Why do you think the forum has a retention issue?

WiresDreamDisasters

Shrews said:

As a relative newbie here (not sure if a few years means Im still a newbie), I would say that this messageboard is among the best Ive joined over the tears.

Sure, it might not be in its golden years, but not many are, the concept of a messageboard is a bit old hat nowadays.

What springs to mind to me is that there are beginner guitarists, novice guitarists, experienced guitarists and downright awesome guitarists. Some of you have been playing 30, 40, 50 years ffs, even played to hundreds or thousands of people.

But we all play guitar, right?

There are no separate sections for the awesome, experienced, novice or beginner guitarists to hang out. So what you get is beginner guitarists feeling a little intimidated, novice guitarists looking elsewhere for some technical advice or words of wisdom, experienced guitarists a little wound up because they've never quite got to the next level, and awesome guitarists looking to play a 50 string sitar just for some variety.  

Its a guitar-fashioned-Maslow's-hierarchy.

Nobody is 'quite' getting what they wanted. 

I think this is a pretty astute observation. Maybe the forum could add a beginners questions area, where the rule is you be nice, you inform and educate others, and help them along their journey.

PolarityMan

Iamnobody said:

Bridgehouse said:

Just to put a number of some sort on my above post - visitors to the site who aren’t registered outnumber registered users by 10 to 1….

I’d imagine that’s probably typical of traffic to most forums? 

EDIT: just to expand especially forums like this that have good SEO and appear in search results for some fairly well searched terms.

Like architectural photography?

JMS96

I don’t recognise any of the issues being discussed here. I find this place useful, interesting and friendly. I’ve spent a lot of time here, specially in the last year or so. I’m not particularly active. I don’t regard this as a prerequisite - I’m certainly not active elsewhere on the internet. I just enjoy the content mostly.

PolarityMan

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Shrews said:

As a relative newbie here (not sure if a few years means Im still a newbie), I would say that this messageboard is among the best Ive joined over the tears.

Sure, it might not be in its golden years, but not many are, the concept of a messageboard is a bit old hat nowadays.

What springs to mind to me is that there are beginner guitarists, novice guitarists, experienced guitarists and downright awesome guitarists. Some of you have been playing 30, 40, 50 years ffs, even played to hundreds or thousands of people.

But we all play guitar, right?

There are no separate sections for the awesome, experienced, novice or beginner guitarists to hang out. So what you get is beginner guitarists feeling a little intimidated, novice guitarists looking elsewhere for some technical advice or words of wisdom, experienced guitarists a little wound up because they've never quite got to the next level, and awesome guitarists looking to play a 50 string sitar just for some variety.  

Its a guitar-fashioned-Maslow's-hierarchy.

Nobody is 'quite' getting what they wanted. 

I think this is a pretty astute observation. Maybe the forum could add a beginners questions area, where the rule is you be nice, you inform and educate others, and help them along their journey.

I think we would need to avoid the sneap forum which devolved into just butching at people to use the search function. I think that would ways be a temptation for some if we aimed at becoming more of a resource.

By definition most beginners are going to have similar questions so I think to a certain extent some recycling of ideas is inevitable and not necessarily unhelpful as it will be new to an OP.

digitalscream

Well, I know why we'll have some people leaving in a huff....

monquixote

If you are wondering about the relevance of the forum then check Rabea's most recent YouTube vlog where he is clearly referring to the thread about his sig guitar being too expensive.

darthed1981

monquixote said:

If you are wondering about the relevance of the forum then check Rabea's most recent YouTube vlog where he is clearly referring to the thread about his sig guitar being too expensive.

I noticed a year or two back... the youtubers keep an eye on us guys!

Not only do things get direct responses like Rabea's, but somebody upset Danish Pete a year or so ago, and I know Andertons have commented on discussions here since the falling-out (which was before my time).

Knowing that they do check up on us, lurk and generally hear about what is said, I'd just like to say... Hi Mary

WiresDreamDisasters

PolarityMan said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Shrews said:

As a relative newbie here (not sure if a few years means Im still a newbie), I would say that this messageboard is among the best Ive joined over the tears.

