Approx 20,000 Members & Only Approx 200 Regular Posters

[tbp]

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I like the new system, occassionaly there are problems, but they are getting fewer and don't happen for very long.

I don't see the harm in having lurkers, if I put a post up with what I think is useful information, I do it to help everyone, not just people who post regularly. How you consider a post helpful is open to debate as well, I`m no expert as I`ve only been an affiliate for a year, and only now starting to find success, but I like to think my posts help other newer affiliates. On the other hand, a lot of posts probably aren't much use to the big affiliates earning megabucks, as they`ll have seen most of it before. If your a new affiliate, for a while theres probably not much you can say really, apart from asking questions which from the sound of some of the previous posts would be seen as "taking".

I do agree however with not allowing guests to post, as I think you do need to have some sort of control over who posts and who doesn't, and it would cut down on some of the spam.

[kathymoger]

As a newbie to AM I only feel confident to comment occasionally at the moment so whilst I contribute fairly often in some areas, I lurk in others! I'm more than happy to give my expertise freely where relevant as I feel it is important to contribute as much as possible. Like most newbies I don't want to make a complete idiot of myself whilst 'learning the ropes'. Eventually, as I learn more I will be able to contribute more and lurk less!

One thing I did find when I first became a member was that the site was a little confusing with both the communities and forums (or should that be fora lol?) and I couldn't remember where I had been following a particular thread.

Based on the above I would suggest:

1) Don't worry about lurkers - today's lurker may be tomorrow's best contributor
2) Only allow members to contribute
3) Amalgamate the communities and forums
4) Don't charge for membership - it will put people off and reduce the free flow of ideas
5) Have a newbie category for people to choose when they join and display the poster's category alongside the member details on the post. Then if a newbie posts, they should be encouraged to continue contributing, even if they make a 'twit' of themselves - treat them gently.

I thought a newbie's perspective might be useful in this discussion - I hope it helps!

Kathy

[Matthew Wood]

Unregistered members should not be allowed to post, I beleive this is a bug with Vbulletin, and we try to delete these posts as soon as possible - does anyone know of a solution / fix?

Interesting thread - the very nature of forums mean that they attract lurkers - and I guess we can't please everyone!

We don't want to go for a paid option, but perhaps we could introduce a forum that can only be viewed by members who have posted say around 50 times?

re the communities, we thought we would give them a go - some communities attract thousands of members each week, but I agree we need to tweak the integration and functionality.

We have been doing some work in the background for an improved release but it's taking longer than expected.

[angelabx]

I really like the forum as it is. I don't post too often as I generally feel that there are people on here who are vastly more experienced to comment than me despite being in this game for 8 years. The questions/queries that I am qualified enough to help with are usually already answered by the time I read them!

I'd say it's really great as it is.

[gadget]

I really like the forum and wouldn't want to see many changes. I don't use the communities (which might say something about them, or me) and so couldn't comment other than to say the point about 'off forum' discussions aren't contributing to the forum - imo.

We were all readers before we were contributors. The talent on this forum is awesome and it must be quite intimidating to people who are new to affiliate marketing. I've learnt so much from the archived posts and would encourage the promotion of a 'archive search' before any other changes.

One change I would like to see however is the 'management' of rubbish - guests should not be allowed to contribute, it should be a registration only post. Why? Well I view this forum as a community and as such want to see all of us contribute to its longevity. Also, pls, someone, get rid of the huge amount of spam and multiple posts (mainly networks).

Finally, I think the Blog section is an excellent source of fresh, new information but it needs policing just like any other section.

[gadget]

We don't want to go for a paid option, but perhaps we could introduce a forum that can only be viewed by members who have posted say around 50 times?

Like Keith said, this will just encourage people to post rubbish until they reach 50 posts, so no thanks.

[tbp]

We don't want to go for a paid option, but perhaps we could introduce a forum that can only be viewed by members who have posted say around 50 times?

I don't think this is should implemented. By their very nature forums are for sharing information, and I don't think there should be a limit on who sees what. Personaly, I don't understand what the problem is with having lurkers, if people don't want to post or don't feel they can contribute I don't see the problem.

Quite often I`ll do a search for some sort of problem on google, and the answer will be in a forum. It may be obscure and the post is off topic, so I wouldn't consider joining the forum, as I know nothing about, or have no interest in the general forum subject. Occassionaly I will come across a forum that I want to contribute to, and so will join.

