TGTAP has lost its old spirits !

[Alvas.]

Maybe we can have something like not allowing guests to see topics without signing in ? Maybe ?

[TM™]

That's a bit strict. It seems that doing that will just draw them away, rather than make them join. Someone said this before, no way getting them to join that way will work.

I can't blame the layout of the forum, nothing is bad, at all. I think now that GTA4 is out on both PC, PS3 and 360 everybody is playing, or have other things to do. Eventually when more news comes relating to a new GTA or whatnot, then activity will grow.

[Alvas.]

Yeah that's what also I thought but still posted to see what members would say. That's not gonna work.

[Deji]

Members only benefits could be improved... A lot of members join, ask a question about their GTA and leave.

[_Ray]

We could do what my Previous GTA Fan Site did, only allow them to see the GTA related forums as a guest, but forcing them to register for the General Discussion / Lifestyle Forums.

[Gerard]

Why would they sign up to see the general discussion stuff? If they're not part of the community, then they won't be interested to see S-V's computer specs or photos of maco or Sherbert's Xmas list.

The ideas above are all about tricking users into signing up. That's not what we need. We need users to WANT to sign up, which many don't. When they do sign up, we need them to WANT to return and continue posting.

[TOXIC]

^ Which will involve pimping [sort of, in other words keeping them hip and tidy] the forums that new members tend to visit. Foremost comes the GTA *version_name* Gameplay and Help Topic(s).

[The Bossman]

Spirit, not spirits. TGTAP isn't relying on ghosts to help run the forum. Work is the main factor, it's much more important than a forum. I suspect it'll get busier over Xmas, then another lull for a few months, then back up again.

EDIT: That was a particularly destructive day, a few things kept breaking which now need to be repaired.

Edited November 25, 2009 by Bateman.

[Scott.]

Bring back the orange and grey skin I say!!

In all seriousness though, a lot of people are going to be busy around this time. A lot of people will also come here for GTA news, and seeing as there isnt a lot of that going about at the moment, and GTA IV is ageing quickly and people are getting bored of it so natually I dont think there will be a lot of activity around at the moment, but as soon as Rockstar announce a new GTA or something big like that, activity will shoot up.

[Hansui]

Bring back the orange and grey skin I say!!

+1

I think lack of improvement in the gang scene also made other active members to go a little inactive. Let's just hope that this coming Christmas vacation will increase the activity in the forums.

[_Ray]

Bring back the orange and grey skin I say!!

In all seriousness though, a lot of people are going to be busy around this time. A lot of people will also come here for GTA news, and seeing as there isnt a lot of that going about at the moment, and GTA IV is ageing quickly and people are getting bored of it so natually I dont think there will be a lot of activity around at the moment, but as soon as Rockstar announce a new GTA or something big like that, activity will shoot up.

Well what was activity like last November? More than now.

We just need more topics, a better skin, forum bosses for every forum, moderators on more often.

Why don't we just go to other GTA sites and see what they got that we don't. For example: Gtaforums.com is extremely bland and not catchy to the eye, yet they have tons of activity. Why? That's what we need to figure out.

After all, they're still using IP.Board 1.3 and it really sucks.

Edited November 27, 2009 by Raybob

[Deji]

Mmm... I feel that GTAForums has broadened it's use more than most GTA Forums which stay relatively compact and simple. There's nothing wrong with an old IP Board. I was forced to update mine for a specific reason, which I wouldn't have done without the problem occurring.

The GTAForum has a dark theme, which I find is attractive but at the same time... Attracts "noobs". When I was new to the WWW-Life (and normal life, lol) GTA Forums was the first site I joined. I never posted, mind... 2 years later, however... I started posting there and then joined this Forum (still a "noob", btw) and have just got used to it from there. I don't post much in GTA Forums unless I want to post in the modding forums or ask for some quick help in the Web Design forum. I post there because they have loads of members. Surely someone will post pretty quickly, eh?

I think the thing to keep in mind with GTAForums is that they were pretty much there from the beginning of GTA, so has had more members for a while. And people like to join forums that are active. Not to mention that it will appear in loads of search results considering the amount of posts they have. It surprises me that they only have a PR of 4 (same as TGTAP). Which once again makes my mind fill up with questions of how Google PR works. My site only has 2 (until I gets .com) Maybe if GTAF, TGTAP and my site joins up we can take over Google's search results! lol... Apparently Google gets 10, hmm... Rigged?

Anyway, I think it's almost impossible to compare TGTAP to GTAF. They're in 2 different leagues.

Also, a bland theme is a good thing in my eyes. It doesn't make things seem out of place or "in your face". However, it doesn't make me want to click a link either.

Edited November 27, 2009 by Deji

[Highwire]

I used to come here and post a lot because there was all this news and topics I haven't posted in. But after awhile I noticed there were only people joining to post a question about their GTA then they leave. I think we have to find a way to keep those members coming back for more. Like maybe we could offer something to them other then help or mods.. Any suggestions?

[Thomas.]

What if these people only want help? What if they didn't want to join in the first place but couldn't look for the topic in question because they can't use the search feature (I believe)? I think the forum is fine basically as is, yes it does get boring sometimes but I still come, albeit every 4 days, but I still come. It doesn't have to look good for people to come, it has to look at least satisfactory for people to come and this forum looks way above satisfactory.

Here's a suggestion, if we didn't slag off some of the new members, they might actually stay because the last time I checked, although this was a few years ago, new members were being insulted and didn't want to come back. For example, Hazer, he wasn't perfect but nobody liked him because he didn't know the rules and was persistent. To sum up:

Less hatred = more and better new members.

