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Ricold
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Statistics

#1 Post by Ricold »

Having been trawling through the server logs, I found some statistics that I thought were interesting. I was initially going to just share these with the Loremasters, but I thought it more interesting to post publicly. I'm also aware that what I consider interesting and what everyone else does may differ. YMMV.

Since I took over hosting in June/July...

We've had over 97,000 unique visitors to the site, averaging 2.66 visits each, for 258,000 visits, and 3,500,000 hits (Plus another 2,500,000 hits from bots)

Hits per month have been slowly decreasing. July was 856,000, August 857,000, September 721,000, October 620,000 and November 500,000 so far.

Hits are higher during the week than at weekends. We average 11,000 hits a day on week days, and 10,000 on weekends.

Most popular hour to visit is 1300 GMT

Most of our hits come from the USA, followed by GB, China, Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Australia, and France in that order

Most of our visits last less than two minutes, but if you last longer than that, you are more likely to stay over half an hour, than 15-30 minutes or 5-30 minutes.

3% of our visits last over an hour.....

82% of our users use Windows, 7% Linux, 5.4% iOS, 3.6% OSX. We also have valid hits from Playstation and Wii consoles, but I'm assuming xbox doesn't show up because it'll identify as IE/Windows

56.5% of our users use Firefox, 28% Chrome, 6.5% Safari, 4.2% IE, 2.1% Opera.

Our most popular Search results are from the phrases: "ulthuan", "ulthuan indexpage", "ulthuan.net", "ulthuan forum", "ulthuan.net forum", "http //www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=69524" (link: Highborn Elves : TAC Community Draft 2), "ulthuan warhammer", "warhammer high elves", "warhammer ulthuan", and "ultuan".

Finally, probably the most disturbing one: since I took over, 483 people have come here from following a link on a porn site.
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Daeron
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Re: Statistics

#2 Post by Daeron »

I've been monitoring the activity on Druchii.net as well. As far as the pron references go, I think there are a few explanations.
It's enough to have a few spammers, even if you ban them, to have had references to this site which are regularly tested for new posts or to cause link-back traffic.
Spammers often scan for phpBB fora, a platform so popular that it's well worth learning how to hack or automatically register. And adult websites, I presume, like their spambots.

We made a test platform for Druchii.net on another server and web address almost two years back now, where we turned the bot protections off. It quickly got flooded with spam posts, till it reached several hundreds of posts a day in just a few weeks time. Even though the platform has been removed entirely, over a year now, I still see the spambots refer to that site and the phpBB installation. And they aren't always ... child-friendly sites.

So, over the long years of this board's existence it's no surprise it has been picked up in a few unsavory databases.

Another recurring thing among popular referrers is that they are hotlinking images from the forum. I don't think I've seen them hotlink smilies yet, but any image and avatar is a potential candidate for hotlinks.
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Re: Statistics

#3 Post by RE.Lee »

Interesting stuff. It has been a bit more quiet lately (I think the Empire forum is the busiest of the ones I visit now), but we're hanging in there ;)
cheers, Lee

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Re: Statistics

#4 Post by SpellArcher »

Ricold wrote:82% of our users use Windows, 7% Linux, 5.4% iOS, 3.6% OSX.
Android?
Ricold wrote:56.5% of our users use Firefox
Wow.
Ricold wrote:since I took over, 483 people have come here from following a link on a porn site.
Is there a connection here?

:)
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Re: Statistics

#5 Post by Ricold »

SpellArcher wrote:
Ricold wrote:82% of our users use Windows, 7% Linux, 5.4% iOS, 3.6% OSX.
Android?
EDIT - Nope, that last information was wrong. Having drawn up the extended operating system information, the 7% that is linux breaks down into 5.6% andriod, and 1.3% other (and 0.1% error margin apparently)

Having found the extended operating system stuff... 63 hits from Windows 3.xx!!! I Highly suspect the 1200 hits from Ubuntu are all myself programming, given how low that number is. Also someone hacking a HP printer to allow it to browse the web has caused a single hit on our domain...
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Re: Statistics

#6 Post by SpellArcher »

Over 50% of internet use is supposed to be from mobile devices now, isn't it? Interesting that Ulthuan users are still PC-heavy. For years I did most stuff here on a tiny smartphone and long posts on a PC. These days I'm finding my 7" tablet pretty comfortable for anything I need to do. I actually chose that size as the smallest I could comfortably view whole forum pages on!

