Are you happy with GL's activity?

Quality and banter was the problem. People who wanted banter didn't really respect the quality and threads would derail. That's what I mean by it only taking a few bad apples to ruin it for all. You guys have hilarious banter, but I don't come here for that. I laugh and enjoy it, but I respect it from far. I think the issue was that the banter crowd didn't have that same mindset - they would spread the banter all around.

I would definitely have to go back and read some threads because my old man memory is shaky. I just remember a point and time where I noticed a shift occurring. I sweat we had open discussions about it. Some members said the admin and moderators were too strict. Eventually (if I recall correctly) the decision was that the forum would be run a little more loosely. I think rwo became a mod and eventually myself and kick. I'm not sure if that was because we got more active or what.

I think the issue is that those who banter weren't as loyal. So eventually people tried to walk that line and wouldn't like when they were deducted 25%. Classic case of give an inch and they take a mile. I said earlier I wasn't the biggest Sepi fan, I think he was big on trying to just avoid crossing the line and his following was incredibly loyal. It seems all the banter people had loyal followings...but as soon as things don't go their way, they need to make a big show and get banned.

The posters who wanted good conversation and debate probably noticed this (again, this was my experience) and decided to slowly stop posting. Or we would post and have to deal with nonsense. That led to people not posting as much quality stuff and when you combine that with the "class clowns" throwing hissy fits, you get where we are now. Maybe I'm wrong, but the list of banned "respected" members is a pretty long one....

I agree activity is way too low, I already said so last year, it's when I started to notice that.

Has Dani ever said goodbye? Him, Barçakizz are dearly missed at Barça section.

New blood would be great.

To promote the forum, I think we could open a twitter and facebook. We could post gifs, stat tables, some fragments of great posts, or legenedary sentences... all with goalegacy URL.

Off course someone should take care of it, I don't have nearly enough time.

Also, Pedram has states another factor besides of age mean and people leaving: many forums are declining because of social networks.

We already tried a Twitter if I'm not mistaken.

How is the conversation in general section? I barely read anymore. Before we try to promote, I think the place would have to offer appealing conversation. Based on this thread, I think the issue is not getting new members/traffic, it's keeping people around who visit. Would love to hear opinions on that.

I feel social media was around when we were rocking out over here. I don't think that's why people left.

iirc Dani hasn't left, he's just too busy right now. I could be wrong.

If I'm not, it would go along with the aging population argument. I do believe dearly that's the very core problem.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

RED wrote:-The forum has lost a core of it's best posters.

- Too much indulgence in 'bantering'. Potentially good discussions turn into back and forth jokes full of insider GL quips. Kinda discourages you to wanna join in on the discussions sometimes. Gives off a feeling of pointlessness.

- Many of the PL so called top teams are awful this season and/or flopping hard. I could sense a few fans in this forum just can't be arsed atm. Not that much positive things to talk about (I include myself in this). And the PL holds the majority of fans that make up this forum.

I can only speak for myself but that's not the reason i stopped indulging in serious discussions anymore.

The reason i stopped had absolutely nothing to do with " banter " it's because i have gotten old and really can't be bothered anymore, if the banter didn't exist i probably wouldn't bother at all as it's quick and easy and requires little to no effort and i really don't feel like posting like i used to.

Fair enough

In this day and age I refuse people don't have time to check in and make a post. A majority of us have computer access via smart phones - it all comes down to priorities. If people aren't spending their time on this forum, it's being spent other places. Maybe the few exceptions are people like Moto who had a child. But Zizzle and Betty le something (sorry forgot the name) work 65+ hours and still find time to post. It might not be as frequent as they like, but they definitely give time to the threads and topics that interest them.

