Desire Avenue

I've been thinking about what steps we can take to make these boards more popular.

We only have 221 members, of whom only 5% (if that) post on a regular basis.

I was reading the guidelines for another message board this morning and the following caught my eye:

'Please ensure that all posts are on topic and directed to all members for proper discussion, not aimed at a select few as clique-based posts will be deleted.'

Good job that doesn't happen here otherwise we'd probably lose 90% of the posts.

But is that the problem?
Does this site come across as being too clique-driven because its the same small group of posters who are responsable for the vast majority of the posts?

And if so,how do we deal with that?
Should we alter the style of the posts so that they read less 'matey'?

I really do wish other members would take the time to post here. Its always more enjoyable to read the messages from a larger group of Stina fans.

My point of view as the board maintainer :
I don't think we need a lot of more members here.
I could manage to have a better ranking on search engines but as it's time consuming / expensive so I do not want this.
The board is nice, no agressive/flaming members and we do have all the same interests.

Good point to raise,RobB.
Although I tend to agree with Alex,I do think that anyone looking for a Stina Nordenstam messageboard ought to be able to find this first,so perhaps we should be a bit more visible.
It's a pity that the official Stina site seems to have been scuppered,she really seems to have no interest in furthering her online visibility.That should have been the natural venue for a (this) messageboard.
I don't think we make ourselves exclusive/cliquey in our posts,no more than any other forum out there,If people want to get involved they just have to wade on in.I think we're very welcoming and encouraging to new members.A LOT of people got discouraged by the shenanigans at the end of CQD,I think,since when it's been the same dedicated little coterie with a few passing visitors.I do think that if and when Stina does something public again,we'll get a surge of interest/posts.
Privately,I think she has retired from the biz.In true Stina fashion,she ain't telling anyone either way.

RobB wrote:
But is that the problem?
Does this site come across as being too clique-driven because its the same small group of posters who are responsable for the vast majority of the posts?

And if so,how do we deal with that?
Should we alter the style of the posts so that they read less 'matey'?

We had this same discussion at CQD. Remember the 'drive' we had to encourage some of the hundreds of registered users to post? We did everything we could to assure them we wanted to hear from them, and the result was deafening silence.

If I recall rightly, it was basically the same core group posting at the Barbie board too, albeit the group was bigger then - Duncan, Spook, Angie, Timothy, Polincoly etc were regular posters in those days. Some dropped out when we moved from Barbie board to CQD, and then as you say, a lot of people were quite disillusioned for various reasons when CQD closed down so suddenly.

At the end of the day, you can't force people to post. Sometimes people just move on, and sometimes people are happy to read a board, but just not the type to post. I read several boards that I've never posted on, in fact. I post here because I feel a connection to this little group of people that goes beyond our communal interest in Stina.

Restricting the posting style to topic-only would decimate what little activity there is here!

Anyway, new phpbb features require some functions unavailable on this hosting server so the subscribing process is still closed until the phpbb team decides to make updates working on basic servers.

alx5962 wrote:Anyway, new phpbb features require some functions unavailable on this hosting server so the subscribing process is still closed until the phpbb team decides to make updates working on basic servers.

So there could be a thousand very frustrated Stina fans queuing outside the door waiting to be let in?

That is very stina-ish, ain't it Having a board about stina but allowing almost no-one to participate and refuse new subscribers.

pgss wrote:That is very stina-ish, ain't it Having a board about stina but allowing almost no-one to participate and refuse new subscribers.

But I'm open to everyone who wants to help me about this.

alx5962 wrote:But I'm open to everyone who wants to help me about this.

I wish I could but i've no idea at all how these things work.

alx5962 wrote:But I'm open to everyone who wants to help me about this.

What do you need then to solve this problem?

pgss wrote:

alx5962 wrote:But I'm open to everyone who wants to help me about this.

What do you need then to solve this problem?

- how to bypass /dev/urandom on php safe mode for phpbb 3.0.5
- manual changes on the database for this update

Alex, being admin of several boards, I'm also facing different issues using phpBB3 (a pain in the ass to upgrade, if you ask me). I tried and succeeded a conversion to another software I consider much better and easier than phpBB : myBB. I also successfully installed another one on a free.fr hosting. My 2 cents.

Franck wrote:Alex, being admin of several boards, I'm also facing different issues using phpBB3 (a pain in the ass to upgrade, if you ask me). I tried and succeeded a conversion to another software I consider much better and easier than phpBB : myBB. I also successfully installed another one on a free.fr hosting. My 2 cents.

thank you for pointing in that direction, I may consider to move to muBb if I can't fix the board.

Back to the subject, people'll come back/be active to this board when/if Stina release a new album...