Planet Cricket

[Mijurkat]

How did you change your User Title?

Just a healthy conversation with Admin! Done.

 

[Till Valhalla]

I'm open to ideas on site improvements and ways to increase engagement.

I have some pointers and some very basic analysis without any hard research. I will try to post them in the next 24 hours.

 

[Till Valhalla]

I think the strength of the forum was always the Games section, then the discussion section.
I think the games section is doing good(On a down trend ATM) and will thrive in the future till there are video games made on cricket. As I believe, the forum is a go to guide for a lot of people.

The forums has definitely lost a lot of people participating in Discussion. Some factors I believe that played a hand in this.
- First of all I think there are three types of people who discuss cricket.
1) People who like to just state their opinion and not hear anybody else. They have flocked to Twitter.
2) People who like to state their opinion and then disagree with other people on their different opinions with a range of abuses(Childish to Obscene). You will find a lot of this people on Facebook.
3) People who really discuss cricket. Like the users of this forum.
I think a lot of people have moved from the forums to Reddit. There are other forums that also have a global audience while some other forums cater to a specific country.

For the forum to get more active members it needs to be seen.

One thing I can propose to increase the forum visibility is, contacting the mods of r/cricket(Sub reddit for cricket) and arrange a virtual tournament between both of them.

 

[Targaryen]

Thanks @AliB for directing me to this thread. I had already created a thread for this and it is very unfortunate to see the downfall of the site so soon. Link - https://www.planetcricket.org/forums/threads/are-we-losing-active-member-your-thoughts.108143/

Though most of the post here shows reasons for the downfall, the main reason for this is DBC series or Ashes Series. Don't get me wrong, the games were the huge improvements for cricket and was not less than a revolution. But I want to say that these games have almost killed the active participant of the site.

It is so that people who joined this site in the past 3-4 years are seasoned members who joined to discuss about the game and not explore other sections of sites. Which was not the case for the past 16 odd years as the posts here from past shows.

People would join, discuss about the game, and once the game gets older (maybe 1 year old) people stop visiting the site. There are few members who joined the forum (DBC section) and explored other sections as well. Like zwarrior, asprin, etc... The games were costly for students and ineligible to run on PCs older than 4-5 years. The part-time/full time jobbers would visit the site for discussing the game and as they get busy, they stop visiting the site.

We can do some sort of marketing by organizing cross forum competitions (debate, leagues, etc..) just like Mafia competition by Mafia universe. People will automatically join the site and once they explore this site, they will surely stay for longer period. We shouldn't depend much on games section as there are some issues which I mentioned above. We can also redirect people from games section of this site to participate in some leagues of DBC/Ashes games. And give out some awards like things.

I'm ready to contribute to bringing back the site to life. Let bring back the glory.

 

[Rhone]

I post on a few forums, but not much here. I do have a soft spot for this place though so thought I would share my opinion as I'd like to see this place do well.

I am often tempted to post in the cricket discussion threads, but they are wastelands of inactivity, so I end up going to reddit instead. More people and more vibrant debates. I only really post in the big ant games forums here, but would be tempted to post more if there were more active cricket discussions. It's called planet cricket after all. Some sort of presence on reddit would be a good idea. Reddit can be a bit anonymous and this place would offer warmer 'community' feel.

I find things like vcash and mafia a bit weird and still don't understand what they have to do with cricket forums. It's worth bearing in mind that if you Google 'cricket discussion forums' this place comes up. I'm sure cricket is why most people visit so cricket should be the focus.

Finally I would say the moderation here can be a bit lacking. I've come across several strange accounts on this place that are obviously fake. They have no interest in cricket at all, and seem to be created by persons who seek attention. They often use fake pictures, and i have seen a few posts that genuinely concerned me, especially those inviting/requesting private communication over pm and even skype. These accounts seem to be indulged and befriended by certain moderators. It's genuinely unsavoury, unique among the forums I have visited and has often put me off posting here.

The world cup should be viewed as a good opportunity to drive more users into the cricket discussion forums. I'll make a point of trying to post there, as well as on reddit!

 

[wasteyouryouth]

It does seem to have slowed down considerably the last few weeks.

 

[Pinch hitter]

Everyone fastly moving from PC to mobile now... And most of them using apps to share, discuss about sports and etc... So I am not surprised to see decreased numbers in active members... and whoever signups PlanetCricket in last 3 to 4 years is mainly because to know about bigant's pc cricket games... So there is now new to discuss, so no active members...

If PlanetCricket want there glory back than, first it need to have a mobile app and may be allow people to log in here through there Facebook and Google accounts...

 

[Targaryen]

allow people to log in here through there Facebook and Google accounts...

I think, this option is already there.