Maybe if we merely point out to that member that they're doing something wrong, then they might actually do something to fix the problem. If you look at my first ever posts, you'll most likely find that I was the same as these newbies and people like TM, Gerard and Nate helped me to fix my problems back then.

[_Ray]

What if these people only want help? What if they didn't want to join in the first place but couldn't look for the topic in question because they can't use the search feature (I believe)? I think the forum is fine basically as is, yes it does get boring sometimes but I still come, albeit every 4 days, but I still come. It doesn't have to look good for people to come, it has to look at least satisfactory for people to come and this forum looks way above satisfactory.

Here's a suggestion, if we didn't slag off some of the new members, they might actually stay because the last time I checked, although this was a few years ago, new members were being insulted and didn't want to come back. For example, Hazer, he wasn't perfect but nobody liked him because he didn't know the rules and was persistent. To sum up:

Less hatred = more and better new members.

Maybe if we merely point out to that member that they're doing something wrong, then they might actually do something to fix the problem. If you look at my first ever posts, you'll most likely find that I was the same as these newbies and people like TM, Gerard and Nate helped me to fix my problems back then.

I agree that we should pay attention more to the new members and maybe cut them some slack occasionally, but the rules are pretty clearly stated.

[Thomas.]

They are but some people do occasionally miss them and may need them pointed out. Unlike them, we know the rules a lot better, if you want more members to stay then the older members (i.e. members who've been here more than 8 months) will have to be role-models instead of ignoring the newer members.

[Mike356]

I think the problem is that most people people are just posting in the private chats now and that most of the sub forums are inactive besides the gaming chat. I think we just need people to start posting stories or graphics again or get some serious discussions started again but we just need some way to keep interests high so people stop leaving.

[Thomas.]

I generally don't post in the FFM private forum (mainly because it's getting inactive and boring). I think the biggest problem of forum activity is that members have quite a lot more going on in their personal lives, I have many reasons why I can't come on, like today I had to walk 10km from Linlithgow to my town to raise money but this resulted in me grabbing a cup of coffee and sat down at the PC to come on the forums for a change. My life is getting busier because:

• I'm partaking in the Duke of Edinburgh Award.
• I prefer to hang out with my friends.
• I want to get good grades at school.
• I want to learn things at home that I can't at school like Italian, Portuguese and the Cold War.
• I am becoming more and more active in terms of sport and have joined various school clubs, the best of my abilities being used in the Badminton club and in two weeks, the Badminton tournament. I go to a Youth Club on Friday nights as well.
• And so forth.

This causes me to forget about TGTAP and do other things like Facebook, watching the TV and, sometimes, going to my friends' house.

Another problem might be that many guests who view the forum may be looking for answers but don't speak English or has very little knowledge of the English language. This has been discussed before - making TGTAP a multilingual or bilingual website with many members who can speak more than 30 languages between us all to help with it.

[Chris]

Actually Thomas, the multi-lingual idea may not be such a pointless thing now. I'm half surprised bigger forums like GTAF don't do it already since they obviously have a much larger membership than us.

It's something I'd be happy trialling to see how it goes. Obviously we're no way near big enough to warrant a forum for each language our users would want, but a single "Non-English" forum I think would suffice. With perhaps a "general chat" thread and an all encompassing "GTA help/chat" thread per language, or maybe no limits would be better. Any language growing disproportionately would perhaps get it's own sub-forum should we deem it necessary.

Ironically I think we would see less common languages getting used more. French, German, Dutch speakers etc. tend to only visit GTA sites in their own languages. Here we have a lot of Romanians, why? Because there are no large Romanian sites for them to visit. Same with Filipinos and Indians and a number of other countries.

One main rule would be to have an English translation of the topic title as the topic description. And the use of a tag to specify the language to aid with using online translators for anyone interested. e.g. "[FR] Je suis drole" would tell us the topic was in French.

Anyone else got any thoughts on this overall idea? Something we should trial, or is it unnecessary?

[Deji]

Try checking where the most visitors are coming in from (aside from english speaking countries, course) and start with that one. Although if there are not many, then it might not be such a great idea... Having the language change isn't going to attract visitors, but rather keep visitors on the website for longer. So it'd be a good idea to have the language set according to the area of the IP when the user first gets on the page. Otherwise it'd be almost useless.

[JustADummy]

Well, you could make a single section like (GTA SA), etc with no subforums for the most popular languages: Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc...

[Thomas.]

Maybe start a trial in a common language first that has multiple members who speak the language on the forum like Portuguese. Spiver Vice, Ivan, Dirty Harry, for example, could all start it up. Maybe start with any of the following languages and see how it goes:

German

French

Spanish

Portuguese

Dutch

Russian OR

Romanian

This is what I'm suggesting, any of these I believe would be the best to start with. I recommend out of those Portuguese, Spanish, French or German since we have a lot of members who have some sort of knowledge of those languages.

[Chris]

Well here are the top 25 countries based on visitors from the last 30 days:

[Thomas.]

Well here are the top 25 countries based on visitors from the last 30 days:

It appears as though we should start with Portuguese, Romanian, German, Dutch or Polish - the five most common countries in question that uses the Alphabet we use and the majority of the countries that don't speak English.

[Highwire]

That language thing is a good idea. Maybe we could have a thing (Like a drop-down box)to select which language they can view the forum in. Like we could put 5 or 6 popular languages and when someone comes online they can view the forum in their language. Also when the person has their language on and is viewing the forum they could make a topic in their language and if we have it on English we could still see it. Is that possible?