Your HA Facebook is Killing Your Forum

[Winston]

Winston is denying that the forum has declined over last 2 or more years in terms of post volume and quality. But it seems many maybe even most posters here disagree on that point. So before having a discussion on causes, we should first establish whether or not there actually is a problem at all.

One group of metrics which might shed some light at least on the quantity issue would be average per day post numbers and word counts over the years including 2015. Are those stats available Winston?

But Rock. That's your speculation. Not a fact. You don't have hard evidence to back that up. I don't notice that forum posts are declining in volume. Quality is another matter though.

We gotta face the fact here though. Most people don't come here for the information resource we provide. They come here to use this forum as a COMPLAINT BOARD. That's what is it. It's a board to bitch and complain about life in the USA and women in general, which they can't on other forums. It is therapeutic in that sense. That's what we offer here. That's the kind of guys that we attract and retain. Like it or not, we have to face that fact. That's what we've become - a COMPLAINT BOARD.

Guys come here for a psychological benefit, because they can bitch and complain to a sympathetic audience. So our benefit is psychological. We are like a therapy board. And a free therapy board at that. That's what brings us together.

Also, since most posters here are negative, they are going to be BIASED toward believing any negative thing they hear, including your claim that post volume and quality are down. It doesn't have to be true. People here will readily believe anything negative here because they are very negative people themselves. You gotta consider that. And some people love to complain all the time.

No I don't have those stats. The admin panel just told me that the average post count is 72 a day. It doesn't break it down into graphs or time periods. I would have to check Google Analytics for that.

As for the mobile version, I personally don't like it at all. I feel a lot more comfortable with the desktop version, even when reading the forum on my iPhone. For me, the mobile version is just an annoyance or distraction just like the Faebook group msgs., ladies forum, silly PMs from Winston (highlighting threads that I'm already aware of), emails from Winston highlighting threads, and group HA group What's App messages.

Can't we focus all the energy on one medium instead of jumping all over the place?

I don't understand why you say that. The mobile theme puts all the text in an easy to read format when you are on a mobile device. If that wasn't better, then why do all the major forums and websites nowadays have a mobile version? I don't understand your basis.

When I view the desktop version of this forum on my phone, I have to slide the screen constantly left and right to read the text, because it goes off the screen when you zoome in. But the mobile theme puts all the text on one easy to read screen in a larger font size, so you don't have to swipe left and right to read the posts. All the text wraps around the screen.

How is that a disadvantage Rock? I don't get it. Please explain how an obvious advantage is a disadvantage to you?

[Rock]

Winston is denying that the forum has declined over last 2 or more years in terms of post volume and quality. But it seems many maybe even most posters here disagree on that point. So before having a discussion on causes, we should first establish whether or not there actually is a problem at all.

One group of metrics which might shed some light at least on the quantity issue would be average per day post numbers and word counts over the years including 2015. Are those stats available Winston?

But Rock. That's your speculation. Not a fact. You don't have hard evidence to back that up. I don't notice that forum posts are declining in volume.

Exactly. That's precisely why I'm requesting hard metrics from you. It's 2 and 2 logic. Did you bother to read my full post???

[Rock]

I tried the mobile version a few times soon after you released it. But it was buggy and I couldn't always see all the posts I wanted. It didn't work at all well for me. But when I switched to regular version, the bugs disappeared and I would just view it putting my phone sideways. I could also see the avatars which I like too. Maybe others like it. But I just don't like using the mobile version and if I was forced to, I would not bother to view forum on my phone at all. But I'm fine with full version, even on my phone.

Different people = different experiences = different perceptions.

[Winston]

Mr S,
I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. I've seen Rock do that sometimes. But I do not. I do not argue unless I have a valid point.

If you knew about the mobile theme and blog, then why did you say in your other posts here that "Winston ought to make this forum more mobile friendly and ought to start a blog site"? Can you explain why you said that if you were aware of the mobile theme and blog?

Yes maybe we should have a FB fan page instead of a FB group. Even Roosh has a FB fan page, and so does Sandman. But I promote my forum and blog on our FB group too. If some prefer FB, I don't want to force them to come here. I like to give people choices and let them decide which they like more.

