[QatzelOk]

Like many other members, when I read my older posts from a few years ago, I am often surprised by how either brilliant or weird they are.

I suppose I will feel the same way about this post 5 years from now.

[Goldberk]

Do you never feel that your posts from the present are weird??

[Siberian Fox]

Like many other members, when I read my older posts from a few years ago, I am often surprised by how either brilliant or weird they are.

The miraculous "free market Jesus" was one of your best creations IMHO.

[QatzelOk]

The miraculous "free market Jesus" was one of your best creations IMHO.

Why, thanks, SF.

It's not based on my own personal experience of being a filthy rich narcissist. But the many I have known.

[joe]

Excellent news

May it flourish for another 10 years

I myself are coming up 10 years as a member here

Keep up the fantastic work.

[Sithsaber]

I'm new but hopefully will survive here (this site is a lot more tolerant than most and actually encourages the arrival of people with differing backgrounds and beliefs)

[GandalfTheGrey]

I think I am one of the demographics fox referred to in the OP who was looking around for a politics forum in 2003 exactly at the time political emotions were at a peak.

I've been here so long that I still remember when Demosthenes was a raving neo-con (almost my first post was when I derailed a thread of his arguing why American conservatives should unquestionably support Israel), and The American Lion was even more right wing (back then he had the handle 'The Republican Party').

Pofo seems invinsible now, but let me tell you one black couple of days in 2004, it looked like the end - when hackers sabotaged the forum, compromised several moderator accounts and deleted a massive amount of data. But it of course endured, and only grew stronger and stronger.

[dgun]

[Igor Antunov]

So how do you see the site by the end of 2022 Fox? Any long-term plans?

And now for some stats!



There was a peak in traffic during december, but the bump seems to have abated steadily-maybe it will settle at a higher total than August of 2012, signifying actual growth in activity. The next two months will tell:



Social Networking Statistics:



Despite being ranked 380,363/30,000,000 by Alexa, your site has little to no exposure potential. Social networking is the key to engaging more unique visitors, you have google plus and twitter sharing links, but consider facebook, reddit, digg, blogger, etc as well and go beyond mere sharing shortcuts. Allow people to post on the forum directly in a select sub-section using their existing accounts. Experiment with direct integration.

Hand in hand with the social networking revolution, you need to start taking into account your core demographic:

[Siberian Fox]

So how do you see the site by the end of 2022 Fox? Any long-term plans?

In the long term I think PoFo should be hosting real-world debates and posting the videos to the site. Failing that, it should be video conference debates. Perhaps recorded to begin with, and eventually live, with questions from members who are online. I think in the very long term, live streaming video debate will be the future of forums, but there will always be a role for text based discussions too.

Social networking is the key to engaging more unique visitors, you have google plus and twitter sharing links, but consider facebook, reddit, digg, blogger, etc as well and go beyond mere sharing shortcuts. Allow people to post on the forum directly in a select sub-section using their existing accounts. Experiment with direct integration.

I've looked at mods for allowing log-ins from Facebook and other sites, but the integration with the forum software seems buggy. Also, on Facebook in particular, because it is not an anonymous service I'm not sure how good a match it will be for a political site - unlike Twitter, which I really should work on more. Undoubtedly PoFo needs to engage more with political bloggers and try to connect with their audiences.

I have tried experimenting with social bookmarking services, but the plug-ins were massively underutilised and slowed down the pages with tons of JavaScript, so I got rid of them.

Rather than trying to do everything at once I will focus on getting the design changes finished, then building up our presence on Twitter and then getting involved seriously in the blog arena. After all that, then it can be time to reassess and see if it is time to move into another area too. I feel it will be more beneficial to do one social networking service well, than all of them badly.

Not to forget search...

The main problem I have identified is search traffic that lands directly in topic pages. We get many thousands of unique visitors that land directly into the middle of topics from searches, but the overwhelming majority 'drop off' rather than exploring the site. This is quite unlike visitors who arrive on forum indexes or the board index, who overwhelmingly do click further and explore the site.

