So what is the site traffic like now?

[Sammy Sofa]

Gotta be honest, it seems dead as hell.

Maybe I'm still not used to navigating, or figuring out how the new "active topics" options work, but, IMO, even by the fading standards of the old site, there doesn't seem to be a lot of users posting (I'm not counting the blogs or articles).

I'm generally just going by unread topics since each visit, and the non-sports posting seems to be mostly non-existent outside of the same 2-3 people occasionally posting, which, IMO, isn't surprising since it's still closed off from the rest of the board (including to some old-timers who just gave up without posting when they couldn't get in).

Even the sports stuff seems to have a lot less traffic/engagement than the old board; going completely unscientifically by the new "like" system, most posts seem to get almost no responses along those lines, unlike the old heart setup.

Am I just completely off about this? Are the numbers still showing the same or more people coming by than before?

[Thurman Merman]

It's felt that way to me as well.  But it might just take time for the old timers to get comfortable with the new system, and for the new people to come on board.

[PosterToBeNamedLater]

58 minutes ago, Sammy Sofa said:

Maybe I'm still not used to navigating, or figuring out how the new "active topics" options work

Have you set up a custom stream for active topics?  That made the activity page much better for me and much more like the old active topics page.  If I remember correctly you go to the 3 bars by your username at the top of the page, then 

Activity->My Activity Streams-->Create new stream

You can name the stream, choose what shows (on the all activity page it was a little too busy for me), etc and set it as your default stream so that there is always a link to it on the page (the little icon to the right of the dark mode icon).  I also just have that stream as my main bookmark for the site. 

I have thought it seemed less busy as well, but also thought it was because you seemed to be posting less.  Maybe its also because there still old members that haven't yet asked to be part of the social forum.  

[UMFan83]

1 hour ago, Sammy Sofa said:

Gotta be honest, it seems dead as hell.

Maybe I'm still not used to navigating, or figuring out how the new "active topics" options work, but, IMO, even by the fading standards of the old site, there doesn't seem to be a lot of users posting (I'm not counting the blogs or articles).

I'm generally just going by unread topics since each visit, and the non-sports posting seems to be mostly non-existent outside of the same 2-3 people occasionally posting, which, IMO, isn't surprising since it's still closed off from the rest of the board (including to some old-timers who just gave up without posting when they couldn't get in).

Even the sports stuff seems to have a lot less traffic/engagement than the old board; going completely unscientifically by the new "like" system, most posts seem to get almost no responses along those lines, unlike the old heart setup.

Am I just completely off about this? Are the numbers still showing the same or more people coming by than before?

Agreed, its felt rather dead lately.  I've been surprised to visit after 4-5 hours and seeing maybe 1-2 new posts.

I have to admit that even as a "power user" I still feel uncomfortable with the new layout and it doesn't "feel" like home.  I was hoping it would by now and I'm sure it will eventually, but maybe this is causing regulars to not visit as much even if its not intentional.

Edited April 13, 2023 by UMFan83

[Rob]

Yeah, I've noticed that the board doesn't seem to be getting huge amounts of engagement. I'm wondering if that may have something do to with the default settings for the active topics thing. That's how probably 90% of us used the board before, and if it's how people are still trying to do things, the default may not be quite right for that.

[Rex Buckingham]

Idk, I used the board without knowing about active topics for years, and have used active topics the past couple. 

 

I dont think the board is all that different in terms of navigation than it was before. I wonder if there are any users who didn't have their email updated and are having issues due to that. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by Rex Buckingham

[PackLandVA]

Had neighbors, was really good friends with them. Went over to the house quite a bit over the years. As I got to know them better, I was over at their place all the time.  Was like a second home.  And one day, they moved. New neighbors seemed pretty nice.  They invited me over for dinner for the first time and it was a bit off. I mean, I had been in that house a thousand times over the years, but it just seemed so different. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

FWIW I think any difference is mostly down to the social forums, I haven't noticed a big difference in actual baseball chatter.  A big part of that is certainly access, and maybe some other stuff like navigation or comfort in using the new site(or being locked out).

[jersey cubs fan]

1 hour ago, Rex Buckingham said:

Idk, I used the board without knowing about active topics for years, and have used active topics the past couple. 

