Approx 20,000 Members & Only Approx 200 Regular Posters

[Hero]

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It's really strange people saying this, as for me it's pretty fast. When I post it's not instant, but only takes a couple of seconds, and reading posts is pretty fast.

I am on 8 Meg broadband though, with an actual speed of 7.6 Meg, but I wouldn't of thought that would make a massive difference to the posting speed, as the time taken to post is down to the remote server, not the connection speed to the server.

i'll share my experience - I'm on a stone age 56k dial up freebie connection and the forum is one of the fastest sites to load

[Matthew Wood]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

First thing Ive done is spotted a bug which allowed non registered members to post in the lounge, this has now been changed FYI All new members must be manually approved so this should stop fly by spammers.

Re speed the servers are rather new with rackspace based in the UK, it runs fine for me everytime I use it? this is an odd one.

When we revamped it was notorioulsy difficult to hack the vbulletin code and the beta version was launched whilst we acquired feedback I agree with some of the new features not as neatly integrated to provide a good user experience as well as they should be.

I totally agree with many of the thoughts in this thread and we have been making changes for the last month or so however these are yet to go live on the live site.

The bad news is the developer who was working on these changes has now left the company therefore its going to take longer than expected to put them live

Don't fret though we are aware what the bugs and annoyances are with the site and we will be putting these right just as soon as we can!

If you have any further bugs or ideas please do join and post in our upgrades community

http://www.affiliates4u.com/communities/a4u_upgrades/

Kind Regards,

Matthew

[a4uforummember]

Maybe some people just dont have anything to say.

[rosered999]

My first post - I've been 'lurking' for a couple of months - though I'm sure I registered about a year ago but from another computer (lost password & log-in info)
This thread has been great as I only bookmarked the forums & totally forgot about other parts of a4u, so have just been to some blogs to have a look.
I dont think, with all the great info out there, that I will ever have the time to actually work on my sites as I always seem to be too busy reading up on the net. This is the problem of the newbie - always gathering information then lacking the time to do anything with it.
Quite often when I'm looking, I am shown as a guest as I'm too lazy to log in, but tonight after about half an hour I suddenly switched from guest to being logged in even though I didnt put in my username & password! So maybe some of the guest figures shown are other lazy members like me.
Anyway, I'd just like to say thanks to all the members who take the time to post advice & information - its much appreciated. (1 post down - only 49 to go )

[csn]

When we revamped it was notorioulsy difficult to hack the vbulletin code and the beta version was launched whilst we acquired feedback I agree with some of the new features not as neatly integrated to provide a good user experience as well as they should be.

The bad news is the developer who was working on these changes has now left the company therefore its going to take longer than expected to put them live

It might sound daft but have you considered building your own social network/forum, rather than relying upon 3rd party solutions? At least that way, you can specify which features you would like from the ground up.

Speaking from my own experience, I used to use 3rd party software when I first started out but when I wanted an easy life, I started building my own PHP/MySQL apps as I wanted functionality not provided by the original scripts. On top of this, the scripts were too difficult to edit as not everyone codes in the same way.

I wouldn't have thought the cost would exceed existing budgets especially if you had a developer working for you.

Just an idea.

[Catt]

I have been a member for a while but didn't visit for ages. Then last month I visited a couple of times and made a couple of posts.

Because I am a relative newbie, I find that I am usually in lurker mode, just soaking up information and trying to educate myself, I don't post because I don't think I have any thing useful to contribute - I hope that will change when I have more experience.

Thank you all.

[Mr Pointy]

Hey,

What can I say? A member since 2004 & hardly any posts

I have to agree with a number of other members, the main reason for this is wondering what on earth I can offer to the community, when I've been struggling with affiliate marketing for a few years now & despite feeling that I've learnt loads, have yet to make any reasonable income from it.

It's difficult to justify offering advice to others, when I'm considering giving it all up & getting a "proper" job (as my other half calls it!).

