, it will naturally lend itself to more people joining without us having to do much direct advertising. Word of mouth is so underrated. More good posts and well-run forum games/events, fewer needless personal attacks and bitching: that's how GRcade survives in the long term.

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Green Gecko » Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:32 pm

The trick is to curate and present the latter stuff into an accessible layout. The community will always be the heart of what GRcade is, the key is opening it up to participation from "outsiders" and that can be achieved with layout and not necessary a giant shift in philosophy.

It is interesting that YouTube isn't necessarily considered blogging or article writing etc, when what is actually happening in the industry is video content is often superceding that, even just in terms of sheer audience numbers and time spent consuming such content. And video allows for big personalities, and the character (dare say even charisma) and other such community appeal factors to be presented in the most accessible way.

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
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❤ btw GRcade costs money and depends on donations - please support one of the UK's oldest video gaming forums → HOW TO DONATE
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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by <]:^D » Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:43 pm

TigaSefi wrote:
Karl wrote:
TigaSefi wrote:Given how quickly your viewpoint can be shut down on a thread, it's not a surprise that people don't talk as much.


No-one here is unduly censored, I should think? Moderators usually sweep in on issues of tone; if you're polite you can say pretty much anything.


That wasn't quite what I was getting at. You can have viewpoints and say what you want. Just the other people doesn't get what you are saying. See my comments about Mad Max and how people doesn't get what I am trying to get across (apart from one person). I won't bother in the future apart from saying "it was good/naff".


that's just Denster :toot:

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Herdanos » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:17 pm

Green Gecko wrote:The trick is to curate and present the latter stuff into an accessible layout. The community will always be the heart of what GRcade is, the key is opening it up to participation from "outsiders" and that can be achieved with layout and not necessary a giant shift in philosophy.


In which case...

Might the Archive be something to reconsider? Given that there's no purging of old and inactive threads on this board anyway, 'Archiving' classic threads doesn't protect them from deletion as much as it simply locks them for further discussion.

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Green Gecko » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:33 pm

I think that will be replaced by an Archive or Top Pick or similar tag instead.

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Albert » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:45 pm

Would it not be a better idea to find an already established website and join as the Forum function? Like PWOT did with cracked.

I just don't see people having enough time etc to create their own front page and keeping it relevant.

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Green Gecko » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:51 pm

I'd like to see what we can do before locking ourselves out of the option by affiliating fully which is can be very difficult to back out of as well as effectively unbranding and orphaning off "GRcade" as it currrently stands. If such a site fails, we're screwed.

We already turned down such a proposal once for the same reasons.

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
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❤ btw GRcade costs money and depends on donations - please support one of the UK's oldest video gaming forums → HOW TO DONATE
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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Trelliz » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:52 pm

If you search on youtube for grcade you find the official channel with about 3 videos, and loads of un-linked stuff like mario kart, PCS/counterstrike vids and the like. Who controls/owns the gr youtube channel, as they should be made aware of this stuff and make links/share/however it works to spread the content created by lots of people not connected to the channel officially.

Taken entirely at random, I'd like to submit this one for such as process:



:datass:

jawa2 wrote:Tl;dr Trelliz isn't a miserable git; he's right.
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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Green Gecko » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:56 pm

I do, and that's exactly what I set it up for.

If someone wants to share access to the YT channel to help curate it, preferably with some experience managing a YT channel, please PM me. This inevitably also includes the GRcade Google+ page so no silly buggers, zero tolerance pissing about for obvious reasons.

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
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❤ btw GRcade costs money and depends on donations - please support one of the UK's oldest video gaming forums → HOW TO DONATE
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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by Snowcannon » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:57 pm

Karl wrote:
Coreopsis wrote:The problem with the 600 unique posters factoid Karl, is that these days most of those posters only post occasionally. In real terms, compared to the forum in its early days, that figure doesn't have the same value attached to it as it used to.

'Total posts per active user in a given time frame' is far more relevant than unique posters. The latter is one of those empty facts that doesn't really say anything.


Thank you for pointing out in the most condescending manner possible an inference about my data a child could have made: it is good to know levels of faith in my ability as an actual in-real-life scientist are so high.

Yes, thank you, I am quite aware that the 600 people who post now will do so less regularly than the 800 people in 2009 did; yes, that makes it a dodgy indicator of overall activity, which is why I've spent the last 6 pages of this thread discussing data showing posting frequency, a much better indicator; no, that does not invalidate the statistic, or make it an 'empty fact' or a 'factoid'. Having a lot of occasional visitors is better than having no visitors at all.

If you cannot respond to this without being rude to me then please do not respond at all. Cheers.


Oh dear. Someone needs a lie down.

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PostRe: This place seems very quiet
by SEP » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:59 pm

Dan. wrote:
Moggy wrote:I don’t think this site is ever going to be a Buzzfeed


I can see it


2 TIMES FANBOY HAD A MOTHER


You made me spit my coffee out. Now my keyboard is a mess.

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