Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2015 20:38:23 GMT
I've previously joined WP as Ben_Is_My_Only_God but quit the place after less than a fortnight after being the victim of an unprovoked verbal attack simply because I mentioned that I'd stopped smoking, in a thread about whether people smoked or not. The moderator was totally ineffective and as a result the incident totally destroyed the credibility of the place as far as I am concerned. I no long want anything to do with the place.
I joined Autism Central as BIMOG (an acronym of Ben Is My Only God that is easier to type) but lasted less than a week. After a thread that I had created, about Odd Collecting Interests, was hijacked by a group of gun fanatics I complained to a moderator, who then proceeded to... post a reply about guns in the same thread. Who would want to stay there after that sort of response? Not me.
So now I'm here and I hope that this proves to be a better alternative. If it isn't I'll simply quit.
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Post by ylevental on Nov 3, 2015 8:58:47 GMT
Greetings! We hope that this can be a great place to explore Autism from multiple perspectives.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2015 22:30:17 GMT
It's certainly a good place to explore echoes
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max
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Post by max on Nov 5, 2015 6:48:40 GMT
I've previously joined WP as Ben_Is_My_Only_God but quit the place after less than a fortnight after being the victim of an unprovoked verbal attack simply because I mentioned that I'd stopped smoking, in a thread about whether people smoked or not. The moderator was totally ineffective and as a result the incident totally destroyed the credibility of the place as far as I am concerned. I no long want anything to do with the place. I joined Autism Central as BIMOG (an acronym of Ben Is My Only God that is easier to type) but lasted less than a week. After a thread that I had created, about Odd Collecting Interests, was hijacked by a group of gun fanatics I complained to a moderator, who then proceeded to... post a reply about guns in the same thread. Who would want to stay there after that sort of response? Not me. So now I'm here and I hope that this proves to be a better alternative. If it isn't I'll simply quit. Yeah, fanatics about anything are bad. Gun fanatics are the worst. I can’t even count how many times I have been banned from forums because of my anti-gun views. Because of course there is only one right view, when it comes to guns. Guns are right, and if you say anything even a little bit negative about them, then you are wrong.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2015 10:48:10 GMT
I don't approve of gun ownership myself, particularly when it comes to automatic/semi-automatic weapons, designed with one purpose only, to kill other people. My issue on AC wasn't with the gun fanatics per se but with the fact that they'd hi-jacked my thread about "odd Special Interests." I politely pointed out that as collecting guns is widespread in the USA it hardly rates as an "Odd Special Interest." I also politely requested that they stop posting comments about guns on my thread and suggested that if they still wished to talk about guns it would take only seconds for one of them to created a separate "We love guns" thread. I was totally ignored, on my own thread, so I contacted a moderator for help. His response was to visit my thread and... join in with the gun conversation. I guess it's a good job that I have no interest in guns or I might have been tempted to blow the lot of them away for being deliberately pig ignorant arseholes. Instead, because I'm not a gun obsessed wanker I simply quit the site.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2015 14:39:57 GMT
BIMOG, your site looks nice. The only problem is getting enough people. And that's the problem here, too. I think OOM must be a bit busy with other things after putting a lot of time into architecture here. I wish more of the people who "joined" this site would make an effort to post, though.
But give it time. Here, and on your site.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2015 15:01:57 GMT
I think part of the problem with this site is OOM's absence for the past two days. Some new members have joined, some suggestions have been made, requests for features have been made too and there has been no response. In this day and age society is geared towards instant gratification, people don't like to wait, they get bored easily. There was small window of opportunity to really make an impact with this site, due to curiosity for WP users and novelty value but that window is rapidly closing. The 95+ visitors a day just a day or so ago has already declined to 60+ and the number of members logging in per day has halved from twelve to only six. Casual visitors are seeing nobody present on the site and no new activity, so there's nothing to hold their attention. Like you said, and I've said elsewhere on this forum myself, in order to attract visitors and new members the site needs sufficient content to engage them, especially new activity and new content. Unfortunately very few existing members seem to be making any effort to provide that content.