HP's influence on the tech world runs deep...
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Re: Statistics

#7 Post by Prince of Spires »

Thanks for the stats Ric. They're actually pretty impressive. 97.000 unique visitors in half a year is more then I expected to see. As is 3.5 mil hits. The 25-30% drop in activity is a bit worrying. But, we're hanging in there. And I have decent hope that once all the dust has settled it will pick up again.
Ricold wrote:Most of our hits come from the ... Netherlands,
That would be me \:D/ ;) :mrgreen:

The thing about windows 3.xx is of course that you're fairly safe from any viruses out there. And I'm sure it runs fast on a modern day machine (though you'd be stuck on 32 bits and conversely 4GB ram max). I didn't know they had browsers available for 3.xx though. ;)

Perhaps we should, with 10-ish% mobile use, ask our lead programmer for a responsive / mobile site ;) Though I personally find that at least writing on a forum is much easier on desktop.
Ricold wrote:Having been trawling through the server logs, I found some statistics that I thought were interesting...I'm also aware that what I consider interesting and what everyone else does may differ. YMMV.
I'm probably a bit silly in the head. But I find them interesting too. Then, I do have an affection for numbers anyway.

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Re: Statistics

#8 Post by SpellArcher »

Prince of Spires wrote:Perhaps we should, with 10-ish% mobile use, ask our lead programmer for a responsive / mobile site Though I personally find that at least writing on a forum is much easier on desktop.
Weirdly, I found it more tricky on my son's10" iPad than on my 7" Android tablet. Just me probably. I guess the 50% mobile thing is everyone checking Facebook on their phones, not browsing forums!
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Re: Statistics

#9 Post by Ricold »

Prince of Spires wrote:Perhaps we should, with 10-ish% mobile use, ask our lead programmer for a responsive / mobile site ;) Though I personally find that at least writing on a forum is much easier on desktop.
I'm part of that 10%, and personally am very happy with the experience I get from my 5.7" smart phone. Browsing a large forum like this was never really aimed at the mobile market, but I make a moderate number of my shorter replies from my phone.

In other news, these stats came from me attempting to make another project work. I still have a fair bit of effort to put in, but there is a project in the works for the site that I think you'll all be rather pleased with when I work out how to pull it off.... Sadly I'm currently doing the stupid thing of dealing with looks over content. Once I have the new thing looking like it should, I have a small bucket full of content to put up, then I'll release it. So there may be a christmas present for you all.

(As an aside to everyone, if you ever wondered what 95% of the content in the Loremasters Congress forum looks like, this is it in a nut shell. I feel I will be posting threads like this to public forums more often, as they are probably just as interesting to the rest of you as to the staff)
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Re: Statistics

#10 Post by SpellArcher »

Ricold wrote:I'm part of that 10%, and personally am very happy with the experience I get from my 5.7" smart phone.
I tried Ulthuan on the 6" Amazon tablet and it wasn't quite there. But I'd guess you're phone's screen is appreciably better in every way except inches Ric.
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Re: Statistics

#11 Post by Ricold »

Being extremely negative about this, if I could start the site again, losing all 290,000 posts in the database, then I'm fairly confident that I could give you a wonderful mobile experience. But I think you'd mainly object if I cleaned the site. I can't even manage the phpbb upgrade right now without losing every post...

(This reply posted from my mobile)
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Re: Statistics

#12 Post by Ferny »

thanks, please do keep sharing, tis interesting.
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Re: Statistics

#13 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

I would be interested in numbers that show the decrease in posting as that shows better what is going on with activity of people on the forum than simple visits.

