One of the main reasons why BuffyUK worked is that every week people logged on to the site because they'd just watched the most recent show of Buffy / Angel aired on TV (whether that be terrestrial or Sky) and wanted to discuss it (which because of the traffic resulted in other threads too).

These days a lot more people watch their favourite programmes in their own time via DVD's, dowloading etc. The buzz of the 'newest eposide' of our favourite programmes doesn't happen anymore.

Don't have any suggestions though ..... just my thoughts.

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by Milky
Yes perhaps even the dreaded politics threads, which while I can't stand them, some members do find interesting. At least they'd be balanced out with more fun topics.

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They certainly do, that's why I post them. They invariably kick off decent debate and often notch up a good 20+ posts. If you'd like more fun threads, why not start the ball rolling and post some yourself instead of complaining about other people's tastes. Are political threads somehow detracting from fun threads? No.

We're a diverse community, there's space for everything. Personally I can't stand threads about reality TV, but I don't spend my time complaining about them, I say live and let live and post about what interests me. Try doing the same.

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by Byron
(quotes)
They certainly do, that's why I post them. They invariably kick off decent debate and often notch up a good 20+ posts. If you'd like more fun threads, why not start the ball rolling and post some yourself instead of complaining about other people's tastes. Are political threads somehow detracting from fun threads? No.

We're a diverse community, there's space for everything. Personally I can't stand threads about reality TV, but I don't spend my time complaining about them, I say live and let live and post about what interests me. Try doing the same.

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You're missing the point, all the political threads may generate some discussion, but it creates the wrong atmosphere and reduces the chance of new members joining in in fun conversation, and feeling at home in a friendly environment.

Saying "Well, create your own threads then" serves no useful purpose, all it does is alienate what's left of the membership. If that is the opinion that is put across to potential new members, then that explains why the place is more dead than an abandoned morgue, why come here to build our content for us? They might as well post it on a more friendly forum, on their blog, or hell, even build their own site.

Part of the problem of comparing it to the old BUK site is that as well as the reasons Bryany stated, is that fan sites of a particular tv show are much easier to handle in terms of content and building a community feel. We have such a wide focus that it just dilutes everything we had, making it far more difficult to build up original content and nurture that warm and fuzzy community feel that we were all used to back in the day.

The stark fact is that for any "genre" tv show there are scores of fan sites and communities that do things a quantum leap (no pun intended!) better than we can currently offer. That is why we are having problems gaining new members, and keeping old ones.

T21 slowly morphed into little more than a non specific social club for some old friends, and over time, and yes, the increased use of blogging sites, means that even that has dwindled down to a select handful.

Now even the slightest whiff of a less than pleasant atmosphere can pretty much kill the site for weeks on end, which means that if anyone did have anything interesting to say, they're going to say it somewhere else.

My €0.02.

(Edited by Stoo 07/12/2005 22:43)

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by Stoo
(quotes)
You're missing the point, all the political threads may generate some discussion, but it creates the wrong atmosphere and reduces the chance of new members joining in in fun conversation, and feeling at home in a friendly environment.

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*Claps hands* Exactly!! as I said I'm not having a pop at "whats discussed" more saying that these types of discussions were not what I came to T21 for and also not what I can see new members joining for.

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by Stoo
(quotes)
Saying "Well, create your own threads then" serves no useful purpose, all it does is alienate what's left of the membership.

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Something that seems to be happening more and more if posts in peoples blogs about this place are read. A shame

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by Stoo
(quotes)
The stark fact is that for any "genre" tv show there are scores of fan sites and communities that do things a quantum leap (no pun intended!) better than we can currently offer. That is why we are having problems gaining new members, and keeping old ones.

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But I believe that we have the core basis of members here that could build a site to attract members..it's a case of finsing the right shells to build round and getting there input. 'Lost' was an easy example to use but there must be others...I suppose it depends on what the members are into..trying some 'Narnia' specific stuff might work..I'm not sure.

This might come as a shock to some people but this isn't something that "we as staff" have not noticed. Through the last couple of weeks / months I personally have been hearing similar sounds from some ex staff and some active members and I totally agree with you all (and love you all for coming forward and saying it). The fact that people actually care enough to come forward does mean something I think and makes T21 worth fighting for. I personally don't see this as complaining at all, it is something that is obviously a problem however staff isn't seen to be "obviously" doing something about the problem, you have to address the problem when something can still be done.

