Hold on to users....

[NoteMe]

There is a thread going on in the chit chat part, where they are comparing visualbasicforum.com to this place....they have a lot of user now days, and they are getting bigger and bigger.

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=272623

I was thinking about one thing, there is a lot of new persons here too, but it looks like they are not here for long. Maybe they are not getting the help they want. Maybe it is to big stream through with the "gurus" here. What about trying to hold on to the "gurus" that is all ready here, by giving some of them moderators jobs and "decorations", maybe they would stay longer and make a usefull bunch of "gurus". Then the new ones would try to be like them, and want to be a "guru" too, and will possible stribe to be one. And maybe stay her longer....


Does this sound like a good idea....or is this what you are trying to avoid (getting to many mods)...

ØØ

[mendhak]

I'll add what I mentioned in there:

Improve your search engine rank.

The only page with keywords is the index.php page:


<meta name="keywords" content="vbulletin,forum,bbs,discussion,jelsoft">


This isn't going to help one bit. Even Visual Basic isn't in there! A couple keywords I can suggest are:

Visual Basic
vb
vb6
mendhak
HTML
ASP
XHTML
XML
VB.NET
C
C++
C#
ASP.NET
ADO.NET
Chit chat


All the other pages don't have any keywords.

Visualbasicforum.com has a lot of users because that site appears on search engines at a higher rank, vbforums.com does not.

The more users we get, the more we retain.

[zuperman]

i vote on advertise...like some Sponsored Links in google and others...

:cool: :D heres my 2 cents...:wave:

[mendhak]

Originally posted by zuperman
i vote on advertise...like some Sponsored Links in google and others...

:cool: :D heres my 2 cents...:wave:

Not a bad idea... JupiterMedia is earning revenue off vbforums, right? Spend some money on advertising on google. But no link exchanges! :eek:

Also, I'm really surprised that the keywords were never taken care of...

[NoteMe]

I bet we are getting 10000 sticky ads at the top of every section if we use more money now...:d

[brad jones]

I'm open to suggestions and ideas for making improvements to this forum. We've done a number of suggestions and have a few more in the works.

Additionally -- within reason -- I am open to having a few more moderators if there are qualified people who want to volunteer to be considered. This is something we can look at in January.

Brad

[mendhak]

hmm... supermendhak for supermod :afrog:

I like the sound of it. :D

[NoteMe]

I like that you are open minded about this. Even if you havn't said that anything is going to be changed.

So spread the word guys....everybody that think they are good enough for a section can probably apply to be a moderator....so maybe we are getting a couple of new ones to bother...:D

[brad jones]

Originally posted by NoteMe
I like that you are open minded about this. Even if you havn't said that anything is going to be changed.



The next two weeks are 'holiday' for a lot of people. I've raised the question of new mods with the existing group of moderators as well; however, until the first week of January, it is hit and miss with a few people whose feedback I want from the forum. In summary, don't expect changes in the next two weeks. After that, then it will be easier to get the input of the entire mod team.

I've been open minded with most suggestions made in the forums. We've made a lot of changes too. Most are subtle and done without a lot of fan fair. When someone who has been a positive presence in the forum asks for something, the mods and I listen and take their suggestions/requests very seriously.

Brad

[mendhak]

Originally posted by brad jones
When someone who has been a positive presence in the forum asks for something, the mods and I listen and take their suggestions/requests very seriously.



So I've noticed. :)

[NoteMe]

Hehe...you in-directly (is that a word) said that I have a positive presence in the forum...:D...I didn't think those changes that are represented in this thread would happen over night....neither all of them. But as long as you are discussing them with the rest of the team. I am fine. I am going for my one week holiday tomorrow too. Wow one week free this year. Hope it will be better next year.

See you next year.

ØØ

[brad jones]

The meta data/keywords is something that I'm surprised wasn't added by default by the Jupitermedia developers/sys admins. You'll see a change in that regard this week (made by me). That is a simple HTML thing to do.

