Author Topic: Silly question  (Read 6284 times)

Offline Birdie

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Silly question
« on: April 17, 2023, 17:23:58 »
This stat at the bottom of the main page caught my attention: "Most Online Ever: 917 (January 12, 2023, 09:25:39)"

What happened on the 12th of January of this year?  :uhoh: :lol:

Offline GrahamB

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Re: Silly question
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2023, 17:57:47 »
I can't answer exactly, but it's interesting that there are always lots of 'guests' on here (for example, at the moment, 34 guests and 1 user, me). Some guests do eventually join, but it's a shame Playmofriends is evidently a popular forum but there are very few of us (now) who actually contribute. Is it time to discuss giving free membership?
At that moment the ship suddenly stopped rocking and swaying, the engine pitch settled down to a gentle hum. 'Hey Ford.' said Zaphod, 'that sounds good. Have you worked out the controls on this boat?' 'No,' said Ford, 'I just stopped fiddling with them.' (With thanks to Douglas Adams)

Offline Birdie

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Re: Silly question
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2023, 19:02:25 »
I can't answer exactly, but it's interesting that there are always lots of 'guests' on here (for example, at the moment, 34 guests and 1 user, me). Some guests do eventually join, but it's a shame Playmofriends is evidently a popular forum but there are very few of us (now) who actually contribute. Is it time to discuss giving free membership?

Isn't the fee mainly to avoid raids and spamming? I wonder if the trolls might have actually moved on to different areas of the internet, so we wouldn't have to worry about them either :lol:
Some of the guests are bots, though, right? It could not be an increase in bots searching for data?   

I like your idea.

Offline tahra

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Re: Silly question
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2023, 19:14:50 »
I believe some (plenty?) of those guest are indeed bots...

However, I am not sure the free membership will be such a big boost - there are LOADS of members that never posted.. look at the member list, sort by post number... (I blab).

Offline Birdie

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Re: Silly question
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2023, 20:21:49 »
I believe some (plenty?) of those guest are indeed bots...

However, I am not sure the free membership will be such a big boost - there are LOADS of members that never posted.. look at the member list, sort by post number... (I blab).

Interesting!

I've been toying with the idea of creating a Discord server, Playmofriends or playmobil enthusiasts-related, but I'm not sure if that's blasphemy - it would be meant to increase interest. Uploading pictures and quick back-and-forths are easier on Discord and maybe it can act like a gateway drug, I don't know  ;D

Offline tahra

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Re: Silly question
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2023, 07:31:07 »
I've been toying with the idea of creating a Discord server, Playmofriends or playmobil enthusiasts-related, but I'm not sure if that's blasphemy - it would be meant to increase interest. Uploading pictures and quick back-and-forths are easier on Discord and maybe it can act like a gateway drug, I don't know  ;D

Heard about, no idea what it is  :-[

It would probably be another nail in pf's coffin though, I think (whatever it is  :P )

IS there a way to make the uploading of pics easier here?  I know nothing of the forum software...

Offline Birdie

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Re: Silly question
« Reply #6 on: April 18, 2023, 07:50:06 »
Discord is a message board similar to IRC in the olden days, with channels and threads within those channels. You can select emojis and gifs and upload photos and video clips from your pc/phone within seconds and it has a good search function. It has an app for your phone too.

It's trendy, my teenage nephews use it too  ;D   That guy who shared confidential files from the US army just recently, did it through Discord - if that rings any bells.

Anyway... I wouldn't want to add competition to the forum. This will always be the best place to find information and the format with the best overview etc. Facebook groups were never a good alternative, but Discord has its perks.

IS there a way to make the uploading of pics easier here?  I know nothing of the forum software...

Me neither  :(  Although I read Graham's suggestion of using postimage.org, and it resizes your uploaded pictures and creates a link at the same time (I was still doing the resizing manually  8}) so that sure made my life easier  :lol:

Offline GrahamB

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Re: Silly question
« Reply #7 on: April 18, 2023, 17:38:11 »
...Graham's suggestion of using postimage.org, and it resizes your uploaded pictures and creates a link at the same time (I was still doing the resizing manually  8}) so that sure made my life easier  :lol:

And (most importantly) its free. Photobucket lost my subscription when they stopped allowing people to upload pictures to forums like this one.
At that moment the ship suddenly stopped rocking and swaying, the engine pitch settled down to a gentle hum. 'Hey Ford.' said Zaphod, 'that sounds good. Have you worked out the controls on this boat?' 'No,' said Ford, 'I just stopped fiddling with them.' (With thanks to Douglas Adams)

Offline StJohn

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Re: Silly question
« Reply #8 on: April 18, 2023, 23:18:12 »
it's a shame Playmofriends is evidently a popular forum but there are very few of us (now) who actually contribute.

I have had some thoughts about this for some time. I think the forum's appeal and traffic would be increased if the following observations were to be considered, and perhaps some tweaks could be implemented.

It is important for us members to remember what is visible to non-members, and this is less than you think. Most importantly, attached images are only shown when the viewer is logged in, meaning that all the beautiful stuff that specialist et al. are showing us, are producing blanks to the rest of the world. :( What's more, some members are very active in threads that are shown only to the inner crowd – the Common Room. Whilst enjoyable for us, it means that the forum might seem dead to the outside world even when a lot of activity is going on. Perhaps members could reconsider where to invest their time?

It is big bugbear to me that the Search function of the forum is a disaster. If I want to find something in the forum, I normally use a web browser (thank you, bots!) instead of the search box in the right-hand top. It shouldn't be like that.

I consciously post here with the wider world in mind, and would be posting more if attaching images wouldn't be such a pain because of the hosting. I think set reviews are fun and would be doing more of them if things were easier for me.

Suggested tweaks:

  • Can attached pics be made visible to everybody?
  • Can the search function be improved?

Is this just a matter of updating the software? I notice that KW, which runs on something very similar to PF, is doing both tasks handsomely.

Best wishes
StJohn

Offline Klickteryx

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Re: Silly question
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2023, 20:40:22 »
Discord is a message board similar to IRC in the olden days, with channels and threads within those channels. You can select emojis and gifs and upload photos and video clips from your pc/phone within seconds and it has a good search function. It has an app for your phone too.

It's trendy, my teenage nephews use it too  ;D  That guy who shared confidential files from the US army just recently, did it through Discord - if that rings any bells.



Discord is the new version of rock music that is going to bring down civilisation. If you listen to some of the news outlets it's full of far right groups and other radicals and should be got rid of or restricted like Tiktok. People set up language discords, history discords, all sorts. A lot of them degenerate into just generic chat but often you get dozens of discords covering the same material.
It could work but you don't need a bunch of likes or simple comments to make a fan site work, you ultimately need people contributing. There are very few reviews here anymore, I think people just watch youtube videos or personal sites for such information but I think it would be good to repeat it here to keep interest up. Possibly too so much gets released now it's hard to keep up and people are fatigued by the whole process.

StJohn, good points, I've never thought about the wider world when coming here and what visitors might think.