Much as I don't like saying it, this is truth. I was very excited about s2 for a while and it seemed like this place was really on the upswing, especially after you guys joined, but it has completely hit a wall in terms of attracting new members (we've actually had quite a few new guys sign up, they just don't stick around).
It's a really tough thing to build a forum (let alone a bunch of them) from the ground up. Short of getting a whole community to migrate at once, it's really a pretty slow process to attract folks and build a community. With our Bulls board, for example, we've slowly gotten to the point where we have a number of regular posters, but it takes quite a while and a bit of luck to reach a critical mass where people actually want to consistently come read and participate.
What are good ways to attract people here? Just get the word out? We gotta have Nate Bishop break a story that Oden was playing at 24 hour fitness w/ him today while injured!!!
Mike, if I may ask, what's your strategy? I freaking love this place--the freedom, the reload speed, the lengths you all go to accomodate the posters, etc. I'd like to see other teams come on board. Also, what happened with the Nets board here? It's awfully tough to get banned from here.
I'd say the strategy boils down to four things: 1. Work on offering better features 2. Work on the slow and steady improvement of forums (as I described above) by building better discussion and attracting posters. It's hard, but sometimes slow and steady wins the race. 3. Get our name out amongst communities of other posters without spamming them. Example: I'm a regular poster on Blog-a-Bull over on the SBN forums. As long as I'm an honest and regular contributor there, they don't mind that I put a link in my sig to the BullsTwo page, or occasionally link back to stuff that's written here or the salary database. Several of the guys who are now regs on the Bulls board got run off of there or didn't like it. So it works for everyone. If any of you guys want to attract posters at other sites, that's a good way to do it. I'd prefer you didn't simply spam people though, because that gives everyone a bad name 4. Be on the lookout and flexible enough to try and accommodate new communities if they want to migrate en masse. As far as the Nets guys, to be honest, I don't know that I could sum it up into one thing. I think it was a combination of several things. We felt several of the several key nets guys were actively trying to screw up other peoples' good time - specifically you guys coming here. We extended them a lot of leeway and tried to work with them for months. One admin, who was a nets fan got mad and took these guys side rather than making much attempt to deal with them. And the NetsDaily blog decided to open up a forum of its own, which obviously is good for them from a traffic and advertising perspective. So that was definitely a setback, but there's only so much you can compromise on. If I were to try and summarize it into one thing, I think several key Nets guys wanted a Nets dominated forum and weren't comfortable not being the biggest fish in the pond any more. Probably one of them will show up to tell me what sort of asshole I am for saying that, but I think the proof is in the pudding. We certainly wanted everyone to stay and have a bigger forum where everyone could have fun. They weren't willing to stay if it meant they had to be cool with everyone. Simple as that.
IMO, there are way too many forums, seems like trying to be all places in one place. even when I try to look at other forums, there are so many choices, its overwhelming. I'd just make it a hoops only forum with a forum for each team, general NBA discussion and one off topics board. NM...i saw the tabs thing up front.....but too many off topic boards IMO.
Really? How? I never noticed anything besides friendly shit talking about post counts...but Im sure there was plenty I missed
I would encorage Blazer fans to surf the entire site, and post, when they have time . . . especially the general NBA forum (where bbf is much stronger than this site) I am trying to get into the MMA forum and although I don't know shit about MMA (casual observer) it has been fun interacting with them.
lol...that was one of the complaints among the Blazer community is that they enjoyed talking about everything within the same group(Political forums)...bbf wanted them to go all over and post stuff where it actually be posted. I dont care either way.
My recommendation would be to turn this into a BLAZERS ONLY site. We don't need those other steenking forums! If other teams' fans want to post here they'll figure out how.
I think it'd be great to have 20+ other teams forums just as active as ours... there would be more great cross-posting opps with Bulls and Kings fans right now, for example. Ed O.
Come back! All of you! And I think guys should post around the forums. I hate when I click on a thread about the Bulls and I'm in the Blazer forum. And the entire new post page is Blazer. I think it's cool to have so many, but we have such a vast forum and I know there are soccer fans, baseball fans, football and music fans. Go post in the music forums, football forums (It's offseason, so I understand not to busy). baseball forums, shit like that. It would be for a much better forum to see so many of you all around the site.
I don't care where you guys post. On s2, I just follow the activity. Beats talking to myself in the Bucs forum.
That's the one thing I liked about the ESPN boards back in the early part of this decade. It really made for some fun cross-talk. Of course, the irrational moderating, non-stop trolling, Derek Wong Jr, and impossible to follow formatting all lessened the experience after a while.