I have offered info that I've picked up & useful links where they might be relevant, but until I start feeling like I'm getting somewhere, I don't feel qualified to offer advice to others. Hopefully 2008 will be the start of the new era

[trevHCS]

Is the definition of "lurker" someone who's posted nothing or someone who posts very infrequently?

If it's the former then I'm not sure how good VB is at filtering URL spammers, but on PHPBB forums you always end up with 1000's of inactive members simply from bots and this is with a lot of mods added to block them. Some of the 0 posters could be those.

If you mean the people who post only occasionally, that's probably because they're using this forum as a learning tool while doing other things, eg: running their sites or doing their daytime jobs. Those on here a lot worry me in that why are they spending time posting here instead of making money?

You also get people like me where my job isn't directly affiliate related, but I do the PHP programming for the sites we run and since those contain some affiliate content then I'm around most days to see what's going on. Can't post much in most forums as I know pretty much zip about Adwords, Commission Junction etc. but try to drop stuff in when I can. Suspect I'd probably be classified in the second category of lurker. My joining date probably gives the wrong impression too as I joined way back, then forgot all about it and only came back I'd guess a year ago when we got more seriously into this stuff.

A forum is basically like arena where you get experts and the general masses. They are in many cases there to absorb the information for their own use, but then, that's kindof what makes us human. Each of us has a sum of knowledge and if we share it then the sum of all knowledge becomes greater. Doesn't mean we lose out much as I'm sure UK Offers hasn't given away all his secrets to making the equiv. of the GDP of Belgium every year...!


With regards the options - not sure about the communities thing as I just don't understand that. Blogs are handy occasionally, but again don't tend to read them much. As long as the forum stays at the heart of the site then I think it'll do alright.

Oh and with regards paying & view-on-post-count ideas, erm, unless you're really massive all it's likely to do is make the place feel like a clique site with "them and us" which is one thing it does really well to avoid currently. It's nice that everyone from the beginners to the more expert affiliates sits around one table without anyone looking down on anyone else.

Trev

[moredial]

Compared with other forums with 1000s of members, I find that this is a very active forum.

By very active, I mean that the current day's topics are usually more than the time I have available to read, so I just look at any headings that look interesting.

I don't visit very often and I don't contribute very often - usually busy doing other things and just wander around here when work is quiet to catch up or lend a hand to a newbie.

[Renners]

OK I took a look at my stats and it appears I'm a lurker, didn't mean to be; endeavoured to contribute however I often read threads and found replies that represented my sentiment or answered the question so no point, perhaps I'm just slow!

Another thing I noticed whilst replying to this post, and I've done it many times, is I actually write a post, think about it and then don't post it, perhaps you should have an IM type solution that dosesn't allow you to can your post after you've typed it!

This is an interesting thread however and got me wondering, would I pay for membership and what the hell are these communities everyone goes on about!

I log on direct to the forums whereas others seem to have to go through some sort of torturous route via the home page, speed seems great for me so no problems there.

I am a member of the PCG which effectively has paid forums and free forums based upon membership levels and with about 14000 members and only a few regular posters on their forumns they seem similar to a4u stats. The do however have additional benefits of being a member such as cheap insurance for liabilites and such like. As a fully paid up member I see all the forums except the board level stuff however I still lurk! and on top of that I seems to spend my time looking at the free forums as these seem to be the most interesting forums!

I'm resisting canning this post 'csos my spline is now empty!

Perhaps you should add a function that allows you to tag a reply to say that's also your sentiment and not only counts as a post on your behalf but would also go some way to give extra imputious to views expressed without repetition.

Right enough is enough I'm now at the point where I review my post and often delete it so now I'm going to post

Regards,
Renners

[sgpratley]

Perhaps you should add a function that allows you to tag a reply to say that's also your sentiment and not only counts as a post on your behalf but would also go some way to give extra imputious to views expressed without repetition.