Sure, it might not be in its golden years, but not many are, the concept of a messageboard is a bit old hat nowadays.

What springs to mind to me is that there are beginner guitarists, novice guitarists, experienced guitarists and downright awesome guitarists. Some of you have been playing 30, 40, 50 years ffs, even played to hundreds or thousands of people.

But we all play guitar, right?

There are no separate sections for the awesome, experienced, novice or beginner guitarists to hang out. So what you get is beginner guitarists feeling a little intimidated, novice guitarists looking elsewhere for some technical advice or words of wisdom, experienced guitarists a little wound up because they've never quite got to the next level, and awesome guitarists looking to play a 50 string sitar just for some variety.  

Its a guitar-fashioned-Maslow's-hierarchy.

Nobody is 'quite' getting what they wanted. 

I think this is a pretty astute observation. Maybe the forum could add a beginners questions area, where the rule is you be nice, you inform and educate others, and help them along their journey.

I think we would need to avoid the sneap forum which devolved into just butching at people to use the search function. I think that would ways be a temptation for some if we aimed at becoming more of a resource.

By definition most beginners are going to have similar questions so I think to a certain extent some recycling of ideas is inevitable and not necessarily unhelpful as it will be new to an OP.

Yeah but the Sneap forum had a kind of elitist edge to it that wasn't very welcoming - acttttuuuaaalllyyyy ... comparison to the Sneap forum isn't such a bad thing. The two places are pretty similar.

proggy

I just assumed people left here because of my jokes. But then again I've always been a bit paranoid.
I walked out on my rugby team because I thought they were all talking about me.
Apparently, turns out it was just a scrum....

darthed1981

proggy said:

 I've always been a bit paranoid.

That is what everyone says about you.

Bridgehouse

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Shrews said:

As a relative newbie here (not sure if a few years means Im still a newbie), I would say that this messageboard is among the best Ive joined over the tears.

Sure, it might not be in its golden years, but not many are, the concept of a messageboard is a bit old hat nowadays.

What springs to mind to me is that there are beginner guitarists, novice guitarists, experienced guitarists and downright awesome guitarists. Some of you have been playing 30, 40, 50 years ffs, even played to hundreds or thousands of people.

But we all play guitar, right?

There are no separate sections for the awesome, experienced, novice or beginner guitarists to hang out. So what you get is beginner guitarists feeling a little intimidated, novice guitarists looking elsewhere for some technical advice or words of wisdom, experienced guitarists a little wound up because they've never quite got to the next level, and awesome guitarists looking to play a 50 string sitar just for some variety.  

Its a guitar-fashioned-Maslow's-hierarchy.

Nobody is 'quite' getting what they wanted. 

I think this is a pretty astute observation. Maybe the forum could add a beginners questions area, where the rule is you be nice, you inform and educate others, and help them along their journey.

Actually a Beginners or New Members sub forum where they can ask questions is a good idea and worth consideration,

Having it more closely moderated would probably be a requirement. 

Certainly worth considering. 

TTony

Bridgehouse said:

Actually a Beginners or New Members sub forum where they can ask questions is a good idea and worth consideration,

Having it more closely moderated would probably be a requirement. 

Certainly worth considering. 

Or you could just put a little time into replying to the “introduce yourself” and “why I joined and what I’m looking for here” threads.

Some new members take the time to post in there.  But they typically get no response.  

That’s hardly a warm welcome that’ll encourage them to get more stuck in.

fob

Grumpyrocker said:

Adey said:

Grumpyrocker said:

It's not exactly friendly to half the population.

It is definately very "blokey" and not particularly female friendly.

Putting it mildly. There's a lot of open misogyny here. 

There is? I'm honestly not sure I've seen any, let alone a lot. Are there some example threads/posts?

