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RE: Forum Deadly Sins

BRodda — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 14:55:22 GMT

Found where to set my default setting to threaded comments. Makes things much easier to sort, but not to read. Oh well can't have everything.

RE: Forum Deadly Sins

BRodda — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 14:12:37 GMT

Please, please, please for the love of $DIETY and cute puppy dogs and kitties everywhere PLEASE enable comment threading. Even I have no idea what comments I'm relplying to anymore.

Do it for the Babys

RE: Forum Deadly Sins

Ben Rowland — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 13:36:31 GMT

Bill and I have a tendency to throw conventional wisdom into the wind.

RE: Forum Deadly Sins

BRodda — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 13:01:32 GMT

Sure there is a forum for Tech Valley Now (Far far below the fold)

As for the launch and test, I understand that. Worse case senerio is that some groups get trimmed later on. The hardest thing to do is know when to pull the trigger and when to wait.

As for Ben and Bill, I'm always in the mood for a mountain comic.

RE: Forum Deadly Sins

Ben Rowland — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 11:54:51 GMT

Yes, you are right. We plan on revamping the site and will run the Dr. VC bit through the forums from now on. Your other points are dead on as well. Bill and I were pretty excited and couldn't wait to get this thing going, though, content or no.

RE: Forum Deadly Sins

-Ed — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 11:28:30 GMT

Dude, you are so right. Snow and Rowland are nuts. N V T S, nuts! I've been telling them that there fact fer years. Snow calls it "trial and error, with a focus on error."

I do know the website will be reconfiggered at some point. Also, throwing all of Dr VC's old posts in the new forum is a good idea. I know that old coot ain't doin' that, so looks like it'll be old -Ed doing the heavy lifting.

Whatcha talking 'bout, Willis? There's a tech valley link in the networking scene! We expect that to be one of our most popular forums!

Seriously, good feedback, we appreciate it. I'm sure we'll fine tune this thing in the days and weeks to come.

Forum Deadly Sins

BRodda — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:05:30 GMT

As I am currently working on a team to build a community site I thought I would share some thoughts on your site so far:

1) Empty hall syndrome: You started with no posts before going live. You should have grabbed as much content off of your site and converted it to posts before sending out the e-mail to your newsletter list. A great example of that would have been taking all those "Ask Dr. VC" questions and making them a post and then having the good Dr.'s replies as comments. That way people who would like to ask for clarification or make suggestions themselves could have done so. Also The Latest Fodder where you have made comments to the users in general would have been great as posts. Even "borrowing" posts from Bill's blog would have been good. People are more likely to post if they see that others have posted before them.

2) Building before they come: You have too many forums. If you had just left The Networking Scene as a single forum rather than building it out by content, country and city it would allow for better post accumulation and remove some assumptions. For example I work in Albany NY in what is call "Tech Valley". We have tons of networking events, but you have accidentally excluded any posts I might have made about events going on here because I am not in NYC. Once a forum gets to a certain critical mass then you can break it out in a more organic way when there is traffic to support it. With any forum the flatter it is to start the better.

And finally

3) Touch Points: You should have more places in you main site that lead to the forums. For example on the Ask Dr. VC page there should be a "Ask the DR. a Question" button that takes you right to the The World Famous Dr. VC Advice Forum . I can already tell you that is where you are going to get the most traffic to start; people go to forums to have questions answered by someone in the know. Having buttons at the bottom of your columns articles would also be great. That way if someone wanted to say something about what they just read they have a place to say what they have to say.

Glad to see you have a forum site, I read and reread the info on VC Fodder regularly and I look forward talking to like minded people. Good luck with the new site