I was hoping that the FB group would attract more people because our FB members will add their friends there, which in turn means I can promote to them as well.

I think the forum software looks decent. How is Roosh's forum or blog any better? His blog seems to use Wordpress, which I plan to migrate to after I decide who to pay to do it. His forum uses mybb.com, which we considered switching to before. But this theme seems ok too. Forums attract different types of people than FB and Twitter do. Our personalities fit forums more than FB. I don't like using FB either but it's an important marketing tool.

Why can't we see our FB group as a "colony" of HA? lol

Yes you are right that the visitors to HA aren't coming back. That's one major problem. Most of the 3000 visitors here per day from search engines, do not return. Only a small percentage return or register to post. I don't know why. I'm not sure how to change that. That is a key issue. Perhaps you can address that one.

I was not attacking anyone earlier. I just get annoyed at so many false inaccurate statements. Constructive criticism and false statements aren't the same thing. If I came on your forum and made a ton of false statements for you to correct, you would get annoyed after a while too, especially if it happened to many times. And especially if I rehash something that's already been laid to rest or debunked.

Finally, diverting the topic to attacking my character is ad hominem and not the way to discuss issues. If I say you are wrong, and you say that I don't listen, that doesn't make me wrong or you right. That just makes the discussion subjective and emotional, like two kids fighting over their ego. It's character assassination, not discussing the issues. That's not the logical way to discuss or debate issues. This happens in politics too. When a candidate can't debate the issues, they resort to character assassinations. If you are wrong or incorrect about something, then attacking my personality or saying that I'm argumentative DOES NOT change the fact that your statement was untrue. You understand that right?

Example: If you say that 2+2=5 and I correct you and say that 2+2=4, and then you say that I'm argumentative and never listen, does that change the fact that your statement that 2+2=5 is incorrect? Of course not. Yet many of you, such as Mr S and Jester, operate on that strange fallacy. Why? Do you have a rational explanation for that? Why not fix your errors instead of attacking my character? I don't get it. It seems like a DIVERSION attempt.

Instead of focusing on my character, why not fix or correct the inaccurate statements you make? Isn't that more logical and rational? My character has nothing to do with the issues on this forum. I am not stupid. I know more about running forums and promoting sites than most of you do. I can tell a valid point from an invalid point. I can separate the wheat from the chaff. Just because I exercise my right to do that does NOT mean that I'm argumentative or that I don't listen or that I attack people and drive them off the board.

I've never driven anyone off the board except AiB, but he and I had a major personality conflict and butt heads, so that was unavoidable. Most people that leave here do so cause of all the negativity here which is unhealthy, or because they get busy.

Hope that makes sense.

[Winston]

Winston is denying that the forum has declined over last 2 or more years in terms of post volume and quality. But it seems many maybe even most posters here disagree on that point. So before having a discussion on causes, we should first establish whether or not there actually is a problem at all.

One group of metrics which might shed some light at least on the quantity issue would be average per day post numbers and word counts over the years including 2015. Are those stats available Winston?

But Rock. That's your speculation. Not a fact. You don't have hard evidence to back that up. I don't notice that forum posts are declining in volume.

Exactly. That's precisely why I'm requesting hard metrics from you. It's 2 and 2 logic. Did you bother to read my full post???

Yes I already replied to that. Didn't you see it? I can only get such metrics from Google Analytics. But I'm not sure how accurate it is. But that's the main problem. I'm sure we have plenty of traffic. The main problem is that most of the traffic we get are from visitors who do not return again. Only a small percentage return. That's the KEY problem here. If a larger percentage of visitors return, then our traffic would grow steadily and we would be as big as Roosh's forum. So the key question is: Why don't more visitors return?

But let's face the TRUTH guys. The reason most of you come here is not because the forum is useful. The reason is psychological: You can share things and talk about things here that wouldn't be tolerated on other forums. You can EXPRESS YOURSELF here and BE YOURSELF here. That's the REAL reason you are here. Not for some practical benefit. Admit it.

