Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake
This is about GardenBanter! :~)
But whilst archiving, I've noticed:
1) a high proportion of GardenBanter questions to which one or more of
us responds with a "more information" request which is never answered
so the question just dries up;
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If that was just gb, then I would expect to see "further information" but find that I'm the only person answering, because those on the urg side of the fence don't see the further information. I can't say I've noticed, but haven't really been looking.
Quote:
2) that GardenBanter, far from being a "community", seems to be a say
hello, ask a question, disappear place. With the exception of Kay,
there appear to be no "regulars" which seems a little odd, given the
"viewed" counts on some of its posts.
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Even before gb urg was going that way a bit. In the early days there really was a community, which was why we set up the urgring to see each other's gardens, and had urgmeets in various parts of the country. But that was in the early days when you had to have a certain level of geekiness to be on the internet, and you would meet the same people in all sorts of different groups (we used to joke that all the newgroups were populated by the same 100 posters). As the internet got more popular, there was a steady rise in the people treating it as a gardening CAB.
Quote:
But I'm beginning to wonder whether a lot of budding gardeners are
being put off. Are people responding to our requests for more info but
that response doesn't get out of the GB system? Is there a "community"
at GB which we're not seeing?
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No.
The only community is on urg, basically you lot in Wales, and the Devon/Cornwall lot. Largely people who also know each other in real life. There are other regular posters from gb - I can think of at least one.
Quote:
I suppose, at the end of the day, we embrace, tolerate or ignore GB
users. But if we want to do anything other than ignore then it's worth
checking out what seems to be going wrong. If, as I suspect, URGlers
provide the majority of the answers that draw GB users to it and,
without which, GB would not cover its costs by advertising income, we
have some clout and could perhaps persuade the owner(s) to do
something about their problems.
What do you think, Kay (in particular)?
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Dunno.
I note they have strict rules about gb users using it for their own advertising, but they make no effort to monitor this and remove ads. So it would look as if they have taken a pragmatic decision that it's bringing in the money OK as it is.
Please let me know if you see my answer!
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