Brad!

[mendhak]

Some more keyword suggestions

vb source code
vb code
visual basic tutorial
vb tutorial
database
networking
com
com+
dll
OLE
API
DCOM
JET
DAO
active server pages
mendhak rules!
vb code library
vb help
php


It should help just a liiiitle bit, but every bit counts.

[NoteMe]

Some more...

programming
making games
graphics programming
directx
d3d
game engine
sdk
opengl


and maybe others

loop
array
list
hash
node
binary
hex
managed code


and tell us if you need more...

ØØ

[brad jones]

A smaller number of good keywords is better than a larger number of keywords. I've added some of the bigger hitters.

Brad!

[brad jones]

Originally posted by mendhak
Some more keyword suggestions

....
active server pages
mendhak rules!
vb code library
....




And yes.... I did see that one.....

[NoteMe]

I hope you saw the other one he posted too....;)

[The Hobo]

I hardly post here anymore, but I'm sure if I was made moderator of the PHP forum I'd move in. ;)

'Course, then I'd have to stop complaining so much.

[NoteMe]

Hehe...yeah you where one of the persons that I thought of when I wrote about more mods....I think you would have been perfect...

[zuperman]

What about a poll to choose new mods...it will be a positive idea to let regular users choose who they want to be the new mods...

is vbforums a democracy ?:confused:

[zuperman]

Originally posted by NoteMe
Hehe...yeah you where one of the persons that I thought of when I wrote about more mods....I think you would have been perfect...

I agree also...The Hobo its one of the persons that i like to read more...:wave: :wave: :wave:

[NoteMe]

Originally posted by zuperman
What about a poll to choose new mods...it will be a positive idea to let regular users choose who they want to be the new mods...

is vbforums a democracy ?:confused:

One poll for each forum part that need moods??? Hmmm...first I thought it was a genious idea....but think about how embarresing it is too lose...:)

[NoteMe]

Originally posted by zuperman
I agree also...The Hobo its one of the persons that i like to read more...:wave: :wave: :wave:


CornedBee is an other option for C++, but I guess he will never be allowed to mod anything here as long as he mods over at that other place too...:(

[zuperman]

Humm...:confused: and let the vbforums mod campaign begins :D :D :D

[NoteMe]

What do you meen by hmmm....it's the truth...if there will be a poll, that actually seems like a good idea. Then I will waith and see if anyone else are trying to mod the game section before I maybe will apply....

[zuperman]

Originally posted by NoteMe
What do you meen by hmmm...

i mean...hmmm :wave: :wave: :wave:

[brad jones]

Originally posted by zuperman
is vbforums a democracy ?:confused:


To put it simply, no, it is not.

I would prefer that people PM me or one of the existing moderators to let us know that you are intersted in helping with moderation. This will be considered, but no promises are made. We will look at your involvement in the forum(s) you are interested in helping with in order to see how much you've been interacting as well as what tone you've been using. If there is a need for moderation in that forum(s), then the chances are good.

One side note - it is the holidays, so this is a topic to ponder, but it will be January before we have time to look at this seriously.

Brad

[zuperman]

Originally posted by brad jones
To put it simply, no, it is not.

I would prefer that people PM me or one of the existing moderators to let us know that you are intersted in helping with moderation. This will be considered, but no promises are made. We will look at your involvement in the forum(s) you are interested in helping with in order to see how much you've been interacting as well as what tone you've been using. If there is a need for moderation in that forum(s), then the chances are good.

One side note - it is the holidays, so this is a topic to ponder, but it will be January before we have time to look at this seriously.

