Re building NR

Pistnbroke

Now spray and pray has gone what do you think should be done to re vitalise NR?
First I notice that the other Rumours like Leica dont have a forum. So the forum seems to cause so may problems should it go? Do we relax the admission and let electronics sort out the Bots/monitor first 5 posts ? .Other forums are alive with comments on 180-600...nothing on here . Same for the Zf. The photo a day seems quite popular and the NR blog is good.
What to you think.

photobunny

With such an inactive forum it would actually be best for the site (and Nikon's brand) to kill the current forums. It makes the site seem dead, a forum should have daily updates. Maybe we need a discord channel and discord forums instead for the young crowd?

donaldejose

Pistnbroke: It seems to be your baby now. Good luck.

Pistnbroke

Surprised we have had nothing from the American owner. Perhaps his lack of interest is why it is dying. So I sent him an email telling him to get off his butt. ( as the yanks say)

Pistnbroke

I e mailed Peter the owner asking him to sort it out ....
" I am not sure what you are talking about " was the reply.
So I had another go...
" I can't stop him or anyone from leaving"

So with such disinterest what can anyone do? Must be making enough money from it as it is .
Next move ??

photobunny

The next move is making your own forum like I am doing for my local club. Or something more modern like a Discord group and forums there.

Pistnbroke

Already been the global moderator on a start up Nikon forum ..difficult to get enough members and in the end the owner could not pay the web fees so it went down

photobunny

Hosting it on discord would be free. Though I host the forum on AWS and it isn’t too expensive. Members make a forum, there should be a few dozen people at least posting in this thread, but it is only two people. Whatever you do, it’ll involve growing a membership from almost nothing.

mhedges

It will be tough but I think it's possible. There needs to be better integration with the comments section on the Blog postings. I guess Discord would be good for that since that is what is used for the comments.

Other option would be to switch to Xenforo software; pretty much all the successful forums I am on use it. Not sure what the costs are or if the old forum posts could be integrated.

photobunny

mhedges said:

It will be tough but I think it's possible. There needs to be better integration with the comments section on the Blog postings. I guess Discord would be good for that since that is what is used for the comments.

Other option would be to switch to Xenforo software; pretty much all the successful forums I am on use it. Not sure what the costs are or if the old forum posts could be integrated.

Unfortunately you can't mix Discus and Discord. But I agree you would need to mix the forums and news which would require writing a front end to the forums. Xenforo is good, but expensive. Though there are plenty of much more modern equivalents including completely headless ones that you can use your own fully custom front end (via NextJS, Rails, etc).

The main issue with this would be the desire from the owner. A web developer would need to install the forum software and make the new front page. Then you would need a web designer to theme it or buy an off the shelf theme that is close enough. And this might incur greater hosting costs.

As for migrating the old posts, while it is possible, you have to consider if it is worth it. It might be better to bring people into a brand new forum where they are more inclined to join in and not feel alienated by existing posts.

Pistnbroke

As usual its all down to money. If peter is making money out of the Rumour's family of blogs I suppose he is happy.
Again we have only about 3 people interested in doing/suggesting anything ..dead horse syndrome.
Despite being on here for years I did not know Blog had comments ...research showed 80 comments on the new Plena lens in less than 24 hrs.
Seems like everyone has given up on the Forum and comments on the Blog.
All the names on the Blog I have never seen on the Forum ...
Time for some integration .
PS I just registered for the Blog and there is a whole world going on there ..
close the forum lets all go Blogging
PPS Since I put a comment on the new lens I have been bombarded with comments so much so I might resign !!

donaldejose

The problem with the Blog comments is that they only comment on some news item. The forum would contain comments on topics, which I think is better and reaches far beyond comments on some current news item.

Pistnbroke

Time for Peter to get his brain out his ass and do something.

mhedges

photobunny said:

Unfortunately you can't mix Discus and Discord. But I agree you would need to mix the forums and news which would require writing a front end to the forums.

Oops lol the similar names confused me.

donaldejose said:

The problem with the Blog comments is that they only comment on some news item. The forum would contain comments on topics, which I think is better and reaches far beyond comments on some current news item.

Agree. Blog comments can create a lot of action but they are really a kind of temporary thing. Sure, they are still there if you can find the right old post but it's not the same thing as a forum.

henrik1963

The blog is all about new gear. The forum is about all the other stuff - not the same.

photobunny

henrik1963 said:

The blog is all about new gear. The forum is about all the other stuff - not the same.

That is how it is just now, but other sites show if the two are integrated then the people talking new gear also go into the photo of the day, post some photos from said new gear, etc. Basically you increase engagement. As it currently stands a new blog post gets engagement then that engagement dies as there is no incentive and in fact it is disincentivised to continue further.

photobunny

https://www.discourse.org
https://github.com/discourse/discourse

FYI if anyone does want to build a modern forum.

You could also build a forum with the disqus API, it's been done before but it is less of the shelf since it is headless and you'd need to build your own front end to the API

donaldejose

Maybe the basic underlying problem is that most of us who used to participate a lot in the forum are just too old now to be doing much photography or asking many questions or have the energy to get involved in many debates. The young are not here, even middle age seems to be underrepresented.

photobunny

donaldejose said:

Maybe the basic underlying problem is that most of us who used to participate a lot in the forum are just too old now to be doing much photography or asking many questions or have the energy to get involved in many debates. The young are not here, even middle age seems to be underrepresented.

I mercifully am not middle aged yet, but on my way. Though the process of applying to the forums here was a lot of hassle and most of the conversation is on the blog. I would love to see more conversation here, but the process is way too involved.

Forum sign up requires manual approval. Blog signup is as little as clicking a button 'sign-in with Google'. And the blog and forums being detached means there is little incentive to continue to the forums. Though moving users into the forums would solve one of the blogs biggest issues, people coming in from anywhere with no actual interest in Nikon commenting rubbish. The site admin and moderators having greater control and tools to monitor things like duplicate IP addresses would go a long way to bringing some community to the place.

mhedges

I am guilty of being middle aged, but I have a lot of "old man" hobbies and I can say many of them have quite active forums. User age isn't necessarily a barrier to success.

henrik1963

Take a look: Even the forum posts are mostly about gear.

If you want to talk about using gear - what is holding you back?

Pistnbroke

Given this some thought, If you look at Back country Gallery its a new forum thats booming . 80 % of users are Nikon so what can we learn?
First that stupid block of Photo a day going back to june 2021. Who looks at 2021 ?
Its a massive block before you get to forum and must cost $$$ to host. Get rid and just have Photo a day and let it auto delete after 12 months.
Precede that with the blog ...not on the top line ,Then the photo a day . Maybe Landscape/portrait /wildlife sections . Then the forum.
True Back country Gallery has a very active owner but we have the Blog .what we have needs modernising and making user friendly.
Its sad Peter is deaf.

photobunny

Oh there are plenty nikon users about... I find more of them on Back country Gallery and Canonrumours forums. It's just the NR forums that are dated and needing a good refresh. It would require Peter to want to invest in the forums and software, there are plenty of companies, including my own (Code Bunnies Ltd -- shameless pug, we do web service dev!).

The other option is to kill the forums. Inactive Nikon forums here has been one of the "Nikon is doomed" ammo.

Pistnbroke

I notice that Nikon Gear has had a completer make over and modernization.