It would also be interesting to see these numbers from the same period (pick any month) in the previous years (I don't know if you have data on that though). Last half a year is not really a good time on its own but I think it would look even worse if you had that comparison with previous years.

It's really sad to see how dead this forum really is.
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Re: Statistics

#14 Post by Ricold »

Swordmaster of Hoeth wrote:It would also be interesting to see these numbers from the same period (pick any month) in the previous years (I don't know if you have data on that though).
I don't, that data belongs/belonged to the previous hosting people. I doubt that Eldacar kept a copy (I did have access to it at the time, but never thought to take a copy myself) either, and his data would have been the most useful (spanning the last several years)

Nor do I have any posting data, as the server doesn't record that, I'd have to beat it out the database
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Re: Statistics

#15 Post by SpellArcher »

Swordmaster of Hoeth wrote:It's really sad to see how dead this forum really is.
As I mentioned SM, it's a race-specific forum, some are far worse off than we are.

If it wasn't for strenuous efforts by a few of us (yourself included) there would be nothing at all.
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Re: Statistics

#16 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Yes, I know, but somehow it is not comforting at all.
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Re: Statistics

#17 Post by RE.Lee »

It has taken a hit, true. Not dead though, not if we can help it ;) I think the painting and modelling section (which is pretty much game system independant) is the way to go. Offtopic discussions used to be more of a thing, too, those helps with traffic.
cheers, Lee

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Re: Statistics

#18 Post by Aicanor »

SpellArcher wrote:
Ricold wrote:I'm part of that 10%, and personally am very happy with the experience I get from my 5.7" smart phone.
I tried Ulthuan on the 6" Amazon tablet and it wasn't quite there. But I'd guess you're phone's screen is appreciably better in every way except inches Ric.
I use Opera browser, it has an excellent text wrap feature. For reading forums like this one, I really don't ask for more.
RE.Lee wrote:It has taken a hit, true. Not dead though, not if we can help it ;) I think the painting and modelling section (which is pretty much game system independant) is the way to go. Offtopic discussions used to be more of a thing, too, those helps with traffic.
This topic seems to be popular as well. :D Once we finish Secret Santa. We could try to come up with some other P&M project...
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Re: Statistics

#19 Post by John Rainbow »

Can you tell which articles got the most hits in the past? If so we could then target more of those kind of articles to draw interest. I have a sneaky suspicion that Seredain and Curu drew in a lot of people who don't visit anymore so we may need more of those kind of posts.

FYI writing on Galaxy S6 here and no problems!
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Re: Statistics

#20 Post by RE.Lee »

I liked Seredain and Curu's threads a lot but I doubt they'd attract the same amount of spectators as in the day. With people playing so many different games tactics articles have become less relevant, I think. Like Swordmaster's battle reports - I enjoy the quality as much as ever but just don't know King of War enough to add anything interesting to the discussion. I've stopped putting up detailed battle reports on my own blog, because I now play with house rules that people might find confusing. Narrative and hobby are more universal.
cheers, Lee

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Re: Statistics

#21 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

@ RE.Lee

I disagree. You should definitely add reports (at least short ones) and emphasize the house rules. People play these too, who knows, maybe even more than loud tournament crowd. It is thus very important to show there is much more to the hobby than just going to another event. What is more, some people might be interested in their own take on the house rules so sharing yours will be inspirational.

On the topic of other systems etc. even if you don't play it and don't know the details you can still contribute to the discussion in a very meaningful way. You can add what you like and ask questions about things that got your attention. I guarantee that the person who took time to start the topic (I am not thinking about myself here, I had that feedback from others too) will greatly appreciate any interaction. Without it there is very little motivation to post again.
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Re: Statistics

#22 Post by SpellArcher »

RE.Lee wrote:Offtopic discussions used to be more of a thing, too, those helps with traffic.
To quote Milliardo:

"Staying on-topic is overrated."

