Off Topic Forum Idea

[Admin]

Hi all

 

As many have commented and with my own thoughts I am considering doing something with the Off Topic forum. This site is about recreational flying yet every time I wake up in the morning and check the site I am bombarded with off topic threads and posts. The userbase seems divided on the benefits of having an Off Topic forum however it is becoming an overriding component to the site's focus.

 

I have an idea that I would like to get your opinion on.

 

I create a new site that has a list of forums relating to different topics. The Off Topic forum here will link to that site for easy access and having a separate site may generate more traffic in the long term from non aviation users as well. The new site will cover all the average Australian general chat subjects including politics, religion and sex and frees you up to post anything thats on your mind whether it be road laws, culture, the young ones, guns, jokes...anything that's on your mind and that you want to post about.

 

To get to it you just click the Off Topic forum here or go directly to it. The recent posts will not show up in What's New here leaving this site to focus on aviation...kind of having the best of both worlds.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

 

[2tonne]

Hi Ian,

 

Sounds like a good idea to me.

 

 

[Admin]

The main 2 benefits to Recreational Flying are:

 

1. Because of the site's high ranking, Google and other search engines are permanently on the site and the less aviation words that are used in posts dilutes the site value to the search engines making it hard to improve the site's figures

 

2. I have notices the visitor bounce figures slowly increasing. This is when a person enters say "gun" into google and this site comes up in the search results. The person clicks on the link to here, sees it is not what they are after and goes again. This is bad for the site.

 

 

[Subsonic]

Can you just filter the "New" posts so the OT ones don't show up?

 

 

[Admin]

Can you just filter the "New" posts so the OT ones don't show up?

Doesn't help this site in terms of its ranking and search engine problems though making it still detrimental to the site

 

 

[SDQDI]

Ian I think the idea has some merit although speaking for myself I would be too lazy to chase a second site just to talk about off topic things. There are already sites where those things can be discussed. IMO it would be a bit like the sport pilot mag, since it has gone digital I haven't bothered to read it and even though I could afford the subscription I just couldn't be bothered.

 

Getting rid of the political and religious arguments would probably be a good thing but removing the jokes and other non argumentive off topic threads could be detrimental to the site.

 

Also out of interest wouldn't having more hits on search engines be a good thing? (I don't follow all the tech side of things!)

 

 

[Admin]

The Jokes forum would remain for aviation jokes.

 

Moderation would be a key element and a user cultural change would be needed however if by chance that Google then pick up the off topic threads in the other site that may increase it's usage from non aviation users and a greater range of topics could be the eventual outcome making the new site more popular.

 

The Bounce Rate is a key metric used by web developers and it needs to be kept to a minimum. The search engines take the Bounce Rate and the Time On Site metrics as a key element to their search engine rankings. Search engines self learn and if they are sending many people to a site that bounce only after a few seconds they lower the rank of the site. They want to be seen as a good resource that helps people find what they want not send them all over the place for nothing

 

 

[skeptic36]

I don't think it will fly .

 

Reason being, the worst offenders do it because they have an agenda, to get their views in front of as many people as possible, that is why they use these forums - they are popular.

 

I know you have cracked the whip about this before, and everybody apologises, then amazingly within hours we are back at it.

 

A quick and dirty way of achieving your goal would be to pick several of the worst offenders and lock them out of the off topic forum.

 

 

[Admin]

A quick and dirty way of achieving your goal would be to pick several of the worst offenders and lock them out of the off topic forum.

:rofl:then they just post in the General Discussion forum.

I am thinking that anyone that creates an off topic thread will just see it disappear...I would code the new site that a thread can just be moved out of Recreational Flying into the Off Topic site and all users will have the same registration/login across both sites.

 

 

[microman]

Absolutely agree Ian - this has become an international site and as such interminable discussions about internal Australian politics, terrorists, and similar matters are just a major turnoff for everyone else. I for one really value discussion on the aviation-related topics - thats why I joined - having to pick through the other stuff is a pain. Most of us have limited time available to spend in front of a screen.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Ian it's your site so if you need to do this for the metrics or whatever then it's your choice.

 

I'm one of the dissenters who likes the fact that you can have a discussion about anything from aircraft to politics on here, as I said in the "Relevance?" thread. (You did ask for opinions! )

 

 

[Admin]

I do appreciate all forms of feedback, both pos and neg as that helps to see the whole picture.

