The rate of reviews posted on this review board seems to have slowed down quite a bit.  A question for moderators / veterans / newbies, is there a better way to encourage more people to post reviews?  The current system of K-points and A-points seems to work to some level, but maybe there is room for modifications or considering different tactics to encourage more general activity in this board.

I check in at least daily, and if there is not much new activity, everyone's interest will eventually wane and people will gravitate to other boards, other websites, etc.

I am SURE among the membership here, there is more punting being done than the one or two new reviews posted here each day.

I realise that this is a punting site, and our purpose for coming on here is to find out more about satiating thirst for more delectable morsels. I don't punt very often, so my reports have been scarce, but I have been on here for many years now, living vicariously thru all of you and trying to participate where I can.

Over this period of time, I've gotten to know some of y'all thru your posts and your responses. I think it's awesome that the regs here are welcoming,  insightful, and genuine. I think that that's gone a long way to keeping this site one that I keep coming back to. So let's keep that up.

As to  how to encourage posts.... Every change is a slippery slope and a double edged sword. But I think that there might be more of an emphasis on community building rather than just reports on punting. As blokes, it's sometimes difficult to voice / share inner thoughts/emotions, and as this is a "taboo" place to visit already, it might be a safe place for us to talk about other things. And while the Lounge is currently a place where we can do those things, there is no karma for starting a thread nor participating in a thread in there. Again, I know... Slippery slope. Which is why it's just a suggestion for the powers that be.

Another reason for doing so is because, while reports are great and some of the story tellers get full marks for infotainment, most are pretty repetitive in nature. So this gives people an additional reason to hang out and chat, instead of just reading about whether a SP takes care to wash your a$$hole in the shower.

The other thing that would improve the site. Can the mods/admins for this site PLEASE talk to the web designer and have them remove the adds within the forums. It makes double checking addresses/phone numbers discretely on here damn near impossible, especially now that everyone's screen size on mobiles is about as big as their face. Plus it's incredibly annoying and very distracting. I very much think it deters people from participating frequently in fears of being seen.

Aside from that, I think the system is great. I think the points system is good, and I think it's good that we have levelling.

~UD

I've mentioned this before, and great point UD, that this is the only forum I had ever contributed to punting or otherwise.  I generally hate social media and don't use twatface or instacunt at all but do get fulfilment from responding to posts, questions etc and adding my tuppence.  I also love reliving my punts and war stories by doing full reports but it takes time.

One thing I would throw in the Mods direction to raise to the Admin, which has been said before as well, that if there was a decent App or mobile version  of the forum (without the ridiculous pop-ups) it would be better for me to post quick reports on the go.  

I travel a lot and, if you have read any of my reports, it takes me a while to complete one on my laptop which I really don't want to do sat in an office, coffee shop, train, airport lounge, plane etc

Also realising that if I don't put an RA on them they are open to Google is an annoyance if not a concern.

Just my tuppence

Au

[ Last edited by  aurufc at 17-12-2017 01:47 ]

So I went looking at the numbers and what I found in the statistics section of the forum is quite interesting!

we have over 225,000 members here
92% of the members are non posters (presume this means not made a single post)
Of the rest 15,000+ "posters" I doubt there are more than 50-60 members who are active and participate in the discussions

We have close to 2m page views per month
85% of those are by non-members / guests and rest by members
So there is no doubt about the value of the content here.

Of the 20 members who have spend the most time on this forum 2 are still Newbies!

We have had only 45 new posts in the last 24 hours. Extrapolating that is 1350 posts or roughly 250 new threads per month.

Unless I am reading the numbers wrong, from the large number of guests and non-poster members who are just leaching from the forum, I think we are giving away too much for free without getting anything in return. Think I made the same comment in another thread, now I have the data to back it up.

Think we should be happy to sacrifice some of the 2m page views in the short term to drive up the number of new posts (valuable new posts I must add) Longer term the page views will go up if there is enough valuable posts here anyway.

[ Last edited by  p0ison at 17-12-2017 01:44 ]

Hi Bros,

We want more participation and want new members to feel part of the forum.

Many bros only punt when on business trips or holidays but would still like to feel part of the forum when on their down time. They would still like an opportunity to earn Karma and move through the ranks even if not punting.

What makes members feel part of the group here?
Karma points.

So let's make them easier to gain / earn.

1) Allow members to earn Karma points in the Intel section
2) Allow members to earn Karma points in the Mongering Talk section
3) Allow members to earn Karma points in the Lounge section

This is how it was many years ago and there was much more participation. All very easy to change in the Discuz platform which we use.
Have a look at some old members statistics, they have a high RA rating for not many actual punt reports. They still felt part of the forum.

