Its another [: 19][J+P:1] that my security progs have to deal with and I don’t like it…
[quote=“Goose Egg”]You guys aren’t serious, are you? You don’t really want us to stop looking for ways to make this website a little more amusing, a little more useful, a little less grim, do you?
Even though I left Taiwan months ago, I still regularly check in here - a little escape from the daily grind. This website can be informative (we surprised my inlaws last night when we called in about the earthquake in record time), and challenging, and a real community, too - granted not all at the same time, but sometimes some combination of all that[/quote]
I find that the posters are capable of making it amusing or useful, depending on what you’re looking for. I’ve certainly never found it grim.
I check in regularly to have a chortle at Buttercup’s mouse-licking and lemsip-snorting escapades, or to learn about the differences between toilet paper and nose-blowing paper. I make friends, find work, get work done, discover all sorts of cool and interesting things, solve problems, and even get a measure of personal abuse. Can’t say I have a lot of interest in dumbed-down trivia though.
In case you haven’t noticed, this website is not Craigslist. Craigslist is only successful in the USA. Everywhere else it’s considered to be ‘too American’. Nothing wrong with being American, but if you start telling everyone else that they have to be American then I was obviously mistaken about what forumosa was all about.
I thought this was an inclusive community which welcomed everyone who was able to fit in. The ‘identity’ of forumosa was international in nature, and it is this internationalism that is part of the reason for its success. The other reason is that it works at a higher intellectual level than your average ‘lowest common denominator’ US-oriented website. Most of the people using this site are smarter, more sophisticated, and better educated than the people targetted by mass market sites.
There’s nothing wrong with trivia, polls, tests, etc if people choose to look at them. They’re all over the site in threads that people can participate in or not as they see fit. Assuming that everyone wants to see this kind of drivel every time they post is a mistake. It’s not amusing. It’s not useful. And it gives me a grim feeling that we’re going downmarket.
Just posted the above and then was confronted by a question involving characters who are virtually unknown outside of the USA. As f.com is a site which people read, and the presentation is designed to attract the eye, I found myself reading the bloody thing before I could choose not to.
So now I’m annoyed that someone with no relationship to this site is asking me things I have no interest in.
I confess, we do not do enough tracking and measurement on this website. Or we haven’t up til now - Malc’s mantra has been to measure and so we will undoubtedly make changes based on what we do know, track and ask of the regular users of the website
Last week, Malc switched our measurement systems from what was defaulted on our webserver to Google Analytics. The following chart is only 1 week’s worth - although it’s been an interesting week - holidays and earthquakes tend to be heavy user days for Forumosa and we had both on the lighter end of the week (Thu and Fri are typically the heavy use days)
This chart is on Language Settings. I believe it is the setting your browser is set for. It’s not terribly useful - I suppose Canadians use en-us (American English) as do many “non-Americans”. Still, we can infer a little bit from it. Judging how “American” this website is NOT what this chart shows
Don’t worry, as I’ve indicated earlier, we’ll be changing that page sooner than later
Finding out who uses this site, and how, must be a nightmare.
For the record, I’m using firefox, and I believe it’s set to US English. I don’t recall being able to set it otherwise and wouldn’t know where to look. I’m not sure, but I get the feeling a disproportionate number of forumosans use non-IE browsers - back to the ‘not normal people’ issue.
Anyway, rant over, is forumosa responding to the perceived needs of the people who come to the site? Or is it maintaining an identity regardless of who wanders in and wants things done differently?
For instance, if forumusa was created as a place for surly old curmudgeons like me, would you refuse to lighten the mood and thus frighten off a lot of other people? It would make the site more attractive to more people, but not serve the original target market.
Or if people are initially attracted because the site is X, but more people like Y, do you tell the X-fans to bugger off?
Hard to make that call if you don’t really know who is here and what they want, or who the site is really for. Personally I feel that the site is not, and shouldn’t try to be, appealing to the myspace crowd. We’re not normal people and mass-market dumbed-down features don’t appeal.