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max
New Member
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Post by max on Nov 6, 2015 0:07:15 GMT
I think part of the problem with this site is OOM's absence for the past two days. Some new members have joined, some suggestions have been made, requests for features have been made too and there has been no response. In this day and age society is geared towards instant gratification, people don't like to wait, they get bored easily. Maybe OOM was looking for instant gratification too. She didn’t get it, so she is out of here. Anyways, I don’t get it either. They were SPAMing this all over the place, then two days later the place looks abandoned. Kind of like being invited to a party, and then the host just disappears. Will the last one out, please turn out the lights.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2015 0:28:33 GMT
Yeah, I'm also wondering how much thought and commitment went into making of this forum. There's no reason why it can't succeed, after all every other forum started off in much the same way with hardly any members and then built up gradually. This place could do the same but it needs some regular input from OOM. At the moment she's the only admin the site has got, so she's the only one who can create boards and things. Without her presence the admin side of this forum has ground to a halt. People are paying visits, seeing that there's next to no one online here and hardly any new posts, so they're just leaving. There's precious little to encourage anyone to stick around, let alone sign up as a member. I'm only sticking around because there are some people on WP who want to see this place will fail and I don't want them to have the satisfaction. If this place does fold it won't be for lack of effort on my part.
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itt2
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Post by itt2 on Nov 6, 2015 2:00:29 GMT
I think this is a good time to practice patience, and to remember that people have different lives, different abilities to post, and sometimes things in life happen that draw your attention away.
One thing that won't grow the readership is complaints about the site. Each of us has the ability to influence this site for the better or for the worst. It's up to each of us what we do. While I am currently working upwards of 60 hours a week, I am hoping what little time I do have--and I mean LITTLE--will be to positively contribute.
That being said, this is very difficult for me because I have a hard time initiating conversations with people I don't know.
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Post by btbnnyr on Nov 6, 2015 5:52:28 GMT
I am back to post as my code for my homework is working.
Subscript dimension mismatch. Inner matrix dimensions must agree.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2015 11:04:33 GMT
I think this is a good time to practice patience, and to remember that people have different lives, different abilities to post, and sometimes things in life happen that draw your attention away. One thing that won't grow the readership is complaints about the site. Each of us has the ability to influence this site for the better or for the worst. It's up to each of us what we do. While I am currently working upwards of 60 hours a week, I am hoping what little time I do have--and I mean LITTLE--will be to positively contribute. That being said, this is very difficult for me because I have a hard time initiating conversations with people I don't know. Constructive criticism isn't the same as complaining. If I was pissed off with the operation of this forum I'd simply quit. Instead I've wracked my brain trying to think of things to post about, just to keep the site ticking over and generate some new content. I am also autistic and I also find it very difficult to initiate things, I'm far better at responding. However even that's not so easy when there has been very little to respond to over the past few days.
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itt2
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Post by itt2 on Nov 6, 2015 11:57:00 GMT
I think this is a good time to practice patience, and to remember that people have different lives, different abilities to post, and sometimes things in life happen that draw your attention away. One thing that won't grow the readership is complaints about the site. Each of us has the ability to influence this site for the better or for the worst. It's up to each of us what we do. While I am currently working upwards of 60 hours a week, I am hoping what little time I do have--and I mean LITTLE--will be to positively contribute. That being said, this is very difficult for me because I have a hard time initiating conversations with people I don't know. Constructive criticism isn't the same as complaining. If I was pissed off with the operation of this forum I'd simply quit. Instead I've wracked my brain trying to think of things to post about, just to keep the site ticking over and generate some new content. I am also autistic and I also find it very difficult to initiate things, I'm far better at responding. However even that's not so easy when there has been very little to respond to over the past few days. I misunderstood what you wrote, then. I thought you were complaining that OOM is not here keeping things going and complaining that there isn't enough here to draw new people in. I am thankful she set this up. If the rest of us want to make it work, we are eq ually responsible, IMHO. No one needs to wait for her, and it is not reasonable to think that this will be a buzzing forum in a matter of days/weeks.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2015 13:58:18 GMT
Actually we do need to wait for OOM for some things. Some members have requested some specific changes and the addition of particular boards, nobody else but the Admin (OOM) can effect those changes. I personally wasn't expecting it to be buzzing after a few days but there certainly isn't enough here at present to draw new members in. When approximately 30% of the current membership haven't even made a single post that's hardly going to help to boost the site content is it? It's a nice idea that we are all equally responsible for helping to make the site work but the simple fact is that 60% of the posts on these boards originated from just 3 members.