[Mr S]

You're making the same circular misinterpretation argument that I'm attacking your character and that you are 'fixing' my or others errors cause your 'right' and I or we are 'wrong'. We are all making our own observations and opinions and just because you think you are correct doesn't make it so or I and others wouldn't be posting on this type of discussion post to begin with. I'm not making any character assassinations, you are twisting things to fit whatever emotional state you happen to be in at the time of reading these then going on a rampage about how shitty we are with our logic and how we are 100% wrong and that we need to get a life cause your right and we are wrong, and that's pretty much the deal. You want people to argue or comment according to your ideals and when someone doesn't fit that you go on an emotional tirade and attempt to belittle their persona to the point where they either flame back at you or they get pissed off and leave or a combination of both.

We're not telling you how to run your website, we are making observations about it and this all just proves how dismissive you are of other peoples suggestions. Rather than emotionally batter them and tell them how stupid they are and how superior you are, how about you explain in a detailed logical sense without ripping them a new one about whatever you disagree with and specific points why? This is why I don't get into specifics with anything anymore cause it's a waste of my time and the postings just go on and on with refuting each other with no end in site. Just like what is happening now, like how long will this go on until I or others just get sick of replying cause you don't want to fully acknowledge or address our concerns until the whole discussion post has been turned into a pile of dog turd cause the simple questions weren't addressed properly in a civilized manner to begin with?

I don't care what you do with your site, do what you want, but on occasion I like to drop suggestions if someone has something interesting to say about it, but I guess that's completely out of the question now. So it's a high probability now that when asking members about HA forum stuff most won't bother answering or commenting now cause it's pointless since their suggestions will not be taken seriously and they will just get shot down and rebuked for the most part.

And yes, I give you credit for not being overly emotional in your replies in the last few posts but your initial ones were over the top for no reason attempting to address our concerns.

People come to the forum for different reasons I am more for the practical benefit because I don't feel the need to express myself in a certain way or whatever but others may need this desire. I'm more about like minded intellectuals that see the bigger picture about what's going on around the world and personally I'm not angling to make some kind of emotional release with it. However, since more people do use the forum for emotional release issues there are less quality postings overall then postings that can be viably used for information or things like that. There lies the problem, maybe you should be putting the intellectual, factual, motivational information stuff and related in your blog postings on a regular basis and then just using the discussion board as a place for people to rage about inane topics related to the main stuff you post on the blog about HA related stuff. Interconnect them, but keep them somewhat separate at the same time.

And I agree with Rock about the mini forum app, it's lame and annoying to use. I prefer using the desktop forum format. Maybe some people don't care either way or some prefer the mobile app, but I'm sure it's in the minority. There's nothing you can really do about it since it's proprietary software anyways, but I'm just saying this kind of forum discussion board doesn't translate well to mobile and tablet devices in my opinion. It was made originally for computers and only now trying to fit this new market with varying success.

Also, I think good writers are becoming harder and harder to find, especially willing to post for free on boards like this. So down the road you may have to entice good ones monetarily or return links to their main sites if you want to continually provide quality, unique writings that are attached to your site only. I know at least for myself, I'm not going to be writings any more long winded writings about whatever topics like I might have done in years past. I would rather do it on a personal site where it benefits me directly in some way or I get paid to do it for someone else. Yeah, I and others with decent writing ability may still post, but it would be short commentaries or repostings of other articles from other sites most likely.

And yes get rid of the FB groups and make them post on the discussion board if they want to comment. Have a HA fan page where you can get them to follow discussion topics or whatever that would drive more traffic to your site and make some of these dudes use your forum rather than FB. Or at least temporarily shut them off for maybe 6 months without telling them whether you will turn them back on or not and see if it changes anything on your site.

As stated previously, these are all opinionated suggestions so don't lambast me if you disagree, your majesty, or I'll just have to go on a long self imposed exile from the realm of HA to other internet blog/forum lands.

[Yohan]

The forum is utter trash....The users are trash, moderation is trash, the site is trash....I just come here, say what I got to say and then leave....

