Promotion Directory Changes - Two week beta

[Cosmic]

Hi all,

Over the next two weeks, we'll be testing out an alternate layout for the Promotion Directory. Instead of lumping all listings into a single forum, we'll be splitting them up into four major sections, each with its own forum on the FP index. This is designed to create maximum exposure for your site, make it easier to find sites in the PD, and to keep your listing near the top of the forum for a longer amount of time after each bump.

This will be a public beta, which means that at the end of two weeks, we'll evaluate whether to keep the changes, or revert back to how things currently are. Your feedback will be essential in determining whether this layout is for the better, and how we can best improve from here.

Changes will be made over the next 24 hours. We'll be making all current Promotion Directory topics into the submissions forum, then filtering them out into the correct categories manually.

We hope you find these changes useful! Myself and the other staff st FP are working to improve your promotion experience as much as possible.

Matt

 

[Aoki]

Looking forward to this. 🙂

 

[CyberFreak]

Yet another change to the PD 🙁

This is designed to create maximum exposure for your site, make it easier to find sites in the PD, and to keep your listing near the top of the forum for a longer amount of time after each bump.

It will not increase exposure. In the previous set up, while topics go down the list fast, every user wishing to promote or view topics being promoted will see your topic in the list while it is near the top. With the new setup, yes it will be near the top of the list longer but as alot of users will be creating topics in another section and will typically only view that section they are posting in and maybe where their topic has been moved to and people looking for forums and what is being promoted now have 4 forums to check and look at, each topic will get the same amount of eyes on it or less just over a longer period of time. This reduces the need for users to bump topics also which is one less reason to visit FP.

Why overly complicate things and bulk out the index page with effectively 4 PD forums and a submission forum to try and solve a problem that really cant be solved. People are here to promote and very few people are interested in what other people are promoting. Splitting up the PD like this is not going to make people care more about other peoples forums.

 

[Thomasss]

Is it supposed to be hidden to guests? 😱

Otherwise, I think going back to this will help organize threads way better than the prefix system. 😛 Always been a fan of this type of layout.

Edit: Ugh, yes, no more giant stickies that take up half the page! 😀

 

[mav3n]

Yet another change to the PD 🙁

This is designed to create maximum exposure for your site, make it easier to find sites in the PD, and to keep your listing near the top of the forum for a longer amount of time after each bump.

It will not increase exposure. In the previous set up, while topics go down the list fast, every user wishing to promote or view topics being promoted will see your topic in the list while it is near the top. With the new setup, yes it will be near the top of the list longer but as alot of users will be creating topics in another section and will typically only view that section they are posting in and maybe where their topic has been moved to and people looking for forums and what is being promoted now have 4 forums to check and look at, each topic will get the same amount of eyes on it or less just over a longer period of time. This reduces the need for users to bump topics also which is one less reason to visit FP.

Why overly complicate things and bulk out the index page with effectively 4 PD forums and a submission forum to try and solve a problem that really cant be solved. People are here to promote and very few people are interested in what other people are promoting. Splitting up the PD like this is not going to make people care more about other peoples forums.

This. There are already things of more importance to look into, yet they focus on the PD.

 

[thalada]

Good luck with the changes, hope it works for you.

 

[Cosmic]

Thanks @Thomasss, @thalada, @Aoki. 🙂

@Thomasss it should definitely be viewable to guests! I'll look into it.

 

[Page]

Another useless change the might work or a failure to the system again. Does make FP to have allot of boards and at least my damn topics can stay up top longer then before without the need to spend to ping the topic, the outcome is the members here that aren't interested in some other websites. Yeah there is an odd one that I joined because I like what I see and makes me interested.

Most of us here on FP are trying to promote our website's and get as much out of it to get the traffic and whatnot and the problems that there are way more site owners on this forum then normal none site owners.

Well let's see what happens in the next two weeks and might see my site get traffic more.

 

[Cosmic]

Another useless change the might work or a failure to the system again. Does make FP to have allot of boards and at least my damn topics can stay up top longer then before without the need to spend to ping the topic, the outcome is the members here that aren't interested in some other websites. Yeah there is an odd one that I joined because I like what I see and makes me interested.

Most of us here on FP are trying to promote our website's and get as much out of it to get the traffic and whatnot and the problems that there are way more site owners on this forum then normal none site owners.

Well let's see what happens in the next two weeks and might see my site get traffic more.

We'll see. I'm hoping it will prove successful. But if not, we'll revert back to the old system, and consider improvements like this one. In any case, we will be improving more than just the promotion directory, but that's for another day.

