http://martinbelam.com/2015/i-tell-you/
Interesting article, refers to forums on media sites, but points 1 --> 3 are pretty spot on in the context of Props' recent decision to close the user forums.
Why online communities always seem doomed to fail
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Last Alternative
- Posts: 1343
- Joined: 20 Jan 2015
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Companies are all about killing free speech these days. Plus yeah- too many idiots in this world with nothing better to do than sit at their computer and talk shit to each other all day and night. It's a cryin shame.
After reading this article I feel kinda weird how it seems like PH wrote it!
After reading this article I feel kinda weird how it seems like PH wrote it!
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Interesting...
I think maybe the dynamic could be different for an unofficial forum than one that is directly connected to the company. Without an official sounding board there tends to be less aggression. When there is money involved usually people think that gives them a ticket to be angry and abusive, and the more it snowballs the harder it is to reverse the direction.
I think maybe the dynamic could be different for an unofficial forum than one that is directly connected to the company. Without an official sounding board there tends to be less aggression. When there is money involved usually people think that gives them a ticket to be angry and abusive, and the more it snowballs the harder it is to reverse the direction.
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JiggeryPokery
- RE Developer
- Posts: 1174
- Joined: 15 Jan 2015
I'm sure of a lot of us who said quite a lot, see an enormous amount of ourselves in what he says there and will be quietly nodding our heads and thinking, oh yes.
The fundamental issue I have with the article, however, is that he presupposes that the users think they are the voice of the majority and they have a close relationship with providing company. I'm not sure that's always true, and it definitely wasn't true in the case of PUF. Most of us were well aware there was probably only a few hundred active posters, and that PH rarely commented and that few of them even read it. That's hardly the point. It's the syphoning off of communication to social media formats that are designed to be ephemeral, completely of the moment. I don't think that's a good thing. PUF wasn't perfect, no, especially after the stupid PHP-enforced but unecessarily long supension (aka Test Closure
).
The fundamental issue I have with the article, however, is that he presupposes that the users think they are the voice of the majority and they have a close relationship with providing company. I'm not sure that's always true, and it definitely wasn't true in the case of PUF. Most of us were well aware there was probably only a few hundred active posters, and that PH rarely commented and that few of them even read it. That's hardly the point. It's the syphoning off of communication to social media formats that are designed to be ephemeral, completely of the moment. I don't think that's a good thing. PUF wasn't perfect, no, especially after the stupid PHP-enforced but unecessarily long supension (aka Test Closure
).
I completely agree that the forum dwellers kill off the innocent noobs. unfortunately this is just a case of HTFU. nothing can really be done for the teary rage the internet left you in. some bad person wrote some words in a text box that has left you inexplicably angry and without any form of normal social recourse or justice.
also the answer is STFU spods you hideous wastelords and GTFO the internet and try and mate with something before nature denies you the opportunity.
i'm ambivalent to which camp i belong to. i've only made ~40 posts so i think i look good tbh,
PS reason sucks
also the answer is STFU spods you hideous wastelords and GTFO the internet and try and mate with something before nature denies you the opportunity.
i'm ambivalent to which camp i belong to. i've only made ~40 posts so i think i look good tbh,
PS reason sucks
Totally.Lunesis wrote:Interesting...
I think maybe the dynamic could be different for an unofficial forum than one that is directly connected to the company. Without an official sounding board there tends to be less aggression. When there is money involved usually people think that gives them a ticket to be angry and abusive, and the more it snowballs the harder it is to reverse the direction.
In fact he mentions that some of the official pages he's citing as being closed live on as unofficial communities.
Whilst I agree with most of what the guy says all I require from a community is that it is an enjoyable place to participate in, a good exchange of banter, usefulness and enough commonality to bind it all together.
Part of the shame about many 'official' communities is that folk tend think it's a platform to lobby the organisation for their own sometimes peculiar, and often obscure individual desires to be met alongside a place for those same individuals to criticise and rant at the said organization because those desires don't get met.
More perverse still are those that join a community just to tell everyone how much better it is elsewhere, which always strikes me as being akin to sitting in the same pub every night just to tell everyone else how much better the pub down the road is. Surely if you thought the pub down the road was better you'd simply just go there instead.
