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How Can We (Re-)Activate The Board?


elef

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How Can We (Re-)Activate The Board?

 

I pop in only occasionally these days, but I've always thought the answer wasn't that difficult: change the bloody name. Thai360, my arse.

 

That's where it all went wrong. Thai360 sounds like the sort of site I would go to if I wanted a 24-hour plumber in Banchang.

 

The 'non-standard' forum format is off-putting.

 

Cliques. The site might just be perceived as a closed club, with an elite who are allowed to do things that the hoi-polloi cannot. That sponsor crap? Lose it.

 

It breaks my heart to see the once dominant nanaplaza.com reduced to a small in -crowd repeating in-jokes that are years out of date, and weren't even funny the first time. Sorry, tell me again, it's hilarious - Old Hippie does gay tests on people and situations. (Nurse! Quickly...yeah, it's the old rib problem again.)

 

Once the membership dwindled then the field became open to some seriously weird people that would have been given short shrift normally; dreamers who have been allowed to indulge their on-line fantasies with frankly risible accounts of their lives in Thailand. The Munchmaster is the only poster that hammers these people.

 

(Re-)Activate The Board?

 

Re-think, redesign and re-launch. There is a niche there. Pitch it some notches above Teak Door (the warrant dodgers) but without the primness of Thai Visa (the coffin dodgers.)

 

Oh, and Friday meets? It would help if when members see a strange face then they might just go out of their way to say 'hi'. I went to a couple at Gulliver's and felt a bit awkward until I spoke to M. otherwise I would have been out of there quicker than you can say knife.

 

"So, who are you on the board?"

 

"Oh, I don't say."

Seriously. Like this fella is CIA or something? Get to fuck!

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I agree 100 % with you and I think all old members do the same.

 

But today it's about 3 things - money, money and money.

 

If you want a nightlife board we will not receive any google ad money. So we must finance the server and the bandwidth some other way. Membership fees maybe but I don't think it's possible.

 

If you have an idea you can send me a message....

 

Sure I loved the old nanaplaza board, but....

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Well, nobody is going to pay membership fees now are they?

 

As an aside - isn't it strange that Google (Don't be Evil) is now the arbiter of what is or isn't morally acceptable and everybody shits themselves in case some kids in California don't like it?

 

I have no ideas, elef. Seriously. I'm a user of websites same as every other person in the world, and I've never paid a penny to use any of 'em (except for $50 for nanaplaza.com a decade ago which was a purely techie problem as we needed a new server. Does not count. I wasn't appeasing the gods of Google.)

 

I just see other sites thriving whilst this one is on the ropes. Pattaya Ladyboys seems to do okay. Take the piss if you like, but the fact is that it has its niche and it has its advertisers and it has its active posting community so that indicates that they havesomething worked out to pay for the bandwidth.

 

Surely something as 'outrageous' as a site dedicated to transexual prostitution could not survive? But it does.

 

So why not a site that contains some discussion of the straight scene? "Oooh, Google won't like it."

For real?

 

And since when was even nanaplaza.com dedicated to bars, go-go's and the latest closing times of Thermae? It never was. I would have walked away from it after enough visits to know where to go and how much to pay. The nightlife information was there, sure it was, but it was never the raison d'etre of the site. Never,never, never. That would have been boring. I spent more time on there talking about the Velvet Underground than I ever did asking about the Vulvic Underworld.

 

Christ, how long has Stickman been going now? 14 years? Stickman has his readers, old and new, all this despite the site looking like a Wolverhampton school IT project from 1997. I don't see him rattling his tin outside Tesco Lotus.

 

It ain't about Google, dude. It really isn't.

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How Can We (Re-)Activate The Board?

Re-think, redesign and re-launch. There is a niche there. Pitch it some notches above Teak Door (the warrant dodgers) but without the primness of Thai Visa (the coffin dodgers.)

 

Oh, and Friday meets? It would help if when members see a strange face then they might just go out of their way to say 'hi'. I went to a couple at Gulliver's and felt a bit awkward until I spoke to M. otherwise I would have been out of there quicker than you can say knife.

 

"So, who are you on the board?"

 

"Oh, I don't say."