At some point the topic display page is going to have to be redesigned or amended. I had hoped the "similar topics" would have a significant affect, but it has not. It is difficult because I'm designing for two different audiences - the forum regulars are interested in the content of the thread, and at present the topic page is focused almost exclusively on that, but the new visitor needs to be shown a glimpse of the wider PoFo at the same time.

Hand in hand with the social networking revolution, you need to start taking into account your core demographic:

The quantcast statistics are probably more accurate than Alexa, as Quantcast is directly measured, whereas Alexa is a pure estimate. The main differences are the age spread and education graph:

http://www.quantcast.com/politicsforum. ... OBAL#!demo

The fact that the largest group of members are still probably penniless students doesn't bode well for raising funds to expand via advertising, or organise events etc. I'm not quite sure what can be done about that.

[Igor Antunov]

The fact that the largest group of members are still probably penniless students doesn't bode well for raising funds to expand via advertising

All they need to do is click on an ad.

It doesn't bode well for membership subscriptions though.

[Figlio di Moros]

Ah, I see we've turned this to the future of PoFo- Fox, while it's true we're many penniless lumpen, there is a wide berth of skills that can be put to work on PoFo's behalf. We've seen members work together to build political quizes, and I believe there have been three or more polyaxial PoFo quizes in the last five years or so. Some of the labor involved could be quite cheap, though I understand there's a continuous problem with server capacity.

I wonder how much extra space you'd need for seperate formats? You brought up dual needs between maintaining and bringing in new members, and yet I know you already have more ads for visitors. Would it be cost-prohibitive at this time for a seperate format for visitors that makes it easier, and encourages, browsing the board?

[The Clockwork Rat]

If you're implying that becoming a member would expose you to ads, then that would probably discourage people from joining. Fox does not want this.

[Igor Antunov]

I like the video integration idea. In fact fox can do this right now, just set up a pofo official youtube channel and have users affiliate their vids with it then have the vids available on here somewhere.

[Figlio di Moros]

If you're implying that becoming a member would expose you to ads, then that would probably discourage people from joining. Fox does not want this.

No, I'm wondering if having a seperate format for visitors that prompts browsing is cost-prohibitive.

[The Clockwork Rat]

Oh right, though still leaving the option to use either style upon signing up?

[Figlio di Moros]

Well, there's already several styles that are possible on the forum.

[Siberian Fox]

I wonder how much extra space you'd need for seperate formats? You brought up dual needs between maintaining and bringing in new members, and yet I know you already have more ads for visitors. Would it be cost-prohibitive at this time for a seperate format for visitors that makes it easier, and encourages, browsing the board?

A change like that wouldn't have any noticeable cost implications. It would just require a small increase in CPU usage. I think that's quite a good idea and I'll seriously consider it if I can't come up with something that seems to be acceptable for both members and guests simultaneously.

I like the video integration idea. In fact fox can do this right now, just set up a pofo official youtube channel and have users affiliate their vids with it then have the vids available on here somewhere.

I looked into this a little while ago. Although Youtube seems like an obvious choice because of the size of the community I think more consideration needs to be given to the implications of handing over all of one's content to Google. I thought perhaps to use another service (such as the paid options on Vimeo) to host the content that was directly embedded on PoFo. Giving us the potential for embedded HD, no-ads video, or perhaps even no ads for members and ads for guests or something like that.

Even using a seperate service, a YouTube channel would still need to be maintained though, so as to tap into the larger audience. Another possibility might be a paid HD service for PoFo Supporters, and Youtube for everyone else.

[Political Interest]

So now PoFo is going to the next level. Who would have thought in 2003 that we would one day be discussing adding video?

[Igor Antunov]

It would be fascinating to watch current and topically relevant video political commentaries on here, perhaps people could respond to various threads.

Another avenue exists that we haven't considered in this thread although I'm sure fox has (personally I despise the notion); an original news/citizen's reporting section. Sure you can do it with threads but it would do much to dress things up a little, help legitimise original efforts.