And how! :homer:
I think that we are eager to please and want to appeal to a broad base - curmudgeons included. Therefore, we always run the risk of dumbing down the website - a tyranny of the majority, I suppose
In the process, we are limited by some things: time (the admins, who can directly make changes to the code of the website, are very busy people off-line), ability (we are learning a lot - not only in programming, but in how to work with others who we outsource to) and technology (related to ability, we have stuck by an arguably innefficient platform - phpbb - and not all its features and accessories work for us)
Now, feedback like yours that kicked off this thread is invaluable - even if it isn’t particularly encouraging at times. Also, there is a tug-of-war among us (admins, and among moderators, too) and the arguments and insights that you give us can sway debates. Well, you know this, since you once were on this side of the fence
Yes, it is.
Behind the scenes, we have talked for a long time about doing a survey of people who use the website. Something more organized than the occassional complaint, confusion or good idea that is posted here.
We always tend to push it back till after whatever current urgency is taken cared of.
The hard part is always coming up with good questions to ask people - questions that people will want to answer and be able to answer quickly.
Obviously, a link to this kind of “how are we doing” survey is the first thing that would replace the Blufr questions
Sorry for being rude, Goose Egg. I am a bit of a motor mouth sometimes. My feedback was not particularly gracious or constructive. I don’t like the quiz but generally I think the site is great and I do appreciate all the hard work you all do. 
Maybe a bit off topic, but still…
I think the demography of this site has been polled several times (but I could not find the links now):
Where do you come from?
How old are everyone here?
What’s your occupation?
How much do you earn?
----and similar questions have been asked from time to time. The polls only reflects those who participate, but still would give an indication of “who we are”.
Personally, I ignore stuff I don’t like and focus on what I like - which will lead to no constructive feedback.
Yes, it is.
Behind the scenes, we have talked for a long time about doing a survey of people who use the website. Something more organized than the occassional complaint, confusion or good idea that is posted here.
We always tend to push it back till after whatever current urgency is taken cared of.
The hard part is always coming up with good questions to ask people - questions that people will want to answer and be able to answer quickly.
Obviously, a link to this kind of “how are we doing” survey is the first thing that would replace the Blufr questions[/quote]
Hmmm,
maybe a thread to invite suggestions? Waiting for me to complain about something, while a sure thing, is probably not the most efficient way to go about it - and there’s no need for you to do all the work when you have so many smartarses telling you how to do things. Harness the power of the internet.
Hey, and I’m still on your side of the fence. 
We’re all in this together, right?
Right, I hear. No confusion about that.
I just figure that a web survey is one of the ways we will harness the 'net and the community at large.
One good idea that we have not yet done is actually observe forumosans use the website - literally look over their shoulders and see what they do, in what order, hear them curse, watch them pull their hair, etc. Then from that, think about ways to make it better - move a link here or there, add or subtract a button, …
On the naff quiz, it looks like you can adblock it w/th latest Firefox.
How do you do that?
Not sure what options I chose when I installed but I got something called Adblock. Over any website flash thingy, I get a tab that says Adblock, where you can click it and block that .swf source. It seems to have worked on the naff quiz, unless the naff quiz has already been killed by an admin, in which case I am foolish.
No, it’s still there
Then the Adblock gizmo works. But note that the phpbb user hide extension does not work with Firefox 2.0, so killing the naff quiz could open up a world of naff posts.
naff naff naff. Heh heh. naff.
I tried to add a question about whether Norwich is further north than Birmingham, not added. I wonder if it would it was it was about Seattle and New York ? 
And it asked this question “The first Space Shuttle mission was conducted in 1981.” Obivously false, the Enterprise flew in 1977. Their answer: "You’ve been bluf’d: The Space Shuttle Columbia orbited the Earth 36 times during the first Space Shuttle mission in April 1981. "
i learned something actually, was just a rumor that cosby bought all the little rascals and destroyed them! heh! always believed that one.