:)

Definitely now I think it helps to branch out a bit and just discuss whatever we feel like. Not much harm in reviving old topics as well if people feel like it. The key thing may be to focus on whatever enthuses us because that will rub off on other posters. We have a few fairly healthy threads or types of threads running, we just need to build from there.

It could be that as communities in various countries become more settled about what they're playing, posters will drift back to race-specific forums, at least to some extent. For example, Asrai's been deathly silent for a while but very recently there's been a bit of discussion.
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Re: Statistics

#23 Post by Prince of Spires »

I agree with RE.Lee that painting & modelling is pretty much system independent and one of the places people will easily return to. It's also one of the busier forums at the moment. As for the others, I have the same hope as SA that, as communities settle down on systems, people will slowly drift back to race-specific forums. It will, as with a lot of internet things, come down to content. The more useful content you have the more people will come visit. Last year it was indeed threads like those of Curu and Seredain which had enough content in it to draw people in. But there are more blogs, like that of Swordmaster, which get a lot of views and draw in many people.

Regarding the number of posts per day, I think it's worse then the number of views. In general, I think most post on a forum are made by a limited number of people. Those few experienced players give the most valuable advise and generate the best content. Many of them have dropped away as GW killed of WH. And it will take some time before they either return or are replaced by new 'experienced' posters. As SA mentions, there is already quite a few healthy topics around and we can build from there.

Of course, if someone has an idea we could try to draw in more people, then please let us know (either here, in a new topic of via PM) and we'll see what we can do :)

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Re: Statistics

#24 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

The fact that some of the forum members established their own blogs on this site was possible because it already thrived with activity. The forum was established over the years and they could be sure that their posts will be read and commented. Creating a blog seemed like a natural step in evolution.

Now you are facing a situation where you need to build the forum from scratch. There is very little activity and that will not attract new people. Why would they want to post if there is no chance for feedback? Former active members either stopped posting or simply abandoned the ship and are active elsewhere. That further decreases the possibility that somebody would like to at least join any discussion.

It is clear that whatever traffic there is at the moment will not be enough to restart the forum. It is more like life supporting mechanism now.

No website will grow if you simply wait for people to come up with the ideas. You need to show initiative and be pro-active.

First question is, what do you want this website to be? When you find the answer you just need to start building it towards that goal. It cannot be done alone so I guess you need a team for that too. Hopefully you will be able to assemble one.
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Re: Statistics

#25 Post by SpellArcher »

So basically Rod (Spires) is saying 'please contribute ideas' and Pawel (Swordmaster) is saying 'mods need to lead'.

Both would be good. At this point it is especially important that anyone reading this gets involved. Anything you think may be interesting to other posters (which probably means what you yourself find interesting), post it up! Even if you get limited responses at first (as in my Daemon blog) people are probably reading it and finding it interesting. Galdor suggested I post some pictures. So (I am tech-illiterate) I taught myself how to post pics, which took me hours. It improved the blog and made it more interesting. This is the kind of process I'm talking about. If we get multiple balls rolling, stuff will stick.

For the last few years Ulthuan has had less mod-led stuff than some other race-specific forums (say Chaos Dwarfs Online or Carpe Noctum). It hasn't needed it! It's had such a healthy base of posters that interesting stuff has just popped up. In a way, guys like Seredain have taken that initiative, the process has been member-driven. If we have a choice I feel this is even better than mod-led forums.

To some extent, how we perceive the current situation is a glass half-full/half-empty thing. Either we are declining to a sad end or we are somehow keeping more traffic than a lot of similar forums. I browse forums which are virtually silent. This one is busier, partly because Rod, Pawel, myself, and several others have spent precious time and energy to make it so. To some extent, the process has to be organic because you can't, as a mod, push stuff that people aren't interested in. Arguably, what the members want a site to be is more important than what it's mods want it to be.

