Site News OT: I Need Some Help - Please Read

[1960Pats]

@Ian took care of this.

Strikes me that 1. this may be the tip of an iceberg heading for your business model (Mr. Sunshine here) and 2. there has been some pretty good small business/tech business conversation on the site before. If you have any interest in taking full advantage of that, we could organize a workshop on Zoom to see what might get created on behalf of Patsfans.

Bottom line, I've gotten to know you a little bit over the years and would encourage you to lean in to letting us help in every way possible. You aren't burdening anyone. There's a lot of us here with a deep well of gratitude.

Exactly. I'm one of those.

 

[ZoisKing]

Done

 

[Zoomnbyu]

@Ian, done. QQ, for those of us with multiple profiles, for example I have my personal gmail address plus our google managed work profile, does it help if we link from both?

 

[Zoomnbyu]

Seeing others posts about money ideas. What about a place on the site where folks could sell tickets or Pats memorabilia? Site gets a percentage.

 

[Pape]

Have you tried reaching out to the Patriots organization? I took a quick peak earlier and there is no forum on the team site. Nor is there a link to one. Given the moderation enforcement of a mostly family friendly site, I'd expect risk to be low on the Patriots site.

The Patriots used to have a message board. It was a good one. It was also one of the last official team forum sites before the NFL made the teams all update their sites... at that point the forums were wiped in the name of conformity and uniformity across the individual team websites...

at the time of the shutdown, the rationale provided by the mods on the pats site was that the forums were no longer needed, as everyone* uses facebook, so there was no longer a need to maintain the forums...

there were some really good posters on that board... hope they are all doing well...


* - still not true to this effing day...

 

[Patstopia]

Done

 

[Calhoun44]

Done

 

[Wax Frog]

Done and done. As someone doing his best to emulate a web dev, I've had to dabble in SEO on not a few occasions and I feel ya.

 

[Wax Frog]

@Ian, done. QQ, for those of us with multiple profiles, for example I have my personal gmail address plus our google managed work profile, does it help if we link from both?

Related question - would doing this via gmail 'burner' accounts help or hurt? I have a few.

 

[ahmed]

Done!

Also, have you thought about increasing the support/upgrade account amount?

 

[PlainOldEd]

Done and done. As someone doing his best to emulate a web dev, I've had to dabble in SEO on not a few occasions and I feel ya.

Me too, until last spring when my job went to India and left me here.....

 

[Gumby]

I really didn't want to post this, but I want to be transparent about a challenge I’m facing.
spend reaching a point where, if things continue the way they are, to keep this place solvent.
…..
This was yesterday ... I'm beyond frustrated:
…
It's just ridiculous. And the fact that I've had to alter the titles to try to increase the click-through rate is also annoying. ……

Advertisers pay per thousand views. Not hundreds, or now - dozens.

……. give us a bump and pushes us up where Google essentially sees positive "reviews" to boost us in their algorithm.

---

Here is all you need to do:
….

That's it. But it's more helpful than you think.
Another way you can help:……
Again, sorry to bug you guys, but thank you to everyone who can take a moment to do

Ian

Ian,
I assume I should do this same routine on every device I use ( laptop, iPad, iPhone….or maybe can lay my hands on (wife & daughter have to sleep sometime) )
IF TRUE, WE SHOULD ALL DO ON ALL DEVICES WE CAN.

I’ll try and knock out tonite.

 

[Ian]

Have you tried reaching out to the Patriots organization? I took a quick peak earlier and there is no forum on the team site. Nor is there a link to one. Given the moderation enforcement of a mostly family friendly site, I'd expect risk to be low on the Patriots site.

Given the work you've put in maintaining everything over the years, I'd say you have a better argument over reddit pages, etc...

A closed mouth doesn't get fed.

Even if the request was for a page with links to the various online forums available, it'd likely help with Google search results.

On the bright side, my quick google search for Patriots forum on a public computer this AM returned patsfans as the number 1 result.

I have a relationship with them, albeit it's limited, and I won't get into too much detail. I do know they closed their forum for the same challenges I've dealt with here. This recent climate, which is another reason.

Overall, people's habits have obviously changed, which isn't limited just to here. And it's also a big reason why you're not seeing new ones pop up online league-wide. But the bigger issue here is being shut out on the other side from a content standpoint. As I mentioned, advertisers don't like advertising on forums because many view them as volatile and too big a risk. That's why they prefer content views. I had been doing relatively OK there, which is what has carried us these last few years. It's that decline I'm trying to stop, and a number of you stepped up yesterday on Google, and I definitely appreciate that.

Getting that to be more stable is really what I'm looking to accomplish. Because, as generous as people have been on here both over the years and certainly this week, I don't want to get to a point where donations will be critical in order to keep things going. We just need more than zero visibility for that to happen, which I'm hoping everyone's efforts here helps us with.

 

[Patjew]

This place seems to do ok in Bing…which is unfortunate since more people aren’t using it.

I use it whenever I'm in China. It stinks. So does Bing.

 

[Ian]

@Ian, done. QQ, for those of us with multiple profiles, for example I have my personal gmail address plus our google managed work profile, does it help if we link from both?

I'm sure to a certain extent. Again, I know it will likely have people seeing our stuff when you're on there, but how that affects things as a whole remains the question. I saw an uptick yesterday, and after posting a few things this morning, I'll wait and see later on if we see any progress.

 

[Ian]

Related question - would doing this via gmail 'burner' accounts help or hurt? I have a few.

Don't go crazy. I would say whatever your active account is makes sense.

 

[Dexter]

Done

 

[A Defiant Goose]

I use it whenever I'm in China. It stinks. So does Bing.

There's a chinese name joke somewhere in here

 

[Vindicate]

I have a relationship with them, albeit it's limited, and I won't get into too much detail. I do know they closed their forum for the same challenges I've dealt with here. This recent climate, which is another reason.

Overall, people's habits have obviously changed, which isn't limited just to here. And it's also a big reason why you're not seeing new ones pop up online league-wide. But the bigger issue here is being shut out on the other side from a content standpoint. As I mentioned, advertisers don't like advertising on forums because many view them as volatile and too big a risk. That's why they prefer content views. I had been doing relatively OK there, which is what has carried us these last few years. It's that decline I'm trying to stop, and a number of you stepped up yesterday on Google, and I definitely appreciate that.

Getting that to be more stable is really what I'm looking to accomplish. Because, as generous as people have been on here both over the years and certainly this week, I don't want to get to a point where donations will be critical in order to keep things going. We just need more than zero visibility for that to happen, which I'm hoping everyone's efforts here helps us with.

I'm sure the reasons are a-plenty, but I'd imagine Reddit is a huge contributor to the downfall of these more independent forums. It's sad because Reddit is way too... pre-curated and monolithic. I don't even really get that sense of community, regardless of how long I check and post to any single subreddit.

 

[Ian]

Seeing others posts about money ideas. What about a place on the site where folks could sell tickets or Pats memorabilia? Site gets a percentage.

I don't want to get into that, because there's always the risk of someone posting something that's not legit, or other potential issues. But I've always been open to members on here being able to sell off tickets. People always sort that out amongst themselves, which has always been fine. I don't need to be involved in that.