VimFuego

TTony said:

Bridgehouse said:

Actually a Beginners or New Members sub forum where they can ask questions is a good idea and worth consideration,

Having it more closely moderated would probably be a requirement. 

Certainly worth considering. 

Or you could just put a little time into replying to the “introduce yourself” and “why I joined and what I’m looking for here” threads.

Some new members take the time to post in there.  But they typically get no response.  

That’s hardly a warm welcome that’ll encourage them to get more stuck in.

guilty as charged. In mitigation I would like to enter into the record that I know I'm a complete arse.

Roland

TTony said:

... you could just put a little time into replying to the “introduce yourself” and “why I joined and what I’m looking for here” threads.

Some new members take the time to post in there.  But they typically get no response.  

That’s hardly a warm welcome that’ll encourage them to get more stuck in.

One of the nice things about the “Introduce Yourself” and “Why I Joined” threads is that they don’t get swamped with replies. It’s easy to see the entries from new members. If people weighed in with welcoming responses then the useful content would get diluted.

New members get automatic welcome messages. New members who come to my attention as businesses get a personalised message from me describing how they can best make use of the forum. When a new member first posts a For Sale thread they get a personalised message which offers advice about what to include.

monquixote

TTony said:

Bridgehouse said:

Actually a Beginners or New Members sub forum where they can ask questions is a good idea and worth consideration,

Having it more closely moderated would probably be a requirement. 

Certainly worth considering. 

Or you could just put a little time into replying to the “introduce yourself” and “why I joined and what I’m looking for here” threads.

Some new members take the time to post in there.  But they typically get no response.  

That’s hardly a warm welcome that’ll encourage them to get more stuck in.

I'm not sure its up to us to give the mods jobs to do...

Philly_Q

Grumpyrocker said:

Adey said:

Grumpyrocker said:

It's not exactly friendly to half the population.

It is definately very "blokey" and not particularly female friendly.

Putting it mildly. There's a lot of open misogyny here. 

It doesn't strike me as misogynistic, but I'm sure examples could be found...

It is certainly very blokey.  Which is odd now that I think about it.  My online persona's not much different from my real life one, although I guess I think about what I post a bit more than I think about what I say.... but in real life I don't like hanging around with a group of blokes (no offence).  I'd rather hang around with a mixed group.  Or just women.

It would be great if there were more female members, but I don't know what can be done about that.

VimFuego

Philly_Q said:

Grumpyrocker said:

Adey said:

Grumpyrocker said:

It's not exactly friendly to half the population.

It is definately very "blokey" and not particularly female friendly.

Putting it mildly. There's a lot of open misogyny here. 

It doesn't strike me as misogynistic, but I'm sure examples could be found...

It is certainly very blokey.  Which is odd now that I think about it.  My online persona's not much different from my real life one, although I guess I think about what I post a bit more than I think about what I say.... but in real life I don't like hanging around with a group of blokes (no offence).  I'd rather hang around with a mixed group.  Or just women.

It would be great if there were more female members, but I don't know what can be done about that.

well, I had a number of very constructive ideas, but they were dismissed out of hand as "very creepy" and "what the actual fuck is wrong with you?", so there you go.

TTony

monquixote said:

TTony said:

Bridgehouse said:

Actually a Beginners or New Members sub forum where they can ask questions is a good idea and worth consideration,

Having it more closely moderated would probably be a requirement. 

Certainly worth considering. 

Or you could just put a little time into replying to the “introduce yourself” and “why I joined and what I’m looking for here” threads.

Some new members take the time to post in there.  But they typically get no response.  

That’s hardly a warm welcome that’ll encourage them to get more stuck in.

I'm not sure its up to us to give the mods jobs to do...

It was intended as a general “you” rather than a specific.  But it’d probably be less effort than the mod suggestion of creating a new sub forum and then “more closely moderating” it?

Roland says no anyway.

Bellycaster

I think it's because they realise that we're not all young spandex wearing, muscle bound, fit guys with long shaggy perms. It nearly crushed me when I realised that back in 2014, but I fought through it with every sinew.