x339's Thoughts...

I would really appreciate it if other admins would participate in this. This isn't to attack anyone personally, or hurt feelings, it's meant for the betterment of the site.

 

You can't really compare the member size of PB and Sythe. PB gets the majority of its members because of botting while Sythe is known for RWT. Go into the market section of PB and you will notice how dead it is compared to ours. Since botting is more popular than RWT, an established botting fan site should naturally have more members. If Sythe had a bot client to offer our community would greatly expand too.

 

So you're saying we should just settle for what we have and make no attempt towards the progression and growth of the site? I would like to note that Powerbot was not my only example. D2jsp is a site much, much larger than the likes of sythe or powerbot. D2jsp is also based off of a blackmarket, a blackmarket that most consider to be puny. So why can they grow, and we can't? Because we have to work for it, we have to work to grow, not just sit idly by and settle for what we have.

 

Powerbot is a botting community.
D2jsp is primarily a Diablo discussion/trading community.

You can't compare unique forums to Sythe and argue that we aren't as popular because there are variables. Find a site similar to Sythe (Runescape trading) that is more popular than Sythe; you won't. Apples and oranges.

Do you even know what Sythe himself personally wants to do with this forum? Maybe he doesn't wish for this to become a community forum like rsbuddy did when bots were destroyed. You assume he wants to turn this into a community discussion forum when for all you know he has no interest beyond Runescape trading. Of course it is always good for a forum to expand but if a creator wants to keep his forum tailored to something specific you have to respect that.

 

My thoughts have not changed from the last thread.

I understand what you are saying about the technical aspect of sythe, but disagree with your point about Powerbot and the Diablo site (and agree with KJMT in regards to that)

You seem to be mistaken in the fact that many of us are merely stating the facts, not preferences or personal wishes for Sythe. Yes, I'd love for sythe to grow. Yes, I think we should do what we can to see that happen. I do not, however, think that comparing Sythe to sites with completely different 'consumer' models (Diablo), or with a main botting website (powerbot) that enables them to appeal to a much larger base, truly exemplifies the current state of Sythe.

 

Alright then, lets take a look at some things.

D2jsp is mainly based on Diablo 2 discussion you say, but it is infact based on a black market. Diablo 2 is the biggest of the black markets. Let's take a look at our own Diablo 2 section, ah that's right we don't have one, but we do have a Diablo 3 section. Lets compare the activity of these sections:

Our Diablo 2 market: Non Existant

D2jsp Diablo 2 market:

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Our Diablo 3 market:

D2jsp Diablo 3 market:

So what you want to tell me is that as a blackmarket website (Yes we are mainly a blackmarket, hence the slogan http://puu.sh/H68E) we shouldn't be focusing on big markets, because they're not runescape? Sure runescape is our biggest section, but that hardly makes us solely a runescape site. Why aren't we working on growing the other sections of our market as well? Hell they can do it, even Runescape, one of D2jsp's subsections has more then ours, which we consider to be our main section:

Our's:

D2jsp:

Now I can go even further and point out that even though their activity may come in a large part from Diablo 2, let's take a look at the statistics:

Diablo 2 came out 13 years ago, and hasn't had a real update since its expansion pack in 2001. Not to mention it has a sequel which a lot of people would think render the game obsolete.

Runescape is an ongoing mmo that still receives regular updates and still maintains a decent userbase.

So why is it that a Diablo 2 discussion area can be bigger then a Runescape discussion area? Because they work towards growth. They bring in new members, they progress, they bring the site forward.
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My point is, you can try and say that one forum is based on this, and another forum is based on that, but in reality, we can be as big as we try to be. If Diablo 2 can make for that much activity, so can runescape. Oh and I am pretty sure we aren't a runescape forum, we are a blackmarket forum that happens to have runescape as the mainstay of said market. We should be pursuing other things. For example, we had the chance to establish our Diablo 3 market early on. The Diablo 3 market has become huge, albeit not as big as some hoped, but still very big (look at d2jsp's for christs sake), and all we did was just throw one in there. Cool, we have a Diablo 3 market, now what? That's all well and good, but it's useless if no one knows about it. Perhaps if Sythe had made an effort to advertise it, or work to expand it, or make an effort to get the word out, more people would have seen it, and we would actually have an active market. Alas we have just another semi-active market that people think failed for some magical unknown reason, a reason that they will use to bitch and bitch every time someone wants to add a new section. I said it from the start, if you're making a Diablo 3 market, you have to back it up, you can't just throw it in there, and now look where we are. We had one of the very first markets, and now, as before, hardly anyone even knows it exists.