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Interested Observer
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Post by Interested Observer on Nov 7, 2015 0:01:10 GMT
The adage that if you build it they will come is a misnomer. Most websites fail within two months of launching and only a small percentage make it past the first year. With that in mind there are things that can help boost the chances of success, that are not being utilized now.
1. There has to be a clear and concise purpose. Finding a niche and filling it is more successful than trying to imitate a niche that has already been filled.
2. Having staunch views about others, turns people off joining unless your site is specifically for an opposing view and the support of it. Having context that ostracizes others is setting up failure for an open and inviting place. (IE if this site was purposely designed to be a pro-dolphin hunting forum, then I would expect there to be posts containing animosity towards groups like green peace.)
3. Content should engage, not be a one sided conversation. Asking questions of others usually evokes a response. Spouting off beliefs/opinions will get read, but rarely responded to. As well the responses that are received, may not be what was intended or wanted.
4. Having a clear purpose (which goes with #1). If the sole purpose of the site is to "see it do better than site x" then you won't get very far.
5. Quantity, rarely means quality. Many people don't want to sit and shift through 10,000 threads all saying the same thing. Having a few quality, well thought out threads that attract readers, while engaging them in critical thought and asks for feedback attracts more than putting down every personal thought in a two second missive. Save two second missives for Facebook and Twitter. (Two second missive: a brief message that adds no value to the conversation.)
6. Being content rich. Any website that shows up in search engines when typing a general word such as "autism" is considered content rich. If this is a site for people with autism, posts should deal with autism and have links to other content that specifically coincides with what is being discussed. Many search engines "score" a website based on use of search terms, level of content contained using those terms, and quality of said content. People decide quickly on the first few hits that are returned by a search rarely making it to the second or third page. So search engine ranking can play a huge roll in a sites success. A site's content plays an intricate roll for having good search engine ranking (top 10-20 hits).
7. Planning, patience, and dedication. Having an end result or idea of what a site could become is great, not having a plan on how to get it there is a recipe for disaster. Forums that wish to be a niche (such as this one) are especially sensitive to proper planning or lack there of.
(IE There should be plans in place and the beginning stages started on creating a Facebook page, Twitter account, etc, to engage people and inform them that the site exists and what it can offer. )
My advice is to ask yourselves the following questions and answer them honestly and in as much detail as you can.
1. Do I have the time to dedicate to creating content that engages others with questions and information whether I agree with their views or not? Would a blog or Facebook account be more suited to what I can realistically contribute? What kinds of content can I provide that may interest others?
2. What is the niche I am trying to fill, is it already being filled, if so how does my way improve upon or supplement the solutions already being used by others?
3. What is the "value" (as in benefit for others) of this site? How will I convey that value?
4. What will my site look like a year from now, five/ten years from now? What do I need to do to get it there? What resources can I use? Who can I ask for help/advice when needed?
Once those are answered, it should become fairly clear whether anyone who wants to start a site will succeed or fail in doing so. The clearer and more detail that is given the clearer and easier it becomes to implement.
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