participation way down? - Page 6

[glendora]

I always wondered where the service chicken would have ended up after the TAO CRACKDOWN thing.  Like, Traditional Foods maybe? ;)

[bri276]

This is the second time I'm reading that the Pat Robertson garbage isn't something mothering would "usually" host. Well, yes, that's why the response was, "holy crap, is this what mdc is coming to?!" rather than "here we go again with the blatant homophobia, racism and conservative agenda!" This isn't just a teeny misunderstanding, it's a huge horrible mistake, and brushing it off in a cavalier manner- shutting down threads about it- is a perfect example of why so many formerly loyal members like myself took off. Despite the newly improved moderation, the 1984ish hive mind atmosphere remains. Threads are still shut down or removed if they go "too far" in questioning a sacred cow.

[rhianna813]

Originally Posted by SleeplessMommy 

I miss the coops, the swaps, the FUN threads in TAO. And the service chicken.

There are other forums for natural parenting, crunchiness, family fun, etc. Even snark-free forums. I am sending a psychic transmission of the URL.

PM me too :-)

Rhianna

 

[lalaland42]

Originally Posted by rhianna813 

PM me too :-)

Rhianna

 

me three please!

[amma_mama]

I managed to refrain from posting on the Trolls thread, and have tried to give MDC the benefit of the doubt, but this latest incident just shows where the powers that be want to take this site, which is far from where many of us would like to see it. It is very sad to see the loss of participation by a whole lot of wonderful mamas, whose collective wisdom is sure to be missed. I find the response here on how this happened to be less than adequate, a testament to the fact that the Mothering ideal has been traded in for quick cash from sponsors, paid advertisements, and money grubbing "experts".

I have yet to decide whether to abandon ship at this point, but it does feel like it is sinking fast.

[Owen'nZoe]

Originally Posted by lalaland42 

me three please!

 Yes, please?

[limabean]

Originally Posted by bri276 

This is the second time I'm reading that the Pat Robertson garbage isn't something mothering would "usually" host. Well, yes, that's why the response was, "holy crap, is this what mdc is coming to?!" rather than "here we go again with the blatant homophobia, racism and conservative agenda!" This isn't just a teeny misunderstanding, it's a huge horrible mistake, and brushing it off in a cavalier manner- shutting down threads about it- is a perfect example of why so many formerly loyal members like myself took off.

I agree. I think there needs to be some sort of official explanation, not just, "Whoops, this isn't typical for us, oh well it's gone now, carry on!" 

[SleeplessMommy]

Personally, I think a forum has a choice between asking for member support (the old model) and having "advertisement" posts mixed in with the member posts (the new model). The are many forums with a "tasteful" display of advertising (gardenweb.com is one example) ... but MDC is the only forum I can think of where there are "advertisement" posts mixed in so thoroughly. And when you have significant adverts all over the screen, you can no longer expect to have people pay extra for sponsored membership.

I understand that the redesign was expensive and complicated. I think the "monetizing" plan proposed by MDC's consultants was way off base. One of several issues - you are trying to promote products in a forum dedicated to a simplified, natural lifestyle.

[savithny]

The new format is incredibly frustrating.   Half the time trying to open in tabs for browsing causes my whole browser to crash, each page takes forever to load. I'm forced to endure flashing advertisements for things like Cheetos, and some of the ads used to play movies and blare loud soundtracks.

The new layout is seriously unusable.   Take that from someone who has worked on research projects about web accessibility and usability -- whoever designed the back end of this clearly does not care at all about the end user experience.  It's all about forcing clicks, pageloads, and advertisement views.   

Another parenting site I frequent went through a similar redesign several years ago, and I have watched it wither and die from a place with hopping, busy monthly DDDCs and a lot of wonderful topical forums to a place that really only has one forum -- their equivalent of TAO -- with any traffic at all.   You cannot underestimate the effect of poorly designed user interfaces on website traffic.  Sure, it might optimize yoru advertising dollars, but the loss of former members who are put off by the interface means you're not gaining anything, in the end.