Brad

ok,ok,ok...yor the boss...:thumb:

[Pirate]

My votes :
VB.NET : Edneeis .
C#.NET :????????
ASP.NET :Cander?
C/C++ : CornedBee .
PHP : The Hobo .
Birthday section : mendhak:p

[Merri]

VBForums is slow... sometimes I need to push Refresh several times until I get to a page. EVBF seems to load a lot faster. And yeah, I'm looking now if I'm gonna switch my main VB forum ;)

[Kasracer]

Originally posted by brad jones
I'm open to suggestions and ideas for making improvements to this forum. We've done a number of suggestions and have a few more in the works.

Additionally -- within reason -- I am open to having a few more moderators if there are qualified people who want to volunteer to be considered. This is something we can look at in January.

Brad I'll be a mod :D

I amdin my own forums as well as a friends. Well I used to admin mine, right now it is closed while I re-design the site.

[VisionIT]

Kasracer a mod... Am I really that drunk? :p

To the Merri twit that said VBF is slow...

It's not slow, infact it's far from it. I've only ever seen VBF fail once.. and that was a few weeks ago when the database fubar'd itself over... and even then it was fixed within a few hours. It may have loads of ad's... but VBF own's. :p

Try upgrading your connection... then moan if it doesn't work! :)

I have a 14.4K line which still downloads a 10mb file in 3 seconds!!! :p I've upgraded the BAUD rate don't u know! :D

[Rally2000]

If I may say so! I personally don’t like to ask to many questions here, I always feel that I’m to stupid to post here.
I think it would be a great plus to have some newbie sections in place, that way if all you good coders read a thread you would already know what you are dealing with. I guess that sometimes it is just hard to look back and think about the days when u was a beginner to.
I may be wrong, and I know that no one here owes anyone anything when it comes to asking a question, but lots of times I get the feeling that a certain level of experience is expected.
Take me for example, I know noting “and I know I don’t”, and that is the reason I somewhat feel out of place here.
Sorry for being off topic, just thought I’ll throw this into the mix.
Regards!

[mendhak]

Originally posted by Rally2000
If I may say so! I personally don’t like to ask to many questions here, I always feel that I’m to stupid to post here.
I think it would be a great plus to have some newbie sections in place, that way if all you good coders read a thread you would already know what you are dealing with. I guess that sometimes it is just hard to look back and think about the days when u was a beginner to.
I may be wrong, and I know that no one here owes anyone anything when it comes to asking a question, but lots of times I get the feeling that a certain level of experience is expected.
Take me for example, I know noting “and I know I don’t”, and that is the reason I somewhat feel out of place here.
Sorry for being off topic, just thought I’ll throw this into the mix.
Regards!

This forum is in place not to show-off knowledge, but to get questions answered. Your question can't be that stupid, because I've seen the stupidest of the stupidest. :)


So anytime, ask anything!

[Merri]

Originally posted by VisionIT
It's not slow, infact it's far from it. I've only ever seen VBF fail once.. and that was a few weeks ago when the database fubar'd itself over... and even then it was fixed within a few hours. It may have loads of ad's... but VBF own's. :p

Try upgrading your connection... then moan if it doesn't work! :)

512k DSL should be fast enough... :rolleyes: Whatever the reason, VBForums is the slowest site I visit. Some years back I paid the visits here with a 14.4 and it was nearly as "fast" at the time :D

[Protocol]

Works fine for me.....

The only problem is the frame on the top right of the browser window (which SOMETIMES show adds) displays the IE Action Cancelled page....

But other than that, it's fine

[NotLKH]

Originally posted by Merri
Whatever the reason, VBForums is the slowest site I visit. Some years back I paid the visits here with a 14.4 and it was nearly as "fast" at the time :D

It must be you.

:rolleyes:

[mendhak]

Originally posted by Protocol
Works fine for me.....

The only problem is the frame on the top right of the browser window (which SOMETIMES show adds) displays the IE Action Cancelled page....

But other than that, it's fine

If you have Kazaalite installed (or somehow had your HOSTS file modified), that'll happen.

[VisionIT]

Try flushing your DNS...

NTL's cache was slowing www.sainsburystoyou.co.uk a few months ago... and that caused hell with the network. I think NTL were sued actually as a result.