Seriously. Like this fella is CIA or something? Get to fuck!

 

 

Articulate thoughtful post, enjoyed reading. Gratzi. [snipped as I'm sure you'd find it annoying if I re-posted it all a couple spots below the original]

 

At the highest level - that's the only thing I think is needed. People making interesting posts that you want to read and that make you think a little. And because shit, I actually like the name Thai360.

 

On a smaller scale - my .02, there is a cliquish nature here. Definitely. And annoying at times. OTOH people congregate in groups (just what people do) and it's a social forum, and there's probably no forum in existence where that doesn't happen. Maybe what's needed is a little volatile chemistry to shake it out. :) (I'll never get agreement on that one, Europeans don't like that).

 

That said - the sponsor designation does contribute to a hierarchy which I can see putting people who visit off. I suspect it was a way of saying thanks for a contribution, but that can be done privately.

 

What I appreciate here: this is a broad liberal forum. You can discuss food, language, nightlife, news, whatever. Most Thailand dedicated sites for discussion I've seen are either nightlife oriented, or Culture/News oriented (eg, nbody reads Stickman for culture - those are all nightlife follks).

 

I don't want to see the nightlife go, I like it. But its inclusion will limit your audience, just a fact. If someone comes here wanting to research for travel and clicks on a post with a guy talking about painting his pubic hairs neon and putting vaseline on his nosehairs while shagging Noi from the Biergarten or something -- a lot of them will go over to TV. Especially females. On the flip side if they're people that just want nightlife or are really focused on that, they'll be bored here and go to Pattaya Secrets, Ladyboy central, John Holmes does the Big Mango, or whatever. So, I think there is kind of an identity crisis here.

 

I like that identity crisis. You find jewels here you don't elsewhere. When Coss starting putting his story out, I admired what he was doing in picking up shop and setting out to live as a stranger in a strange land (sorry for the cliche), but I thought the romance was a mess and he was going to embarrass himself. I was probably wrong, and it's touching in some ways. You can feel his loneliness and frustration... and his hope. And there's this bond slowly developing between him and the mysterious MLG. God, I hope it pans out. It'll be boring reading if it does, but it would be nice to see.

 

I never read nanaplaza.com. Holy shit that must've been one literary orgy from the praise and longing expressed constantly on this forum. All those the monumental prolific writers -- very impressive. Unfortunately it must be locked away and hidden because the old stuff I read, just ain't seeing it. :)

 

Last but not least, I met two guys from the board here in Bangkok, KS and Flash. Both showed kindness and were not what I expected. Not that I expected anything negative, but both were reserved and soft spoken and genuinely pleasant to sit down with and taught me stuff worth knowing about the city and the life around me I didn't have a clue about. That of course has nothing to do with this conversation, except for me it does -- I think what I'm getting to is --> I don't really have any significant gripes with the board, nor do I care if it generates mass traffic. Yeah, so WTF am I doing in this thread???

 

It would be nice to see provocative posts, like yours, that get people thinking and contributing. Truth is, you're a good writer Carew. Well done. But you don't need nanaplaza.com.

 

As a matter of fact: Fuck nanaplaza.com. :)

 

Ps. On those guys from California being arbiters of fate, well, Jello Biafra put it best: "California. Uber Alles." :wave: (That's U with the umlaut, can't find it)

 

Pps. End of your post story about top secret guy coming to a social outing (where the intent is people meeting each other), fucking awesome.

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Gobble, you shouldn't have identified yourself. Now you've lost the element of surprise. I mean, you know what HT looks like (that was a picture of HT you posted in the "Pakse, Elephants And My Lao Girl" thread earlier today........wasn't it?) but he didn't know what you looked like, until now. :doah:

no Munchie; that was not me; here is a actual photo from me:

post-4520-0-28612300-1332398431.jpg

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Guest lazyphil

Ouch. Wait for me at the Soi 22 entrance to Wa Square at midnight this ccming Saturday and we'll settle this mano et mano ! I'd have my medical insurance fully paid up, as I am one exceptionally nasty individual.

 

(If I'm not there by 1am, feel free to start without me)

 

 

i loge on for momments like this :elephant:

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