A2Kers, where are you? Where is everyone?

The new format has its definite good points and plusses, but unfortunately building community is not one of them. When there is no place to go to see where the new threads on subjects of interest are congregated or see who's been around or what's cooking on a particular favorite forum, it is too easy to lose things in the fast moving 'new posts' thread. And it's a royal pain having to click through several pages of non-interesting stuff to find something of interest, and I think many, maybe most, people don't even try any more. Some threads that would have attracted a lot of participation on the old A2K cycle off the first page too quickly here and are often lost. The arbitrary tags are not that helpful to know what's new.

So, as before, I continue to post regularly on a very few threads, but I'm finding it more difficult to retain interest. And I think that's why a lot of our old friends here don't even bother any more.

1 Reply

I browse, I read some.
Don't have much to say. Sometimes by the time I get to a thread, someone else has already said what I was thinking. And I see no point in repeating it.
I'm spending time on Facebook, but mostly to play a silly game.
I don't have much to say there either.
I guess I don't think anyone is much interested in anything I have to say.

Whatever it is, I'm going back to work next week for the first time in 4 months. It'll be nice to be separated from my computer for a good portion of each day.

Edit: The new format has absolutely nothing to do with my lack of posting. I do miss a spell check and a good search, but otherwise I'm good with it. I wish more sites would have top and end bottoms on them!

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@dlowan,

Hi guys, I'm around at least once every day to see what's happening but, I'll quote Deb here to echo how I feel:

dlowan wrote:

And I can't think of anything to post to interest me or anyone else.

But I am certainly not face-booking or anything!

I'm more occupied with an online game these days, too, and only spend a very limited amount of time here.

I do like to keep up on what's going on here as best I can though. When I see something I want to comment on, I do.

Like this, for example. Wink

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@Dutchy,

Totally agree the new format stinks! It's nowhere near as user friendly as most forums. I started posting again but I do not enjoy it as before Sad

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I do facebook, but that only means I don't do as much idle chatting on a2k - the site isn't meant for that anyway. I have been busy, mostly. And Dasha needed my computer more than I did this last week.

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I am here

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@edgarblythe,

edgar wrote :

Quote:

I still come online just as often, but I find less that I can participate in without repeating myself. Some of the threads I usually like get sidetracked by persons I don't care to be involved with, so I wait until the good guys post on there to even read.

that's about how i feel .
i'm probably "posting" more than before - but it's usually wordgames - it's supposed to be good stimulation for us older folks <GRIN> .
(i'm curious why i can't put an emoticon in after i've had a "quote" - gets all balled up - small thing , but definetely NOT an improvement ) .
perhaps the "good old days" of a2k were coming to an end anyways ? i understand that other , similar blogs also start to slowly disappear into outer space .. and other blogs will spring up .

personally i'm missing "continuity" most . if i add to an old post , my entry will often bring no response ... but if i enter the same post as a new "topic" , i am more likely to get a response - but the continuity is lost .

probably won't stop visiting and posting ... but something is missing (others will no doubt prefer the new a2k over the old a2k - i'm sure , and i accept that ) .
hbg

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I do not like the new format...find it not very "user friendly" and I stay away from some threads for the reasons other people have stated. Far too many threads are taken over by nut cases and perfectly interesting threads are sidetracked by them. I try to get enthused, but am afraid my interest is diminished with A2K.

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@hamburger,

hamburger wrote:

edgar wrote :

Quote:
I still come online just as often, but I find less that I can participate in without repeating myself. Some of the threads I usually like get sidetracked by persons I don't care to be involved with, so I wait until the good guys post on there to even read.

that's about how i feel .
i'm probably "posting" more than before - but it's usually wordgames - it's supposed to be good stimulation for us older folks <GRIN> .
(i'm curious why i can't put an emoticon in after i've had a "quote" - gets all balled up - small thing , but definetely NOT an improvement ) .
perhaps the "good old days" of a2k were coming to an end anyways ? i understand that other , similar blogs also start to slowly disappear into outer space .. and other blogs will spring up .

personally i'm missing "continuity" most . if i add to an old post , my entry will often bring no response ... but if i enter the same post as a new "topic" , i am more likely to get a response - but the continuity is lost .

probably won't stop visiting and posting ... but something is missing (others will no doubt prefer the new a2k over the old a2k - i'm sure , and i accept that ) .
hbg

well hamburgler, nobody likes you, I know I don't.