That's a really good idea Renners. The 'backs' function on the blogs is very good and helps sort the wheat from the chaff. I really think that some of the bloggers have it in the back of their minds when posting that they can benefit from quality rather than quantity if they get a well backed post.

If something similar existed in the forum it would be great, it would probably save the mods a job in choosing the moderators choice of threads as well (I don't mean choosing between Matt's sports jackets either :-) ).

I know QGJ tries really hard to stimulate quality discussion, and something that helps bring the quality stuff to the top of the pile would be a great move.

A most-backed communities post might help stimulate them a bit also?

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Perhaps you should add a function that allows you to tag a reply to say that's also your sentiment and not only counts as a post on your behalf but would also go some way to give extra imputious to views expressed without repetition.

I'll have to concur with what Renners suggestion on that too

[bapages]

How many are registered awaiting 'e-mail confirmation' as there are several bots that register using vbulletin?

[Azam.net]

Interesting thread.

Often when I go to affiliate marketing gatherings I meet people who say, "I've been reading your posts and visiting A4U every day for years, yet have never posted".

I do find it astounding that there are 20,000 registered members, alongside God knows how many unregistered ones, yet only a few dozen people who bother to make posts.

Every community should involve people trying to make a contribution for the betterment of everyone. Everyone wins. However, I have grown to realise, as have others, that there are massive numbers of people who leech from A4U without giving anything back.

It's one thing if they are newbies and intimated to post - and to accommodate them I would suggest an Introductions/Welcome section to A4U, as other forums have - but its another thing when, for instance, staff from the highest earning affiliate companies visit the forums on a daily basis, year-in year-out, to harvest knowledge without giving anything back to the community in terms of sharing information or motivating/assisting newer members.

One of the reasons I never set up a blog a year or two ago despite many people encouraging me to was because I wanted my contributions to be mainly here, on the Mother Site... as one of the biggest supporters of these excellent forums, I didn't want the affiliate marketing community to gradually begin to disintegrate by people congregating around blogs and other portals. Look at the USA, where there are several affiliate marketing forums instead of one, and there is not the same sense of community and fraternity as there is in affiliate marketing in Blightey.

I am now holding off from giving away too much on the forums. It is against my natural inclination (and often I find myself deleting and editing chunks of text before clicking the post button), but if the vast majority of people are not willing to participate in this community and share knowledge, then I don't see why a select number of people should.

I have probably posted on A4U less in the last three weeks than at any point in about six years, mainly for this reason.

I hope Matt and the mods can work out a solution (and, as always, I am happy to assist).

[jess1]

I have to confess to only using the forum. Id be inclined not to focus on the number of people who post on a regular basis and look at the types of lurkers you have. If you drill down and see who is not posting you will find that some are investors, journos and serious industry folk, are they going to post? Nope because for them its about research and what they are taking away and talking about amongst their colleagues and their own reports may seem a little one sided and “not giving some thing back” but it part powers the industry on. For example, folk from the ADVFN regularly come here, seldom post here but will post on that forum under a pseudo name. So some of the non posters in my mind are just as valuable and the active posters, I feel.

I think we discussed this a number of times why people are reluctant to post, the conclusion that I have come to over the years is that people “don’t want to get involved” they would rather let the debates play out and they can draw their own conclusions. I don’t think they have adopted the “let some one else do the work” more over they are being passive participants, observers and again they have a place and are still valuable.

Blogs as I believe was mentioned, these days a lot are on my own radar and I find myself as a passive participant and seldom post comments when I read their posts.

Workload is another factor, I find myself glancing at the forum these days and occasionally just focussing on a few things rather then the whole forum, but what’s important to remember is that its still part of my daily ritual and I suspect for many other people too.

Revenue for Matthew, I understand, he has to monetise this forum, I don’t envy the task and I cant believe it’s easy, getting the balance right re how much advertising is too much, will always be problematic and you can please some people but not all.

Is my pennies worth