Theme Upgrade (Starship Time)

[ArnoldRimmer]

We maybe could do with breaking the British one up chronologically.

Although the fact that it exists at all is an interesting testament to how massively the programme has changed. The British women were 6th ranked in the world when it was started!

 

[falcon9]

Yes… yes… yes… now you guys are talking. There are two sides to all of this.

Most social media uses “threaded” or “nested” comments. This forum is “flat”. Here is a brief overview of the two…

Discussions: Flat or Threaded?

Clay Shirky's classic articles on social software should be required reading for all software developers working on web applications. As near as I can tell, that's pretty much every developer these days. But I somehow missed Joel Spolsky's related 2003 article on social software, Building...

blog.codinghorror.com

Here is an update to the same article…

Web Discussions: Flat by Design

It's been six years since I wrote Discussions: Flat or Threaded? and, despite a bunch of evolution on the web since then, my opinion on this has not fundamentally changed. If anything, my opinion has strengthened based on the observed data: precious few threaded discussion models survive on...

blog.codinghorror.com

Jeff Atwood is the coder behind our forum software…

Jeff Atwood - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[falcon9]

In order to get people to engage in “flat” threads… there must be lots of them. Forums live and die by both the amount of thread and posts. Only posts or only threads will not work. This place has way too many posts in some of the threads.

The thing is… some people may be worried that this place will become like social media… bottom line… it’s just not possible. The software is fundamentally different (and we don’t have an algorithm screwing everything up).

Bottom line though… I’m just the admin guy… you all are the community. I can tell you this though… this software is capable of handling just as many threads and posts as r/Gymnastics. This place has great mods too… anything the software can’t handle is handled on an individual basis.

 

[makam]

British MAG/WAG YEAR would work. Nominate one of the local Brits to start the new thread on Jan 1st of each year. Fight for the honor!

I like the idea of the megathread also being by year. Might make it easier to find that thing that you know someone posted but you can’t remember exactly when but it might have been in the spring. I also think that important social media bits can have their own thread but if it is some minor gymnast announcing a school commitment or something that isn’t going to generate a discussion, it probably doesnt need its own topic.

 

[MaryClare]

I don’t see the need for the mega thread. If it’s newsworthy, then just start a new thread if it doesn’t fit in anywhere else. It makes everything much more organised and directs people to threads they are interested in.

 

[makam]

A lot of it is far too technical. Post after post of detailed judging analysis is quite a niche interest, even amongst long term fans.

Yes and no? It is interesting to see right around competitions and I’ve liked when some of the local judges have confirmed or debunked my feeling of “Gymnast X was scored too low” so it is nice to have the resource. But outside of the technical, NCAA and big competitions and fun rehashing of the 2000 Olympics, all that is left is speculation and gossip and I don’t really want to go too deep into that. You can go to reddit for that. Gymnastics is a niche sport, after all.

People from outside the US bringing in stuff from their countries competitions and training camps is really nice. We need more Canadian deets. Like, do they have training camps or internal competitions? USAG and the Brits (and previously the Russians) do a better job than most federations in providing info about camps and competitions. Like, what even is China doing these days? We need inside scoopers if we want to move beyond the US/British heavy content.

 

[MaryClare]

We need inside scoopers if we want to move beyond the US/British heavy content.

It’s an English language message board and these are the most dominant English speaking countries in gymnastics. The “if people want that they can go to Reddit” attitude is a dangerous one for any small message board following a niche interest.

Gymnaverse is definitely less diverse than Gymworld was. Gymworld had a significant number of Dutch, German, French and Italian posters. The demographics here are a bit different and more heavily reflect the board’s origins as a split from GGMB, which was always a very US centric board. The All Around forum was the natural successor to Gymworld, but as I’ve mentioned previously, it very much pitched at the wrong level and couldn’t attract new posters.

I’m Russian, living in Moscow and working within gymnastics. There’s plenty happening domestically, but it’s been years since I regularly posted about Russian gymnastics. There’s not a lot of interest in the lower level stuff. Yes yes, the gymternet loves having its heart broken by a Russian junior we’ve followed since she was 10 years old and flexing her feet to the Kalinka but do any of you really care about who makes the Moscow team for the youth spartakaida? Not in my experience. Where as amongst my Russian gymnastics friends, it is a hotly anticipated announcement followed by Dinamo v CSKA politics.

 

[falcon9]

Gymnaverse is definitely less diverse than Gymworld was.

Wasn’t Gymworld a German site? gymworld.de right?

.de - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[rlayt]

Yea it was based in Germany and it was GymWorld.de but financed by a Canadian in part. It had threads for Dutch gymnastics in Dutch, Germany in German, etc. I think the Germans were active. I met a few in Anaheim.

 

[MaryClare]

It was owned by a German, but other than a few sub forums, the discussion was in English

 

[KristyJ]

I know you do a ton of work on this forum and it’s all volunteer, so first of all I do want to say a huge thank you for that.
It does seem like the new theme is falling flat for almost all of the users who have commented though. I don’t know what went into the decision making, but I do worry that a site that is flashy but hard to navigate may not reach the desired goals of the forum, either (attracting and retaining posters chief among them).
I know that with media that has more images and larger blocks per post, my engagement with the platform becomes increasingly shallow over time because of the amount of work I have to put in to find what I am looking for.

 

[MaryClare]

I agree.

I’d be very concerned that the more occasional posters will log in during the next big event, see the format change and find it too much work to find what they want, and they won’t come back.

I think a lot of what keeps people coming here, however frequent or infrequent is that they like the interface of a traditional message board.

 

[Bob]

yes I agree. I want to be able to glance at the topics and decide, I’m interested in that one, I’m not interested in that one, and just click straight on the ones that are relevant to me. Having to scroll down through lots of different large blocks just in case there is something further down is off putting and time consuming.

 

[falcon9]

Here is a simple theme switcher…

 

[RedBirdie]

Just curious how many people primarily access the site on a mobile device vs. laptop or desktop. I know for me, I’m primarily on my phone and the original layout works much better on mobile. When I checked out the new layout on my laptop yesterday, it was (mostly) fine.

 

[Bob]

I’m desktop always. I have a tiny phone lol.

 

[falcon9]

58% mobile so far this year.

 

[MaryClare]

Phone or iPad.

 

[falcon9]

Add in tablets for another 2% or so. 60% mobile.

 

[falcon9]

39% of the people that come to the site use an iPhone.