Small announcement about AVForums

[xf_phantom]

@Stuart Wright did Huddler pester you also? We had them email us for awhile--I had to reply back to them a few times to stop (it was always a different person) and then finally had to put them in our spam filters, and told staff to watch for any incoming mail from them. Annoying as hell. The two forums I visit occasionally switched to Huddler (Head-Fi and AVS Forum), and I can't say I'm impressed with how "spammy" the sites feel now--I feel more like I'm being marketed to vs. being part of a community.

I hope they noticed we moved our "big board" to XenForo.

may i ask what's so bad with huddler?

 

[Wildcat Media]

may i ask what's so bad with huddler?

I did not like their predatory sales practices; that was the first immediate turnoff, especially after I told them to STOP emailing us. Beyond that, the forum software itself feels dated (it uses modern tech, but doesn't have the UI touches we are used to with XF), and I come across numerous sidebars, thread headers (which push the first post down "below the fold"), and in-thread advertisements that to me are highly distracting when trying to do the simple task of just reading a thread. They even come across in their predatory emails, dangling the "monetization" carrot while only lightly touching on a community feel. Yes, I know we all need to make money to keep afloat, but if I pulled these tactics on my forums, especially the "big board," we'd have a lot of complaining from members. The sites I mentioned both ran vB3.7 or 3.8, and while they did have a few ads here and there, they did not distract me as much.

So I'm biased...

And so it's not confused, BTW, Stuart's forum is AVForums, where the one I mentioned is a different forum, AVS Forum. Wish I had time to visit both of them more, actually, as that is right in line with my interests. (I might be tempted to visit Stuart's forum over the others since it will be running XF... )

 

[Stuart Wright]

I have never visited any other forums regularly as I'm too busy running mine, so I don't know what AVSForum is like these days. Incidentally AVSForum inspired the concise forum list we have now (or compact forum list as it will be called in the Xenforo addon) because the one thing I do clearly remember about first visiting AVSForum way back in 2000 or something was that the forum list was scarily long.
Huddler have contacted me, as have Internet Brands. Neither have pestered me in the way described above.
Anyway if anyone sends too many emails, I put my junk mail facility to good use.

 

[Forsaken]

@Stuart Wright did Huddler pester you also? We had them email us for awhile--I had to reply back to them a few times to stop (it was always a different person) and then finally had to put them in our spam filters, and told staff to watch for any incoming mail from them. Annoying as hell. The two forums I visit occasionally switched to Huddler (Head-Fi and AVS Forum), and I can't say I'm impressed with how "spammy" the sites feel now--I feel more like I'm being marketed to vs. being part of a community.

I hope they noticed we moved our "big board" to XenForo.

The forums feel, work and look like crap . I use to be an active member on Head Fi and myself and others left when they moved to Huddler because it just lost it's appeal.

 

[OSS 117]

I'm a member of a couple Huddler powered sites. Site quality and content improved after the migration. Specifically, the lewd BS went away and more mature discussion came in.

 

[surfsup]

Cant rush things but that is surely one site I do look forward to seeing making the switch, basically to see how far they go customizing their templates as well along with the ad placements (which I need to make better moves on for my forum)

 

[Wildcat Media]

The forums feel, work and look like crap . I use to be an active member on Head Fi and myself and others left when they moved to Huddler because it just lost it's appeal.

AVS seemed to recover (and I made it more bearable by blocking a good portion of their site with the AdBlock browser add-on), but when I visit Head-Fi now, I feel like I'm in an online store, or a spammy ad-heavy site like CNet. Don't like it enough to visit it anymore, which is sad.

 

[Forsaken]

AVS seemed to recover (and I made it more bearable by blocking a good portion of their site with the AdBlock browser add-on), but when I visit Head-Fi now, I feel like I'm in an online store, or a spammy ad-heavy site like CNet. Don't like it enough to visit it anymore, which is sad.

I'll still visit, but only if I want to find reviews or information on headphones and stuff.

 

[Stuart Wright]

I'm a member of a couple Huddler powered sites. Site quality and content improved after the migration. Specifically, the lewd BS went away and more mature discussion came in.

One of the most important trade secrets of running a forum. Identify your target audience and steer the tone of the community appropriately. We share the same kind of audience as AVSForum. A broad cross section of society but mostly middle aged men with families, a fair amount of early adopters and reasonably high disposable income. That sort of audience demands a well run forum with spam, childishness, cliques and bad language kept out.

 

[Wildcat Media]

One of the most important trade secrets of running a forum. Identify your target audience and steer the tone of the community appropriately. We share the same kind of audience as AVSForum. A broad cross section of society but mostly middle aged men with families, a fair amount of early adopters and reasonably high disposable income. That sort of audience demands a well run forum with spam, childishness, cliques and bad language kept out.

That's pretty much what we strive for on our big board, but like any forum, there are always "issues". Having a good team on the same page is also a major asset--we've had a lot of team members come and go over the years, but other than one or two hiccups, we've always had a good staff team on hand to deal with the issues. It's true they sometimes disagree on small details, but that is healthy.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I'll still visit, but only if I want to find reviews or information on headphones and stuff.

I'm not much of a headphone consumer, so other than peeking in there a few months ago for a tube-powered headphone amp, and early this year to look up some 'phones I was interested in, I haven't visited much. Those guys are really into the headphones though! Sounds like a few of us here run in similar circles...