Is it so? Did you check out other forums? Forums with so-called trash moderation?

Well, you might join 'orientexpat.com' (xpat.life) where I was a member for many years and made over 11000 comments and compare its activity with HA.

Due to insincere moderation by the admin, his 'orientexpat forum', which could be a good source about living in Asia for Western men, gets now only 3 or 5 comments per WEEK. Most of them are smileys or brainless one-liners.

The idea to create such a forum for 'Expats in Asia' was good, it was all about an useful niche-forum - but the admin was unable to make anything out of it, many left, many were banned. Comments and even pictures were edited or deleted, and now only a few members from UK remain active, writing some lines to each other.

Funny thing is, The would be insta-banned from virtually any other forum out there.

We've talked about it before, but if HA ever went PC or mainstream or ever started banning for "hurt feelings" and other bullshit, then it really will be done. As it is, Winston is still doing a (mostly) good job at upholding free speech. Most forums don't believe in it, and so they are hollow. And unless they are huge forums to begin with, that makes them wither pretty quick. And even big forums/publications lose a lot. Makes me think of mainstream news sites that stop allowing comments once they realize the commenters aren't feminist. Every time they do that they hurt themselves and expose their hypocrisy. Winston's challenge is to not buckle under the pressure of bad ideas.

While I do not agree with Winston about various issues, I do not remember that he ever edited or deleted any of my comments - not even one. He never calling on me for a possible suspension - not even one time.

I write here in HA about the same comments as before in 'orientexpat.com' about life in Asia including bad Asian females, feminism in Western countries, men's rights etc. etc. - and I do not notice any hassle against me - quite different from the mangina-moderation of orientexpat.com.

I agree, Winston is a good administrator.

Dead forums show up with only a few members and a few brainless comments per week. HA seems to be quite active.

[Rock]

Winston is denying that the forum has declined over last 2 or more years in terms of post volume and quality. But it seems many maybe even most posters here disagree on that point. So before having a discussion on causes, we should first establish whether or not there actually is a problem at all.

One group of metrics which might shed some light at least on the quantity issue would be average per day post numbers and word counts over the years including 2015. Are those stats available Winston?

But Rock. That's your speculation. Not a fact. You don't have hard evidence to back that up. I don't notice that forum posts are declining in volume.

Exactly. That's precisely why I'm requesting hard metrics from you. It's 2 and 2 logic. Did you bother to read my full post???

Yes I already replied to that. Didn't you see it? I can only get such metrics from Google Analytics. But I'm not sure how accurate it is. But that's the main problem. I'm sure we have plenty of traffic. The main problem is that most of the traffic we get are from visitors who do not return again. Only a small percentage return. That's the KEY problem here. If a larger percentage of visitors return, then our traffic would grow steadily and we would be as big as Roosh's forum. So the key question is: Why don't more visitors return?

I was referring to post volume and quality, not site traffic. You may get a 100K unique visitors a month. But only a handful of people actually post non-troll content. My concern has to do with CONTENT, not traffic. The board just doesn't seem nearly as active or interesting as it was 2-5 years ago. Perhaps I am wrong. But whatever Google analytics could provide to compare things year-on-year would certainly be interesting data points to consider and perhaps shed light on whether or not it's our imagination that this forum is slowly dying.

[Yohan]

I'm sure we have plenty of traffic. The main problem is that most of the traffic we get are from visitors who do not return again. Only a small percentage return. That's the KEY problem here. If a larger percentage of visitors return, then our traffic would grow steadily and we would be as big as Roosh's forum. So the key question is: Why don't more visitors return?

But let's face the TRUTH guys. The reason most of you come here is not because the forum is useful. The reason is psychological: You can share things and talk about things here that wouldn't be tolerated on other forums. You can EXPRESS YOURSELF here and BE YOURSELF here. That's the REAL reason you are here. Not for some practical benefit. Admit it.

Many people who are signing up in forums just want to see if there is something else inside, which they cannot see as a guest, after they make maybe 3 to 5 comments and disappear. This is the same in almost every forum.

