Doomed??? - Definitely Not!!!!!!

[Parksy]

Apologies for opening this topic with recent quotes from other topics but to illustrate my point ........................

Well whatever anyone says there is something wrong with the forum

The last post in UK Campsites was 23 hours ago. The last post in General; was over 1 day ago.

When I visit the forum these days it usually takes me about 30 seconds to check any postings. I hardly post because there are no interesting threads because the site is dead. There is only so much one can say/post regarding caravanning. Isn't it ironic that this is, at the moment, the busiest thread

That must tell us something must say something

I've noticed a down turn in the posts, this forum has a wealth of information and experienced caravanners. I guess that PC have some idea of how many 'hits' he site and forum get. Can't see the ofrum will last if it doesn't get enough veiwings or posts.

I agree fully with "The Lord"

I've noticed various posts recently saying that the forum is in trouble, doomed, there's something the matter with it and other such nonsense.
I'm more than happy to completely and emphatically disagree with these posts which are clearly misinformed.
If you look around the various sections of the forum you will see that there have been several different topics which continue to have posts added every day.

I don't tour in Europe for instance but many obviously do if the Overseas Parks & Touring section is anything to go by. I seldom have more than a cursory glance into that particular section but I can say that it has been quite busy recently and I suspect that those informing us that because the UK Parks & Touring section is quiet have forgotten that many are booking ferries and pitches for their continental breaks later in the year.
The Technical section has also been quite busy so the idea that the forum is quiet is nonsense. The technical section has been busier because at this time of year caravanners are preparing their caravans for the summer, doing repairs and maintenance and adding modifications.

The General section is a bit quiet but it will pick up as soon as there are more 'general things to discuss, however this section is reasonably busy and it fulfills a similar role to that of the General section.

If anything the number of posts overall has increased recently and a look through the introductory posts will show new members signing on all of the time. There have been nine people who have joined the forum since 1st February, today is only the 14th and after losing a few members initially who had problems when the forum was upgraded the membership numbers are bouyant and many of the ones who stopped using this forum when it was revamped have been welcomed back.

The doom and gloom merchants seem to be taking a very narrow view, if you only look into one or two sections of the forum and these happen to be quiet for a couple of days this doesn't mean that the forum is 'dead' or that it 'wont last'. It simply means that topics which interest you have gone quiet for a while, most caravan forums would expect some sections to be a bit quiet in mid February and things will soon pick up when the weather warms up.

 

[Surfer]

How many new members join and continue posting? It always seems to be the same posters who joined many years ago. PC may have thousands of members but very few active posters. Of all the caravanning forums, this is definitely the quietest forum. Parksy who is is a member of another forum "4U" should be able to verify this if he compares posting here and on the forum mentioned.
IMHO it is because the design of this forum is something out of the middle ages when it comes to technology and people just give up after awhile as you never receive email notifications like other forums. Also the "New posts" is so dated and out of keeping that it is a joke.

 

[Parksy]

Everybody was a new member once and some find out what they want to know and move on while others stick around for much longer.
If more of the established members welcomed the newbies in the Introductions section a few of them might continue posting more often

The forum is very lucky to have the nucleus of long standing and experienced members that it does have but I'd dispute that this is the quietest caravan related forum of all because each forum has busy periods and times when they are not so busy.
There is no direct comparison with some forums which are set up to concentrate more on social activities, rallies etc; This forum has always been known and well respected as a technical forum and the higher number of men compared to ladies who use this forum means that it will probably remain so unless the demographic of the forum changes.
As for the design of the forum it is not and never could be a phpBB 'off the peg' free access forum of the type seen everywhere on the internet because this website has to interface with other Haymarket owned and run websites, most of which are commercially developed for business rather than leisure purposes.
One thing that I've noticed which differs from all other caravan forums is the negativity from some members here who seem to enjoy talking this forum down rather than using it to exchange information, views and ideas with other caravanners.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

If anything the number of posts overall has increased recently and a look through the introductory posts will show new members signing on all of the time. There have been nine people who have joined the forum since 1st February, today is only the 14th and after losing a few members initially who had problems when the forum was upgraded the membership numbers are bouyant and many of the ones who stopped using this forum when it was revamped have been welcomed back.

