[palacequeen]

We have been a members for the last couple of years now and since moving here ten years ago, we have found this forum an excellent vehicle to communiciation, but in recent months I have noticed and even had social conversations that the VN Forum has losted its edge.

I feel that it needs another plug, to refresh and position it back to where it was.
ie local papers, free mags THE PALACE, Living South and everything else to get local people and new ones to top up the activity.

Crystal Palace and surrounding areas is such a great place to live in London, it just does not cease to amaze me and our love for the place just keeps on growing. Ok, We have all the bad stuff as well, but what place doesnt, surely that is another reason for us to gather and speculate this Forum.

If anyone out there left have any ideas what I could do to contribute please let us know and we would be happy to do it. As for James and team, we could not praise them enougth.

[James]

It is important for VN to keep evolving so that we have a successful web site. I think that part of 'edginess' that you feel is missing from the forum is due to our changes on crime reporting. However, as discussed here, we have provided an alternative channel for this using our Yahoo! Group.

If you are looking for the next big thing, then you need to mosey on over to our wiki. It is coming along quite nicely and the good thing is that your forum membership is shared with the wiki system, so you don't need two accounts. Democratising all our web site content and making it available for the public to edit is a big step for us... and it seems to have paid off quite well. A significant benefit is that ad revenues are higher on the wiki so we are steadily getting closer to breakeven now. We have invested heavily in a dedicated server for our site, and whilst are overheads are much higher we have the capacity to grow and add new services when we want. Visitor levels on the wiki are steadily increasing.

The main change I would recommend to our members is to spend a little bit more time on our wiki, helping to develop it. Everyone can help to write a page on the street that they live in, and if you want a bigger challenge then why not grab a topic from the forum and summarise it... e.g. Crystal Palace Tram proposal.

[palacequeen]

The contents and materials of VN forum will itself grow, with hits and misses. The issue I was try to get across is the marketing and advertising of VN and exposing the forum to new people, local people and even people who have left VN, for their own personal reasons and getting them back on board.

I recognise which I sure everybody else does, the internet is a fantastic tool and I would like to see it press on for Crystal Palace and surrounding areas. A good example, a flyer which I received yesterday, for an all night party this evening, to celebrate the summer and creavity of young musicians and DJ's. Utilitizing the internet, it had not only highlighted what they are doing but also what Crystal Palace has to offer.

Peoples opinions, whether constructive or not, which has happened time and again, I for one like to see communiciated. I appreciate the task would be more challenging, which in previous years, it has been demostrated that control of content can get out of hand.

We have learnt from these lessons and have got back to the purpose of the forum. My point, a drive to get more people involved, starting new topics, writing more feedbacks and comments, and basically getting me interested in issues around our area with Virtual Norwood Forum, that I, as well as everybody could be interested in and comment.

[smallB]

I also feel that this forum has lost its vitality and oomph recently and I find myself coming to it less and less. I've been to the Yahoo pages and the Wikis and they just do not replace the vitality that this forum once had.

This forum was once a very good place for discussion and banter and it is dissapointing that it isn't anymore. The removal of the crime reporting is not part of the issue as I feel that it only made people paranoid about going out in their area so I was quite pleased to see it go.

What I do feel is that the forum can sometimes be over-moderated. This opinion will not be popular with the moderators and I'm sure many arguments and points will be posted below in no time denying this.

The fear of legal challenges is something that all moderators need to consider and those considerations need to be taken seriously. What I do feel is happening here is that moderators are being slightly over-paranoid of those legal challenges. When you look through this forum there are loads of instances where threads or posts have been moved or deleted, amended or edited and I feel that people are just too wary of posting anything for fear it offends the moderators. Criticising the moderators can also bring a large post with comments that border on the sarcastic.

What is left is bland opinions and views that interest no-one. I often look at the BBC 'Have your say' columns and they seem to be less regulated than this board as are comments on thisislocallondon or Sky News. If they can do it, why not VN?

[Silver]

I am intrigued to read comments that echo my thoughts recently. I too used to log on first thing in the morning and throughout the day. It all went wrong for me when the CPCA put their spanner in the works and we were told we could not discuss them. The other thing is most deffinately the crime reporting. I think people do want to know what is going down and (I was going to say who was going down!) but I mean whose doing it!

I think the whole CPCA fiasco was unfortunate and I quite understand James not wanting to go there but I feel we should be able to say things like 'Tape accross the top of Gypsy Hill does anyone know why?' without concern. There is also a huge debate to be had about local policing but I haven't felt like starting it. I love James and all he is doing and I am sure his Wikki is going to be great but it took me a long time to get used to the forum and I love it and all it stood for. I even loved it when I got told off!

[James]

smallB, on Aug 11 2007, 03:28 PM, said:

there are loads of instances where threads or posts have been moved or deleted, amended or edited

I would beg to disagree on this point and I think our moderating team would agree with me. It's been a long while since we have to deal with anyone causing a problem. To illustrate the point I will share with you some information that isn't usually put out into the public domain... the last topic that we removed was on 21st June by someone advertising personal child care services - we removed it because of the problems associated with Internet Grooming. The one before that was on 16th June which was a complaint about a local business (the comments said legal action was pending) and we have to go all the way back to May to find our third removed post which was about crime. Three topics in three months isn't a big deal, especially when you consider that we've had 1200 posts in the same period.

