Where is everyone ?

Wondering how Criticker works, or have a question that doesn't seem to fit under requests or bugs?
livelove
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Where is everyone ?

Post by livelove »

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Where is everyone ?

BadCosmonaut
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Re: Where is everyone ?

Post by BadCosmonaut »

I've discussed this before in another thread I made. This is speculation, but I believe the reason is that most movie discussion is about specific movies. On criticker, there is a general forum and a specific movie forum. For reasons I discussed in my other thread, neither are really that great for talking about specific movies. Since it is discouraging that there is no good place to discuss specific movies, those threads simply don't happen, and we end up with a barely used forum.

CosmicMonkey
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Re: Where is everyone ?

Post by CosmicMonkey »

Other issues to consider:

- A Large number of accounts (I'd hazard a guess of atleast 20-30% of users) are either abandoned, or are users who log in once every few months to import their scores from imdb or another site. These users are still useful for calculating PSIs but are not going to contribute to the forum in any way.

- The forums exist entirely in English, and as an international site, not all users are proficient enough in English to engage.


I really wish more people would use the forum, but I'm not sure what the best the way would be to encourage more usage. I don't think having movie-specific forums would do much, since, if they want to, users can already create movie-specific discussions, and they don't tend to see a lot of traffic. I personally would like to see the moderators introduce poll functionality into forum discussions, because I think the interactivity would drive more traffic, but I also completely understand why people are opposed to the idea, because other forums that have polls can often be a complete mess at times.

livelove
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Re: Where is everyone ?

Post by livelove »

BadCosmonaut wrote:I've discussed this before in another thread I made. This is speculation, but I believe the reason is that most movie discussion is about specific movies. On criticker, there is a general forum and a specific movie forum. For reasons I discussed in my other thread, neither are really that great for talking about specific movies. Since it is discouraging that there is no good place to discuss specific movies, those threads simply don't happen, and we end up with a barely used forum.


@BadCosmonaut: thank you. I seconded your motion in the other thread. And I think you have identified the main reason for meagre traffic spot-on.

VinegarBob
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Re: Where is everyone ?

Post by VinegarBob »

Active forums are great in principle, but discussions are often dominated by one or two loud individuals that drown out the other participants and drive people away who can't be bothered with arguing about something that's really not that important in the grand scheme of things.

The other thing is that it's extremely easy to fall into a pattern of arguing, back-biting and point-scoring - especially when the same people turn up in most of the threads. This has happened here and on other movie forums I've been on. I eventually got fed up with this kind of behaviour - and it spreads like a virus quickly. Nobody ever changed their views so discussion ended up feeling really redundant.

Kind of depressing, but that's the way it seems to me.

BadCosmonaut
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Re: Where is everyone ?

Post by BadCosmonaut »

CosmicMonkey wrote:...I don't think having movie-specific forums would do much, since, if they want to, users can already create movie-specific discussions, and they don't tend to see a lot of traffic.


Concerning why I think the movie-specific forum is inadequate for movie-specific disucssions, I address this in the post I linked. Could you respond to my reasoning in the OP in the other thread by any chance? Or should I copy paste it here? This is a discussion worth having since I'd really like to see a movie-specific forum on each movie page, and they might actually implement this feature.

livelove
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Re: Where is everyone ?

Post by livelove »

CosmicMonkey wrote:Other issues to consider:

- A Large number of accounts (I'd hazard a guess of at least 20-30% of users) are either abandoned, or are users who log in once every few months to import their scores from imdb or another site. These users are still useful for calculating PSIs but are not going to contribute to the forum in any way.

Ok, but what is the reason for the users who import imdb scores but don't talk? I think BadCosmonaut has found the main reason for that.

CosmicMonkey wrote:- The forums exist entirely in English, and as an international site, not all users are proficient enough in English to engage.

That's true, although IMO not a valid argument, as this is the same situation for all sites, including IMDB, and their forums had millions of active (talking) users.