1 Reply

@dyslexia,

Quote:

well hamburgler, nobody likes you, I know I don't.

i know you don't like me ... but i knoow that you LOVE me ... and that's good enough for me !
XOXOXO
hbg

http://www.casssmith.com/cds/Let-The-Love-In.jpg

LOVE your guiiitaar playing , dys !

1 Reply

@hamburger,

hamburger wrote:

Quote:
well hamburgler, nobody likes you, I know I don't.

i know you don't like me ... but i knoow that you LOVE me ... and that's good enough for me !
XOXOXO
hbg

LOVE your guiiitaar playing , dys !

Problem is, I don't like any of you people.

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@edgarblythe,

ok, nobody likes edgar either, especially me.

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@edgarblythe,

Are you prepared for Butrflynet joining the Albuquerque trouble makers Monday and the mischief they cause by not liking everybody?

BBB

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@hamburger,

hamburger wrote:

personally i'm missing "continuity" most . if i add to an old post , my entry will often bring no response ... but if i enter the same post as a new "topic" , i am more likely to get a response - but the continuity is lost .

I think that's because of the damnable ability to vote a thread out of sight where it will never be seen again. In the past folks would ignore an 'uninteresting' thread at first but checked on it later because the thread was active and the names appearing as the last post were intriguing. Now it's too easy to vote down threads presumed to be uninteresting when, if we were still reminded they were around, might become interesting. Once it's voted down we don't get a second opportunity to check it out so any subsequent posts are never seen.

Also a thread that doesn't generate immediate attention can cycle quickly to the second, third, or fourth page before it has time to generate interest and is never seen by most. When threads were organized into logical forums, this was not so much of a problem--those threads cycling off the first page were truly threads generating little or no interest.

I think it might help if the continuing word games, puzzles, etc. could be confined to a single forum separate from the others and then get rid of the danged thumbs up thumbs down stuff.

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We went to a friend's house for dinner on Friday. She (and her family) moved here last fall and she's still having a hard time just in terms of not really knowing anyone and missing her old friends. I sympathized and told her that it took at least a year before I really started to settle in here, and it was two or three years before I really had built up the sort of community I need.

One thing I was thinking of later, as I was talking to E.G. about that, is how vital A2K was to me during that time. I was thinking about when I first moved here, and didn't know anyone, but it really applies to my whole time on Abuzz and A2K until the last couple of years. I joined Abuzz when I had recently moved to Chicago and knew nobody -- I stayed in Chicago for four years but the suburb we lived in was really not my kind of place. I had one really good friend but I never really built up a community, and I need a community.

And it's only in the last couple of years -- really even the last year or so -- that I have that again, here, and I LOVE it. It's the best thing. Haven't really had this since I left Madison in 1997.

Definitely means I have less of a need for A2K than I used to, though I doubt I'll ever fade away completely. Too interested in all of you people and what you're up to. Smile

So the main thing is that I'm spending a lot more time with friends (working out, meeting for coffee, meeting for lunch, meeting for dinner, just plain chatting when we see each other -- the other day I dropped off sozlet at her friend's house for a 3-hr playdate and ended up chatting with the friend's mom for 2 hours of that...) I'm doing other stuff too, but it's stuff I've always done in addition to A2K -- real-life socializing is just taking up more of the A2K niche.

Also doing Facebook and enjoying that a lot -- not a ton of time there, but again it probably cuts in.

In general, while my own participation is definitely reduced, A2K (and Abuzz before it) waxes and wanes -- the dolrums set in, everyone complains, and then there is some new drama or some new influx of really interesting newbies or some technical upgrade, and things tick up again. (I'm not sure I ever see "Wow A2K is just SO FUN right now!!" threads, just the "Damn, A2K USED to be so much better..." threads.... Wink

)

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@Foxfyre,

foxfire wrote :

Quote:

I think that's because of the damnable ability to vote a thread out of sight where it will never be seen again. In the past folks would ignore an 'uninteresting' thread at first but checked on it later because the thread was active and the names appearing as the last post were intriguing. Now it's too easy to vote down threads presumed to be uninteresting when, if we were still reminded they were around, might become interesting. Once it's voted down we don't get a second opportunity to check it out so any subsequent posts are never seen.

Also a thread that doesn't generate immediate attention can cycle quickly to the second, third, or fourth page before it has time to generate interest and is never seen by most. When threads were organized into logical forums, this was not so much of a problem--those threads cycling off the first page were truly threads generating little or no interest.