tbf times are changed and it's always more difficult ppl to log in a forum when the twitter and the facebook monopolize everything.
It hasn't to do just with GL, it's a problem about every forum...
So I don't know how much makes sense to talk about publicizing the forum ...
I wasn't on the old Goal , I found casually this forum with googling things, it was the destiny
Publicizing the forum so as to get many posters looks like a "fantasy", I mean it can be a nice try but I feel it looks like useless. Anyway , there's no harm in trying , but how ? It seems how if we talk about nothing.
The saddest thing is that we lost great posters in a short period of time and it looks like suspicious.
Surely we are becoming older and we are mostly busy , but so many posters stopped and suddenly .. ?
I'm writing less because I am definitely busy in this period too (besides it takes time to translate my thought in English , my language doesn't even help.. ) , but I write when I can because I grew fond for this place and I don't want it dies.
Basically everyone should contribute to avoid this, you can't leave or letting dying something you loved.
More than potential new posters, my thought is for those old posters who don't write for long time .. I remind when I logged in for the first time on GL and it looked like a special place also for those posters. I don't believe even banters or controversies were a problem. Now they are diseppaered and we feel alone. I'd sign to come back to that GL when I was logged in for the first time.
We missed you. We needed of you.

ES wrote:On Vibe's case: this is what he said on his twitter

"Read the forum. Mods didn't ban me, I banned myself. Why?Because the forum became a bad place. Left with a bang for few remaining great people."

Ah , fair enough

The Serbian Telamonian Aiax ffs (:

As far as i know banter and inside jokes has been part of the GL's identity from the beginning, it's not something that was introduced recently, we've always been a light-hearted forum. so i don't understand why some people are trying to paint it as as a bad thing. reason why serious discussions declined is because most people who would usually post long comments were middle aged guys like Dani and Arq, they're probably very busy right now and have higher priorities in their life than talking about football in a forum.

Banter certainly isn't a negative thing. There isn't anything negative going on here, literally the only problem is that we don't get new members because no one knows about this place.

Forum so bad you have to get yourself permabanned to stay away

Maybe not to you, Art. But not everyone is a fan, so open that mind up just a little bit. Banter, trolling, whatever you want to call it - I know some people weren't big fans. Again I can't speak for the majority, but neither can you.

I personally don't think the banter part comes into it, at it's peak the forum had arguably more " banter " difference is a lot of people have either been banned or just left for their own personal reasons with a lot of them being they have just grown up and don't wish to do it anymore.

When that happens a forum is supposed to replace those guys with younger posters otherwise it will obviously get stale, we have not been able to replace enough of them for one reason or another.

That's the be all and end all of it to be quite frank, i think the excuse that light hearted humor drove people away is not only wrong but very tired and silly argument.

Freeza wrote:Forum so bad you have to get yourself permabanned to stay away

It's hard to find younger posters who could bring what our more intellectual posters brought to the table. CBarca was one of the few I remember.

I think there is something being lost in translation - banter and trolling. Perhaps it was better if I used trolling (for example Gil) and I think that rubbed people the wrong way. Not just myself - I have spoken with others about it. I got mad love for you Mole, but I don't have that much recollection of you being as in depth. I'm sure you had your moment, but I think posters like you and Art typically enjoy the banter (not so much the trolling).

Anywho, this will be my last post because I'm here offering opinions and some of you are making your posts out to be facts. "That's the be all and end of it all", really? Maybe some left because due to lack of time, but I refuse to believe that was everyone's reason.

P.S. I think we are also discussing different things. Seems you guys want activity whereas I'm speaking more about quality over quantity. I don't need this place to be super active. And I think that group was still a minority (even in our prime).

Trolling was more evident back in the day though, while i can probably agree it might turn people away i wouldn't say the trolling is more rampant now.

Also i'm pretty sure most of the people who left did it because they grew up and had bigger responsbilities in life, it was always going to happen one day. Problem is when that happened the forum didn't replace them quick enough with new posters, there have been some obviously but not enough and the forum couldn't keep up.

I don't think anything else comes into it personally.

Why do people who advocate for more serious discussions never use the clean debate section? You won't get any banter replies there. People complaining about more serious discussions yet the clean debate section is dead. Start a debate there and let's see what happens.

While I would love more quality discussions, the main problem is inactivity. I think everyone can agree that if we had more traffic in the forum, even the older posters that have left would possibly find some time to come back simply because there would be more discussion, quality or not.

Why is R/soccer so popular? Why are huge club only forums (rawk, redcafe, bluemoon, barcaforum, shedend, etc) so popular? Because they can go on there and actually discuss games weekly.

On GL you barely have 1 or 2 threads in the general section that get some views but other than most club sections are dead. Even the Hub is dying slowly. There's no way this is good for the forum. We won't last if don't do something about it.