CosmicMonkey wrote:I really wish more people would use the forum, but I'm not sure what the best the way would be to encourage more usage. I don't think having movie-specific forums would do much, since, if they want to, users can already create movie-specific discussions, and they don't tend to see a lot of traffic.

I happen to think the opposite is true. Just looking at myself, I have posted hundreds of times in the good old IMDB forums. Here on criticker just once (I mean just 1 time movie-related, although my posting count stands at >200). Why? It's logical: When a film intrigued me, immediately after finishing it, I went straight to the IMDB forums, looked what existing threads there are already and participated, or – if need be – started my own thread. Whereas here on criticker, you would have to do an "advanced search" just to verify if there are any discussions at all for your film. Most folks won't bother searching (and for this very same reason, most folks don't post, as they – correctly – think it won't get read anyway). And if there are, there is mostly just 1 catch-all thread, which is neither designed to nor furthers specific discussion on very specific topics within the film. To the contrary, over on IMDB, you had a variety of discussions for each film, e.g. about the soundtrack, the ending, plot holes, etc. It's just 100x more inviting to click on a film and see a couple of topic titles inviting you to participate, than just seeing one (1) nameless topic for your film on Criticker.

CosmicMonkey wrote: I personally would like to see the moderators introduce poll functionality into forum discussions, because I think the interactivity would drive more traffic, but I also completely understand why people are opposed to the idea, because other forums that have polls can often be a complete mess at times.

I don't see a problem with polls. But based on what I have seen on IMDB, I just don't think that they are generating lots of postings/traffic.
Last edited by livelove on Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:29 am, edited 2 times in total.

livelove
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Re: Where is everyone ?

Post by livelove »

BadCosmonaut wrote:
CosmicMonkey wrote:...I don't think having movie-specific forums would do much, since, if they want to, users can already create movie-specific discussions, and they don't tend to see a lot of traffic.
Concerning why I think the movie-specific forum is inadequate for movie-specific disucssions, I address this in the post I linked. Could you respond to my reasoning in the OP in the other thread by any chance? Or should I copy paste it here?

I think it's better to discuss it here, so that your valuable feature request thread doesn't get cluttered with the back-and-forth of those who don't support the idea, don't you think?

BadCosmonaut wrote: This is a discussion worth having since I'd really like to see a movie-specific forum on each movie page, and they might actually implement this feature.

completely agreed

livelove
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Re: Where is everyone ?

Post by livelove »

@VinegarBob: you are not forced to participate. I honestly loved the IMDB forums and I think what you say is a reflection of life in general, there are billions of people and with some you get along, with others you don't. So what.

BadCosmonaut
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Re: Where is everyone ?

Post by BadCosmonaut »

VinegarBob wrote:Active forums are great in principle, but discussions are often dominated by one or two loud individuals that drown out the other participants and drive people away who can't be bothered with arguing about something that's really not that important in the grand scheme of things.

The other thing is that it's extremely easy to fall into a pattern of arguing, back-biting and point-scoring - especially when the same people turn up in most of the threads. This has happened here and on other movie forums I've been on. I eventually got fed up with this kind of behaviour - and it spreads like a virus quickly. Nobody ever changed their views so discussion ended up feeling really redundant.

Kind of depressing, but that's the way it seems to me.


I agree this can be a problem for general forums. I also agree that on IMDB, this was a problem for mega popular movies like Shawshank, Godfather, etc. or any movies that would have been controversial due to PC issues like the new Ghostbusters.

But for almost all movies other than those, the specific movie forums on IMDB were invaluable for discussion. In fact, the specific movie forums when they existed were the best place (IMO) for discussing movies, especially compared to now where there is no good place at all, or at least not that I know of.

livelove wrote:I think it's better to discuss it here, so that your valuable feature request thread doesn't get cluttered with the back-and-forth of those who don't support the idea, don't you think?


I'm fine wherever it happens. I would just need to see a substantive reply to my reasoning so that I can reply to his reply.

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