Live Stoner Chat AFN Site Feedback July 2015

[A-Train]

I promote autos on other sites as well but the vibe is nowhere near the same this is always home.... hell the first post I made on RIU the first 2 reply were trolls saying it was a photo and I didn't grow it so I had to take a pic flipping the the bird with my auto lol....a bunch of haters out there folks

 

[TaNg]

I promote autos on other sites as well but the vibe is nowhere near the same this is always home.... hell the first post I made on RIU the first 2 reply were trolls saying it was a photo and I didn't grow it so I had to take a pic flipping the the bird with my auto lol....a bunch of haters out there folks

I love the vibe here too bro I'm not disputing that Im trying to find out why we are down so many new members and guests on line, am I the only one that's worried about this? maybe I care about AFN and its future to much lol.

 

[Qman1515]

Is it really that bad out there, this is just such a friendly place. Even for photo growers, look at @lykaboss. It must be the mods here

 

[Son of Hobbes]

I'm fairly certain our site numbers are actually improving. I've been keeping a loose list of members online at certain times of the day (as in, when I check ) and we're consistently getting more and more members online. Been logging on more frequently to find 70-80+ members+guests (not spiders/bots.)

I'm really speculating here, but based on our "how old are you thread," we had almost an equal part of members that are baby-boomer and traditionalist aged; which are two age demographics not exactly known for embracing change, especially with technology.

We completely changed the site with the upgrade; lost out on thousands of likes, reputations, and a lot of member photos got bunked, which I think turned off a lot of those people. Hell, I lost almost 20,000 reputation points on the old site AND all of my pictures are gone because of the way I uploaded them! Is what it is; at the end of the day you can lead the horse to water, but you can't make 'em drink (stole that from Blue!)

We also took a hit on our google ranking after the upgrade (which I believe is restored; first site that comes up on a search!) That probably didn't do a ton of favors when people were searching for us the past few months.

That's just my opinion/speculation on what happened.

But like I said; based on what I've personally seen, we are improving in site stats and numbers, it's just not as fast as I'm sure all of us would like to see. Used to log on with HUNDREDS of members on-site (and lots of stuff to do always!) Well, we'll get there again.

This is a community, communities grow as we grow with each other!

 

[A4]

I'm really speculating here, but based on our "how old are you thread," we had almost an equal part of members that are baby-boomer and traditionalist aged; which are two age demographics not exactly known for embracing change, especially with technology.

Be careful there SoH, your walking on thin ice......

 

[Son of Hobbes]

Be careful there SoH, your walking on thin ice......

I wish you could have heard the genuine laugh that produced

 

[AndyBotwin]

Hey @TaNg, you're definitely not the only one worried about this. We have looked at the numbers every way we can and tried to make sense of it all. Obviously the site move had a big impact like SOH mentioned above. I'm an IT consultant and I can tell you for a fact that people just don't like change, even if the old system stinks. That goes for all software, not just canna site users. We've got a shiny new site with all sorts of cool features, no Cloudflare and double posts, and all the other sh!t we used to deal with every day. But it is different, and it does take a learning curve which some folks just don't want to bother with.

We pulled loads of member lists and stats and found dozens if not hundreds of our regulars have been here since the site move, logged in, spent some time, and never started posting again like they used to. We haven't really changed the content or the vibe of AFN, so the new site is the only real explanation for it. It's a shame, but we had no choice as the old one was a ticking time bomb and we had done all we could to patch it up and keep it running at all. vBulletin is fading away from the marketplace, and Xenforo is a very popular forum software that is growing every day. Yeah it sucks big time that we lost rep, pics, and other stuff, but NG put in massive hours trying to make it work and it just wouldn't. And I've spent massive time restoring things like the rep system and recent posts that everyone was used to but aren't part of our new software. In the end, there's just not much more we can do but replace those members who quit with new ones, and that takes time.