 

[Incoginto]

Looking forward to have more awesome directory

 

[Golddisk]

I agree with some of the opinions being posted here, but lets give it a chance. In all honesty, the PD is probably one of the most important things for new members, while it is less so for us who have been around for awhile. Looking at it now, the PD has never been a particularly helpful asset in my opinion. When I first joined it was, of course, one of the first places I went and it resulted in some views. But that quickly died down, and now when I bump the thread I consider myself to be lucky to get 1-2 views. This has been the same throughout the old setup with many different subforums and through the last version with everything in one board.

I have chalked it up to most people only visiting the PD to promote their own thread and not bothering to really check in on other's.

Despite my grievances, it is something we can at least give a shot. All of your feedback will be important to decide if we should keep it this way or go back to the old way. But giving feedback before it has even been up for 24 hours just saying it isn't going to work, isn't really helpful and genuine feedback.

 

[Page]

@Golddisk lets see what happens

 

[Deleted member 1609]

@Matt With respect, can we please get a response to CyberFreak's post above as well as Lucky's follow-up to it?

I feel like the people who didn't think that the PD needed to be changed are being completely ignored.

 

[Page]

being completely ignored.

again? we having this problem again?

I made an big topic some time ago regarding this and it seems it's happening allover again. please tell me I'm wrong

 

[mav3n]

@Matt With respect, can we please get a response to CyberFreak's post above as well as Lucky's follow-up to it?

I feel like the people who didn't think that the PD needed to be changed are being completely ignored.

Are you at all surprised we were ingored? Due to our views being different, they are simply ignored. It's okay, this place is going down hill anyways. It doesn't matter

 

[Deleted member 1609]

@Matt With respect, can we please get a response to CyberFreak's post above as well as Lucky's follow-up to it?

I feel like the people who didn't think that the PD needed to be changed are being completely ignored.

Are you at all surprised we were ingored? Due to our views being different, they are simply ignored. It's okay, this place is going down hill anyways. It doesn't matter

As much as I can understand your frustration over being ignored, let's try to remain civil. You, CyberFreak, and I are legitimately concerned that FP is going in the wrong direction. Being as respectful as possible will help reinforce that fact rather than making us look like a horde of angry RAs who complain just for the sake of complaining. We have been perceived that way in the past, and it is easier for people to sweep our posts under the rug when they can portray us that way.

 

[Allenafaith]

Your opinions definitely aren't being ignored in this situation.

This is only a two-week beta. I honestly preferred it the other way because like Cyberfreak said, I feel like the only threads that may get more views are in the sections where people post their sites in. We'll see how this goes, though. Who knows, it may be better. I personally wouldn't be viewing other sections unless I was really bored or genuinely wanted to help someone gain a new member, etc, but I can't speak for other people.

 

[Golddisk]

@Matt With respect, can we please get a response to CyberFreak's post above as well as Lucky's follow-up to it?

I feel like the people who didn't think that the PD needed to be changed are being completely ignored.

You're opinions aren't being ignored. I know I am just a CTM, but my reply above was intended to be in reply to the opinions that were posted by Cyber and Lucky. They're also opinions which I'll bring back to the discussion table if the results of the beta aren't what we're hoping for.

 

[Deleted member 1609]

@Matt With respect, can we please get a response to CyberFreak's post above as well as Lucky's follow-up to it?

I feel like the people who didn't think that the PD needed to be changed are being completely ignored.

You're opinions aren't being ignored. I know I am just a CTM, but my reply above was intended to be in reply to the opinions that were posted by Cyber and Lucky. They're also opinions which I'll bring back to the discussion table if the results of the beta aren't what we're hoping for.

I appreciate your reply, but I would really like to see one from an admin (particularly Matt) as well. The fact that Matt thanked everyone who had posted positive feedback in the thread so far without acknowledging Fowler's post makes it seem like he's ignoring Fowler's opinion. I'm sure that's not the case, so I'd like to see Matt's response. 🙂

 

[CyberFreak]

This is only a two-week beta.

While I am aware of it being a two week beta, I can't help but wonder how much time has been spent in the past making changes and how much time will be spent trying to make the PD effective when I think it has been proven (in terms of experience of results of various setups and by thinking logically about how people us the forum) that it will never be an effective way of promotion.

Work on other forms of "promotion" that other members could use such as an automated affiliate exchange or a banner/ad network maybe that is free in exchange for views on users own sites or in exchange for FP$ in order to increase activity here and to give FP$ more value. Trying something different and take a risk with adding something that is likely to bring people in or keep activity. I think is more worthwhile that trying to polish something that can not be polished. No change to the PD is going to bring people in or attract attention/chatter about FP.