[Cynthia Mosher]

Hoping I can answer some of the concerns and explain some things. 

participation has been on the decline for the past 2-3 years. It was well before we changed our format. Traffic has increased since we switched to the new platform but posting is down from what it was. I'm sure the many changes that came with the platform switch were a reason for some. 

The new format is very demanding of a PC''s resources, and runs very slowly with a slow Internet connection. Some long time users really can't be here any more without upgrading their hard wear, and/or getting a more expensive connection.

Yes, this has been a big complaint. One thing that has recently been found to be the cause is a large number of subscriptions to threads and forums in your Subscriptions. So if you do have a lot of subscriptions try removing those that are old or that you really don't need so that you can cut them down to a minimum. This has resolved load times for some people.

I was having problems with the pages loading slowly on firefox so I went back to safari and I'm having no problems now. I know it wasn't my connection or my hardware. 

True. Firefox is troublesome for the platform. If you upgrade every time Firefox upgrades you will have continuous issues. 

I'm thinking that part of the spirit was the camaraderie between many of the posters.  I think that is why the DDCs are still going strong, they have a bond with each other.   It seems that many of the regular posters who have left have taken those friendships and interactions with them.

You may be right. I'll bring this up at our next staff meeting and see if we can work something out to manage the DDDDCs a bit better. We do need to move them though because they create such a long scroll for the forum nav menu. We are hoping to move them to a new set up soon so that may be the complete solution. 

The pages load ok for me but I miss the tan background.

We should have a new background soon that will be more visually pleasing. 

I think maybe reorganizing some forums a bit would help.  Some of them are just so broad, I'm not sure they're terribly useful.  For instance, have groups of 3+ states is so broad.  Most of the questions in my geographic tribe are about different states.  And the lines are somewhat arbitrary, too.  I think there should be one forum for each state.  I also don't understand why MDC is so adverse to a "preschool years" forum.  The issues that I have with my 3 year old are completely different from the ones I have with my 2 year old (who is definitely a toddler), and no offense to them but I'm not really interested in advice from someone with a toddler.  I think it would also be simple to break up the Learning at School forum to have preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school subforums.  A secular subforum under Learning at Home might also attract new members.

I'd be open to reorganizing. But I am a bit leery about taking the suggestions of a few of you here in this thread and implementing them for our entire community. What would we do if you guys talked through it, all agreed, we implement, and we then get an outcry from many other members about the changes? We could do a thread in Q&S and allow members to discuss and contribute but most often it is only a very small, vocal minority that participates in such things. So, following their suggestions is not necessarily doing what the entire community would applaud. It could cause more complaints and upset, especially with those who are already upset with all the changes that have already taken place. With that in mind what would you suggest? I really don't want to do anything that is not considered by most of our community to be a truly desirable change. And there are some posts in this thread disagreeing with the addition of new subforums and some of the rearrangements suggested.

I think it's important to figure out a way to attract new members.  I think the way to do that is NOT incendiary Facebook posts :(  MDC needs to figure out what it has that no one else does, and then get the word out there about that.  One of the criticisms I've heard is that Mothering was really groundbreaking when it first started publishing, but as so many of its ideals have moved into the mainstream, MDC has seemed to make an effort to remain fringe, which means that sometimes it goes off into a la-la-land territory which might put off new members.  

I think MDC has a reputation of being "green" and "crunchy," and those things are really quite mainstream now for a large population of educated, middle class mothers... there's no excuse not to try to embrace that.  It's a market ready to be tapped, but they're not going to be convinced by anti-vax propaganda, hateful comments about race, and some of the more "extreme crunchy" things that some very vocal posters do.  And I'm not saying you have to run those posters off: there's room under the tent o' crunchy for everyone :)  But I think you have to create a space where more people, even those who don't pass the extreme-AP test, are comfortable.  

I'd love to hear your ideas on how to do this, short of creating forums to divide everyone.

 

The place certainly doesn't have the same 'spirit' that it used to have.  I miss the lively debate, where people could actually disagree.  Now it is too heavily moderated. 