 

[OSS 117]

Definitely true, Stuart, but I saw the dramatic change as "We're partnered with Huddler, stop being idiots or we'll ban you." As far as disposable income goes; you're right. OCN and Head-Fi tend to have a member base that has a lot of disposable income, even those who just started families. The only thing I dislike about Huddler is how inefficient their search engine is in terms of being able to find specific things down to tight time frames. Newer software which includes vB and IP.B went backwards post 3.8 and 2.2, respectively. I admire how XF has their search set up. And there I go going off on random tangent. :lol:

Rudy, I signed up to HF to get some ideas on CD to FLAC conversion and I ended up buying some expensive home audio equipment. I tend to stay away from those forums because I get the urge to spend money. Even going to the computer parts store to get some compressed air results in me spending a few hundred on stuff I didn't need in the first place.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I haven't done much in the way of impulse purchases, but lately have been in a bargain hunting mode. Most recent was a Sony rear projection LCD TV, $40, with a bad optical block that I replaced for $95 from Tri-State Module--this set originally cost $2299 about eight years ago. Not quite the flat panel I want, but if I get a few good years out of it I'll be happy. I am heading to Connecticut to pick up a pair of speakers a friend has in storage--they need some minor repair, but for what little I paid, they cost me about 1/10th what the original list price was ($2995/pair). At 100 pounds each, gas and motel are cheaper than having them packed up and shipped. I'm also picking up a power amp and high-end preamp from another friend who lives further east.

I think my putzing around with forums and computers for all these years sort of replaces the electronics I used to mess around with decades ago.

@OSS 117 you're right about Huddler. I found the forums work OK, but they are rather plain without the touches we're used to in XF or even recent versions of vB or IPB. Using the software, I feel like the clock is turned back about five or six years--what is there does work nicely, I'll admit, but it feels like an afterthought to heaps of "monetization" opportunities. The "partner" idea totally rubs me the wrong way: I've been independently running forums myself since 1997, and intend to stay that way. For our big board, keeping the bad guys out is more a function of the moderation staff and not which forum software we use, or who we choose (or don't choose) to "partner" with. We've kept things on a tight leash ever since it started up in 2002.

 

[Stuart Wright]

@OSS 117 you're right about Huddler. I found the forums work OK, but they are rather plain without the touches we're used to in XF or even recent versions of vB or IPB. Using the software, I feel like the clock is turned back about five or six years

This issue is a key reason why I've been desperate to move to Xenforo for literally years. I think people these days (particularly the young) have got used to the latest jQuery type funky UI effects and the ease of use of social networking sites, and in contrast, vB3 feels old and clunky. I hope that the new look AVForums will rejuvenate the community.

 

[Wildcat Media]

This issue is a key reason why I've been desperate to move to Xenforo for literally years. I think people these days (particularly the young) have got used to the latest jQuery type funky UI effects and the ease of use of social networking sites, and in contrast, vB3 feels old and clunky. I hope that the new look AVForums will rejuvenate the community.

It certainly will give it a boost. I've witnessed it myself, and others here have similar stories.

Two important forums I installed it on (one being our "big board", the other being my oldest forum dating back to 1995) saw an increase. With the big board, we were running a customized vB 3.7 that we had tweaked to make more efficient (including using the Sphinx search engine). We had been around 750-800 visitors online at a time, growing slowly but steadily. We were nearly the same in the days following the conversion, but within about four months, we had jumped to nearly 1000 visitors online during peak hours. Summers for us have been slow, but we still get well into the 900s. Posts? We seemed to jump quite quickly from a bit over 7 million to nearly 8 million posts since this past November, when in the past the growth was slower but more steady.

We had our whiners, for certain! Along with the usual members who "hated" the new forum and were going to quit visiting (and of course, came back a few weeks later). Some still take potshots, but for those who ever claimed users would leave us in droves, we have the numbers to show them how much more active the forum has been. Overall, I'd say daily usage is up by about 25%-30%.

Even on my oldest forum, which is low traffic but has a rabidly loyal following, we've seen a similar rise in activity. It also helped to convert since I was running an ancient phpBB 2.0.17 version that had been extensively modified to deal with all the bugs, security hacks and spamming activity, and was therefore impossible to upgrade. Not liking the attitudes on their support forum, I refused to upgrade to phpBB3, and the other free offerings were poor quality also. (MyBB still looks and feels like an amateur work; SMF is essentially dead as far as new development goes.)

Most will welcome the change. A very small percent will complain (quite vocally), but that is normal. Your server will also thank you for it. It's all good!

 

[DRE]

Just took a look at huddler out of curiosity and all I gotta say is... not bad. Not bad at all.

 

[smartpixels]

More than the users your moderators and you personal will love the features of Xenforo. My entire day was spent in clean spam and moving threads now its 1 hour atmost

 

[TeflonDon]

Good luck with the move.

Would love to get my hands on the Users Currently Viewing addon. Hope it's available soon

 

[OSS 117]

This issue is a key reason why I've been desperate to move to Xenforo for literally years. I think people these days (particularly the young) have got used to the latest jQuery type funky UI effects and the ease of use of social networking sites, and in contrast, vB3 feels old and clunky. I hope that the new look AVForums will rejuvenate the community.

Indeed, that may be because of Facebook. Can't speak personally as I'm neither young nor do I use social media. At first I didn't like what Headfi had done because I just hate the JS BS going on, but over time I started to like the Huddler platform. But for Pete's sake someone smack some common sense into their developers. Their search engine sucks.

It certainly will give it a boost. I've witnessed it myself, and others here have similar stories.

Two important forums I installed it on (one being our "big board", the other being my oldest forum dating back to 1995) saw an increase. With the big board, we were running a customized vB 3.7 that we had tweaked to make more efficient (including using the Sphinx search engine).

I do myself a favor and install Sphinx on any site I start, come to own or administrate. Shaves seconds if not half a minute on very busy sites.

 

[Blackbeard]

Stuart, Will you be using the Searchlight addon or will you be using the xenforo search addon?