Daft invest in Boards.ie

Steve

VH wrote: »

I'll think of you as a hippie with no commercial sense if that makes you feel any better

And I shall remain confused as to why you believe boards has to make commercial sense to be successful.

VH

SteveC wrote: »

And I shall remain confused as to why you believe boards has to make commercial sense to be successful.

daft put money in and will be looking for a return - which is my original point - boards is probably no longer a playground for *mods and must be run in a more user friendly way to attract a wider audience - more eyeballs - more advertising potential etc

javaboy

Out of interest why would Daft invest in boards if they thought it wasn't working well?

Steve

VH wrote: »

daft put money in and will be looking for a return - which is my original point - boards is probably no longer a playground for *mods and must be run in a more user friendly way to attract a wider audience - more eyeballs - more advertising potential etc

And?

If you have something to back this up then feel free....

Beruthiel

VH wrote: »

daft put money in and will be looking for a return - which is my original point - boards is probably no longer a playground for *mods and must be run in a more user friendly way to attract a wider audience - more eyeballs - more advertising potential etc

VH quit trolling this thread.
Boards will not be changing, it will be run exactly as it has been for years.

seamus

VH wrote: »

daft put money in and will be looking for a return - which is my original point - boards is probably no longer a playground for *mods and must be run in a more user friendly way to attract a wider audience - more eyeballs - more advertising potential etc

Everything seems to indicate that boards is very user friendly. People wouldn't keep coming here if that wasn't the case.

You can keep on bitching about mods, but it doesn't get you anywhere. In fact, it makes you just look like a bitch.

Boards will never be a democracy - you know why? Because it's a business. And businesses aren't run as democracies.

what does Eamonn F. think?

Eamonn has already given his input and has said that they are not interesting in changing anything.

rte.ie, ireland.com, daft.ie, goldenpages.ie are all huge by comparison

I'm pretty sure this proves that you're just trolling rather than actually wishing to discuss this. Name one thing that all of those sites have had in abundance since their inception which boards hasn't. Hint: It begins with "m", ends with "y" and has a "one" in the middle.

delly

A bit late to the party on this one, but congrats all round on the news. I doubt it was done without there being a tonne of thought put into the process and the best interests of the community near the top of the agenda.

In relation to extra advertising, I have adblock and boards.ie is the one site I have it disabled on indicating how unobtrusive the current ads are. Any increase in size etc. would be well warrented and I doubt with have any impact on the enjoyment of the site.

VH

How can one discuss it when the troll card gets played and people start saying others are bitches. I don't think that's user friendly!

I think that daft will be looking for changes to get some ROI for their money - it's basic business sense. simply put boards will have to be run more like a business.

what do others think daft will be looking for from boards in return for their money?

Beruthiel

VH wrote: »

I think that daft will be looking for changes to get some ROI for their money - it's basic business sense. simply put boards will have to be run more like a business.

Did you miss the part where seamus mentioned that Eamonn has already given his input and has said that they are not interesting in changing anything?

seamus

"Bitch" in this sense I mean is to complain in general without any specific complaint. Which is what you're doing.

Daft have already said that they're happy with the way that boards is run, and it was a specific part of the deal that the site would continue to be run in the way that it has always been run.

With a minority shareholding, daft have no remit to "look for changes" in any case.

Any claims of daft looking for changes or looking to get instant return on their investment is unfounded.

It goes without saying that boards will have to be run more like a business - with or without daft, such changes have already been taking place since the the start of this year. An essential part of running your business is recognising what makes it so successful. It makes no sense therefore to make changes to that which would affect the success of the business.

This is why you're not going to see any changes whatsoever which will negatively affect your usage of boards.

VH

seamus, i'm saying they will be looking to increase eyeballs by increasing users, in my opinion by altering the moderating system at some stage.

Vexorg

Regarding the size of the site.

In the period 1 July 208 to 31 July 2008 we had 950,683 unique visitors and had 16,983,937 pageviews.

seamus

VH wrote: »

seamus, i'm saying they will be looking to increase eyeballs by increasing users, in my opinion by altering the moderating system at some stage.

Genuine question:

What changes to the moderation system do you think would increase traffic to the site?

As I say, with or without daft I'm sure the admins are very much interested in increasing traffic if they can, so your ideas here would no doubt be much appreciated.

VH

seamus wrote: »

Genuine question:

What changes to the moderation system do you think would increase traffic to the site?

As I say, with or without daft I'm sure the admins are very much interested in increasing traffic if they can, so your ideas here would no doubt be much appreciated.

Genuine answer:

by improving the attitude of some mods - some mods are infamously abrasive and seem to have free run and treat posters like they are idiots without realising that posters have eyeballs and money.

and by improving the moderating itself - boards needs to be more user-friendly and appeal to a wider audience - I would recommend to my mother to stay away from boards for example (and I think most people would feel the same)

daft wouldnt have invested if they didnt see room to grow boards

VH

Vexorg wrote: »

Regarding the size of the site.

In the period 1 July 208 to 31 July 2008 we had 950,683 unique visitors and had 16,983,937 pageviews.

as a matter of interest how many unique users posted in that period?