We'll all get busy at one point or another and if we have zero incentive to actually return and post, then we'll lose many more regulars. It's just the reality of it.

We made the mistake of not marketing this place at its peak but I'm sure we can come up with ways to influx the forum with new members.

Aging members is not an explanation for why older or long-time members have left/are inactive I've been around since I was a lurker on the original Goal.com forums back in 2008, and age or obligations related to age, by itself, is not something that should prevent someone from logging on to this forum, as long as they actually want to do so.

I can at least speak for myself and say that if anything has de-motivated me from coming back to this forum over the last 7 or 8 years, it's the rapidly declining activity over that time period. Also, I miss a shit ton of members on here who left a long time ago. Many of them were invited back on here, during the transition from the former forum to this one, but it didn't take long before they were gone again. If it wasn't for the off-topic hub, I most likely wouldn't have stuck around either.

I'm surprised that Dani has been active for so long. He's always been one of my favorite posters on here. Cbarca, too. Still waiting to be approved for the mod title?

Everyone is different though, age usually means more responsibilities and less time. Sometimes people want to spend that time doing other things.

It's an understandable thing really, i don't think that part should be ruled out as a lot of the old Goal.com guys are in their early 20s minimum now and things change.

Obviously it's not a reason by it self but i wouldn't rule it out being a contributing factor personally.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Everyone is different though, age usually means more responsibilities and less time. Sometimes people want to spend that time doing other things.

It's an understandable thing really, i don't think that part should be ruled out as a lot of the old Goal.com guys are in their early 20s minimum now and things change.

Obviously it's not a reason by it self but i wouldn't rule it out being a contributing factor personally.

It all boils down to priorities. Even if I was a workaholic, company CEO with 3 wives and 3 kids, I'm sure I'd be able to squeeze in 5-10 minutes out of my day for forum banter, if I felt it was wortwhile.

Clean discussions: That's actually the only thing I think has improved drastically on these forums over time. I used to write pretty lengthy posts in the general section and the Real Madrid section, and there would always be at least one troll or "I'll oppose your idea no matter what lol"- type of guy who just pissed me off so much that I eventually got burnt out on discussing football

Clean section is for football - the hub section used to be off the hook. You could get into some real quality conversation and there was a real family atmosphere to it. Some people even got together and I know a handful of people I would check in with it if I was ever visiting their hometown.

Haven't had a chance to read the last few posts as I'm just getting home from volleyball.

P.S. I think the clean section was created after we already lost a few of our best.

If I was super busy,nwouldn't it be more convenient if there was quality over quantity. I get home from a long day of work the last thing I want to do is scroll through 15 pages of garbage for a few gems. So I fail to see the logic. It would be more time consuming and the same problem would be there.

It would make sense that the guys who want more activity would prefer short posts with less substance. That way you're constantly getting feedback and threads are hitting 30-40 pages in a few days. You're not going to get thoughtful posts in that environment because those posts take more time and effort. By the time you've composed a response to one post, it would quickly get lost amongst the posts that take little to no effort. In my opinion that's what happened and bringing in more members was only going to compound the problem. It's just funny to me how some posters seem to get my point a little more (those I consider the people who used to make those quality posts) and the others are ones who were capable, however they also like the banter.

Funny how they guys talking about getting older (are getting older themselves) and yet they are still here. Seems a bit contradictory. I feel this is a classic case of wanting you have your cake and eat it to. I don't want to name any names, but I'm in touch with a member of two who has come up in this thread and they share my sentiment.

The Black Sheep wrote:Quality and banter was the problem. People who wanted banter didn't really respect the quality and threads would derail. That's what I mean by it only taking a few bad apples to ruin it for all. You guys have hilarious banter, but I don't come here for that. I laugh and enjoy it, but I respect it from far. I think the issue was that the banter crowd didn't have that same mindset - they would spread the banter all around.

I would definitely have to go back and read some threads because my old man memory is shaky. I just remember a point and time where I noticed a shift occurring. I sweat we had open discussions about it. Some members said the admin and moderators were too strict. Eventually (if I recall correctly) the decision was that the forum would be run a little more loosely. I think rwo became a mod and eventually myself and kick. I'm not sure if that was because we got more active or what.