Really? We are now getting complaints that we do not moderate enough. We have quite a diverse community and extremely varying opinions of what is good moderation, what is too much and what is not enough. In the past we got complaints that we overmoderated, that we should treat our members as adults who can handle discussions and disagreements as adults and work through issues themselves without moderators stepping in. At the same time we got praises for moderating the community so well, for being present and jumping in to stop inappropriate behavior and comments. It's a difficult balance. We are currently testing the waters of minimal moderation and replying on members to report issues to us that they feel crosses the line of adult behavior and into the area of immature harassment and insult. 

As Drummers Wife said, debate can be fine. But we expect people to post with good intentions of discussion and not turn it into attacking and insulting each other. 

I think it's a combination of factors. I think the prevailing attitude has been that if you're not "crunchy" enough or ap enough than you don't belong. I know that there are some, like me, who are somewhat crunchy, but also have mainstream ideas. These people get bashed. Hardcore. Or the mods spank them for presenting ideas that don't jive with the "mdc atmosphere". It's hard to feel welcome when your questions and ideas are constantly being put down.

Since we have so many people at either end of the spectrum and loads of them in between, it is quite difficult to keep everyone happy. I'd love to hear your ideas on how you think we could succeed at making everyone feel welcome. 

EviesMom, your post here has a lot of good suggestions. But I keep going back to the vast difference of opinions of our members about what is most important and should get top billing. 

The sites I've been a part of where this has happened generally fizzle unless there is a major resurgence pretty quickly.   There are a few people who check in for a while, but when the core group moves on it can be hard to recreate that sense of belonging, no matter how many people come to test the waters, and without that, the energy just dwindles so instead of checking a couple times a day, people will check a couple times a week, then a couple times a month- and it's just not a part of their daily routine anymore. 

I'm not so sure this is true. I've worked on the boards since they were first launched and I've seen lots of "core" groups leave and new ones come in. 

 

Originally Posted by lach:

I feel like the "Ask the Experts" thing is cute and gimmicky, but doesn't really add much except free advertising for those experts, and that should be in its own little sidebar box.  The experts should also not be allowed to refuse to answer questions and just say "buy my $200 a session conversations!" for everything.  This is free advertising for them, and they need to put out.  

I explained the reason for bringing the experts over from Mothering.com to the forums. You'll find that in the Q7S thread. But I do agree with you about the experts having an obligation to answering questions. If they feel a question it is beyond the scope of the purpose of the forum then I should discuss that with them So feel free to send me a PM about this or report the expert via the Report this forum post to Admin link and I'll look into it.

Here's one way not to drive off members: don't post threads in the Adoptive and Foster Parenting board soliciting donations for Pat Robertson.

Repeating what I posted here. we absolutely agree and we pulled that as soon as we became aware of what it was. It was not posted by the Mothering staff but by an ad rep using the Mothering username. The issue is being dealt with and we have assurances that our requirement that all direct ad sales ads be approved by us first has been agreed to. We are all deeply appalled at that ad getting placed. We are having a meeting to make this matter clear that something like this should never have happened and will not happen again. I closed the TAO thread about it because I felt it was best to do that until I could get to the bottom of what happened and what was being done to address it and offer a clear explanation. I posted again to the TAO thread to explain everything, apologize,  and reopened the thread.  

 

 

Originally Posted by Think of Winter 

  The "Mothering" screen name posting inflammatory topics to get more clicks?  

This really irks me. I participated in at least one discussion - mostly to express my unhappiness at the inflammatory language since it obviously was used to provoke responses. I've otherwise been trying to resist, even though some of the topics interest me. I especially wanted to write something about "blaming" parents for educational problems since that was so clearly written to incite debate, but I held off.  

The topics are actually current discussions in the the news that we pick up from alerts and news sites or are emailed to us from various sources. They are actual topics being debated elsewhere by parents and individuals. So no, not created just to provoke. They are topics we feel are important and of interest to our community. We previously posted them as topics on the mothering.com editorial side. We are now bringing them to the forum because we feel it is more important to bring it here to the forums where 85% of our site traffic is and along with that is a shift in the way we present it because we are inviting you to share your opinions. Hosting reader comments on news and activism topics is something we always wanted to be able to have on the editorial side of mothering.com but the integration of it proved to be too complicated. 