Parksy, I hope you don't expect me to swallow that

On another forum that you and I are/was aquainted with it had hundreds of members. As I used to tell the owner of that forum just because they had joined didn't mean they were active members and you need active members to make it work. Like this forum, his forum had a hardcore of posters whereas the vast majority had never made one post and if they had it was just to introduce themselves.
The difference between the forums was I, like other members, could see how many members there were, when they had joined, how many posts they had made etc. so it was no good the owner boasting, as he did, how many members there were. You could even tell when a member had last visited.
Despite that forum having many hundreds of members it went under because of lack of posts. Not that I'm saying this forum will because it's run as an offshoot of the magazine by a business but the other forum was paid for by the owner with an 'off the peg' forum engine but saying that it was far more user friendly than this one which I believe was the point RogerB was making. Some people probably prefer to use that kind of forum because of it's ease of use

 

[Parksy]

Parksy, I hope you don't expect me to swallow that

(voice of Parksy's consience......... Nah- I daren't tell that joke

)

On another forum that you and I are/was aquainted with it had hundreds of members. As I used to tell the owner of that forum just because they had joined didn't mean they were active members and you need active members to make it work. Like this forum, his forum had a hardcore of posters whereas the vast majority had never made one post and if they had it was just to introduce themselves.
The difference between the forums was I, like other members, could see how many members there were, when they had joined, how many posts they had made etc. so it was no good the owner boasting, as he did, how many members there were. You could even tell when a member had last visited.
Despite that forum having many hundreds of members it went under because of lack of posts. Not that I'm saying this forum will because it's run as an offshoot of the magazine by a business but the other forum was paid for by the owner with an 'off the peg' forum engine but saying that it was far more user friendly than this one which I believe was the point RogerB was making. Some people probably prefer to use that kind of forum because of it's ease of use

I'm not suggesting that this website and forum is better or more user friendly than an 'off the peg' freeware website but because of the way that Haymarket work other factors have been brought into play when this website was set up.
It can be tweaked and hopefully improved but no amount of complaining, moaning or trying to claim that it's dying on it's arris will alter it significantly.
Our friend on the other now defunct forum had the great idea of sowing the seeds of discontent on various caravan related forums including this one, continually adding links to his own forum on everything that he posted elsewhere and getting others to do the same thing. When these members poached from everywhere else joined his own forum he contacted traders and people in the leisure, touring and caravan industry and persuaded them to offer freebies in return for being allowed to promote their business on his forum.
It was a very good idea and the guy in question ought to have been running a commercially viable enterprise now but unfortunately a couple of things went wrong.
Much of that other forum degenerated into a succession of posts wishing each other Happy Birthday or just smilies to get the post count up (another mistake) and towards the end there was very little material of interest to caravanners. The owner also managed to alienate many of his original members and to try to replace them he poached a load of tent enthusiasts from a different forum who really only wanted to use his chat room.
It's well nigh impossible to tell with any accuracy how many active members this forum has at any one time, people often use this forum to ask one or two questions and then drift away and nobody here is boasting about numbers of members, post counts or forum activity.
What I am saying is that this forum is busier than some would have us believe even though posts are spread between several sections of this forum rather than being concentrated in just one or two sections as they are on supposedly 'busy' forums. I see the new posts every day all on one webpage in the moddy cupboard and this forum is not all that quiet.

 

[Surfer]

One thing that I've noticed which differs from all other caravan forums is the negativity from some members here who seem to enjoy talking this forum down rather than using it to exchange information, views and ideas with other caravanners.

