Due to this forum being completely public, even indexed by Google, it has about five main user groups.
Completely anonymous users who arrive from the outside.
Lurkers who have accounts because they read regularly, and they want to track what is read/unread.
Contributing users with accounts who don’t visit that regularly. Maybe they remember the forum exists once in awhile. They have not developed a habit of checking frequently.
Contributing users who may check regularly, but stick to a subset of categories or threads. They don’t look at the entire forum, just the parts that interest them.
Regular users who visit and contribute frequently to all threads.
I can see from the analytics the forum collects which topics and threads are most popular among the different groups. I can definitely say, each group enjoys completely different threads. I can also definitely tell you that the threads with the most posts are not the ones with the most reads.
What the analytics can’t tell me is how people feel about the content they are seeing or contributing here. It could be that people are reading “Random Comments” or “Things of Your Day” the most because those threads have a lot of activity. Maybe people really are happiest and most excited when they see posts in another thread, but the thread is posted in very rarely.
Of all the things on this forum, which things do you like the most? What types of threads and posts are you most excited to see new comments in? If you keep checking this forum on a regular basis, what are you hoping to see new comments in? Can you think of any kind of content you want to see, but a relevant thread doesn’t even exist? What threads do exist, but you have no interest in and never read?
I generally stick around for the politics and hearing about games and tv shows that might otherwise go under my radar. I mean I probably wouldn’t have discovered Steven Universe without this forum but at the same time I’ve never posted about Steven Universe so without this thread you’d never know that.
My main hobby right now is amateur dramatics. I’m in another play this January. Plus being a relatively new dad which aren’t really a focus of the community.
I know it’s not a place to come for news but this place is like a great comment section to things I’m tangentially interested in.
I poke my head in the politics threads, stay away from the TV/movies threads cause I don’t watch much, but mostly I’m here for the general threads. Just glad to still have this community after nearly 10 years. My big pet peeve about content on this Forum is just that music sharing is ubiquitous but music discussion is nearly non existent. I’d love to talk about what we’re sharing there more.
The things I like the most are usually the more specific threads. Metal, ON THE GO, our sports threads, some of the specific games, like CSGO. I really like seeing stuff people have made or are working on. Unfortunately many of these threads are less active.
The high-post-count threads I’m not as into. I mostly don’t care for just-a-link posts. A sentence about why it’s cool or notable or why I should click on it is nice. I usually avoid the “x of your y” threads.
And of course I like the no nazis, but that should be table stakes.
Prefacing posts in the random thread is a great start. I’d love some threads about music separate from that, but just starting with actually talking about what we’re already posting would be great.
EDIT: I’m gonna make a crash course in blues thread once the YouTube strike is over on Saturday.
I usually feel inhibited in spawning a dedicated thread for something that might not need it. Case in point I’d love to talk 4X games specifically and some of the ones I’m hype for coming out in the next year or so but I see that as just falling under the video games discussion 2.0 thread.
I’d gladly rant and rave about music but as someone with no academic or even amatuer background I feel limited in that I could only talk about themes or vaguely about style.
I randomly get motivation to post random stuff like DOOM wad reviews or mythology breakdowns but I don’t want to feel like I’m hijacking this forum for my own soapbox
I’m not expecting theory, I just want it so that when you post something in the Random Music thread, you write a few things you like about what you’re posting.
Perhaps we should make a “What music have you been listening too recently?” Thread to mirror the movie and game ones? That way there’s a more obvious place to talk at length about songs/albums as oppose to the misc thread which feels more like a place to share new stuff.
