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Macinsiders is Dead huh?

 
Old 01-17-2017 at 08:04 AM   #1
mitski
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Macinsiders is Dead huh?
So what happened to Macinsiders?
It used to be a really exciting place with a lot of character and personality

Now threads are very old and slow and it seems empty.


Did something happen?
Old 01-17-2017 at 11:24 AM   #2
Chad
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Hi Mitski!

We're alive and well, over 300,000 user visits in the past year, with over 1.6 million pageviews. About 30k unique visitors to the site each month, lots of students browsing the content on the site (our student-written articles, tips, forum posts, etc). However, a lot of the new students that view the content and articles we have don't sign up to post in the forum and take advantage of the great community we have here.



Forum activity isn't what it used to be, as you've noticed. A lot of the newer first-year students don't know about MacInsiders, and use the official Facebook group instead. But as we all know, the Facebook groups get spammy and hard to find things in real fast.

If you have any ideas on how to best engage the 1st and 2nd year students so they know that they can come to MacInsiders to post questions and get help, please let us know! Thanks

::bunny::
Old 01-17-2017 at 06:05 PM   #3
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lol

the only time those first years sign up is when their future at McMaster is foggy and uncertain
Old 01-17-2017 at 07:35 PM   #4
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Well the numbers are okay I guess.
If there are just numbers and archives you literally might as well make it a wiki because it is not a community, it is a wiki.

but there used to be like 30 real personalities, actual discussion of current events in real time, real discussion, much of it intensely local and unfiltered, not just re-hash info from mcmaster university, something less sanitized, and not review based 'how do i get a good grade in XYZ birdcourse"

are they all just on 4chan now?
The archives of info don't actually matter, b/c that is never what made macinsiders good, the community is gone. Can it ever come back?
Old 01-17-2017 at 07:54 PM   #5
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It would be great to have engaging discussion in the forums, I'm game for that. Post your ideas Mitski and we'll work on implementing them.
Old 01-17-2017 at 09:49 PM   #6
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after considering it all, really, from a lot of angles, make it a wiki.

that ain't coming back. Sentimentality doesn't matter at all.
Old 01-17-2017 at 09:58 PM   #7
Chad
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Turning it into an editable wiki would requiring a complete site revamp and redesign, and moderation of the edits.

If I were to do a full site redesign I would redesign it into a WordPress based site, make the homepage blog news style and allow students and guests to contribute posts/articles to the homepage for announcements and events. Then make a Q&A style system for people to post questions and answers that would be more like a yahoo answers and less of forum-driven discussion chat. Thoughts?
Old 01-17-2017 at 10:03 PM   #8
mitski
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Chad you couldn't even franchise macinsiders to other universities anymore. It was probably worth actual money to student councils in the past. it is now just an extension of ratemyprof/kijiji/rental sites/course review except worse b/c those places specialize and you just get the flotsam.

this is like a case study in how to build and let die an online community.

Honestly Chad, what the fuck where you thinking?
Old 01-17-2017 at 10:06 PM   #9
Chad
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Are you trolling me right now? LOL

Unless you have some ideas you'd like us to try, what is the point of this thread? If you don't like the forum or don't find it helpful, don't use the site.

Imperious, starfish, Watoko like this.
Old 01-17-2017 at 10:08 PM   #10
mitski
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Chad, close down macinsiders. take your lessons learned, and utilize them in some other pursuit.

Can we just admit that the fun is over?

this wiki talk and moderation is going to take a huge team of unpaid volunteers now that i think of it (in terms of editing ) which doesn't exist.

Look, if macinsiders is filled with empty topics and forums and subgroups, it is like barren, something for some archeologist to explore to understand like 2012 or something.
Old 01-17-2017 at 10:10 PM   #11
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you have to learn non-attatchment

you can move on, can you tell me what will be lost without it? that might be a good start, what is lost? can you recreate what will be lost in a tiny new format?

dude im helping the shit out of you, literally for no personally gain, suck it up.
Old 01-17-2017 at 10:11 PM   #12
Chad
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Thanks for your feedback Mitski.

I find it amusing that you're reminiscing about the community of past and the great discussions, yet your account is only 3 days old and you have 7 posts, 4 of which are in this thread. Looks like you were really engaged with those "real discussions" you speak of

Like I said earlier, the site gets a lot of traffic and still helps people via the articles. If the forums completely stop getting activity, I'll remove them.
Old 01-17-2017 at 10:13 PM   #13
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I care b/c something separate from 500+ student classes, and job training courses to make us good workers is what university used to be about, but is gone, idk giroux is a total prick, but still was onto something and mac hired him.

look, do you want to get through this, or are you giving up?
Old 01-17-2017 at 10:18 PM   #14
Chad
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Looking at the numbers, 30,000 people a month find the site useful. That's enough for me to keep it going in my opinion. If it was getting little to no visitors then I'd shut it down, of course.

I'm happy to help others out if they have a question, as a Mac alumni. I'm proud of being a Mac alumni and helping when I can to students that find the site.

Role reversal, if you had a site with 30,000 students visiting each month, would you close up shop? Why not make it useful and help those people?

If there's a different system/platform/method to convert the site into that can help fellow Mac students, I'd turn it into that if it makes sense.
Old 01-17-2017 at 10:25 PM   #15
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two part critique. There are barely 30 000 enrolled mcmaster students paying tuition. You receive 30 000 views. Yet how many of them truly contribute to a community? If you get that many, and they all don't add literally anything, that is a big problem fam. Why aren't they staying and joining? that is why i initially suggested a wiki, or a yahoo answers. and if that is where you are at, make the wiki. b/c that is what those are for, disseminating info. not community. which is fine. that is great, and a great service you could singularly provide.


if you want something social and real time, we're going to have to think harder



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