 

I dont think the board is all that different in terms of navigation than it was before. I wonder if there are any users who didn't have their email updated and are having issues due to that. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

Game threads have been the biggest disappointment for me.  It's early in the season and the team has been playing fairly well, but game threads continue to see very little activity.

[Sammy Sofa]

To me, the two biggest knocks right now is the lack of a social forum that everyone can access, and nothing resembling the Active Topics option we had on the old board.

The former I think hinders both old and new users. Look, I get it; the way it's set up is to cordon off the political threads, because the board as it exists now is a commodity the owners are trying to make money off of, and, bottom line an overly Left-leaning sports message board isn't exactly a recipe for success along those lines.  That sucks, and, quite frankly (IMO), the type of advertisers or users that are scared off by such a thing aren't worth any kind of effort in the first place, but that's not my call.

But sectioning off ALL of the social threads, so that there's no music or movie or TV or ANY non-sports/board discussion just seems really bizarre and shortsighted.

And as for Active Forums, yeah, that's totally a preference thing, but I'd pretty confidently bet that's how most of the legacy users were navigating the old board. That's not say that has to be the only option; more navigation choices makes sense, but I think not really having any option that works like Active Topics isn't great in terms of retaining or drawing back old members. The whole "show unread" thing just doesn't work as clearly and simply and easily as Active Topics did.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Sammy Sofa

[Rex Buckingham]

9 hours ago, jersey cubs fan said:

just changed my name recently... but didn't post a whole lot previously.  abmillis was my old name on here

[cl smooth]

active threads link is throwing me off. clicking on it and only seeing what's posted since i last visited the site makes me think everyone stopped posting. 

[Rob]

9 minutes ago, cl smooth said:

active threads link is throwing me off. clicking on it and only seeing what's posted since i last visited the site makes me think everyone stopped posting. 

Yeah, I changed mine to show literally everything. It feels a lot closer to the old active topics.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Site traffic is marginally higher than it was last year.

The initial drop-off is expected, I even mentioned it a couple of times during the transition period. Any kind of significant change and some people walk away. Now the work begins to start growing and expanding the site footprint. Most of my work in the coming months will be about SEO, social media, aggregators, and content. We're investing pretty heavily into Facebook and our new page has about 2,000 likes. Our Twitter account is trudging along and growing as well.

It's impossible to not think about traffic at all but at this stage of the process, I try not to prioritize it. Right now it's about laying the foundation of a site with a breadth of quality content that it draws in new users. Because the best way to draw in new users is to make them know you exist (social, SEO, aggregators) and then engage them with good content.

And that part is a grind. Brewer Fanatic is about 13 months old now so we have one month of YoY data. We're currently sitting +95% in users YoY and we didn't launch that nearly as strongly as we launched here.

We're in it for the long haul and it's... a long haul.

[WrigleyField 22]

20 hours ago, PosterToBeNamedLater said:

Have you set up a custom stream for active topics?  That made the activity page much better for me and much more like the old active topics page.  If I remember correctly you go to the 3 bars by your username at the top of the page, then 

Activity->My Activity Streams-->Create new stream

You can name the stream, choose what shows (on the all activity page it was a little too busy for me), etc and set it as your default stream so that there is always a link to it on the page (the little icon to the right of the dark mode icon).  I also just have that stream as my main bookmark for the site. 

I have thought it seemed less busy as well, but also thought it was because you seemed to be posting less.  Maybe its also because there still old members that haven't yet asked to be part of the social forum.  

Yea. I set up my stream day 1 and there's practically no functional difference from the old Active Topics  view. 

https://northsidebaseball.com/discover/14/

Anyone should be able to use that as a baseline and save as defualt on your profile.  Then the newspaper icon at top brings you right there. Or create your own to customize what you see on your active feed. But that one should work pretty well if you just don't like change. 

 

Edited April 14, 2023 by WrigleyField 22

[PosterToBeNamedLater]

8 minutes ago, WrigleyField 22 said:

Yea. I set up my stream day 1 and there's no practically no functional difference from the old Active Topics  view. 

https://northsidebaseball.com/discover/14/

Anyone should be able to use that as a baseline and save as defualt on your profile.  Then the newspaper icon at top brings you right there. Or create your own to customize what you see on your active feed. But that one should work pretty well if you just don't like change. 