Nobody wants to be the only passenger on the Marie Celeste either so enough participants to keep the ball rolling is vital therefore everybodys contribution should be equally welcomed even if it is not from the few that you'd normally favour. What gets percieved by newcomers as being cliques always happen as when people get familiar with each other the conversation starts to become shorthand for those familiar with each other so it becomes important to extend a welcome to the faces that are not so familiar.
So long live ReasonTalk and I'm looking forward to meeting many new folk to add those I've already met. Doomed to fail is a bit of a stretch really as a failure of a community is only ever caused by enough individuals having unmet expections whereby the purpose of a community no longer exists.
Just enjoy the ride while the bus keeps rolling and you'l eventually see where it ends up. There can be no failure in that.
Yeah it's funny, I read the article in the OP without reflecting at all on ReasonTalk. For me it just articulated a few points that seemed apposite in the context of the Props forums, at least as far as certain outspoken members were concerned. But yeah, "doomed to fail" is a big call if you're talking about internet communities in general. Or maybe it's a mundane call - when you think about it, everything is doomed to fail if you hang around long enough, from your toaster oven to the solar system.Ostermilk wrote:
So long live ReasonTalk and I'm looking forward to meeting many new folk to add those I've already met. Doomed to fail is a bit of a stretch really as a failure of a community is only ever caused by enough individuals having unmet expections whereby the purpose of a community no longer exists.
Just enjoy the ride while the bus keeps rolling and you'l eventually see where it ends up. There can be no failure in that.
As per moderation:
Moderate- to average out, make less extreme
Moderator- Arbitrator
I said it before on the props site before they closed it down. They needed to address the 50% of users who were on edge on that forum about the update to Reason 8. Cause that's when it started.
They could have averaged out the complaints and compliments by saying "We agree with some of the issues with Reason 8. It's our nature to listen to all our customers and consider their grievances. Although we can't state what we will do, rest assured we are listening and considering changes to make Reason 8 the greatest software yet."
This conciliatory tactic would have given credence to understanding. Reassuring us all that we were all valuable members there without guaranteeing anything that it couldn't be sure could be done.
Unfortunately, moderation was no where to be seen this time. Silence was the knife in the heart of the community this round. Not spoiled brats (see reviews on reason by simply googling them and read them yourself), which were unfortunately the symptom of this event, not the real cause, as this article states happened in other forums.
P.S. So just be aware that community could have continued to have been props canary in the mine. But instead, they chose the see no evil, hear no evil route.
Moderate- to average out, make less extreme
Moderator- Arbitrator
I said it before on the props site before they closed it down. They needed to address the 50% of users who were on edge on that forum about the update to Reason 8. Cause that's when it started.
They could have averaged out the complaints and compliments by saying "We agree with some of the issues with Reason 8. It's our nature to listen to all our customers and consider their grievances. Although we can't state what we will do, rest assured we are listening and considering changes to make Reason 8 the greatest software yet."
This conciliatory tactic would have given credence to understanding. Reassuring us all that we were all valuable members there without guaranteeing anything that it couldn't be sure could be done.
Unfortunately, moderation was no where to be seen this time. Silence was the knife in the heart of the community this round. Not spoiled brats (see reviews on reason by simply googling them and read them yourself), which were unfortunately the symptom of this event, not the real cause, as this article states happened in other forums.
P.S. So just be aware that community could have continued to have been props canary in the mine. But instead, they chose the see no evil, hear no evil route.
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Benedict
- Competition Winner
- Posts: 2747
- Joined: 16 Jan 2015
- Location: Gold Coast, Australia
- Contact:
I like the article and agree with all of it really. His points do mach a lot of what happened at PUF. We had a very vocal few who I'm confident weren't "power users" claiming to be the voice of the user base and "rightness" itself. They then took to attacking everything and everyone.
I did think that perhaps more Moderation from Props may have helped prevent the hideous (and thoroughly pointless) negativity that ballooned from R8 announcement. Props silence was probably so as not to be taken as jackbooted Nazis but it also allowed the crazies to seem to be in control. That said even when Props did explain, the self-informed still carried on anyway so that suggests it was all about them (and not Props or Reason) and they would (and probably) do the same in other places (forums, real life etc, anywhere there was no one to punch them in the nose.)
All done now so little to gain.
I did think that perhaps more Moderation from Props may have helped prevent the hideous (and thoroughly pointless) negativity that ballooned from R8 announcement. Props silence was probably so as not to be taken as jackbooted Nazis but it also allowed the crazies to seem to be in control. That said even when Props did explain, the self-informed still carried on anyway so that suggests it was all about them (and not Props or Reason) and they would (and probably) do the same in other places (forums, real life etc, anywhere there was no one to punch them in the nose.)
