Of course they will be! That's how they find this site! They're looking for news and information on Rugby 08 and this is the premier place on the web to find it. It's also the place where the most seasoned and passionate players of the game congregate to chat about the game.
I don't come here for news about the sport of Rugby, I read RSS feeds of newspapers for that. I don't feel the need to get into online discusions about the sport. I get quite enough of that offline, thanks.[/b]
I think you're missing the point. This forum is
not just for Rugby 08, it isn't just here for people to gabber on about the game. The Rugby 08 section is a sideshow to the main event. That main event is rugby in the real world: the Guinness Premiership, the Magners League, Super 14, Six Nations, Tri Nations, NA4 and the World Cup.
This is not what the primary function is in my eyes, this is the primary function of the forum
full stop! No arguments, no discussion and no debate: this forum is primarily here for us to talk rugby, rugby and more rugby with a bit of other sport, politics and gaming on the side.
That may be the prime function of the forum in your eyes, but not everybody visits the site for the same purpose. Nobody forces you read the newspaper from cover to cover if all you want to read is the sport. "It's a NEWSpaper so you have to read the NEWS section before you can read more."[/b]
This is not a newspaper, this is forum, a forum where we want people to contribute rather than just come in, not post a jot, take stuff from the Rugby 08 part of the forum without a "how'do" and leave. That is just not acceptible, especially when this is being put up for free.
There must be better tactics to draw folks into reading the other threads they'll find here. For instance: come up with the best comment/thread on a weekly basis and PM it to all the users. Good luck though - the signal to noise ratio is pretty low at TRF though (that's its charm for many who participate), so it'll be tough to identify a thread weekly rather than a comment.[/b]
Better still, just keep the quota. If you've bothered to notice, it doesn't harm those who look up from salivating at Rugby 08 and say "oh, crikey! Theres a whole forum out there, lets jump in!" And start to post, it doesn't harm those who have the confidence and post.
Face it, the only people who it does harm to are those who are just too lazy to post anything, just want to leech off of the information listed here and thats why we have a few sticks in the mud who don't want to contribute anything, demanding something for free.
As it stands, I suspect the majority of the new visitors who will be arriving here in the coming months will be turned off and will not come back and you'll lose new Rugby 08 users who would have been drawn into the conversation later.
This has been a tremendous building year for the forum. If you are able to continue to get high profile links like the BBC's during the 6N, you could turn this site into one that is supported by advertising in time. I would argue that shutting folks out is a way to ensure this doesn't happen (or at least not as quickly).[/b]
Getting traffic from people coming from links from the BBC or other rugby sources has nothing to do with people heading here directly for the Rugby 08 section. People coming here from the BBC 6N blog will not be inhibited from viewing the forum, they will not be clicking on that link because of the Rugby 08 material and in any case, the five post quota is not aimed at those kind of visitors and as such, they will not be affected by it.
We are not "shutting folks out" who are coming through the links listed in the BBC, etc because they are coming here for the rugby talk and not for the Rugby 08 talk. This point simply doesn't stand up to the facts.
Don't be offended because I don't post here. It's not meant as a personal affront. I get the 5 post quota, that's fine, just please don't keep making me waste my time when you're upping the count every couple of weeks. [/b]
We're not offended, we've never been offended by the few and far between gripes about the post count. We're just amused that some people spend so much time writing huge (and flawed) treatises on why the 5/10 post count is wrong, when they could have used that creative energy to discuss, debate and argue about Rugby on the main part of the forum! It boggles the mind honestly!