Couldn't happen to another company :)

[manavo11]

Originally posted by Rally2000
If I may say so! I personally don’t like to ask to many questions here, I always feel that I’m to stupid to post here.
I think it would be a great plus to have some newbie sections in place, that way if all you good coders read a thread you would already know what you are dealing with. I guess that sometimes it is just hard to look back and think about the days when u was a beginner to.
I may be wrong, and I know that no one here owes anyone anything when it comes to asking a question, but lots of times I get the feeling that a certain level of experience is expected.
Take me for example, I know noting “and I know I don’t”, and that is the reason I somewhat feel out of place here.
Sorry for being off topic, just thought I’ll throw this into the mix.
Regards!

Not many people would post there... Admiting that you are a newbie, might not happen...

[Rally2000]

How do you figure that?
Why would you not admit to be a newbie?
If I post something, and you could not tell that I’m a newbie, heck that would make you as stupid to the subject as me! (No ovens) I think that it would help people to overcome the fear of asking a stupid question.
And to clarify something, (this is for those of us where English is not the native language) when I say stupid that does not have anything to do with being dumb.

[manavo11]

Just guessing... Anyway, how do you separate the noob questions from the others? With what criteria? :(

[Pirate]

Rally2000,
Well everybody is newbie in the begining and it's no shame to ask even questions you think they're silly .

A Person Who Asks A Question Is A Fool For Five Minutes, A Person Who Doesn't Is A Fool Forever ...

:)

[Rally2000]

manavo11!
That would be easy, each and every one of us should know where to post a Question.
Or where they belong, VB.Net or VB.Net Newbie’s.

Take a look and see! Go into the Forum and look how many posts you see that are posted by Newbie’s (And I’m not talking about those that belittle the fact that they don’t know by claiming that there new) again, (no Ovens to anyone). I’m talking real Newbie, someone that hardly knows how to do the “Hello World” App.
Take me for instance, I started to learn VB6 about a little over a Year ago (not full time either) and then I posted a question about witch version to learn, 6 months later, I just wanted some opinions! After hearing what some of the members had to say I decided to quit VB6 then and there and go with .net instead. Now! Here I am again almost at the same place I was over a year ago. To make a long story short, I don’t belong in a forum that talks about “what I think is advanced programming”. That is how I feel about it!
Fact remains! I feel highly uncomfortable to post questions because it seems that they are low grade compared to the other Questions asked.


Pirate!
I absolutely agree but that just don’t seem to help much, heck maybe It’s an ego thing. I don’t know!!
:blush:

[manavo11]

Well I suppose. It's just that we'll get a lot of double posting... Just don't feel shy... You aren't the only one ;)

[Pirate]

Why newbie ask questions ???? simply because they have no patience to read furthur , they don't even give their minds chance to figure simple things . They just jump to the IDE and start coding with very basic knowlege . When you read a book VB.NET for example , then you'd realize that you shouldn't have asked some questions , but again ask anytime anyhow as long as you did your best to avoid asking by reading or even trying to think . :)

[Merri]

Umm... it doesn't matter what the questions are like. There are tons of silly questions out there. I like answering to the easy ones (meaning: easy for me). And I have things to learn, since I have learned VB as a hobby for... six years by now. And yes, I've had months of pauses. If you don't know and can't find out yourself, ask. Atleast you get a change for an answer. And besides, who knows you here? Even if you ask a "stupid" question, it will not harm you at all to get the answer.


There is the other way around: I give sometimes stupid answers :rolleyes:

[Rally2000]

I suppose everyone has there way of looking at things, and I don't disagree with any of it.
In closing I have to say something.
Pirate!
While I do agree that most want to run before they learn to walk, but also try to look at it from a different prospective, some of us are quicker, or learn something period, by looking at existing code. Myself, I have noticed that like reading on the msdn website sometimes confuses me more that what it’s helping. That is where the example code really helps, sometimes it is just easier to look at code than to read for half a day.