 

If a new site was created, the forums could possibly be:

 

Politics

 

Sport

 

Religion

 

Sex

 

Culture

 

Laws

 

Technology

 

Cars

 

Bikes

 

In the news

 

Jokes

 

Other

 

 

[gandalph]

Ian, I understand your reasoning for wanting to keep the site focused around recreational flying but if you, or the moderators, start moving "off topic" threads or posts to another site then you'd be introducing a form of censorship that I think many of us here would not welcome or appreciate.

 

I see this site as being somewhat analogous to free to air TV. There are 50 or so channels and thousands of programs available for me to watch if I want to. But owning a TV set does not require that I watch everything that is broadcast. Just as with this site, I can pick and choose, sample some, reject some. I follow some posters whose opinions I trust and respect and ignore or quickly pass over others I don't. Hell I can even turn the TV off, or not log in here for a while if the looney fringe has got me too riled. The great majority of us here are smart enough to be able to identify the trolls and agenda pushers and we can we can either ignore or discount their views as we see fit. We really don't need you or the Mods acting as our Mum and doing that for us. Australia has enough "nannies" making decisions for us, please don't fall into the trap of becoming yet another one.

 

To have someone else deciding what I can read is a retrograde step. I'm not yet in the nursing home and I am still capable of deciding what I want to follow and what I don't. Please don't take that freedom away from us. Save yourself some work and let the users do their own censoring.

 

That's my two cents worth but you can have it for free.

 

 

[Nobody]

Ian, I understand your reasoning for wanting to keep the site focused around recreational flying but if you, or the moderators, start moving "off topic" threads or posts to another site then you'd be introducing a form of censorship that I think many of us here would not welcome or appreciate.I see this site as being somewhat analogous to free to air TV. There are 50 or so channels and thousands of programs available for me to watch if I want to. But owning a TV set does not require that I watch everything that is broadcast. Just as with this site, I can pick and choose, sample some, reject some. I follow some posters whose opinions I trust and respect and ignore or quickly pass over others I don't. Hell I can even turn the TV off, or not log in here for a while if the looney fringe has got me too riled. The great majority of us here are smart enough to be able to identify the trolls and agenda pushers and we can we can either ignore or discount their views as we see fit. We really don't need you or the Mods acting as our Mum and doing that for us. Australia has enough "nannies" making decisions for us, please don't fall into the trap of becoming yet another one.

 

To have someone else deciding what I can read is a retrograde step. I'm not yet in the nursing home and I am still capable of deciding what I want to follow and what I don't. Please don't take that freedom away from us. Save yourself some work and let the users do their own censoring.

 

That's my two cents worth but you can have it for free.

A free for all is great provided that it doesn't destroy the aviation content of the site. The trouble is that many aviation enthusiasts are put off by the off topic discussions. If the keen aviators turn off for a while because the "loony fringe" has got them "riled" then the quality of the aviation discussions suffer and so does the site. The difference between a TV and the forum is significant. A TV station doesn't require the participation of the one user to improve the experience of another user. If I chose not to watch the TV you can still watch it and enjoy the program. If this place gets to only a few people being active then all the users suffer.

 

Do you want 24 hour shopping infomercials or quality documentaries and dramas?

 

 

[Pearo]

Another forum I was a part of started heavily moderating off topic posts. Place got to boring to be a part of, needless to say I am not longer there. I dont think there is an excessive amount of off topic stuff here, I just signed on for the day, 11 new updates, only 2 off topic and one relates to photo storage.

 

What you have here is good, I dont think you should change it.

 

 

[Kiwi303]

This is a private site, owned by the admin, and the only question is is it a benevolent dictatorship or a tyrannical dictatorship.

 

What Admin decides is going to happen, is what is going to happen.

 

I'm fine with all the OT guff getting the boot to it's own OT forum. That's what Facebook is for, not Rec Flying.

 

 

[2tonne]

I was participating in a different forum (for running) but which in recent years has degenerated, I think, due to various off topic rants appearing in the recent threads list.

 

I checked recently and that forum, which used to have numerous new posts appearing all day, now seems to get only a few new posts a day. It is almost dead compared to what it was.

 

Ironically, the thread that seems most active is called "what pisses me off about [forum name]" and it is full of cranky posts about how bad everything is going. If they stuck to the topic of running, things might be a lot better!

 

 

[Mick]

Totally agree with getting rid of the off topic stuff. Plenty of other sites on the net for that.