All done now so little to gain.
Benedict Roff-Marsh
Completely burned and gone
Completely burned and gone
it was really just the circle of:
rage against the 8
company officially ignores rage
fanboys rage against rage.
rinse repeat. all it really needed was a general section and some community moderation so all that could be kept out of the face of people wanting actual knowledge. it happens on a lot of sites, especially when it's a case of one developer controlling the direction of the 'thing' you're into. there's no difference between reason or xboxone or eve online. decisions that are unpopular will cause riots on the forums. forums don't represent your userbase but should be a bellweather. even people howling about reason 8 are reason fans, your more 'mainstream' customer will just quietly take their money and leave when they realise other software is better value to them.
rage against the 8
company officially ignores rage
fanboys rage against rage.
rinse repeat. all it really needed was a general section and some community moderation so all that could be kept out of the face of people wanting actual knowledge. it happens on a lot of sites, especially when it's a case of one developer controlling the direction of the 'thing' you're into. there's no difference between reason or xboxone or eve online. decisions that are unpopular will cause riots on the forums. forums don't represent your userbase but should be a bellweather. even people howling about reason 8 are reason fans, your more 'mainstream' customer will just quietly take their money and leave when they realise other software is better value to them.
I'm sorry? I couldn't quite make out that last part over the deafening roar of all those users claiming that the Props' best-selling version to date is the worst invention since sliced Hitler, that they're absolutely never going to upgrade, that they'll never look at the Props' website again, that Discover is a waste of URL, etc.JiggeryPokery wrote:The fundamental issue I have with the article, however, is that he presupposes that the users think they are the voice of the majority and they have a close relationship with providing company. I'm not sure that's always true, and it definitely wasn't true in the case of PUF.
I haven't even looked at the article yet, and I have to point out that it doesn't even have to be a majority that takes their contact with the mother-company for granted. The same turd-in-the-punchbowl effect can be accomplished by a dedicated minority that knows full well how to be loud and abjectly refuses to STFU. And that's exactly what happened to the PUF.
It makes the Props' choice painfully clear. Hell, even Hercules went with the equivalent on the Aegean stables.
-This space intentionally left apathetic-
This too funny! I read the article before reading all the comments in this thread--it's like the contributors to this thread are trying to make the author's point. But that is just my opinion. What is objective fact is there are many, far superior ways of getting feedback from your customers. One of the best is focus groups. For those who don't know,
"A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging."
Companies prefer this method of soliciting feedback from customers because it's face to face communication, with strict rules of conduct. Focus groups have goals. Focus groups take time. In exchange, focus group participants get to see their feedback put into action, which is incredibly satisfying. I'm fairly certain that Propellerhead uses focus groups on a regular basis. It is likely that Figure and Take were developed with feedback from a focus group.
"A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging."
Companies prefer this method of soliciting feedback from customers because it's face to face communication, with strict rules of conduct. Focus groups have goals. Focus groups take time. In exchange, focus group participants get to see their feedback put into action, which is incredibly satisfying. I'm fairly certain that Propellerhead uses focus groups on a regular basis. It is likely that Figure and Take were developed with feedback from a focus group.
Real power users of any DAW are rarely in a forum. They are too busy using the app.Benedict wrote:I like the article and agree with all of it really. His points do mach a lot of what happened at PUF. We had a very vocal few who I'm confident weren't "power users" claiming to be the voice of the user base and "rightness" itself. They then took to attacking everything and everyone.
I did think that perhaps more Moderation from Props may have helped prevent the hideous (and thoroughly pointless) negativity that ballooned from R8 announcement. Props silence was probably so as not to be taken as jackbooted Nazis but it also allowed the crazies to seem to be in control. That said even when Props did explain, the self-informed still carried on anyway so that suggests it was all about them (and not Props or Reason) and they would (and probably) do the same in other places (forums, real life etc, anywhere there was no one to punch them in the nose.)
All done now so little to gain.
Even the ones that managed to get thrown off there are here... :t2018:GeorgeFeb wrote:More funny though that those who were ruining PUF are all here now!
How cool is that?
The truth is though nobody here will consider themselves as contributing to the ruination of the PUF, because it will have always been somebody elses fault... :s0238:
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