The journals gave people another place to hang and have fun and we just weren't fun enough and that has to change. We need to make T21 a fun and bubbly place to post once more.

Going to break some serious NDA's here now (Sorry to other staff but I got agreement on this from Wo so i'm off the leash for one evening and I'm going to spill the beans )

Obviously we haven't been deaf and blind through this decline and we have been thinking of ways we can help better the current situation. We have come in a vicious circle in the new content department which has slowly been sucking us down. However we as staff can obviously not keep providing all the new content all the time as there are only a few of us with very little time so that wouldn't really be solution (plus we really aren't all that creative ). We have great new options like forum dependent polls, headlines, featured discussions etc however keeping these things fresh and new takes a hell of a lot of work. Thats why at the moment we don't have forum specific polls as getting Wobag to think off 1 poll and a featured discussion each week is hard enough (and me making the picture to go with it).

So instead of us (staff) doing most of this work why not let the community itself create ideas and we just act as enablers. Recent example the G-Party, you might all noticed the little mass-email and the headline. Ethan can't do these things by himself but he had an idea (which we thought was really good) and we just try to enable him as we have the tools (and some experience) to make his life just that little bit easier (not to take any glory away from this great initiative and all his efforts).

If people say to us, I'm very creative and would like to create msn icons or wallpapers or whatever and there wouldn't be any legal or technical reason why would couldn't support this we would love to provide for example a download section on the site. Take for example the fantasy football thread - someone started the pool and we tried to support this by creating a little script (which admittedly didn't always work that well) that would show the up to date scores. We would like to facilitate your ideas. So if you have ideas and you really also willing to commit to them come and talk to us (email / irc / start a thread in feedback of in Gc) and we would be more than happy to see what we can do.

To effectively enable the current member base (yes thats you) we have been thinking of creating a sort of queue'ing system for content. If you have a terrific idea for a poll insert it into the system and it will be added to the list of polls for that forum and each week or each xx days the next poll in the queue is loaded onto the site. The same for headlines etc. We would of course check if the content would be suitable and if due to a recent event or something another poll would be better suited next in the list we would tweak the order of appearance a little, but in content would in essence be provided by you "the community" and give you a lot more control on what happens on the site and provide content more frequently than we as staff can ever do it.

Most of these ideas haven't yet gotten a technical implementation but if you as a community feel that this might be a solution we can definately give it a darned good try to give it a technical implementation.

(Edited by Chambler 07/12/2005 23:10)

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by Stoo
(quotes)
You're missing the point, all the political threads may generate some discussion, but it creates the wrong atmosphere and reduces the chance of new members joining in in fun conversation, and feeling at home in a friendly environment.

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There's no right and wrong atmosphere, we're supposed to cater for diverse tastes. Endless celeb and fun threads will bore some potential members just as much as "serious" ones will others. Political threads are being used as a scapegoat, BUK had tons of them, far more than T21, but they were balanced out by other subjects. Ending political threads wouldn't return the balance, it'd create more stagnation. We should be taking a positive approach that doesn't rely on crushing the things some dislike to boost the things we're lacking. Intolerance for other people's tastes is the really wrong atmosphere.

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Saying "Well, create your own threads then" serves no useful purpose, all it does is alienate what's left of the membership. If that is the opinion that is put across to potential new members, then that explains why the place is more dead than an abandoned morgue, why come here to build our content for us? They might as well post it on a more friendly forum, on their blog, or hell, even build their own site.

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'Cept I wasn't putting it across to newbies but longtime members who want to revive the site. The useful purpose would be the threads they want. We're supposed to be about the members after all. Posting up threads you're interested in was central to T21's remit. If the members who want fun threads don't post them, who the heck should?

The root of all this ennui, the lack of a central focus for the site, won't be solved by changing the balance between fun threads, celeb threads or politics threads. General chat is supposed to be an extra after all. Whatever people's opinions on BUK, they all liked a show based in the Californian Valley (well besides Incbot). I posted far more about the shows than the state of the nation. I'd love to post about shows again, and finding a way to get the focus away from general and back to the site's intended purpose will do far more to sort things out than the return of the potatoes.