I just came back to add that the format changes don't bother me at all, but maybe I'm in the minority. I think there could be some streamlining of fora and subfora, and lach did a nice job condensing them in her pp. Generally, I find it a pretty user-friendly place and the ads are less bothersome than many other places (no slow-to-load pop ups with annoying graphics and sound).   

Thanks for coming back to share this. :)

[*bejeweled*]

Originally Posted by rhianna813 

PM me too :-)

Rhianna

 

Will you PM me also?

[Ornery]

PM me too pretty please?  I would love to find a forum that could meet my needs without me feeling like I am sacrificing my values to visit it. 

The admin obviously has no idea what it is doing.  It constantly does things that breech the core values that Mothering supposedly has and then says "oops, we didn't know that could happen, our bad, give us the benefit of the doubt".  Mothering no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt, if it ever has. 

[Cynthia Mosher]

Ornery, would you please clarify what "things" the administration does that breech the core values of Mothering and what you believe Mothering's core values are?

[Ornery]

My understanding of the core values of Mothering are in the User Agreement, Cynthia : )  Including the following statement:  "We do not tolerate any type of discrimination in the discussions, including but not limited to racism, heterosexism, classism, sizeism, religious bigotry, or discrimination toward the disabled."  Racism, homophobia and classism have been running rampant specifically in the threads the Mothering UN has started.

[katelove]

Originally Posted by *bejeweled* 

Originally Posted by rhianna813 

PM me too :-)

Rhianna

 

Will you PM me also?
 

And me too please :-)

[tinybutterfly]

I've been on a hiatus ( and am just poking my head in for a short break from my self-imposed hiatus) and am sorry things have been so bumpy here lately! Maybe some of it is just people adjusting to the new format, new UA, new moderating style, and glitches being worked out. You know, new people coming in not really knowing what MDC is all about, older posters not liking some of the changes, and maybe extra trolls coming to stir things up because transitions are always hard and for them it's an opportune time to run amok and cause issues. Really, I would guess it could take at least a year after such a big change for things to settle out and run smoothly again.

I am coming back after summer is over. I'll be poking my head in now and then. I was just on here TOO MUCH. I am still working on limiting my internet time.

Hoping to come back and be a supportive member of a community that has been valuable to me and I hope to be here to help new members.

Seriously hoping after the dust settles that MDC is once again a thriving community.

Change is hard. Maybe everyone is trying to find their way, find their niche here again and there will be mistakes and missteps along the way.

Mothering the magazine and Mothering the website have both been a great resource for me ( and my family) over the years.

Personally I would rather come back and try to make it a better place than abandon it.

But I won't be back full-time for a couple of months. ;)

[HollyBearsMom]

 Hi TB!! Nice to "see" you!

[tinybutterfly]

Originally Posted by HollyBearsMom 

 Hi TB!! Nice to "see" you!

Thanks! It's nice to "see" you, too!

[annettemarie]

It sounds as if what is being said is that Mothering/Peggy/admin/mods no longer hold the reigns to Mothering-- Huddler does. I could be misreading it, but that's what it sounds like.

[woodchick]

Woodchick:  I'm thinking that part of the spirit was the camaraderie between many of the posters.  I think that is why the DDCs are still going strong, they have a bond with each other.   It seems that many of the regular posters who have left have taken those friendships and interactions with them.

Cynthia:  You may be right. I'll bring this up at our next staff meeting and see if we can work something out to manage the DDDDCs a bit better. We do need to move them though because they create such a long scroll for the forum nav menu. We are hoping to move them to a new set up soon so that may be the complete solution. 

I just want to say I think I might have been misunderstood.  I don't think there is an issue with the DDCs.  I get the impression that people like them and they seem to be working well and have steady participation.   My point was that the DDCs are going strong because the posters in them have a bond that that those of us on the outside no longer have with each other.   If the nonDDC members on the forum could build up some camaraderie we might get the posting traffic back up to speed.