I think the issue is that those who banter weren't as loyal. So eventually people tried to walk that line and wouldn't like when they were deducted 25%. Classic case of give an inch and they take a mile. I said earlier I wasn't the biggest Sepi fan, I think he was big on trying to just avoid crossing the line and his following was incredibly loyal. It seems all the banter people had loyal followings...but as soon as things don't go their way, they need to make a big show and get banned.

The posters who wanted good conversation and debate probably noticed this (again, this was my experience) and decided to slowly stop posting. Or we would post and have to deal with nonsense. That led to people not posting as much quality stuff and when you combine that with the "class clowns" throwing hissy fits, you get where we are now. Maybe I'm wrong, but the list of banned "respected" members is a pretty long one....

I pretty much agree with everything in this post. What I liked about the original forum was that there was a lot of activity, and members were constantly pouring in from Goal.com, since that site linked directly to the forums. Naturally, there were a lot of class clowns, trolls, and self-inflicted dyslexics, but there was also a large amount of quality posters who supported different teams. In hindsight, I don't think the members back then really appreciated the quality of the posters who took football a bit more seriously than the rest.

There's always been more appreciation for the trolls, even the ones who straight up copied the last guy's trolling methods That forum had an abundance of all types of posters, and that's what made the site interesting, in my opinion. The most persistent trolls could be quite frustrating, but the amount of insightful and knowledgeable posters compensated for it, to some extent.

Scrolling through multiple topics and pages was a luxury problem. I know it can be bothersome, but I'd definitely prefer that over inactivity. If we're going to recruit people, I suggest we focus on quantity - at least, to begin with. Quality posters are hard to come by. I've tried recruiting a few insightful posters from other places on the internet, but although I received a few thumbs up on my advertisement comments, I can't tell whether they actually went as far as to get registered on here. As soon as we get some activity back, I'm sure this place will be busy again and the forum will be more appealing, in general. I also believe that over the top troll activity becomes less prominent when there are multiple active threads to choose from.

Holding out for mod status Tbh, if you want to contribute to my campaign, I'm in the running atm, tweet your support with #CBarca2016 #CFarca4Mod #FeeltheBarca

@Dom: If you read my previous post where I compare GL to a woman, it should be apparent why those who are getting older still stick around. However, for some, they do decide to move on. This happens, and I do believe it is a huge factor. Why? Because GL never had an influx of new posters, GL never actually relied on new blood. This is my reasoning. GL has been run on essentially the same core group of posters as where we were two years ago when it was a lot more active. Yeah, we've lost some, but we've gained some new ones as well.

To me, either the change in activity is that we've lost way more than we've gained (I personally believe it to be somewhat close), or perhaps it's that for the same old group that has been getting older...priorities have shifted and GL has taken a step back. Less posting, less viewing, less time to make long posts. I've experienced this myself, apparently Mole has too.

Now I do think that it is an issue that spans a lot of different reasons and factors. Every issue like this does. I'm simply speaking about trying to isolate and identify the core issue here. To me, the biggest change that GL has undergone over the last couple years has been age. To make an analogy: The cancer is age--the symptoms, like an decrease in "quality discussion", or loss of veteran posters, or banter, can be traced back to the cancer: age.

Now I don't want to call anything GL has a cancer. If I've given off an aura of discontent I can assure you, I'm not. Others may be but I'm quite alright. In the end, you lot can feel what you like. To me, if GL were to ever go away, I would hunt down RedO, RG and the like personally. Love it like family, and I do mean that. This will be my last post on the whole age thing though, as I have reiterated the point a couple times in different language. I do enjoy and appreciate the discussion that is going on here though.

I already read your post and everyone else's. It seems some of us are not seeing eye to eye.

The Black Sheep wrote:Maybe not to you, Art. But not everyone is a fan, so open that mind up just a little bit. Banter, trolling, whatever you want to call it - I know some people weren't big fans. Again I can't speak for the majority, but neither can you.

Trolling and banter aren't quite the same to me, I think there's very very little actual trolling on here nowadays. But banter and all sorts of tongue-in-cheek posting is encouraged by a) low activity, as serious, lengthy posts may not feel worth it, and b) the fact that pretty much everyone here "knows" each other really well by now.

Maybe also: c) club sections tend to be where people talk more seriously about their club. But we don't have enough active members to keep the club sections alive, apart from a couple.

For me, activity is the only problem here.