I very rarely post here on here anymore as many of you have probably noticed. Like Milky this was always the first site i'd check when having logged online, but that isn't so anymore. I have to say though, I have never found as good a message board as T21 once was. Personally the political threads often bore me, but we have always had them, it seems like there are more of them at the moment because not many others seem to post. There used to be several new topics each day. I think the fact I have a journal now which I write in more is one reason like Milky said, but I also think due to nos nights being no more is also a reason. There have always been several social groups in T21, and most would all come together at nos nights and still post on here too, now I don't feel the thats the case. Best way I can describe this is comparing it like so, and this isn't meant as a dig at anyone. I think its a bit like being at school, lets say several groups of people hang out in the library at lunchtime. Then someone falls out with someone and then they stop going to the library and go off with their friends else where. Then gradually one by one the groups of people feel like they don't belong in the library anymore because the remaining group have made it theres. Sorry thats probably really confusing, but I don't feel this site is as welcoming as it once, and it feels now it only belongs to some people. I also miss a lot of the oldies who have all vanished over the years, theres deffinitely not enough of a mixture of people on here anymore. It feels like you have to be part of the in crowd to post for me, and I know a few others I have spoken to feel the same about this. To be honest, I don't see T21 ever going back to what it was, or improving again a great deal, but it is still a site I check now and again.

It's a great pity how slow things have been around here in the last year or so. I think there are a couple of reasons - the rise in popularity for journals (most of my friends here have an LJ and so do I), the fact that the "core" members are growing up, getting on and moving on and often don't have time for discussion here.

Yes I agree about the political threads - Byron, it's all well and good to say that some people find political debate interesting, the fact is that the majority of the threads disintegrate into tetchy bickering within a few posts, with the main bulk of posts being made up of endless quotes and rebuttals. They look like arguments. Let's face it - they *are* arguments, and a row will make people feel uncomfortable - so in that sense there is such a thing as the wrong atmosphere.

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by Byron
There's no right and wrong atmosphere, we're supposed to cater for diverse tastes. Endless celeb and fun threads will bore some potential members just as much as "serious" ones will others. Political threads are being used as a scapegoat, BUK had tons of them, far more than T21, but they were balanced out by other subjects. Ending political threads wouldn't return the balance, it'd create more stagnation. We should be taking a positive approach that doesn't rely on crushing the things some dislike to boost the things we're lacking. Intolerance for other people's tastes is the really wrong atmosphere.

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As far as I can see nobody has said that the political threads need to end. Just that the balance could be better.

I've deliberately come out of a 'net hiatus' to post this, but I'll keep an eye on this thread until I come back.

Just to say really that I agree with (the majority of) what's been said above. That's the reason I got the G-Party off the ground. It's usually the time that people get all excited about A party. Has the site seen any increase in traffic since the mailshot went out? As far as I can see, there hasn't been that much interest outside of the core membership.

I try my best to keep the music forum alive as that's about the only place I go to other than GC and even that has only a few regular visitors that i know of....

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by Chambler
We would like to facilitate your ideas.

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Can we have a 'Today's Posts' section then, please?

One of the other sites I visit has one of these and it works very well. I allows you to see what's going on across the site without having to dip into every sub-forum. Here at T21 I only check on General Chat, Meets & Music and I'm sure to be missing good posts else where

Well, I could have told you all (and I probably did at some point, because I've never been too good at self-editing ) that trying to run a site dedicated to all Sci-fi was going to be a challenge. 'BuffyTVS' was a phenomenon amongst the younger generation, and Stu was riding the wave (to America, as it turned out). When I got turned on to 'Buffy', and wanted to talk about it on the Web, BuffyUK was a revelation. You couldn't drag me out of 'Myth and Morality' with wild horses. But nothing has followed, bar a truncated 'Angel' to maintain the momentum. 'Dark Angel', 'Dead Like Me' (can we draw a curtain over 'True Calling'?). There was Star Trek, and Stargate, of course, but they weren't calling out to the youths. Now, if 'Stargate SG-1' had been set in a school, with younger actors... erm, 'Black Hole High', anyone? The more I think about it... 'Vampire High', 'Mutant X', 'Jake 2'... TV producers really have tried to create a new audience drawer, but nothing has clicked. Could be that the games industry is hurting viewing figures, and Sci-fi is suffering along with everything else.

I think I'll stop for now, but what I really want to say is, no, the political threads don't have to be read by anyone who doesn't want to. If the point of T21 is Sci-fi, then people should get into those dedicated forums and post. Has there been a remembrance post for the Star Trek franchise yet, for example? Anyone else noticed how there's a clue about the next episode of 'Lost' in the previous one? Lock's box company ("Everybody needs boxes") in the Hurley episode, f'rinstance?