Steve

VH wrote: »

I would recommend to my mother to stay away from boards for example (and I think most people would feel the same)

No offence to your mother, or anyone elses, but you've made your point fail with that statement.
Boards already appeals to the demograph with the most disposable income - how do you think changing it to a nice friendly knitting site for yore ma is going to improve traffic?

VH

SteveC wrote: »

No offence to your mother, or anyone elses, but you've made your point fail with that statement.
Boards already appeals to the demograph with the most disposable income - how do you think changing it to a nice friendly knitting site for yore ma is going to improve traffic?

Boards does not ask for age at time of registration so that statement is only really a guess.

In my opinion the audience could be widened - I would guess most users are 15 to about 35.

EDIT: SteveC you keep proving my point - posts about my mother and knitting should really not be entertained in a debate about how to improve boards audience.

6th

I know one poster who is over 70.

seamus

VH wrote: »

by improving the attitude of some mods - some mods are infamously abrasive and seem to have free run and treat posters like they are idiots without realising that posters have eyeballs and money.

and by improving the moderating itself - boards needs to be more user-friendly and appeal to a wider audience - I would recommend to my mother to stay away from boards for example (and I think most people would feel the same)

Well then I suggest you start a feedback thread detailing your specific issues and perhaps then you can be an instrument for this change.

I'm not trying to be contrary or difficult here, but without specific issues, there's no scope to change. "Some mods are infamously abrasive" - please provide examples. "boards needs to be more user-friendly and appeal to a wider audience" - how do you suggest it does this?

daft wouldnt have invested if they didnt see room to grow boards

I'll reword that - "daft wouldnt have invested if they didnt see room for boards to grow"

Yes, it's subtle, but you're still missing the big picture here - Daft have no desire to change boards at all.

VH

seamus wrote: »

"Some mods are infamously abrasive" - please provide examples.

you know that's not really practical advice given the autonomy of some *mods - I'd probably get a ban

seamus wrote: »

Daft have no desire to change boards at all.

seamus with all due respect I would say that's naive - they may not have stated it, but they have their feet under the table - anyway, neither of us can predict the future and time will tell

"We are very happy to be working with the Boards.ie guys and look forward to helping them grow their business"

What does help mean?

Vexorg

VH wrote: »

as a matter of interest how many unique users posted in that period?

16265

Steve

VH wrote: »

Boards does not ask for age at time of registration so that statement is only really a guess.

In my opinion the audience could be widened - I would guess most users are 15 to about 35.

The boards census has been running for 3 years and is probably fairly indicative.

EDIT: SteveC you keep proving my point - posts about my mother and knitting should really not be entertained in a debate about how to improve boards audience.

If you want to be pedantic, this is a thread announcing the fact that Daft invested in boards, not a thread about increasing the user base.

VH

Vexorg wrote: »

16265

Thanks.

seamus

VH wrote: »

you know that's not really practical advice given the autonomy of some *mods - I'd probably get a ban

I know that's perfectly practical advice. Any moderator who bans you because you provided constructive feedback or a valid complaint is not fit to be a moderator and it would most certainly be investigated with a view to removing their moderatorship in the event that the ban was motivated by the complaint.

The moderators don't wander around with free reign to act as they like. None of us do. We're subject the rules of the community like anyone else.

I say it again, if you have a valid complaint about a moderator's actions, you can use the helpdesk forum without fear of revenge.

If you overall have a suggestion or a piece of general constructive criticism, feedback is more than happy to listen to you.


seamus with all due respect I would say that's naive - they may not have stated it, but they have their feet under the table - anyway, neither of us can predict the future and time will tell

"We are very happy to be working with the Boards.ie guys and look forward to helping them grow their business"

What does help mean?

Money and experience.

VH

SteveC wrote: »

The boards census has been running for 3 years and is probably fairly indicative.

If you want to be pedantic, this is a thread announcing the fact that Daft invested in boards, not a thread about increasing the user base.

Steve - please - stop arguing just because its me.

Despite the obvious flaws in the census (it doesnt take account of time, it only has results from the tiny amount of people (2636) that voted) it does show a drop off in appeal for those over 22 years old.

gandalf

Actually there is a forum that would interest those who have a knitting fetish http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=590

I love these posts by people who go on about the oppressive moderating on boards yet don't seem to be able to provide adequate examples of same?

Like Seamus I'd suggest you start a thread detailing where you see the problems and what your solutions would be to those.

VH

seamus wrote:

Money and experience.

Without change?

seamus

VH wrote: »

Without change?

Where did I say that boards wouldn't change?

What use is money and experience if you've no intention to change?

The site will always change, the site has been constantly changing since 1998.

The current admins will continue to direct that change just as they've always done.

VH

gandalf wrote: »

I love these posts by people who go on about the oppressive moderating on boards yet don't seem to be able to provide adequate examples of same?

Are you saying it doesn't exist?

Vexorg

SteveC wrote: »

The boards census has been running for 3 years and is probably fairly indicative.

If you want to be pedantic, this is a thread announcing the fact that Daft invested in boards, not a thread about increasing the user base.

SteveC that census is quite out of date, the last big census was done in March 2007, and there were 3000+ responses if memory serves.