Certainly, mod-led stuff is valuable and healthy. But as I've discussed with Pawel before, most mods here have very hectic lives. Perhaps some of us have even become mods here because this site does not have the same mod-driven culture as some other race-specific sites, thus allowing us to mod 'part-time' as it were, the members have been so productive historically. There is discussion on the mods forum about ways to bring the site on in the new year. On the technical side Ricold has been vital in picking up where Eldacar left off, revamping the site and giving us a platform to continue. After much discussion on the mods forum, Rod has restructured it so we give each system a chance to be discussed and see what can be done. But what we do for 9th Age for example, depends on posters showing interest, which they are starting to do.

A large part of the problem is that guys tend to only read and post stuff re games that they are playing. The advent of AoS has killed a lot of small Warhammer gaming scenes in favour of 40K or Warmachine say. The former player base is fragmented big time. 9th Age discussion for example, is heavily focused on their forum because guys (including some very prominent former Ulthuan posters) want input into the rules development and don't see the benefit (comparably) of posting here too. It's like repeating yourself. This is why it would be really good for the online community in general for them to crystallise what they're doing. This would mean less discussion on rules changes and more on tactics and list-building, which is where a site like Ulthuan should come in.

Clearly this is not the case for 8th edition. A lot of guys in the UK for example play it but these are not in general people who post a lot on the net, which is an issue for continued discussion. Here we have a bit and we'll see how that goes. As far as KoW goes, what is being said on WargamerUSA and the Australian site for example? AoS seems have it's own framework, especially in the UK where it is strong. The podcasts and bigger TO's are heavily behind it, there are blogs and such.

So wall of text! But any and all discussion seems good to me at this point.
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Re: Statistics

#26 Post by Prince of Spires »

SpellArcher wrote:So basically Rod (Spires) is saying 'please contribute ideas' and Pawel (Swordmaster) is saying 'mods need to lead'.
In my opinion, it doesn't have to be either / or. There are things that the mods can do, and we do have our own ideas which we can and do implement. The restructure and technical stuff are examples of that, as is the secret santa event in P&M. But, I'm not all knowing. If someone has a suggestion or idea on either how to make the site better or generate interest in it, then the mods are open to the suggestions. In the end, two people always know more then one. So Swordmaster, my request for ideas was not because we lack our own, but because help is always appreciated.

I'm in the glass half full part by the way. Half a million hits (and something like 30.000 visits) per month is pretty good in my opinion. We just need to convert more of those hits to posts. And if we do then the whole thing can build up on that.

As for the question about what we want to be, I agree with SA that it is as much up to the community for that to decide as for the mods. We're here for the site, not the other way round. But, if you want my opinion, then I think we should be the premier high elven (or whatever they are called in some system) tabletop wargamming community online. And, for several reasons I already think that we are and have the potential to remain so. For starters, we have a wealth of older information (tactics, armylists etc), which easily leads people via google to us. We have a decent membership base which we can build off. And we have enough posts (at the moment) for casual visitors to keep returning every now and then. If you don't visit each day but only once a week for instance, then you'll find plenty of new information lying around.

One of the ways to get there is our painting section (if you want pictures of elves we have lots) and blogs like that of Swordmaster (which is still a very Ulthuan thing I think). And of course, creating as much other content as possible will help.

Rod
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Re: Statistics

#27 Post by Ricold »

Swordmaster of Hoeth wrote:First question is, what do you want this website to be? When you find the answer you just need to start building it towards that goal. It cannot be done alone so I guess you need a team for that too. Hopefully you will be able to assemble one.
This. This is important.

But I feel there is more to the question than this. It's not just what we want the site to be, also what do the users want from the site?

Here's a radical thought, what could I do for you to make your world easier? No idea too extreme here. I'll start looking into Facebook integration if we think this will help? I'm not sure what could be done with Twitter? Mobile ease has been discussed, I'll look into that further. I want to get some sort of gallery system up I think so painting can be proudly displayed.

I may not play Warhammer, but I'm a programmer with a passion, and your technical Loremaster. Use me
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Re: Statistics

#28 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Being pro-active does not mean the forum has to be mod-led and that admins and mods need to force people into participation in their initiatives. But it seems I failed to deliver the message. Again.