 

Yes, your post on this a few weeks ago was great for me.  I made my own "Active Topics" stream and just copied your settings (just changed the date range to the last 14 days instead) and it made the activity page so much better.  Thank you, really.  I had no idea at the time we could change our settings like that.  The default activity page was too busy and now it is much cleaner and similar to the old one.  

[jersey cubs fan]

1 hour ago, Rex Buckingham said:

just changed my name recently... but didn't post a whole lot previously.  abmillis was my old name on here

[jersey cubs fan]

21 minutes ago, WrigleyField 22 said:

Yea. I set up my stream day 1 and there's practically no functional difference from the old Active Topics  view. 

https://northsidebaseball.com/discover/14/

Anyone should be able to use that as a baseline and save as defualt on your profile.  Then the newspaper icon at top brings you right there. Or create your own to customize what you see on your active feed. But that one should work pretty well if you just don't like change. 

 

I think there is a big functional difference between the old active topics and the version I stole from you. Once you click on an unviewed topic it’s no longer included in that group. So if a I read a topic I am interested in but not ready to post in immediately by the time I want to go back and say something it’s “gone”. Unseen is not the same as active. 

[PosterToBeNamedLater]

3 minutes ago, jersey cubs fan said:

I think there is a big functional difference between the old active topics and the version I stole from you. Once you click on an unviewed topic it’s no longer included in that group. So if a I read a topic I am interested in but not ready to post in immediately by the time I want to go back and say something it’s “gone”. Unseen is not the same as active. 

Do you have your "Read Status" set to "everything" or "content I haven't read"? 

[WrigleyField 22]

10 minutes ago, jersey cubs fan said:

I think there is a big functional difference between the old active topics and the version I stole from you. Once you click on an unviewed topic it’s no longer included in that group. So if a I read a topic I am interested in but not ready to post in immediately by the time I want to go back and say something it’s “gone”. Unseen is not the same as active. 

You may have accidentally changed a filter then.  Make sure the read filter is set to "everything" 

 

[Sammy Sofa]

59 minutes ago, WrigleyField 22 said:

Yea. I set up my stream day 1 and there's practically no functional difference from the old Active Topics  view. 

https://northsidebaseball.com/discover/14/

Anyone should be able to use that as a baseline and save as defualt on your profile.  Then the newspaper icon at top brings you right there. Or create your own to customize what you see on your active feed. But that one should work pretty well if you just don't like change. 

 

Right, and that works once you figure it out; I feel like that it's something you have to figure out in the first place is the problem.

Again, I realize this is mostly a me/a lot of old folks problem as opposed to an actual problem-problem for the site itself, but people readily bail when something isn't as simple as what they're used to, especially when you're talking about a struggling to retain interest medium/format like an internet message board.

 

[WrigleyField 22]

1 hour ago, Sammy Sofa said:

Right, and that works once you figure it out; I feel like that it's something you have to figure out in the first place is the problem.

Again, I realize this is mostly a me/a lot of old folks problem as opposed to an actual problem-problem for the site itself, but people readily bail when something isn't as simple as what they're used to, especially when you're talking about a struggling to retain interest medium/format like an internet message board.

 

I tried posting it in multiple threads to make it easy on the boomers 😂

[Derwood]

I've never used Active Topics and never seen the need to. Active topics are always at the top of the lists in each subforum, and threads with new posts are color coded. 

[CubColtPacer]

I'm struggling with some of the style changes.  The white is very bright.  I plan to try dark mode soon even though I don't really use dark mode on anything else, but no other site seems so bright to me that it hurts my eyes to stare at it for very long.

Part of that might be the size of everything.  I feel like this site is incredibly zoomed in compared to most sites I frequent.  It becomes hard for me to focus.  I'm used to reading smaller font.

And then of course some of the bugs (trying to go from one page to another, trying to find your place when re-opening a page you already started).  Right now everything just seems like an effort to do rather than something I can pop in and out of.  

It's early so I'm trying to give it a chance though, and hope that I get used to it around the same time that things become more fluid.