The good news is that our Google rankings are back, and we are getting a steady stream of new registrations. But when you have a heavy poster who leaves, it may take 10 new members to gain back that level on content and traffic that is generated. Plus it did not help that all this went down just as most of our members were heading into summer, when people are doing more outside and away from the computer. Hopefully as the weather cools and the days get shorter, we'll see some of our missing regulars start coming back as well.

Mossy and the staff have been doing lots of work behind the scenes and there are some new things in the works for AFN as well. July and August have historically been slow months for us anyway, so kicking off new projects right now isn't the best idea. Stay tuned!

 

[Qman1515]

I'm fairly certain our site numbers are actually improving. I've been keeping a loose list of members online at certain times of the day (as in, when I check ) and we're consistently getting more and more members online. Been logging on more frequently to find 70-80+ members+guests (not spiders/bots.)

I'm really speculating here, but based on our "how old are you thread," we had almost an equal part of members that are baby-boomer and traditionalist aged; which are two age demographics not exactly known for embracing change, especially with technology.

We completely changed the site with the upgrade; lost out on thousands of likes, reputations, and a lot of member photos got bunked, which I think turned off a lot of those people. Hell, I lost almost 20,000 reputation points on the old site AND all of my pictures are gone because of the way I uploaded them! Is what it is; at the end of the day you can lead the horse to water, but you can't make 'em drink (stole that from Blue!)

We also took a hit on our google ranking after the upgrade (which I believe is restored; first site that comes up on a search!) That probably didn't do a ton of favors when people were searching for us the past few months.

That's just my opinion/speculation on what happened.

But like I said; based on what I've personally seen, we are improving in site stats and numbers, it's just not as fast as I'm sure all of us would like to see. Used to log on with HUNDREDS of members on-site (and lots of stuff to do always!) Well, we'll get there again.

This is a community, communities grow as we grow with each other!

I stumbweled in on the site right after you changed over, don't remember how to be honest. It was @Muddy life of an autoflower that made me stay. All that information just made my head spin, now I want to grow more autos, I have 7 photo seeds and I don't know when I am going to plant them

 

[TaNg]

It's the lack of guests that's the most noticeable to me.

 

[Qman1515]

Hey @TaNg, you're definitely not the only one worried about this. We have looked at the numbers every way we can and tried to make sense of it all. Obviously the site move had a big impact like SOH mentioned above. I'm an IT consultant and I can tell you for a fact that people just don't like change, even if the old system stinks. That goes for all software, not just canna site users. We've got a shiny new site with all sorts of cool features, no Cloudflare and double posts, and all the other sh!t we used to deal with every day. But it is different, and it does take a learning curve which some folks just don't want to bother with.

We pulled loads of member lists and stats and found dozens if not hundreds of our regulars have been here since the site move, logged in, spent some time, and never started posting again like they used to. We haven't really changed the content or the vibe of AFN, so the new site is the only real explanation for it. It's a shame, but we had no choice as the old one was a ticking time bomb and we had done all we could to patch it up and keep it running at all. vBulletin is fading away from the marketplace, and Xenforo is a very popular forum software that is growing every day. Yeah it sucks big time that we lost rep, pics, and other stuff, but NG put in massive hours trying to make it work and it just wouldn't. And I've spent massive time restoring things like the rep system and recent posts that everyone was used to but aren't part of our new software. In the end, there's just not much more we can do but replace those members who quit with new ones, and that takes time.

The good news is that our Google rankings are back, and we are getting a steady stream of new registrations. But when you have a heavy poster who leaves, it may take 10 new members to gain back that level on content and traffic that is generated. Plus it did not help that all this went down just as most of our members were heading into summer, when people are doing more outside and away from the computer. Hopefully as the weather cools and the days get shorter, we'll see some of our missing regulars start coming back as well.

Mossy and the staff have been doing lots of work behind the scenes and there are some new things in the works for AFN as well. July and August have historically been slow months for us anyway, so kicking off new projects right now isn't the best idea. Stay tuned!

Andy, is it slower becaus less people are growing, I am very new to this whole seen. But I like it here,tend to post a few times a day. On my days off, and try for once a day on my journal.