I am curious about the ideas Rod is talking about because it was mentioned there are some a few months ago already. The only thing we got is change of layout, that was rather a reaction to the changes imposed by GW and the death of Warhammer 8th edition.

Well, I tried to voice my concerns but ultimately it is your forum and it is up to you how you want to run it. I will contribute the same way as I always did despite the fact that Battle Reports forum looks like my personal blog now.
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Re: Statistics

#29 Post by SpellArcher »

It's partly a case of personnel Pawel.

Ricold is mainly tech and is doing key work there.
Giladis is on a 9th Age sabbatical.
Rod has a young baby, get the feeling he's only recently had more time here.
Bob I don't know.

Curu quit.
Jimmy has a lot going on as you know.
Aicanor has a young baby but still posts.
My RL is insane and I'm doing pretty much all I can here.

Rod is suggesting things and may have time now to organise stuff, with support from the rest of us. But the problem with forums is that RL just grabs moderators and the rest have to cope with it. Basic stuff like deleting bots, keeping the forum civil (more of an issue when AoS first hit), replying to interesting but little-read posts and then trying to initiate your own threads to keep the forum active takes immediate priority. Only if you've got time and energy left after that can you consider new initiatives. To be honest it's not my forté, I'm better at maintaining things and keeping them going.
Ferny
9th Age Moderator
Posts: 1906
Joined: Mon Apr 29, 2013 12:03 pm

Re: Statistics

#30 Post by Ferny »

SpellArcher wrote: A large part of the problem is that guys tend to only read and post stuff re games that they are playing. The advent of AoS has killed a lot of small Warhammer gaming scenes in favour of 40K or Warmachine say. The former player base is fragmented big time. 9th Age discussion for example, is heavily focused on their forum because guys (including some very prominent former Ulthuan posters) want input into the rules development and don't see the benefit (comparably) of posting here too. It's like repeating yourself. This is why it would be really good for the online community in general for them to crystallise what they're doing. This would mean less discussion on rules changes and more on tactics and list-building, which is where a site like Ulthuan should come in.
I still check in on the forum but I don't post much because traffic is down so less to post on (vicious cycle). One of the few things I still read more or less religiously are SM's batreps but I've got less to contribute there as I don't know his new favoured system (KoW) so well.

But by contrast, while I 'stalked' the 9th Age forum for a longish while, I've recently become active there in advance of a tournament, and I follow all HE threads there with interest. It was a slow burner, took a long time for folks to get active there, but it's definitely growing and has critical mass perhaps now, although I do notice a few active voices and not many quiet ones, so I don't think it has the bredth that we had yet, but if it takes off (and as we get closer to ETC and have a more stable ruleset) I suspect it will.

But it's interesting that you say tactics could be discussed here, because so far T9A forum is mostly rules and a few lists, but it doesn't have a nice place for discussing item combos, character/unit builds or themed lists outside of the lists section. Sure, we could make a new topic, but oddly no one has taken the plunge yet. There always used to be loads of that stuff before.

I also think it's interesting that I've never really visited warseer or TWF or similar, but used this site a lot and signed up to carpe noctuem when I was doing more vampire stuff, druchii during End Times and look in occassionally on lizards and woodies. Whereas now I look in on the system site (T9A) and not on the race forums except this one really, but on T9A I really only use the HE bit. Not sure what to make of that - it's sort of like Ulthuan sank and was refloated over there...certainly the community sort of did that because I recognise a lot of the names from here over there.
SwordMaster wrote:Well, I tried to voice my concerns but ultimately it is your forum and it is up to you how you want to run it. I will contribute the same way as I always did despite the fact that Battle Reports forum looks like my personal blog now.
I don't think of it as their forum - I think of it as ours. I think the mods here have done a nice job with the site, it has felt to me very community led and I like that. I think it's downturn since AoS is an inevitable consequence of the splintering scene. Hopefully the community will live on (IRL as well as here). :)
The 9th Age: Alumni

Former Roles: Advisory Board, HR, Moderator and Highborn Elves Army Support
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