To attract more people and more comments: Maybe useful if you had a gallery where members could save/share their own pictures.
Also a chat-room is missing, except the free speech option the forum itself offers little facilities, just my opinion.
Also the forum has a somewhat US-preference style, as most members are from USA - this is eventually a turn-off for newcomers not from the States etc.

Yes, there are some steps, Winston could do to improve a little by little the performance of the HA-forum, linking to webpages to other members might also be useful, I think Winston needs more support from similar to websites like all these feminist blogs which are operating large networks. It seems, his HA-Forum is something a stand-alone model. It is not really so easy to find it on the internet.

[Ghost]

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[BlackKnight]

WorldTraveler, Cornfed, Rock, Mr. S, and all the other posters on this thread,
Thank you for helping our mutual friend Winston.

Winston, I suggest you choose 1 to 3 collaborators, and LISTEN to them, do not QUIBBLE with them.

Mr. S, +100 for your cogent overview of the situation.

I'm not quibbling. Just telling the truth and being accurate. Don't you like honesty?

Why should I agree with something not true? Did you read what happened?

Mr S was BADLY misinformed and thought we did not have a mobile version of this forum nor did we have a blog. Yet those were announced many times here.

Jester did you know we had a blog and a mobile version of the forum? The blog is mobile friendly too.

How do you explain why he didn't know that? If he doesn't know basic things like that then how can he be informed enough to comment?

Plus a lot of guys here were making unsubstantiated claims with zero evidence. There is nothing to indicate that we are losing traffic to the Facebook group. It should be the other way around.

Jester if you want to produce better content then you should stop doing those +1 posts with nothing else in them. Those belong on social media, not here. A big bulk of your posts are mere +1s.

Lol, Jester got own3rd. He should know better than to mess with Winston. I propose you further punish him with a 3 day ban than maybe leak his photo and email to the internet lol. Roman Emperors enjoyed cruelty.

[BlackKnight]

Winston is denying that the forum has declined over last 2 or more years in terms of post volume and quality. But it seems many maybe even most posters here disagree on that point. So before having a discussion on causes, we should first establish whether or not there actually is a problem at all.

One group of metrics which might shed some light at least on the quantity issue would be average per day post numbers and word counts over the years including 2015. Are those stats available Winston?

But Rock. That's your speculation. Not a fact. You don't have hard evidence to back that up. I don't notice that forum posts are declining in volume. Quality is another matter though.

We gotta face the fact here though. Most people don't come here for the information resource we provide. They come here to use this forum as a COMPLAINT BOARD. That's what is it. It's a board to bitch and complain about life in the USA and women in general, which they can't on other forums. It is therapeutic in that sense. That's what we offer here. That's the kind of guys that we attract and retain. Like it or not, we have to face that fact. That's what we've become - a COMPLAINT BOARD.

Guys come here for a psychological benefit, because they can bitch and complain to a sympathetic audience. So our benefit is psychological. We are like a therapy board. And a free therapy board at that. That's what brings us together.

Also, since most posters here are negative, they are going to be BIASED toward believing any negative thing they hear, including your claim that post volume and quality are down. It doesn't have to be true. People here will readily believe anything negative here because they are very negative people themselves. You gotta consider that. And some people love to complain all the time.

Absolutely spot on winston, I couldn't have said it better myself. Such superior intellect and mastery you have shown here. You've been using these repulsive animals to live an independent and spiritual life above them while they wallow in their own negativity.

[BlackKnight]

Winston is denying that the forum has declined over last 2 or more years in terms of post volume and quality. But it seems many maybe even most posters here disagree on that point. So before having a discussion on causes, we should first establish whether or not there actually is a problem at all.

One group of metrics which might shed some light at least on the quantity issue would be average per day post numbers and word counts over the years including 2015. Are those stats available Winston?

But Rock. That's your speculation. Not a fact. You don't have hard evidence to back that up. I don't notice that forum posts are declining in volume.

Exactly. That's precisely why I'm requesting hard metrics from you. It's 2 and 2 logic. Did you bother to read my full post???