[ian-d]

Agreed, lurking is part of the foundation of forums, its a resource that should be allowed to tap into, having restricted areas for more popular areas generally puts those off registering, rather than encourages them. Allow them to lurk, but only allow registered users to post.

Don't use the communities myself though, find them unneccassary in the same way as i do myspace, facebook etc, but as someone else said, maybe thats just me.

Keep the forum doing what it does best, being a forum, but try and encourage the affiliate pro's back in, too many of them have their own blogs and generally contribute on there but not on here as much as maybe we'd like/hope.

I'm sure i speak for everyone though when saying that the work matthew and team do on this site is fantastic, and should be congratulated.

[befuddle]

Finally, I think the Blog section is an excellent source of fresh, new information but it needs policing just like any other section.

It already is. You can 'back' and 'slap' posts.

Or do you mean censorship?

[Fruit_and_Veg]

As an infrequent poster but regular reader, I'd just say that I only participate in a post where I have something constructive to say. There's a probably a bunch of lurkers who lurk but don't post because they have nothing new to say - good on them for not confusing, hijacking or ruining threads. Looking at lurkers as 'Info Theives' is the wrong way to look at them. As kathymoger says, they could be next years top contributer.

The communities side of the site I never use, mainly because it logs me out. I tried sorting it out but it never worked so I avoid it. I've bookmarked the forum page, hit New Posts and that's about it. I use search before posting a new thread

[loquax]

Last year we put a limiter on Loquax's forums (handful of posts and 2 weeks) before users could access some sections.

Initially it resulted in a few long term non-posters having a right strop (you'd have thought we were asking for £100 a day subscription), some quickly made their handful of posts (and went back to lurking) and others actually took it in their stride and went on to not only post a few times, but also contribute.

Once they had the confidence to get involved.. they usually continued!

I'm not sure how a limitation system though on A4U would work.. 50 posts is way too high though - and what will a restriction offer posters (the paid forum didn't exactly offer much in the way of anything different and most posts went into the main forum).

However, I do think you need to encourage newbies to introduce themselves and just get used to posting... but imo the structure of the whole site isn't that conducive for new users or encouraging discussion.

E.g. Things don't tie in (e.g. search on http://www.affiliates4u.com/ isn't the same as on forums), profiles on forums don't relate to user profiles. And at no point is there anywhere which guides a new user to getting involved.

Lurkers are a fact of forum life, but imo you can help/guide/encourage not just newbies but all posters with a better structure and highlighting the stuff you want people to be involved with.

E.g. create a feed of discussion posts (rather than last 10) to appear on the homepage - how many times do you get to http://www.affiliates4u.com/ and see the same offer repeated 5 times in the feed... that's not good for discussion!

Also I do think you need to assess whether the communities are really a success... in theory a great idea, but they just don't seem to be used.

Jason

PS I'm probably being very critical, but I do love A4U really

[Aquanuke]

I hardly ever post any more or even view as the site is too slow and bulky.. get rid of all that blog/community ****e

Also less and and less folks seem to post 3 years back it was much better even on that free forum board thing Matt was using.

[Aquanuke]

It took me over 4 mins to post that msg on an 8mb broadband

[kathymoger]

re the communities, we thought we would give them a go - some communities attract thousands of members each week, but I agree we need to tweak the integration and functionality.

The one community I did use regularly at first was the 'Affiliate Marketing Beginners' which seemed an appropriate place to start as a newbie but there is no real reason why this couldn't have its own forum I guess. Interestingly I don't use it as much now, so perhaps that's a sign that I am gaining some confidence... I do however still look in on this community from time to time to see if I can contribute anything.

We have been doing some work in the background for an improved release but it's taking longer than expected.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank Matthew and the team for listening to what we have to say and taking it on board. We may moan a lot but I'm sure others would agree that we do appreciate your hard work!

Kathy

[kathymoger]

It took me over 4 mins to post that msg on an 8mb broadband

Slightly off topic but...

It is interesting that several people have said that they find the site slow and that adding a post takes a long time. I've not experienced any such difficulties so presumably there are some other factors involved other than the A4U site and its servers?

I've just done a tracert and only have six hops, each of them being quite fast. My ISP is IDNET and they specifically don't do any throttling. I don't want to do a screenshot of my tracert because of displaying my IP address publicly but I would be willing to type up the results if others think it would be useful.

It would be interesting if others could do a similar exercise to see if there is any commonality amongst those experiencing slow speeds.

Kathy