I pretty much agree with whats been said here already, I dont post much these days

There are other varied forums I visit these days, the problem I see with people starting threads on here is that a lot cant be bothered as they are going to get the same old viewpoints again and again with nothing new as no new members(i know its a vicous circle). The wackier members left and the fun has gone.

I dont know how to solve it and Im not sure there is one but we can try, and Milky has done a good thing getting it out in the open.

Agree with the majority on this thread.

I have no interest in politics so stay out of those posts.

The "meets" forum is dead....... bring back the good old days where it was buzzing

Even "General Chat" is dead. Where are the silly threads?

If the board is dead, then members don't post. I know people have tried to keep it alive, but it's like flogging a dead horse these days. But then some of the other boards I go on are the same

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by JtBI dont know how to solve it and Im not sure there is one but we can try, and Milky has done a good thing getting it out in the open.

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This isn't the first time this has been raised though. It seems to crop up about once every 6 months - year.

Go on then, I'll play

Yeah this comes up every so often, but nothing ever gets done because there's no common vision anymore.

When Buffy was done, we really had nothing to hold us together anymore, we tried and we failed, what the hell have all the old members got in common with each other and loads of new members?

Find that, exploit it and prosper. Fail to and the site will eventually die, permanently.

Byron's right we need political discussion to let those who want to discuss it discuss it, Byron needs an excuse to use his long words, clever reasoning and posturing, many of us enjoy it, it's not argument, it's always discussion without it the site becomes a childish laughing stock.

SPIKE and Milky need potato threads to lift their spirits after a bad day at work, etc. etc. Without those threads, the site becomes a morgue.

But someone needs to find the common ground.

One question I'd REALLY like answering is why isn't the G-Party the T-Party?

Who's not allowed that to go ahead? If it's G fair enough, it's your party I T-21 didn't beg and plead for G to organise the party, then someone wants shooting.

That's the sort of thing that NEEDS to be encouraged. Tam stpped aside when she didn't have teh time and effort to dedicate to the site. If the staff didn't have time to organise the party this year, they should have found someone who did and not flaked out on it like they did.

My suggestion for getting the site back on track is to get new staff. Let some folks go, and bring in the commited ones.

I'm NOT naming names here, wait a minute, yes I am... actually I'm just poking sharp sticks in a hornet's nest and seeing what flies out...

Does Byron need to be staff? Would he be a more effective counter point to the majority of the members if he didn't have te site's political clout behnind him?

What exactly does Sam do as a staff member other than update the meets forum once in a while? Is that enough? Maybe it is? maybe she does more than I see these days of remember from yonks ago?

turning things on its head...

Why ISN'T G a staff member to be in charge of loads of meets every year?

Why isn't Maff a staff member with his insighful movie and game posts?

Hey why not have site elections every year to see who should run the place - Personally I nominate Wo, as he cares more about this site than anyone, and the techies too who've stuck by this site through thick and thin!!!



Here's a great idea...

Why don't you, yes YOU NOT post on your journal for a whole month? Just put a link to this site on your blog and someone start a daily T-Journal thread. Everyone here will then reply to your post, all your blog-friends will come here to see what's going on? Give it a go, you know you want to




(Edited by MonSTeR 09/12/2005 23:26)

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by MonSTeR
Does Byron need to be staff? Would he be a more effective counter point to the majority of the members if he didn't have te site's political clout behnind him?

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T21 has political clout? Well I suppose in the same way the WI has a fearesome line of jam.

The only modding I do in General these days is throwing asterisks over bad language like throwing star shaped falsies over ... things you throw star shaped falsies over. (Potential conflict, what with my association with the Anglo-Saxon? Well look at it as no one more qualified.) All other modding has to be done by two staff not involved these days, so that don't get in the way.

And if that don't convince you, just think how much more satisfying it'll be to win a debate against a member of staff.

I like politics but find the overwhelming topics which turn into slagging matches between the members slightly boring. I don't feel inclined to speak my mind here anymore because I don't want to suffer the judgement that may occur towards me.

I'll visit, post etc though.

I do try and keep it focused on the issue not the posters, but it does (understatement of the year award? Why thank you) tend to get a bit heated.

Perhaps some posts about local councils. If they get exciting, God help us. (Though the Eye seem to manage it.) And the compulsory serving of asparagus at breakfast.