What Can Be Done to Bring Traffic Back to SciFo?

DaveC426913 said:
That was my point. Youve come to a science site to talk science with other people who want to talk science.

Which sortta belies this:
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Yeah but am still the minority so far I haven’t even received a single person giving me feedback, am about to run my theory through mathematica see what results I get back.
 
DaveC426913 said:
Don't think of yourself as in the minority; think of yourself as an early-arriver; the vanguard. :wink:
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Any chance you think Rpenner will return this place isn’t the same with out Rpenner, seems cut and dry and boring now, nobody to dissect my math Rpenner loved math, too bad Rpenners are a rare breed.
 
part of the knux(i just made that word up to rhyme) of the crux is a modern trend to have unchallenged media statements
soo people have begun to normalise variant concepts and opinions without them being able to be challenged by others.

  • the concept of debate is defined as destructive intent
  • its hard to fight a social trend
  • social media time has been monetized as a means to seek money while online instead of study & connect with people
  • people have normalised instant response even when that response is known to be probably factually incorrect
additionally a lot of pub science concepts are click baited on the internet as throw away facts so there is less determined attempt to gather facts and discuss them.

escalating cost of living puts pressure on this by demanding more money making time which detracts from scientific & artistic leisure
 
(bump)

An important thing we might consider—

exchemist said:
Perhaps one issue we could all try to address is starting more threads on topics of interest. I have certainly been guilty of posting few new topics, generally preferring to just comment on those started by others.

I suspect that having more fresh topics might get a few more lurkers to enter the discussion.
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—is what about any given topic of interest actually interests someone.
 
Tiassa said:
(bump)

An important thing we might consider—



—is what about any given topic of interest actually interests someone.
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Generally something contentious, I think. If it is just a report of something nobody takes issue with, then maybe you will get a couple of responses saying "interesting", but probably not much more. That is why the cranks and nutters provoke such long threads.

Or, questions can provoke long threads, provided some of the community are able and motivated to attempt answers. We used to get a few physics and chemistry students, in years gone by, that I very much enjoyed interacting with, forcing me, as it did, to revise some of my former knowledge of the subjects. But we have not had any of those for a couple of years now, I think.
 
When I ran a science forum, I found that topics on what could roughly be called "science and public affairs" seemed to draw traffic. The problem with pure science topics is that one person has a deep, decade-long fascination with, say, polydactyly in cats. That's a nice niche for them, and they draw a few participants for a week or two and then the thread quietly fades. However, start a thread on "Transgender physiology and sports rules," and that baby will thrive for years, with hundreds of posts per year, and all kinds of ancillary issues drawn into the discussion. (it will needs lots of moderation, too, and the bouncer will need to be called occasionally, but overall there will be a lot of learning and sharpening of vague intuitions people have).

Up the thread someone (Wegs? sorry, just starting to remember the names) mentioned that threads where there's bullying tend to make visitors doubt about staying around. Even low-key and righteous bullying ("you are just dishonest, as you always are, and I'm going to remind you of this daily") tends to dampen the impulse to join a thread. Yes, you want to call people on bad faith arguments and sloppy reasoning and so on, but at some point maybe it is better to just tune them out or, if a moderator, just delete posts that don't meet basic forum standards and let the poster know why and what is expected.

Those who equate forum rules of discourse and standards (peer reviewed citations, say) with "censorship," will tend to move on.
 
James is an Admin? Hmm, I didn't know that. Can we have more emojis, James? :rolleye:
 
wegs said:
James is an Admin? Hmm, I didn't know that. Can we have more emojis, James? :rolleye:
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"Administrator" is a user title. In practice, it is not very different from "Moderator". I do not have full access to all the innards of the sciforums system. That sort of thing is reserved for the site owners.

So, sorry, I can't help with emojis.
 
Making the rounds:

ih0f-2023113-tweet-lovecorrectingothers-detail-bw.png

Every time I have a programming question and I rly need help, I post it on Reddit then log into another account and reply to it with an obscenely incorrect answer. Ppl don't care about helping others but they LOVE correcting others. Works 100% of the time.

(via Twitter↱)​
 
Pinball1970 said:
Anyone else sensed elevated traffic?
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Yes. Partly your arrival and partly that of more refugees from thescienceforum .com, which has recently shut down and caused a minor diaspora of displaced people who like to talk about science. KJW and Ken Fabian are two examples (I also used to be a member). I am also trying to make a point of contributing where I can to threads with real science in them, to help the traffic a bit.
 
I didn’t realize the “.com” science forum was deactivated. I visited there a few months ago. End of an era. :redface:
 
James R said:
"Administrator" is a user title. In practice, it is not very different from "Moderator". I do not have full access to all the innards of the sciforums system. That sort of thing is reserved for the site owners.

So, sorry, I can't help with emojis.
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Okay, no worries. I’m surprised though that only the “owners” have actual administrative capabilities. Hmm.
 
exchemist said:
Yes. Partly your arrival and partly that of more refugees from thescienceforum .com, which has recently shut down and caused a minor diaspora of displaced people who like to talk about science. KJW and Ken Fabian are two examples (I also used to be a member). I am also trying to make a point of contributing where I can to threads with real science in them, to help the traffic a bit.
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Good yes, I have noticed your contribution (and no free lunch from you!)
I hope my contribution has helped positively. I have noticed some new posters in recent weeks that were not around when I first joined, hope they stay.
 
wegs said:
I didn’t realize the “.com” science forum was deactivated. I visited there a few months ago. End of an era. :redface:
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I see there is some bidding on Godaddy for the domain name now.

https://www.godaddy.com/en-il/domai...001&utm_medium=parkedpages&utm_source=godaddy

I had no idea anyone would make a bid for the name.Since the last owner was ,imo a pretty disreputable character I wonder if it is he himself who is bidding.

But we shall see I suppose when the bidding ends and whether the site is put back together in a recognizable way .
 
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