Home Barista Forum Metrics - user activity over the years? Future of forums? - Page 4

Offer your ideas on how to improve the site or report problems.
Rickpatbrown (original poster)
Posts: 460
Joined: 5 years ago

#31: Post by Rickpatbrown (original poster) »

HB wrote:The results from the last year aren't surprising: Most posters are moderately-active (2-20 posts) or one-time posters. The number of very active members (100+ posts) is small.
Posts   Users
All     5402
1       1693
2-20    3195
21-99    394
100+     120
I'm happy to see that I was wrong to assume that forums are dying.

I think my perception was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of FB. The size of the La Pavoni group and Huky group seems huge. But you also get eveeyone posting in a single feed, which makes it seem more active.

_Ryan_
Posts: 183
Joined: 3 years ago

#32: Post by _Ryan_ »

DaveC wrote:I use forums not just to help people, but also to understand the thinking out there...right or wrong. This helps me advise manufacturers how to make their products better....or develop new ideas. I'm looking at some machine software at the moment...it's good but it's not right. I only know that because I participate in forums and have a very good idea of what people want (or actually need).

If coffee forums go....then the machines will end up being what the manufacturers and retailers "think" you want.....which would be a very bad thing.
Are there not other ways you could do user research and testing? Feel free to PM me, have worked in product development for multi-$B org. and also done some grass-roots outreach independent of that.

_Ryan_
Posts: 183
Joined: 3 years ago

#33: Post by _Ryan_ »

HB wrote:This site is based on phpBB, thus the look, modern or otherwise, is tied to it. I'm a programmer by trade, so I've made thousands of modifications of the base code in my "free" time. The result, I believe, is a better version of phpBB. As an added bonus, I've implemented many performance, search, and mobile-friendly mods. For the majority of accesses, IMHO, it's wicked fast and looks great on mobile phones.

Someday, I would love to really revamp the site. But I'm a one-man development team, so there's limits to what I can do. I mentioned this to my career advisor and he suggested hiring it out, such as a summer intern. To really revamp the site, however, would require a significant investment in time and money (e.g., a full-time programmer and designer for 3-6 months). Someday? In the meantime, I would like to have more formal community involvement, such as the Favorite Espressos 2020. That was a lot of fun and not too much work on my part coordinating it.
Would a platform such as Discourse i. be viable, and ii. meet requirements?

User avatar
HB
Admin
Posts: 21983
Joined: 19 years ago

#34: Post by HB »

I don't follow you. Requirements for what? Looking at the Discourse features, it's yet another forum platform.
Dan Kehn

_Ryan_
Posts: 183
Joined: 3 years ago

#35: Post by _Ryan_ »

I signed up because forums historically have been where knowledge is banked and good discussions were held in the car community.

Reddit is full of the same questions posted one after the other, no use of the simple questions thread, no scrolling to see if it's answered yet, no searching - or it's just a Breville circle-jerk. :lol:
People will offer $500-$1000 worth of tool suggestions for what is generally 'fixable' for free. It's just a mess of hive-mind, hype-driven up/down voting following YouTuber trends which follow the endorsement $.

I'm not big on Discord but am warming to it, I prefer asynchronous modalities.

So that circles back to forums - where I'll post things that I think will be valuable and appreciated.
For example, when I went to PID my VBM SB, there was only a couple of results in Google, nothing conclusive, one of which resulted in damaged threads (and was on HB).
I documented what I did, the BOM etc. Got it right first try aside from under-using teflon tape.
Another user has followed in my footsteps with success, on a brand new machine. That's only the one I know of. It may have helped others.
(Which is why I initially thought of adding DF64 and Ode burrs to my SSP vs Mazzer vs J-max burr comparison (with refractometer), as that would cover most upgrade paths and have them all tested on the same measurement devices.)
The knowledge is banked, indexed, available.

Reddit? Same info, sanitised, downvoted. Discord? It'd get lost.

Long live forums.

_Ryan_
Posts: 183
Joined: 3 years ago

#36: Post by _Ryan_ »

Sorry, first post was before the coffee went down the hatch!

<>=snip
emphasis, mine
HB wrote:This site is based on phpBB, thus the look, modern or otherwise, is tied to it.
I'm a programmer by trade, so I've made thousands of modifications of the base code in my "free" time.
The result, I believe, is a better version of phpBB.
<>I've implemented many performance, search, and mobile-friendly mods.
<>it's wicked fast and looks great on mobile phones.

<> I would love to really revamp the site. But I'm a one-man development team, so there's limits to what I can do.
<>To really revamp the site, however, would require a significant investment in time and money (e.g., a full-time programmer and designer for 3-6 months).
HB wrote:I don't follow you. Requirements for what? Looking at the Discourse features, it's yet another forum platform.
I saw Discourse mentioned in another "world" and my read (skim?) was that it's a managed platform(meaning, kept up to date or atleast access to current releases of 'standard' code) with migration costs built in.

My interpretation of your post was that you have the desire for modernisation of the forum UI, but are constrained by hours (programmer and designer).
There has been some customisation of the exisiting forum which would indicate there was a requirement (use case?) not being met. I'd assume there are other needs, such as cost, uptime, extensibility/configurability/templates.

Hence curious if something which I thought was a managed platform with included migrations could potentially be a viable option for a one-man-band.

Cheers,
Ryan.

User avatar
HB
Admin
Posts: 21983
Joined: 19 years ago

#37: Post by HB »

_Ryan_ wrote:Hence curious if something which I thought was a managed platform with included migrations could potentially be a viable option for a one-man-band.
Gotcha. It's true that offloading mods/maintenance to a hosted platform would cut down my work effort, but I'm quite happy with the forum's functionality today and like the ability to [programmatically] improve it.

What I meant by "revamp the site" wasn't the forum section, it's the other sections (how-tos, reviews, etc). They don't see nearly the level of interest as the forum since they really don't change that much (e.g., 1 or 2 reviews per year). They aren't updated frequently because that would require an author/blogger, editor, and graphics artist. I have a pretty good idea of the effort involved to publish frequently since I was blogmeister for the IBM Cloud Blog for a couple years. To do it right, HB would need a full-time editor/blogmeister, part-time graphics artist, and enough money to pay guest authors.

I listed some other ideas in Summer of Code projects for HB, e.g., a podcast, regular coffee review, and quality video setup like Martin's A complete beginner's guide. One of the main inhibitors is my full-time day job that pays the bills. :lol:
Dan Kehn

DaveC
Posts: 1743
Joined: 17 years ago

#38: Post by DaveC »

_Ryan_ wrote:Are there not other ways you could do user research and testing? Feel free to PM me, have worked in product development for multi-$B org. and also done some grass-roots outreach independent of that.
I do it as a hobby, not work in it...participating in forums and helping people is part of my hobby and something I enjoy. I have been on forums for almost 20 years. If I start using various research methods, it ceases to become a hobby??

Post Reply