Lack of foot-traffic here?

Anyone notice the lack of traffic this forum gets? considering how many reprappers are out there this domain has had 458,300 visitors the last 30 days, and this domain also hosts the reprap wiki so only a small percentage of those visits are to the forums. a site like thingiverse has 856,600 pr month and they don't even have a wikipage or a forum

Whenever i need help i go straight to the IRC channel because i know some kind soul is sitting idle at his keyboard waiting to answer questions, and I've never had to wait more then a minute or two for a reply on the #reprap channel, maybe it's time to start expanding the forum and including the irc channel somehow, seems like new users with a ton of random questions would get help a lot faster on the IRC channel, but not everyone knows it exists, hell most people don't even know what internet relay chat is

also, the forums are pretty slow

IRC already has a page in the wiki linking to the webchat interface: [reprap.org]

IMHO the IRC channel should not be labelled or presented as a means of tech support. It would become completely swamped with people needing help, which would eventually drive off everyone who doesn't want to do tech support.

I agree the forums are slow and seem to get fairly low footfall. It seems to me it would be better to fix that though rather than encourage everyone to use IRC as that means theres is no record of the problem/solution and the same question probably gets answered hundreds of times on IRC?

I'm heading straight to IRC for my noob questions.
Secrets out now.

The layout of the forums is the main issue,

Many of the same questions get asked all over the place.

In reality the noobie questions are largely.

What to buy

I've got an issue building

I've got an issue with the electronics

Calibration

Why does my print look like this

A newbie friendly area with some dedicated moderators / knowledeable helpers wouldn't go astray, based on the recurring questions and answers a newbie FAQ could be developed and stickied to the top answering all the common repetitive questions.

It may contain a heap of links back to the wiki, as most of the answers lie there, but would be infinitely useful.

Btw I place myself firmly in the noob category

gazob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The layout of the forums is the main issue,
>
> Many of the same questions get asked all over the
> place.
>
> In reality the noobie questions are largely.
>
> What to buy
>
> I've got an issue building
>
> I've got an issue with the electronics
>
> Calibration
>
> Why does my print look like this
>
> A newbie friendly area with some dedicated
> moderators / knowledeable helpers wouldn't go
> astray, based on the recurring questions and
> answers a newbie FAQ could be developed and
> stickied to the top answering all the common
> repetitive questions.
>
> It may contain a heap of links back to the wiki,
> as most of the answers lie there, but would be
> infinitely useful.
>
> Btw I place myself firmly in the noob category




Could not agree more, less sub-sections. more obvious catagories

FWIW, I mainly read the forums over RSS, perhaps others do to, and this would not count for the page hits the actual forum gets

Also, I'd love to know what's happening with the infrastructure behind the forums and the wiki - it seems to be slowing down a little each time I visit. Does someone need to reboot a machine somewhere??

And +1 for deleting some of the unused subsections.

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garyhodgson.com/reprap | reprap.development-tracker.info | thingtracker.net

This forum is not all that easy to find. I searched for forums on 3D printing several times before finding someone mentioning this one on another site.

Quote
Asger
Whenever i need help i go straight to the IRC channel because i know some kind soul is sitting idle at his keyboard waiting to answer questions

Quote
Gibbedy
I'm heading straight to IRC for my noob questions.

Ah, you're the ones wasting all my time there. I regularly redirect people with questions to this forum or Github's issue tracker. Solving other people's problems on the spot is a big time eater. If a RepRap doesn't work as expected, a newbie should at least write down the problem (which requires some thinking about it), this already solves the question in some 60% of the cases.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Traumflug Wrote:
> Ah, you're the ones wasting all my time there.

I wouldn't call it wasting time, as it's growing the community. Having a place to go and get a quick answer is super helpful, and is the reason why many people - myself included - continue to stay around IRC to pay it forward and help others.

Not saying people shouldn't research a bit first, and a huge amount of people already do that. But disallowing noob questions would shun beginners away, and make it an elite club, which it is bad enough on IRC already.

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--
-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

Nudel Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Traumflug Wrote:
> > Ah, you're the ones wasting all my time there.
>
> I wouldn't call it wasting time, as it's growing
> the community. Having a place to go and get a
> quick answer is super helpful, and is the reason
> why many people - myself included - continue to
> stay around IRC to pay it forward and help
> others.
>
> Not saying people shouldn't research a bit first,
> and a huge amount of people already do that. But
> disallowing noob questions would shun beginners
> away, and make it an elite club, which it is bad
> enough on IRC already.


IRC is the original facebook, people with +v or +op where in the "inner circle" and thus important, facebook was invite only for a while, and was originally designed as an elite network

"IRC is the original facebook"

Well, no, not really. BBS forums are the original facebook, followed by Usenet News.

@Nudel: no no, nobody wants to disallow anybody. I just wanted to hint on that this forum is the better source for qualified answers. "quick questions" lead to "quick answers", in the meaning you have to try 10 of them instead of learning how to get it right on the first try.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Stickying really common questions in each subforum would help, or have a sticky link in each subforum with a specific link (or links) to a relevant wiki page THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY CONTRIBUTE TO! This could be accommodated in the current forum software. Alternatively, a system where answers to questions can upvoted would be sensible.