4) Always give Karma to posts you read!

FFS! How many times do you see a good report get Karma points from 10 bros but 300 bros have read the report. Even when the report has an RA of 30 where every reader is capable of leaving a few Karmas. This is my biggest bugbear by far!

I am very confident these simple changes to the system and our attitudes to issuing Karma points would get the forum back to it's glory days.

Obe

[ Last edited by  obe at 17-12-2017 10:39 ]

Agree but is Jake still fighting the good fight all by himself as a Mod?  Think he said about not wanting to make decisions by himself?

Again with a lack of contributing members, the low numbers of active Mods is an indication that we all need to step up in some form.  Once I get through a ridiculous period of travel which goes to Feb, I offered to give it a go, if wanted, though still not sure I am senior enough of a member.

Any of the other senior bros stepping up Jake?

I joined in May 2009, and was invited to be a mod on 4 Sept 2009 with fewer than 1000 credits. You are senior enough.

[ Last edited by  Thai-delight at 17-12-2017 12:21 ]

I support Obe's proposal of allowing K's for these other non-review sections.  He is also right about the high proportion of lurkers who never post.  

Let me share this to newbies:   There is valuable reviews and a LOT of additional insight in the reviews with RA and especially the "Restricted Access" section!
It is very much worthwhile to at least get to the "Lustful Lord" designation.  I almost post exclusively in the Restricted Access section now since most of my reviews are from seekingarrangement and I don't want those to be searchable.  

Let's give additional incentives for people to post and contribute!   I visit almost every day, and recently, I have not even been able to use up my daily allotment of K's and A's!  I'm giving OUT KARMA points and can't even find enough posts to donate!  

Give everyone 1 karma if they give the max karma they can to a post? Just an idea...

@obe, Jeffzeke: You guys are aware that it is credits not karma that matters, right? 20 acceptance points equals one credit and 1 karma point equals 1 credit. So all forums provide an opportunity to earn credits, just not equally. I think that is fair. Or you guys saying posts in lounge and mongering talk should earn the same credits as reports?

Yep. Basically it is only Karma points which will help you move up the ranks on this forum though.


100 Acceptance = 5 Karma, 1000 Acceptance = 50 Karma,    10000 Acceptance = 500 Karma
The highest Acceptance rating on this forum is Bro twiceAweek with 7908 = 395 Karna points.

IMHO gaining Acceptance points will hardly make Bros move up through the ranks.


Yes exactly. Let Bro's earn Karma points in these sections but don't give the bonus Karma points you get when posting in report sections.

Possibly we should give RA 30 members and above the power to do a negative 1 Karma. This way the forum members can keep people in check in these sections who are clearly doing one liners to earn karma points.

I believe everything I have proposed is feasible to setup on our platform.

Obe

[ Last edited by  obe at 17-12-2017 19:54 ]

What about limiting reading based on contribution?

Anyone can read up to 3 posts a month for free, but you can earn more "reads" by posts. Each review that someone posts earns them 10 "reads". That equation might not be quite right, perhaps each review someone posts earns them 1 month of unlimited reads, or something... regardless of the equation, the real behavior we're trying to encourage is contribution, so the question becomes "how do we encourage people to contribute?"

I get the above discourages usage, but it only discourages it for the people who aren't contributing. Right?

[ Last edited by  hkpunter999 at 18-12-2017 03:19 ]

Obe:   If people are weary of giving K's to non-review sections, like the Mongering and Lounge sections, how about re-calibrating the value of K's vs A's.  

Right now, as you mention, 20 acceptance = 1 karma.  We can consider adjusting the ratio, maybe 10 acceptable = 1 karma, or 5 acceptance = 1 karma  ?

Any thoughts?  We should also encourage our newbies who start posting reviews, like fostering newbies to grow into mature punters like us, LOL!  

a lot of the K and/or A methods thats been mentioned have been tried before … without much impact
initially the use of A was created for entirely different purpose and if it's use now has become redundant the why not do away with it ?

I like to see talk about something that's rarely talked about … the roll of a mod, what you think a mod's roll should be besides the nominal admin duties the forum engine enpowers them to do
perhaps with this understanding members would be more/less willing to stand up on the plate

5 Acceptance = 1 Karma would be reasonable.

I still strongly think just having Karma in those sections as I could almost guarantee it would start discussions again on the forum.

At the moment the forum is like reading the old Penthouse Pet section. Don't get me wrong that is good but us Bros should be encouraged and rewarded for interacting more on this forum rather then just blow by blow descriptions of a punt.


Exactly.