 

[RUDI]

Make @blockerdave the PC Editorial Manager and Head writer and allow members to comment/interact to articles.
[HASHTAG]#bringbackcricketarticles[/HASHTAG]

 

[El Loco]

The qualm that there is no mobile app has always been put down simply due to the fact that the mobile page is already excellently optimised for mobile browsers, which is fair.
However, it could be that an app would present the possibility of reaching out to potentially new members if recommended (by associated content) on the respective app stores to those who are already looking for cricket related material such as games, score updates etc.
As far as mobile access to the forum itself goes though I think the current implementation is still very practical and there is no real problems with it in terms of functionality.

Yup I do miss the PC View on the homepage too but people don't seem to have the time to invest into these things anymore. Would be great if there was a resurgence though.

 

[blockerdave]

Make @blockerdave the PC Editorial Manager and Head writer and allow members to comment/interact to articles.
[HASHTAG]#bringbackcricketarticles[/HASHTAG]

How kind of you to remember me, thank you.

 

[blockerdave]

Is it dead?
Was it great in the past?
What does it need?
Just part of life that it is not well visited?

Discuss......

i lost any motivation to post on or frequent the forum when the admin/mods opened a thread for ashes and prevented anyone outside the beta posting on it.

if the people responsible for maintaining quality on the site say "the normal standards of posting are absolute filth and i can't be bothered to even try and maintain quality", why am i on the forum? why waste my time here if even the people in charge think it's full of useless shite? that was the site's Ratner moment for me.

i think Matt already acknowledged it previously. the staff changes were for the worse, or existing staff became inactive. those that remained or returned had alternative priorities. quality dived.

when the 2 dbc games came out, there was obviously a lot of newer members (including me for 14!), and that included a lot of trolling and shitposting, but the staff kept the quality high. by ashes we had a very different staff, many of whom were no longer active, they couldn't deal with the shitpost influx, and then admitted they couldn't even be bothered to try.

 

[MattW]

if the people responsible for maintaining quality on the site say "the normal standards of posting are absolute filth and i can't be bothered to even try and maintain quality", why am i on the forum? why waste my time here if even the people in charge think it's full of useless shite? that was the site's Ratner moment for me.

The comment I'd make here is that I'm conscious of the issues with the obvious conflict of interest I have related to the Ashes forum - that therefore likely leads to an overcorrection, where to avoid being seen as me censoring the site (or me directing other mods to do that on my behalf), there's an overly cautious approach to moderating that sees a declining posting standard.

That then gets you to the point of using sledgehammers like restricted posting threads - I don't think that was a great approach - but I get the decision at the time. I'd think a better way of handling it would have been for someone to actively update a first post with key quotes from beta participants, rather than restricting replies, which creates the echo chamber that the other moderating decisions are at least attempting to avoid.

But obviously more generally, if members generally don't consider the site worth visiting, then that applies just as much to the members who are/were/could be good moderators for it, which is a cycle that is very tough to get out of.

 

[blockerdave]

The comment I'd make here is that I'm conscious of the issues with the obvious conflict of interest I have related to the Ashes forum - that therefore likely leads to an overcorrection, where to avoid being seen as me censoring the site (or me directing other mods to do that on my behalf), there's an overly cautious approach to moderating that sees a declining posting standard.

That then gets you to the point of using sledgehammers like restricted posting threads - I don't think that was a great approach - but I get the decision at the time. I'd think a better way of handling it would have been for someone to actively update a first post with key quotes from beta participants, rather than restricting replies, which creates the echo chamber that the other moderating decisions are at least attempting to avoid.

But obviously more generally, if members generally don't consider the site worth visiting, then that applies just as much to the members who are/were/could be good moderators for it, which is a cycle that is very tough to get out of.

Thanks for that response. I understand the constraint re conflict of interest and appearing to be fair.

While I couldn’t state how strongly I disagree with the decision re that thread, I think the general user community bear a lot of responsibility for us getting to that point.

The ignore function here is good, but when the majority of users are not using it but instead engaging in ding dong with the shitposters (forgetting don’t feed the troll) then you end up with a really disjointed experience of half replies seeing people arguing with posts you can’t see.

The main community needed to be much more discerning with what the ignored and what they engaged with. It’s a shame

 

[Dutch]

Thanks for that response. I understand the constraint re conflict of interest and appearing to be fair.

While I couldn’t state how strongly I disagree with the decision re that thread, I think the general user community near a lot of responsibility for us getting to that point.

The ignore function here is good, but when the majority of users are not using it but instead engaging in ding dong with the shitposters (forgetting don’t feed the troll) then you end up with a really disjointed experience of half replies seeing people arguing with posts you can’t see.

The main community needed to be much more discerning with what the ignored and what they engaged with. It’s a shame

Its great to see you back though Dave! Hopefully you will find enough to stick around. We didnt always agree but I loved your passion and depth.