 

I come here for the aviation content & don't enjoy that being watered down by all the other clutter.

 

It does not need to be so heavily moderated so as to jump on minor thread drift, but I don't see the need to start off topic threads on this forum.

 

Creating a new off topic forum is likely to create alot more work moderating due to the controversial and polarising nature of what will inevitably be discussed.

 

 

[Kiwi303]

If you want to see what a good vs bad OT situation is, Go look at Forums.hybridz.org and you will see one of the worlds best TECHNICAL orientated forums, there is SOME OT stuff, but very little and car orientated. I don't think I have ever seen a politics thread, and thread drift in that direction gets a stamping.

 

I like it there.

 

 

[Nobody]

If you want to see what a good vs bad OT situation is, Go look at Forums.hybridz.org and you will see one of the worlds best TECHNICAL orientated forums, there is SOME OT stuff, but very little and car orientated. I don't think I have ever seen a politics thread, and thread drift in that direction gets a stamping.I like it there.

There are many similar examples.

 

As I posted in the "Relevance" thread have a look at vansairforce.com. No off topic (anything off topic is deleted quickly and without fuss) and there is a wealth of great aviation discussions.... coincidence?

 

 

[Methusala]

Life is (quite naturally) not a single road. People who are interested in flying are also involved with many other interests. There appear on this site many opinions of a highly political nature around CASA and RAAus policies which I find very woolly and ill conceived. But it goes with the territory and I wish it no other way. Equally, some of us posters will find a topic that is not necessarily aviation related but thoughtful and relevant to most of our lives. Why... if you are not interested, breeze on to a more acceptable thread. It's similar to a newspaper where I will cheerfully leave the sport section to wrapping fish guts. Not every one thinks alike and a little tolerance is a good life skill. Please, no censorship unless opinions expressed are plainly against broad standards of decency. Don

 

 

[SDQDI]

While I agree with Don I do think we (of course it is not really we it is Ian's site but just meaning the forum as a whole!) could improve things by canning off topic threads that start big arguments (politics and religion to name two) and still allow off topic discussions that are nice and could be of interest to a few, for example the hay drive that Geoff has told us about. I think if we lost all off topic threads we would lose some people and it would take a fair effort for the site to refrain from getting stale.

 

 

[gandalph]

Do you want 24 hour shopping infomercials or quality documentaries and dramas?

Well, personally I prefer quality documentaries and that's why I don't browse the shopping channels. I prefer some topics here and that's why I don't browse some others but I do scan the list, particularly the What's new" list to see if there's anything I might be interested in. It's the same when I go into a book shop, I browse the titles to see what piques my interest. I don't have to read each book or even read every summary to decide whats interesting and what's rubbish. If I go to a particular interest forum such as this one I read the topics that interest me and leave the other. Sometimes I get it wrong and get suckered into a rubbish thread but extricating myself is easy.

A concern that I have with Ian's proposed draft list of what might be shoved over to the black site:

 

If a new site was created, the forums could possibly be:

 

Politics

 

Sport

 

What about aviation related sport or sport that aviators are also interested in?

 

Religion

 

Sex

 

Good luck keeping that out of posts!

 

 

 

Culture

 

Why?

 

Laws

 

There's been heaps of interesting and useful discussion here about legal matters. How would the Mods decide what stays and what goes?

 

Technology

 

Really? Why?

 

Cars Yep

 

Bikes Yep But lots of guys & gals here enjoy their cars and bikes

 

In the news

 

Why

 

Jokes.

 

You must be joking!

 

 

Other

 

Well now, there's a can of worms. Could mean anything.

 

By all means, start another site called "life , the Universe and everything" but be gentle with what you censor on this site please Ian. Lots of us like it just the way it is.

 

 

[frank marriott]

As I see it - the proposal is not to stop the crap, only to move it to off topic area. Just not on the "what's new" tab of rec flying. Whether it is another site or not is not relevant as by selecting the off topics tap you will automatically go there. Just the rest of us who don't want to see this FB type material can live happily without sorting through rubbish we don't want to read.

 

I accept there will be less activity but what is there will relate to flying - A couple will persist but that is normal with some people, I am sure everyone would have their own opinion of the suspects.

 

 

[PA.]

Can you set the parameters for all the non aviation forums to not be indexed by the search engines? This would reduce the erroneous traffic that bounces out the door after 30 seconds.