I think it might help if the continuing word games, puzzles, etc. could be confined to a single forum separate from the others and then get rid of the danged thumbs up thumbs down stuff.

agree with you - wholeheartedly , foxfire !
just to be mischieveous , i spend few a minutes "upticking" this topic - and look , it's almost at the top ! but it's really just distorting a2k imo .
i haven't done any up- or downticking for some months (except just now , to satisfy my curiousity) - find it a waste of time - and distorting .

imo bunching the wordgames would be splendid - but not likely to happan , i'd say - would likely be a MAJOR programming effort .

i know there are such features as : tags , up/down votes ... ... but in the process of building a new a2k , some familiar features disappeared .
since it's not my baby , i can hardly complain - just make some commments to likeminded users .
hbg

1 Reply

@hamburger,

Only one of your thumbs ups would have registered.

Ditto for anyone who attempts multiple thumbs down.

They APPEAR to register to you as you do it...but only one "takes".

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

I think that's because of the damnable ability to vote a thread out of sight where it will never be seen again. In the past folks would ignore an 'uninteresting' thread at first but checked on it later because the thread was active and the names appearing as the last post were intriguing. Now it's too easy to vote down threads presumed to be uninteresting when, if we were still reminded they were around, might become interesting. Once it's voted down we don't get a second opportunity to check it out so any subsequent posts are never seen.

Can you give any examples of this? Outside of word games very few topics have been collapsed. I think a lot of people are assuming that a bunch of the threads they like are being collapsed, but with the exception of word game threads and lovatts it's pretty rare.

Quote:

I think it might help if the continuing word games, puzzles, etc. could be confined to a single forum separate from the others and then get rid of the danged thumbs up thumbs down stuff.

Word games, ESL, Latin and Water softening are good examples of where the voting isn't working out so well, the number of people who aren't interested outweigh the interested enough to cause many of them to collapse. A couple of things are going to be done to address them, the first is a different ratings system based on a Bayesian algorithm (I'll explain it later if it passes the muster during testing), the second is the ability to filter tags out en masse (e.g. so you can just filter all threads tagged word games if you want, and not have to vote them down individually), and lastly we are likely to separate out a "hide" feature from a vote down feature.

But honestly, the voting isn't really having much influence on topic viewing. Even if a topic is the most popular on the site for the week, or the least popular, it doesn't tend to make the topics deviate in views and replies much at all. It's just not having the impact that people claim it is either way.

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@msolga,

msolga wrote:

I'm interested. If indeed you are A2King less, tell us why.
And what you're doing instead.

Personally, I've been busy trying to make sure I have a way to support myself. The financial crisis hit me in the pocketbook hard, and the consulting gigs I depend on might not be around much longer, so I've been burning the candle at both ends working for new contracts I picked up. I'm having to wear more hats so I'm also doing a lot of research and study into areas of web development that I'm not as strong in as others (I'm hoping to gain expertise in all areas this year, and become a true "full desk"). So I've been brushing up on graphic design, and need to deepen my programming knowledge. Plus there's a big a2k update we are getting closer to releasing (and thusly working more feverishly on, it's nice to get stuff out the door and this has been a long iteration).

I'm also more active elsewhere on the web these days. Still not into facebook, but I've been on reddit and twitter a bit more, and I've been socializing with other developers and discussing code more.

But even if I weren't so much more busy, I'd likely be around less these days. If you do anything too much it gets boring. And I do a2k too much, so I have those cycles of boredom.

1 Reply

I have a suggestion--A2K should set up a format in which only brilliant and erudite people would post on selected threads. All others would be banned. That would mean, for example, that only geniuses like Setanta, Parados, Cyclopitchorn and Nimh would be allowed to post. This way, they wouldn't be bothered by their inferiors.

As an addendum to this suggestion, A2K should demand that all posters asking to enter the SPECIAL GROUP subsequent to its formation should be required to send in a certified copy of a recent IQ test( SAT'S, LSAT's ACT"S will do since they can be easily correlated to IQ levels.

Under those criteria, I am afraid that there would be very few joining that SPECIAL GROUP.

As I have learned from the immensly erudite Setanta and the legal genius- Debra LAW, no conservatives would have the qualifications for joining such a group.

I wonder why the Left wingers do not have any pity for the conservatives who, obviously, rank no higher than the standard deviation to the left of the median. They pity Down's syndrom children. Why not us???

1 Reply

A2Kers, where are you? Where is everyone?

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