[manavo11]

Anyway, Rally, try starting a new thead with a poll and see what people respond (since some people won't have seen it here) and make sure you PM Brad to get his attention to this as you probably aren't the only shy member we have ;)

[Protocol]

:blush:

[cgj]

Originally posted by mendhak
I'll add what I mentioned in there:

Improve your search engine rank.

The only page with keywords is the index.php page:



This isn't going to help one bit. Even Visual Basic isn't in there! A couple keywords I can suggest are:

Visual Basic
vb
vb6
mendhak
HTML
ASP
XHTML
XML
VB.NET
C
C++
C#
ASP.NET
ADO.NET
Chit chat


All the other pages don't have any keywords.

Visualbasicforum.com has a lot of users because that site appears on search engines at a higher rank, vbforums.com does not.

The more users we get, the more we retain.
Yes mendhak
This forum isn't indexed by google i am not sure if vbforums can be indexed invasion board does get indexed by google,
CGJ

[Something Else]

Originally posted by cgj
invasion board does get indexed by google
ummm, I'm loopless.
Invasion Board????
What the heck is that!


"Get" Indexed???

I believe, at least the way it sounds, the customer adds keywords to google.
Google can't spend time doing it for their customers.

:confused:

[brad jones]

Originally posted by Something Else
I believe, at least the way it sounds, the customer adds keywords to google. Google can't spend time doing it for their customers.

:confused:


I believe that Google has bots/spiders that go through the web to index and cache pages. The rankings of sites are based on a lot of information found by these bots. One thing that can help with a site's rankings is the number of other sites that link back to the forum. Keywords also help as do a number of other things.

So, everyone should link to VBForums from their own sites :D

Brad!

[VisionIT]

Originally posted by brad jones
So, everyone should link to VBForums from their own sites :D


and be dragged down with you? No chance :p

[mendhak]

Originally posted by brad jones


So, everyone should link to VBForums from their own sites :D



Did that way back. You should thank me. :D

[Merri]

http://merri.net

See? Its in all pages. And its been there like forever. :D

[MartinLiss]

Maybe we should start a VB Forums Ring.

[manavo11]

Originally posted by MartinLiss
Maybe we should start a VB Forums Ring.

:confused:

[crptcblade]

Martin is trying to draw in the vast Hobbit population.

[MartinLiss]

Webring (http://dir.webring.com/rw)

[manavo11]

Never heard of it...

[mendhak]

A webring is basically a group of sites, the webmasters of which belong to a certain online community.

Webrings usually consist of sites all related to that certain topic, but since a lot of us have diverse websites, it could just be the webmasters being part of the community.

I believe it's indicated by a certain logo placed on the website.

Someone make a cool VBRing logo?

[manavo11]

Sounds smart. Why don't you start it?

[Kasracer]

Originally posted by MartinLiss
Webring (http://dir.webring.com/rw) Webrings suck because to be in one, you have to advertise it. So add another crappy ass ad to the forum.

Besides, I have never meet or seen a person actually check out other sites within a webring. Usually, no one cares.

Everyone cares about the ulmightly google, so VBForums.com needs to get linked on as many sites as possible.

[MartinLiss]

Originally posted by manavo11
Sounds smart. Why don't you start it? I've brought it up with Brad and the other Moderators.

[manavo11]

Good :)

[mendhak]

But not this one, please:

http://www.vbwire.com/Images/vbforums.gif

[Kira Roark]

I'm not the most active member, but I've been here a couple years and have found it to be the best.

Two comments:
1. The search needs improvement.
2. The site has been incredibly slow lately. Every time I go to a new page, my browser turns completely white for a 2 or 3 seconds....it is really annoying. Oh yeah, I'm using the latest IE6 on a T3 at work. This site is the slowest site that I go to.

But I still come....b/c it is the best!