khunsanuk Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 Hi, Why is there so little participation beyond the message board? With us spending so much time on running this site and trying to make it as good as possible (latest news is that we'll hopefully migrate to FusionBB over the Xmas break, and possibly upgrading the Photo Gallery and Review System) I would really like to know why the level of participation on this site seems to be so much lower than on other sites. Look at some of the features on this site and how little they are being used, and keep in mind that we have ~2,000 unique people logging in every month! (We are up to 3,000 visits per day and consistenly get a few hunderd new member sign ups a month; there were 593 in the last month.) - Photo Gallery In 9 months we have accumulated 1,200 photos, that's only about 130 / month. There were 5,600 unique people who logged in during the last 6 months alone, and more than a 5,500 of those have not even posted a single picture. - Photo Contest On average we have only about 10-15 people who participate by sending in photos, and more often than not they are the same people every month. Even worse is that usually less than 25 people bother to vote. That is hardly more then 1% of those who logged in and utterly pathetic if you ask me! - GoGo Ranking This has been up and running for almost 5 months, yet only 161 people have entered any data so far. While better than some of the other features, I still think participation could be much, much better. And then there are the Review System, stories, articles, etc. etc. So, why is participation here so low when for instance Stickman receives on average 3 reader submissions a day (and I do not begrudge him this at all as he, like Jigger and me, works hard to ensure his site is interesting to its readers)? Don't you guys want to contribute because you are afraid we'll turn this into a paysite again and we will be making money of your contributions? If so then I can kill that notion immediately as we tried the pay model and it just does not work (too many competitors providing similar info for free). However, we do *need* more content / contributions as the free model is not working either. While our income from Google Ads has almost doubled since we went free, there are months we are actually losing money; the board is most definitely running at a serious loss (think $200+ / month). So, why is one of the largest, and arguable the best , Thailand message boards struggling to get people to participate and submit a photo, vote for some bars, add a review, comment on a column, etc. ? Guys, I am raking my brain, but cannot figure it out. Sanuk! PS Have a look at the Help / Donate page to find out how you can help this site, this community to thrive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weird Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 I think it's probably because alot of us are visitors of Thailand? Personally I don't get to be in Thailand as much as I'd like... :: and hence don't get to use the features as much as I'd like.... But I will try to get some pictures and bar/gogo reviews up when I return after this new years Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thalenoi Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 As I mentionned before, I have a lousy internet connection here, dial-up at 56kbs, but that's a joke. Service level has gotten down lately and I can hardly send an email or posting without loosing it and starting all over. I can not read all the topics I would like to and I am not ready to spent 5 hours a day on the internet. I have added some reviews, but forget about the photo gallery, takes 15 minutes to download anything. Upcountry Thailand has a long way to go with technology. Although ADSL is supposedly available around the beach, not my home nor the home of a few farangs around. I suppose I am not alone in this situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rickfarang Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 In my case, I am primarily interested in the message board. The other featuers are nice, but not nearly as important as the message board, thus they get little of my bandwidth -webwise and attention wise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted December 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 Hi, Weird : "I think it's probably because alot of us are visitors of Thailand?" While this may have some impact I don't think it is a major contributor. After all with 1,000s of members there are *always* people who are just returning from a trip to Thailand. Thalenoi : "I have a lousy internet connection here, dial-up at 56kbs, but that's a joke." Again, while this might have some impact I think it is very minor. To be honest I think you are likely in a very small minority when it comes to crappy internet connections. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 Maybe too much censorship on this board. Why dont you moderators just let people say what they want. If a person is an idiot people will just ignore them, we as intelligent sex tourists dont need someone to decide for us what is okay to read and what is not. Of course child porn. should not be allowed , etc. But almost everthing else is fair game. I doubt this post will even see the light of the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidflux Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 I'd guess most are only interested in getting information, and nothing else. Pictures of temples and what not is great, but it's not going to do anything for the guy who's only interested in what the current short time rates are. I'd imagine that would be the bulk of the visitors, especially the new ones. With a name like Nanaplaza.com, you're not likely to get people coming here interested in anything other than the bar scene. And while the net gives you a bit of anonymity, most guys probably really aren't comfortable publishing their exploits out in public. Just my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted December 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 Hi, "Maybe too much censorship on this board." Too much censorship? All we censor is child prostitution, insulting royalty and flaming. Would you prefer we let people flame the crap out of each other? I'm sure that will help in building a community. "I doubt this post will even see the light of the day. " Contrary to what you seem to think I do not mind criticism, and will not censor posts that criticize this board or how it is run. Same cannot be said for many other boards. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted December 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 Hi, "I'd guess most are only interested in getting information, and nothing else." True, but the GoGo ranking and reviews *do* provide that info, and it really isn't that hard to add in your own views. I've seen people write reviews of bars, hotels, what not on the board, yet many of those people will not add the same info to the review system. Why? Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Betong Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 Hi Thalenoi :, >>> "I have a lousy internet connection here, dial-up at 56kbs, but that's a joke." Here in Bangkok I have a True ADSL internet connection that is painfully slow on occasions especially when opening a new NanaPlaza thread. This is not helped by having numerous avatars on a large thread? I have recently switched to using the free Opera browser, http://opera.com/ that has a very nice feature of having a three position button for toggling images off, on or cached images only. When using cached images, after the page has loaded I can click on any avatar or picture and select reload the picture to my cache for next time. It has made browsing a lot quicker. Cheers, John_Betong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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