I regret to say I find this policy decision and its explanation puerile. The fact that the qualifying limit was set at five posts and then increased to ten suggests that it was not achieving its objective. Personally I would be prepared to pay for access, at least for a trial period to see whether the quality of the forum was sustained.[/b]
I disagree, far from being childish, the actual explaination over why we have imposed the quotas reflect
valid and reasonable frustrations on the part of our members who day in day out make the effort to engage with the rest of the community. The SH brigade for example have come onto this forum and have made full use of the facilities, faithfully tracking the Super 14 and their provincial competitions without even so much as a word from anyone else. However, at the same time, you have hundreds if not thousands of leechers who take advantage of our goodwill and facilities without putting anything back into the community.
Putting up a system of payment would be wrong, it would defeat the actual purpose of this forum. As such, it is obvious that you have completely missed the whole point of this forum and this quota.
It is
not here to serve as your first port of call for any Rugby 06/08 hacks, tips, cheats, etc. On the contary, it is here for the debate, discussion and banter of real life rugby.
Call that "puerile" if you want sir but if you are not prepared to even understand what this forum is actually
for; then you will never understand why the quotas are even in place.
And on the contary, the fact that we now have many new members who, before would have just headed straight for the Rugby 06/08 section and left without a post, are now actually contributing and making their voices heard about the issues that face rugby of both codes today, proves that the system is working.
My principal objection is that it is not a way to achieve quality unless it is accompanied by an increased effort in moderating out irrelevant and repetitive material. We all know that using web forums is like panning for gold - you sift through a lot of grit to find the occasional nugget of gold that is worth reading. The weakness of forums is that they encourage everyone to think that their opinions are worth voicing. Personally I do not contribute to the wider forums because I do not think that my opinions about rugby are worth broadcasting, however much I enjoy watching the game.[/b]
Incorrect. This is not about quality or quantity: it is about coaxing lurkers into posting worthwhile views on Rugby and beyond. At first, many will find it hard to write a decent post and through a lack of confidence their posts will be short. However, as they see topics which they hold close to their heart or if their confidence increases, then they will start to post more and more, putting more of what they know down and getting involved in the debate. Forums are there for debate, they are the online equivelent of talking loudly about how crap McAllister is after drinking four pints of Adnams Broadside. It isn't meant to be taken seriously and if somebody disagrees, argue with them and hit the beer cooler: that is what
rugby debate is all about!
By your way of posting, I get the feeling you're more of the wine bar or tee-total late night cafe kind of guy rather than someone who would rather be heard
and seen.
There will be spam,
of course there will be, but we honestly feel that this is risk worth taking. We have a team of committed staff who nip spammers in the bud pretty quickly. The problem is easily manageable and we are on top of it.
I also fail to see how the post count can make a real difference to spam (but I would be interested in an explanation as I am not familiar with the mechanics of managing a forum). This is not a solution that I have encountered on other forums.[/b]
It can but not in the way that you would expect. Some either see the post count and treat it with the respect it deserves and start to post some decent stuff. Others post spam at first, get a warning and then fall into line and actually discover what a nice forum it is.
I think the fact that we have not had to warn anyone more than twice or even get anywhere near a ban demonstrates how gentle coaxing from staff can ease new members in the right direction. As their posting improves, the warnings are removed and they'll get rewarded in other ways such as access to the rugby 08 forum and positive increases to their reputation.
On 'lurkers' in general, a brief web search turned up the following article (
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html) which suggested that "In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.". If that is correct, you are doing extremely well in therugbyforum.com if your contribution rate is between 30 and 40%. I would have expected you to take some pride in the success of your gaming forums in attracting the main body of discussion about what is, let's face it, a minority game.[/b]
We never said it wasn't, what we were saying was that only 40 or 50 people posting out of a total of
3,000 was highly irregular, even for a popular forum. We are not doing that well at all at TRF, far from it and we merely want to just increase the number of people who post here. If all 3,000 members suddenly turn up and start posting, then that is fine, that is great but we would be happy even if another 50 lurkers or leechers started posting. The fact that we have increased our active members by ten to fifteen is a success in our books.
Finally, when I have re-qualified I will go back thorugh your EA Rugby forums to examine exactly what useful or interesting information was provided by therugbyforum.com as opposed to the individuals who chose to contribute to the forum. There appears to a rather proprietorial claim being made about other people's efforts. As for EA's plans, my recollection is that there was a lot of gossip but little of substance. I admit I have been on holiday recently but as I am now barred I cannot check!
Hugh Kernohan [/b]
Well then Hugh, you seem to be a rather dapper hand at writing posts, why not put those skills to use and delve into the forum and see what topics tickle your pickle! By the time you get to your tenth post, you'll probabbly would have forgotten that you were here for Rugby 08 stuff anyway. If you want my opinion, you need to get some beer (I reccomend
http://www.realale.com/ if you want to buy online), sit back, read some of the posts and have a laugh.
At the end of the day, we feel that the post quota has been a success we can point to the fact that more new members who have contributed allot have joined since we've put this quota in place. In short: we ain't getting rid of it so get used to it! :bana:
Good day!