If it is necessary for a moderator to edit a post they try to preserve as much as possible of the original comments. It is then timestamped and we endeavour to provide an explanation of our actions by PM or on the post itself as appropriate.

We only move topics around and edit titles to help keep the forum organised, so that everyone can find topics more easily.

smallB, on Aug 11 2007, 03:28 PM, said:

Criticising the moderators can also bring a large post with comments that border on the sarcastic.

Some of my responses can be quite long but I think it is important to address all points as fully as possible. I'm sorry if you think that is being sarcastic.

smallB, on Aug 11 2007, 03:28 PM, said:

What is left is bland opinions and views that interest no-one. I often look at the BBC 'Have your say' columns and they seem to be less regulated than this board as are comments on thisislocallondon or Sky News. If they can do it, why not VN?

Our caution is purely related to self-preservation. Unlike the broadcasters and newspapers we don't have access to legal advisors. However we have set up our Yahoo! Group so that unmoderated discussions are possible. I would recommend that some of our more seasoned members try to get the Yahoo! Group kickstarted by posting some interesting discussions... it's all done by email so it is very straightforward.

[palacequeen]

smallb Quote-What is left is bland opinions and views that interest no-one. I often look at the BBC 'Have your say' columns and they seem to be less regulated than this board as are comments on thisislocal london or Sky News. If they can do it, why not VN?

Which is another good point and reason why we need to widen the Net. It would be a such a shame if the spin off of VN forum(snorewood), on the net, becoming more popular and instead being used as an actual forum for local issues.

As regards to the CPCA, we feel another great tool for local folks. I would like to see that given back, to the people, for the people, in Crystal Palace and surrounding areas. These are my opinions.

[LSPE]

I strongly disagree with the "lost of edge".

I have been living in CP for over 4 years and I have learnt most of the things about the area an its issues throught VN, plus I keep on forwarding info to my friends and they have "checked" the site to pick up useful information to help their decifion to move here.

There are many important threads such us those related to planning permission that sometimes (let's face it) would ahve gone unnoticed wouldn't have been for someone posting ths info on here.

Also information/discussion re the Park development that are regularly posted on here are very useful above all for those who cannot attend the events but want to help the decision process somehow.

Let's not forget information about shops and restaurants that are opening or have opened, my friends always wonder how do I manage to know so much about the area.

Of course nothing is perfect and everything is "perfectable", also, probably we are having a "quiet-er" period so many huge issues that we had in the past (one way, libray) have gone dormant for the time being; but that, I believe, is part of the growth cycle.

I am sure that there will be other "edgying" issues to discuss and tackle in the future but let's not forget that the edge is provided by the users and it's up to us to challenge the "system" and give the added value to any topic important for the community.

I have enjoyed the activities and the local amenities more in the past 2 years thanks to the information I could gather from here, as I work long hours in town I was "cut off" from the community and thanks to the internet and VN I managed to learn more and appreciate more the area.

i.e. I am off to POPS in the Park tonight and without VN it would have been more difficult to learn about this event ... cheers!

[James]

James, on Aug 11 2007, 01:58 PM, said:

Everyone can help to write a page on the street that they live in

Thank you Sylvester for starting the wiki page for Forsyte Crescent

[Uncle Wilf]

The forum remains informative but I think a certain buzz that once was there is now absent but then things do change over time anyway.
One observation - James will be able to say if this is truth or just perception - is that the number of activity in terms of posts seems to have dipped but maybe this is just perception.

[James]

The number of new posts per day is lower than average, which is as expected during the summer months.

The number of web site visitors, page impressions and new registrations per day is increasing.

Funding is now 70% of breakeven... 40% from Google Ads (increasing), 20% from member sponsorship, 10% from 0871 numbers.

[Bosie]

Just out of interest what are the things that people feel would make the forum more "edgy"?

[skigirl]

I'm a bit reluctant to enter this debate as it is the forum's owner's rights to steer the forum in whichever direction he chooses.

However, I find that in the desire to keep threads on topic and reduce duplication of similar threads, I get a feeling of quite heavy-handedness from the moderators. I understand that 'chatting' is not encouraged, VN is more a resource of information than a 'social club'. But I think such exclusion of natural chat and topic drift detracts from the vibrant forum that VN could be. It can also come over as being somewhat unfriendly to newbies.

All that said though, I have found out useful information on here and I hope have given some too. But I feel no sense in belonging to the VN community as I do on one or two others forums in which I participate. But all good wishes to those who run VN.

[ben]

I'm not quite sure what the complaint is here.

James, many, many thanks from all the silent(ish) partners on this site who find it informative, helpful, and entertaining.

You are very greatly appreciated!

[James]

I think the difference is that we are trying to "add value". Chatting is discouraged because it has a high impact on resources but if a significant number of people want it included then we could investigate the option further.

However, how many unmoderated chat sites, with all their adult content, spam and swearing do you feel are worthwhile?

I believe they are two-a-penny, easily abused and easily discarded. I don't perceive them as holding any value and also believe many are tainted by hidden spyware.

I do agree that VN is heavily moderated but that is intentional. We operate from a neutral point of view, so you are free to express your opinion, as long as you do so without being offensive or potentially libellous. We don't censor views, we only moderate the language used to convey them.

(otherwise this topic wouldn't be here would it?)