Then why do they have a Chit Chat and Our Website forum if they don't want feedback which could be negative or positive? This is not the easiest forum to navigate around.
I was always under the impression that PC was directed at consumers and not businesses, but it seems according to your post it is for businesses and not consumers? Probably why they are being slagged off on other forums due to the high amount of advertising and with very few articles of note. You probably read the post as I think you are a member of T & T.
We all apreciate that advertising is necessary for theri survival but so are sales of the magazine otherwsie no advetisers, but when I last checked I have to agree about the overly large amount of advertising with very little actual content.

 

[Parksy]

Hi Surfer
I'm a member of several Caravan forums although I'm not really very active on them because of time constraints.
What I was trying to say in this topic had nothing at all to do with Practical Caravan Magazine which is directed at consumers as far as I can tell (I'm nothing to do with the magazine apart from being a regular reader like yourself and many others)
This forum is directed at us, the caravanning public and if I happen to see the forum being 'slagged off' as you so succinctly put it, on other caravan websites I'll offer my point of view and try to correct any misconceptions.
I was trying to explain to people in answer to your criticisms why this website including the forum was set up in the way that it has been and I wrote that Haymarket operated several commercial websites
I actually wrote:
'As for the design of the forum it is not and never could be a phpBB 'off the peg' free access forum of the type seen everywhere on the internet because this website has to interface with other Haymarket owned and run websites, most of which are commercially developed for business rather than leisure purposes.'

I never mentioned the Practical Caravan magazine at all and I fail to see why what happens with the magazine has anything to do with this topic, it has it's own topic in the General section of this forum if you'd like to add your own feedback.
It's not up to me to defend the magazine on internet forums, it's editorial policy or it's policies on advertising are nothing to do with me and those who dislike it are free to write in to the magazine letters page if they want to or if they prefer internet communication they can have their say directly to those concerned on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/practicalcaravan
Nigel wrote on Facebook an answer to those who also dislike the number of adverts in the magazine:

'Practical Caravan
Hi all, thanks for your comments.
Ads are a necessary part of magazines today, as the income they bring in enables us to spend more on bringing you more quality content. WIthout them, I'm afraid to say, the mag would have a lot less editori...al pages and the cover price would have to shoot up!'

If you disagree with him tell him, not me

Perhaps the critics of the magazine will realise and understand why no advertising or promotional material is allowed to appear in posts to this forum

p.s.
While I was looking on the moderators database for a post that seems to have gone astray I remembered the comments about this forum being quiet and less busy than others so I counted the number of posts between Midnight on 13/14 February and Midnight on 14/15 February.
There were 88 posts successfully submitted to this forum during that particular 24 hour period so I wouldn't call that 'quiet'.
When you consider that this forum is relatively small, we don't have 'two word game', puzzles, 'complete the sentence' or 'missing word' games and other long running distractions it compares very favourably with other forums mentioned on here.
Add to that the fact that we don't do a lot of the touchy feely happy birthday stuff, posts consisting of nothing other than smiley icony thingy's, cookery, diets, regular meets and get togethers, and this forum starts to look like a hive of activity!!
At least on Practical Caravan forum, in spite of it's quirky software and lack of email alerts, most of the material would be of genuine interest to touring caravanners somewhere, we stick to what we're good at and leave the touchy feely game playing post count boosting stuff to the others who need to keep their members occupied with that stuff.

 

[OmOnWeelz]

This forum would be more attractive to the users if the titles were shown in full. Under last post we have "Alloys....." and "Advertising....." followed with " by F Blogs" and then 'time, ago'.
Can't this be made clearer so we can see what the subject is about.

 

[Parksy]

This forum would be more attractive to the users if the titles were shown in full. Under last post we have "Alloys....." and "Advertising....." followed with " by F Blogs" and then 'time, ago'.
Can't this be made clearer so we can see what the subject is about.