Obe

Looking at p0ison's post about the forum statistics, it seems like there are a lot of member and non-member lurkers who are viewing reports. This helps the forum gain in advertising capture, and helps the lurkers, but doesn't seem to adequately reward those who are putting in the time to create the content. This is especially true if a majority of lurking members are Newbies who can only award very few points/acceptance. If there are only truly about 50-60 regular members who are actively participating, this means the report poster must capture the attention of one of these 50-60 guys to get any amount of substantial points; and as we know, everyone has different tastes and these 50-60 guys may not be into the information the report has to offer. For example, I'm only into HE massages, and I don't punt often, most of my reports don't get many points. As a result, my level is low, and I can only give up to 2 karma per report.

Some Ideas: (Keep in mind i'm not a tech savvy guy; I have no idea if these are possible or not on this platform)

Is there any way to award points to report posters from the views? For example, can we award one point for 300 views (unique IPs), with a maximum of 20 points per post which can be earned in this way? (the numbers I put in this calculation are totally random, @p0ison can probably look at the statistics and see what is actually fair).

Is there any way to give the member the ability to give karma or acceptance without going to another webpage? It is cumbersome to do this on Safari as the webpage doesn't automatically redirect

From my brief participation, it seems reports with pictures (even if they are from the DB) get more points than those without. However, in my opinion, it is very cumbersome to add pictures due to the size restriction, requires me to do some extra steps. Is there a way to get the system to reduce the file size after the user uploads it?

Most reports are pretty long and with pictures, mostly because Newbies can see these types of reports will result in more points awarded. However, it is deterring users from posting short reports; this is good and bad. Good - forum maintains strong quality. Bad - forum members who may not be reporting at all, as they see reporting as too long of a time commitment. For example, it would be useful for viewers to know if a provider is average, above average, or below average. Most people will post if the experience is completely awesome or absolute crap; but average experiences seem not to be reported on. Thus, there is a lack of information on this forum about average providers. My own theory is that I would much rather try out a provider that someone on this forum has marked as average, than one that isn't reviewed at all.  How can we incentivize users to write even short reports without the quality of the forum going down? Can the system do a word or letter count on the report and mark it as a short report, with short reports having a cap of say 25 max points? Also, can the system require the reports in the Newbie Section be "long" so the forum isn't spammed with crap/junk?

Finally, is there a way to pre-populate the text field when a user starts the report with the report template? It's easy enough on a computer to copy and paste the template, however, I find this is more difficult on a smartphone.

Hope my comments are helpful.

It is great to see all of the discussion by everyone regarding building up the forum.

I fully agree with many of the suggestions. I know we have some technical limits due to the platform, but I am open to ask.

As a member, before becoming a mod, I realized that most of the stuff I wanted to see required a RA50. That gives someone visibility to well over 90% of what is on the forum.

Reports are the lifeblood of this type of forum just like movie reviews are the lifeblood of a movie review site. Knowing that fact, I think giving K’s for discussions that are not specific to reviews is resonable if the Ks got to the OP primarily.

I will be reaching out to the Admin shortly to ask about adding one or two new mods. As TaW mentioned, there may be some level of misunderstanding or unknown element to the mod position. I would like to know what your thoughts are on the mod role here on the forum.

Thanks again for being involved and active. I appreciate everyone’s engagement.
J

@NeverWong: your ideas around points based on views and short reports are interesting, but there is also a case for keeping things simple. These would make the points system quite opaque. Also I would never trust a 'met this girl, she was good' kind of short report. It is usually when you read the details that the report becomes more trust worthy and valuable. I personally wouldn't like to see too many short reports.

I absolutely like the idea of report template and second that one!

(Assuming I won't be chided for back to back replies!!)

My take on few other points raised:

1) role of Mod: I think best mods are invisible. Nobody likes bossy and overbearing mods, they are tolerated if unavoidable! (no reference to Jake or anyother mod here, just general comment). But they need to make sure the discussion on the forum follows agreed rules / principles. It may not be down to just mods either, help from senior bros would go a long way. Maybe we could have a forum with just senior members and mods to ensure they are in sync always or any difference of opinion is hidden from the larger group.

2) The general feeling going through the posts here seem to be that bros are happy to see more activity in the forum even if that means most of the new activity is generic discussion in the lounge or mongering talk sections. Would be good to hear more views on that. I think there is value to increase participation, but beyond a point it could be dilution. I love the community feeling here (even though I am fairly new) and wouldn't want that lost in the quest for more activity.

3) sentiment seems to be that we need to encourage newbees and others on the sidelines to contribute by making it easier to gain points and climb the membership ladder. I feel the other way. We need to tighten things and let members earn the right to read and benefit from our experiences. Maybe a bit of both would work- make it easier to earn K but also put higher RA on posts in general?

Well said Jake.

Also very easy to implement on this platform.

Obe