Winston wrote:For anyone seeking an alternative to this forum, here is a similar forum related to this one with the same theme, and is active.
http://singlemansparadise.com/forum/
But I think most or all of you are just barking soundbytes for entertainment, fun and to use me as your punching bag. This thread is mostly about entertainment, not truth or seriousness. After you post here, you continue on starting new topics about many things, as can be seen on the Active Topics page.
It's mostly focused on Thailand and a bit less on other parts of SE Asia. Most of the forum members seem to be either in Thailand or obsessed with going back there. Not enough variety, although there are a few crazy posts, not as many as here! Seems to be one of those younger guys who likes to discuss how awesome he is for moving out of the matrix, which is okay but gets annoying after a while.
The forum software he uses is cooler and seems to have more modern options for expressing oneself than this one though.
Why can't you use one of the more modernized forum software, then instead of trying to transfer everything to it, create two parallel forums? So you start up the new forum and include the various topics that you desire then have all NEW postings on the new forum, then have master back links to the original forum for anyone that wants to look at old postings. Your old forum would still be up and indexed on the internet but yet no new posters including spammers. This way you could start fresh again with the newest and better made forum software and hopefully it has better anti-spamming than the one your currently using. Also, rehash the forum rules and whatnot to entice previous members to return and attract new ones.You could also do this for your main sight, start developing a new modern one and start moving articles from the original one to the new one but keep the old one going until the new one is complete. You could also create a back link to the original one for nostalgic reasons and reference.
What I was talking about from my previous post, here's a synopsis. I was mainly saying that what people wanted to do on the internet social-wise is different in the 00's to what is is in the 10's and beyond. From my observations people want to express themselves though pictures, gifs, anicons, etc while also having an easy to use interface that posts and updates rapidly. This is why FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc are popular nowadays with people under 40. Us supposed tech dinosaurs over 40 are used to mostly text based websites with minimal pic entertainment and expressionism, we can do that through language, but the younger adults don't really do that much and/or are not as interested. Thus, each year there is going to be a continuous divide of users who use these kinds of platforms unless it's modernized with the times to attract ALL demographic groups. So although the site still has traffic I don't see many new quality posts being put up anymore. I think most people are reading older posts and not posting and those who are here posting are the extreme minority outliers that don't conform to any norms in society and come here to find like-wise individuals even though many have animosity towards each other and their opinions but still enjoy the intellectual stimulus and openness this site provides that many others do not. (they are also not posting or rarely anymore as well)
For this site to remain relevant moving forward and to continue expanding rather than running on fumes from the 00's and early 10's, it has to be modernized to attract those who are used to easy to use websites and minimal interference to post and also maybe a tweaking of the posting rules. The FB group has just under 1000 members but that doesn't necessarily mean it's active. I'd say maybe there are less than 20 that post semi-regularly and it's mostly just reposting of articles from other sites, very few independent commentary going on. I occasionally post stuff but it's just articles that the group would find interesting, I don't generally write my thoughts there.
Anyways, we know this all takes work and would be a serious commitment to upgrade the website and forum and probably why your reluctant to do it and commit to it and just lash out at us saying we don't know what we're talking about. If you don't believe us, you should hire someone who has no clue or interest in your site to do a non-partial analysis of it in relation to it's efficiency, marketing and income stream/revenue generation to get a non-biased review and recommendation regarding how to improve your website operation.
I'm just using my intuition as well as judgment skills to see how the internet is trending and how to prevent your website and forum from becoming a minimal active site and just being read because of old postings (many of it now dated). BTW, even though right now I don't have any active website presence doesn't mean I don't have an idea of whats going on behind the scenes. I actually have a piece of paper saying I completed a 4 year degree program in computer multimedia and design. I had to learn to use all kinds of programs including Javas script, C++, HTML, Pearl, Photoshop, Illustrator, Authorware, Flash, etc. When I finished school and was looking for work my school didn't inform us that many companies were sending these kinds of jobs to Asia and only highly skilled and experienced individuals could get work in the states so because I had bills to pay and my learning style is through experience rather than just memorization and book learning, I had to take on work as tech support at a cell phone company. Then once I knew what the hell I was doing there, the company told us they were moving all the positions to California and you had to reapply there and employment still wasn't guaranteed! I said F-this, and that's when I decided to have my escape from America. I finally realized that all jobs that had any chance at decent money that could be outsourced, were being outsourced to other countries. So I decided to beat them at their own game, reinvent myself again and move overseas and start teaching English.
That went ok for a while until now outsourcing is being replaced by AUTOMATION and cyber connectivity work. So in relation to what I'm doing now employers want either AI programs to do it or it's being done virtually through the computer and sent to God knows where. Again, I have to reinvent myself to swim through the muddied waters that globalism and technocracy is thrusting upon us. I'll probably have to retrain myself to start putting together websites on my own with varying themes to generate income. Although, I haven't been doing it for a decade or more, it doesn't mean I'm a dummy and can't see the writing on the wall in relation to older style sites like this one and what will be come of them in relation to traffic schemes a few years from now.
If you can't do all this on your own anymore because of various distractions, you should pay someone or outside company to do it for you or partner with someone that shares a similar vision that you can trust and your not going to get Fd over in the process.
This is just my updated advice on the matter.