I can see exactly what you mean Chris but unfortunately there's not a lot that I can do about it

It seems to be because the text is relatively large on this forum so when you look at the forum overall only the first part of the topic is shown until you click onto the section of the forum that you want to look at.
On other caravan forums the titles of the latest post added appear in full but in very small text.
One would suppose that if the powers that be here made these titles the same as on other forums one or two here would then complain that the text was too small.
To see the full titles of the latest posts only requires a click of the mouse if the way that the latest posts are shown really bothers you, sometimes you just can't win because there would be complaints whatever happened

 

[Surfer]

No one is slagging off the forum content, just the magazine. BTW why are the websites designed for businesses and not for consumers? Surely businesses would be advertising and not buying from a PC website.
As a matter of interest, how many registered users are there on this forum and what is the percentage posting? Hopefully these question is not commercially sensitive.

 

[forestgump]

Nigel the price did shoot up £4.10 .

 

[Parksy]

No one is slagging off the forum content, just the magazine. BTW why are the websites designed for businesses and not for consumers? Surely businesses would be advertising and not buying from a PC website.
As a matter of interest, how many registered users are there on this forum and what is the percentage posting? Hopefully these question is not commercially sensitive.

I'm sorry but I don't have access to the figures that interest you although I'm sure that they would be available to Haymarket Consumer Media (the subsidiary who administer this website)
Haymarket run a lot of forums and internet resources both for business and private use. Some are consumer led like this one or What Car or What Hi Fi or Whatever else you may care to think of and the tech staff explained that this forum was built in such a way that it conforms to and could interface with other Haymarket interests, don't forget that any and every forum such as this processes data for whatever reason it sees fit to do so.

There are also a lot of business forums, online conference facilities and things that you might expect a leading gilt edged publishing and internet media company of Haymarket's stature to have interests in.

Not being a Haymarket employee I'm not privy to any more of this information than you or anybody else would be, if you are that interested there are a lot of links from this forum which will show some details about Haymarket.
Pretty much anything in red text (apart from moderator forum edits) can be clicked as can most of the logos and signs, spend an hour or two playing around with your mouse from this forum page and you might be able to get at least some sense of the scale of things at Haymarket, we on this forum are a very small, insignificant quiet backwater.

I am able to count how many posts have been made if I wanted or needed to (I very seldom do) from the data available to me and I'm also able to see how many users and guests are looking at or using the forum at any given time. (There were 63 earlier this evening and at present it's 35 - 31 active logged in users and 4 guests)

 

[Lakey]

I dip in and out of this forum, and have many a time seen posts saying 'not this again, we have done it many times before!' maybe, that's why not many new people stay with the forum? I think people tend to forget that to new members, any post is new!!!!

 

[Parksy]

I dip in and out of this forum, and have many a time seen posts saying 'not this again, we have done it many times before!' maybe, that's why not many new people stay with the forum? I think people tend to forget that to new members, any post is new!!!!

I haven't seen that many posts saying 'not this again' Lakey, especially since the forum revamp but now that you've mentioned it I'll keep my eyes open for such comments from now on, thanks.

 

[Dustydog]

Parksy said:- "(There were 63 earlier this evening and at present it's 35 - 31 active logged in users and 4 guests)"

Now that is interesting and imo a pretty good turn out. However I seem to be permanently logged in but not active all the time. SWMBO says I'm getting lazy.

Many years ago I used to buy Car Mechanics mag. Over the years the same topics would be printed and even winning ideas got repeated . I guess this is all part of the growing up process of life.
I did feel after Christmas our numbers had declined as there were very little posts . It now seems much better so perhaps there was a glitch because of too much christmas pud.
Anyway I don't think it's doomed although I still find the search facilty useless.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Anyway I don't think it's doomed although I still find the search facilty useless.

Is there a search facility? I haven't found it yet

This will be my fourth post this morning and I'm expecting my fourth 'Word Verification'.
Despite Parksy contacting Haymarket, more than once I believe, it's getting worse

Yep, the fourth. I expect it will be the fifth with the Edit.

Yep, it also comes up with Edit
............... WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I give up

 

[Parksy]

Not to worry Lord B
When I send my email to Haymarket in a few minutes time I'll add a 'request read' receipt.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Not to worry Lord B
When I send my email to Haymarket in a few minutes time I'll add a 'request read' receipt.

It's now OK