Yes I already replied to that. Didn't you see it? I can only get such metrics from Google Analytics. But I'm not sure how accurate it is. But that's the main problem. I'm sure we have plenty of traffic. The main problem is that most of the traffic we get are from visitors who do not return again. Only a small percentage return. That's the KEY problem here. If a larger percentage of visitors return, then our traffic would grow steadily and we would be as big as Roosh's forum. So the key question is: Why don't more visitors return?

But let's face the TRUTH guys. The reason most of you come here is not because the forum is useful. The reason is psychological: You can share things and talk about things here that wouldn't be tolerated on other forums. You can EXPRESS YOURSELF here and BE YOURSELF here. That's the REAL reason you are here. Not for some practical benefit. Admit it.

+1

Obviously these people are not strong as us Winston!

[Winston]

I was referring to post volume and quality, not site traffic. You may get a 100K unique visitors a month. But only a handful of people actually post non-troll content. My concern has to do with CONTENT, not traffic. The board just doesn't seem nearly as active or interesting as it was 2-5 years ago. Perhaps I am wrong. But whatever Google analytics could provide to compare things year-on-year would certainly be interesting data points to consider and perhaps shed light on whether or not it's our imagination that this forum is slowly dying.

But Rock, aren't you saying two different things here? First, you mention post content and quality, not traffic. But then after that you want to see the stats from Google Analytics. However, Google Analytics will not tell us anything about post content and quality. It will only tell you how much traffic you get per day, how many unique visitors, how many page views, the length of time visitors stay on your site, the bounce rate, etc. It cannot measure quality of content. So aren't you saying two different things here?

Btw, I don't see much difference between the content now vs. 2 or 3 years ago. It's always been the same mix of various types of topics. There are useful topics, abstract ones, rantings, humorous topics, questions, philosophical discussions, taboo topics, social issues, extreme views, etc. That's the way it is in any forum. It was like that here years ago too.

Also, I do not have control over the quality of content here. That's something we all contribute to, collectively. So how am I responsible for that? How do you expect me to raise content quality? I can't do it by just telling everyone "Please post higher quality content".

Yes, we may not have that much useful expat info here anymore. But we do have a lot of intelligent insightful discussions, such as "Why has feminism made women less happy" or "Why women should not vote" etc. The responses to such things were very insightful and made sense. So we still have many intelligent, intellectual discussions. Even Mr S, Taco, Jester and I post threads about conspiracies and what the elites are doing that's diabolical, etc. How is that low quality content to you?

If by "high quality content" you mean useful expat info, then yeah I see what you mean. But we do have a lot of discussions here on many topics. It's a mix of good, bad, funny, inane, useful, deep, informative, etc. We even have taboo topics too. We also discuss social issues such as "Is marriage a good thing or bad thing" etc. That's what a forum is for, discussion. It's not necessarily a practical resource.

If you want an information resource for expats type of site, there are many of them, such as http://www.expatexchange.com. But on those information rich sites, you cannot talk about taboo or politically incorrect topics such as the bad attitude of Western women, lack of social connection in America, how social life sucks in America, etc. That's what HA is for, to discuss such taboo topics that other forums don't allow. Like I said earlier, the primary benefit here is psychological. On HA, we can BE OURSELVES and EXPRESS OURSELVES freely. That's a huge intangible benefit that other forums don't offer.

Finally, I don't understand what you mean when you said the mobile theme of the forum is bugged. I tested it and use it many times. I don't notice any bugs. It works smoothly and seamlessly. Can you explain what is bugged?

One more thing. If you look at our Facebook group, most of the posts are the same rantings about western women. So I don't think our FB group takes much away from here. I don't like forcing people to come here if they prefer FB anyway. I like people to have options.

[JeyanCalderone]

Facebook is going to become outdated like Myspace. Tons of people complain about Facebook's ridiculous rules. I personally don't like Facebook because the CIA is gathering information. The FBI is monitoring everything. There is no privacy on the internet. Some of you guys post very personal information online and tell your whole life stories. Is that wise?