A 'welcome' sticky in the General forum might help newbies, as well as editing the descriptions of the subforums for clarity/appropriate content, so specific printing problems go to the correct subforum, rather than randomly in General/ reprappers/wherever.

Generally, I don't think the footfall here is bad, considering the lack of central control over publicity of the site. A google search of 'reprap' brings up the wiki first for me. A more obvious link on the first page of the wiki to the forums might be helpful. Without employing someone to organise the wiki, it's always going to be a bit of mishmash.

I've noticed that the wiki started getting tons of spam since spring this year. This might explain some of the loss of responsiveness that is evident there. Could that be a reason for the same here?

Hi there,
Seems busy enough to me. That's without any stats to analyse. There's always a few repeat questions, but that's ok too as sometimes things evolve and the answer may get better. From what I see, people are still willing to muck in and give answers here. I notice newer people stepping up to give a shot at answering questions also and that's great to see. There's no better way to learn something than having to explain it to someone else.

It is a bit unstructured in places all right. The ides of making stickies of the 'good' topics is certain sections a good one, but it might take some categorisation and sub-topic sections.

I think there should be a Sticky on the info needed in a basic Question post, i.e. Outline your spec, outline your issue, include photo, video if possible, link to your blog (if you have one), and so on. It could also explain how to upload and post pictures, so people could include them in their initial question, rather than... "a picture would be great" being the next post in.

I'd like to see people being encouraged to give a short introduction when they join the forum, giving others an opportunity to welcome them also.

The IRC ins't for everyone. I've tried it a few times. Just not for me.
The link on www.reprap.org to forums.reprap.org could do with being a lot more visible I think.
Regards,
NumberSix

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[numbersixreprap.blogspot.com]

and who is actually in charge of implementing such changes? who is the BOSS?

We need a "RepRap FaceBook" setup where you can follow the RepRap work of others and publish work of your own.

Quote
Asger
who is the BOSS?

There is no boss. The founder of this forum deliberately stays away and prefers to run his shop, instead. IIRC, this forum has admins, but not ones with ehough privileges to i.e. change the graphical theme on the front page or make a forum software update.

Quote
dzach
I've noticed that the wiki started getting tons of spam since spring this year.

I think that's pretty normal. Nasty guys managed to program robots inserting pages. 2 to 5 spam pages per day, often you see how they fail to upload the added picture. It's taken care of the spamming pages, about the robot user accounts one can't do much, as there is no visible distinction to real users.

If you happen to find a page with spam regardless, please replace the content of this page with the word "spam". It's the external links on these spamming pages these people are keen on. The more links from external sites they collect for their own page, the higher their google ranking.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Low traffic? Haven't noticed. I'm usually having trouble keeping track of all the new threads.
Then again, i don't live and breathe RepRap and typically have time for it only on weekends (maybe that's a clue as to the answer to the OP question).

great, so there is no chance in hell of this forum ever getting any actual changes. sweeeeet! that's democracy

Could the founder of the forum be persuaded to hand over full admin privileges to some responsible individual (such as Traumflug?) by asking nicely? Has anyone ever tried?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2012 11:13AM by Logrod.

hi all
subheadings (or what ever the sections are called) on each step of the wiki calibration would be good.
that is i'm doing the first cube and i am sure there have all ready been post on this - it is hard to find/search them when you are still learning the lingo
roger.

Logrod Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Could the founder of the forum be persuaded to
> hand over full admin privileges to some
> responsible individual (such as Traumflug?) by
> asking nicely? Has anyone ever tried?

... the domain (and so the forum) belongs to Adrian, but he installed a group of admins around Sebastien Baillard, that were responsible for all relevant actions.

There were some problems with changing the forums basic structure or behaviour:

- first: - most of the 'core-admins' aren't active now - and Adrian let the forum run 'alone' on it's own ... so it's sort of complicated for the newer 'sub-admins' to make fundamental decisions.

- second: - the forums software isn't really comfortable to make big changes - this is better done on server-level or by changing the forums software, what will probably cause a lot more problems than we have now

Or even more a problem is the sheer amount of time and work, needed to rearrange and reformat the forum ... and/or change the forums software, so maintaining and changing the behaviour and apperance will be more comfortable ...

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

VDX Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Logrod Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Could the founder of the forum be persuaded to
> > hand over full admin privileges to some
> > responsible individual (such as Traumflug?) by
> > asking nicely? Has anyone ever tried?
>
> ... the domain (and so the forum) belongs to
> Adrian, but he installed a group of admins around
> Sebastien Baillard, that were responsible for all
> relevant actions.
>
> There were some problems with changing the forums
> basic structure or behaviour:
>
> - first: - most of the 'core-admins' aren't active
> now - and Adrian let the forum run 'alone' on it's
> own ... so it's sort of complicated for the newer
> 'sub-admins' to make fundamental decisions.
>
> - second: - the forums software isn't really
> comfortable to make big changes - this is better
> done on server-level or by changing the forums
> software, what will probably cause a lot more
> problems than we have now
>
> Or even more a problem is the sheer amount of time
> and work, needed to rearrange and reformat the
> forum ... and/or change the forums software, so
> maintaining and changing the behaviour and
> apperance will be more comfortable ...


So it's easier and faster to go troll another site's forum then to wait for changes here?

Asger Wrote:
> So it's easier and faster to go troll another
> site's forum then to wait for changes here?

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]