Anyways, I got a little off-topic, but I think I got my point across.

 

How can you compare our Diablo III market to theirs? They are the largest base of Diablo fanboys. Of course their market is going to explode. That's where all the people who started playing Diablo III already were.

 

So why not give them a reason to come here? It's the same thing as people selling RSGP here, on powerbot, on PA, etc..

The point was that the market is there, why not pursue it.

Oh and also I think my points about the runescape market should be noted.

 

They can offer them loads of people selling stuff and loads of people buying stuff. That's the main thing that makes market forums thrive. People. We can't offer that so there isn't anything to make them switch.

 

Well then I think we have come back around to my very main point. People. Without people we can expect to compete. We need people to grow, and if we don't make the effort, we won't get more people.

 

So you're saying we need a Diablo market to grow but to have a Diablo market we must grow?

 

Sigh... I am saying that a Diablo market will help us grow, but we need to put the effort in to make it grow as well, but you said they have more people so they grow faster, which is why I wanted to go back to my main point of needing more members.

 

This is circular logic and a very bad way of looking at how sites grow. Let's take a look at Runescape. A long time ago they changed the look of their website and everyone flipped out. They put a lot more stuff on the homepage and made many things larger and more visible. This was clearly an attempt to make the website more inviting and easier for people to use if they were only coming for their first time.

Getting people here is the first step. Making them not simply bounce (come but leave right away) is making the front page easy to understand and making it very fast to use. Reorganizing the markets to make them more user friendly as well as having a banner at the top for non-registered people that points them to a FAQ and perhaps a guide of where to post topics would be much more beneficial than simply having a market for something.

Now I'm skipping a whole lot of stuff but then the final thing is to keep people here for the long term. This is generally where the community comes in. People come to buy and sell and stick around for the community and buy and sell some (save for people like R2).

If you want to get stuff done offer concrete implementable suggestions and you have a much better shot.

 

I agree that is important, and I agree that things like that are necessary components to a successful site, but that's not what I am arguing against. We have to get those people in the first place. We have to draw them in. We have to reach out and grab as many of them as we can, otherwise, it doesn't matter how convenient looking our forum is, it won't grow.

I agree with that 100%, and that is one thing I have been saying this entire time, but everyone keeps telling me "Oh people get bored and move on", which is true, but we should be doing our best to keep them for as long as possible, while also drawing in new members.

There are many things I think we could change, but this is the first step. Whatever suggestions I make won't matter unless we first change the overall feel, role, and attitude towards sythe by the staff. I would like to suggest very many things, but at this time I think what I have suggested here in this thread is a good start.

 

Link me. I'll tell them off.

This thread is about bashing the admins from a point of view that shows you basically nothing of what they do. Yes there are some issues that need to be worked out but recently there was one worked out (details of which are of course private). If you are going to suggest stuff put it in easily digestible form and make what you are suggesting clear and not a wall of text that can easily stray far from what it started as.

 

You only need to read my other thread to see that http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1423659

I have no interest in bashing admins, what would I gain from that? The purpose of this is to help Sythe.org as I have said many times. I know not a lot of people like walls of text, but I felt to thoroughly get my point across it was necessary (and I have been trying very hard to keep this on topic, but with little response from the admin's it's hard to keep things from straying). I wouldn't be wasting my time writing all of this if I just wanted to put down an admin, what would be the purpose of that. I am sad that it comes across that way, but I am just doing whatever I can as a normal member to voice my thoughts.

 

Thoughts are useless. Suggestions that are backed up by thoughts have a purpose.

 

If you read my entire post, there are suggestions in there, and plenty of thought to back them up.

 

Clear concise list please.

 

...Sorry if you don't think my post is clear enough. I know what I am trying to accomplish at this time, and it's all in this thread. These are my suggestions for now, how much more do you want? What's the point of making a list if these ones are not taken into consideration as well.