Making The Shark Pool More Useful - How To Post & Discuss Breaking News (1 Viewer)

[Joe Bryant]

That's pretty freaking priceless right there.

I'd say it's pretty sad. But they're right. It's no secret the board is insular and not welcoming. Hopefully we can change that. But we'll see. I hope you'll help. 

 

[Joe Bryant]

That happens already. It will require some more active thread pruning by the mods to keep the first page clean on big news days.

Yes. And it'll require people posting to take a look and make sure there isn't already a thread. 

 

[Hankmoody]

I'd say it's pretty sad. But they're right. It's no secret the board is insular and not welcoming. Hopefully we can change that. But we'll see. I hope you'll help. 

I'm not doubting they are right.  I'm lamenting the fact they have given up on trying to improve it.  I'm flabbergasted that the leaders of a business are rolling their eyes and accepting an undesirable status quo rather than going out and trying to fix it.  As a guy that spent 15 years running different businesses that just doesn't compute for me.

 

[Joe Bryant]

I'm not doubting they are right.  I'm lamenting the fact they have given up on trying to improve it.  I'm flabbergasted that the leaders of a business are rolling their eyes and accepting an undesirable status quo rather than going out and trying to fix it.  As a guy that spent 15 years running different businesses that just doesn't compute for me.

As you've seen here, it's not exactly a group open to change and improvement. That's most of it. 

But I think we can improve it. And again, hope you'll help. 

 

[niagararapids]

Joe,

I am a long time lurker and subscriber for well over 10 years to your site...here is what I have noticed over the past years and why these boards are not nearly the same as they used to be (take this all constructively).

A few years ago there were a ton of great posters such as SSOD (know as Adam Harsted) and others of the same who would post a ton of great info. Along the way either you or another site (in the case of Chicago Arch) takes them away from the forums and hires them as staff. By making them staff you took all their great content away from the forums and put them behind the paid firewall (probably to make more money with better content to offer for subscribers). For someone like me who pays it was not a big deal...but in the process it caused these boards to decline majorly as all the good posters now were pay only as subscribers and would write articles instead. As the posters get plucked it causes less interaction here and hence the decline. For those of us who play dynasty and IDP it is really noticeable.

I guess a question you need to think about is if you are willing to let all the pay content come back to the boards like it used to be 8-10 years ago. That is the only way you can truly revive these boards back to how they used to be.

 

[Deamon]

Hi @northern exposure  Thanks for the insight. It’s different. And it’s far from “shocked”. I’m in both the SP and FFA pretty much daily and have been since they started. I think there’s some sort of perception that not posting means not there. But that’s not really relevant here. I have become more involved lately in trying to guide the forums back to where I think they should be. The FFA has very different challenges than the Shark Pool. 

For the Shark Pool, the primary problem is waning interest and therefore participation. That’s mainly what I’m trying to address here. 

I think what you described with Henry above is exactly the kind of content needed to bring it back. With one exception. It should be a poster here, not a staffer that posts the original thread. Because it’s simply a numbers game. One of you guys is always more likely to see something first before a staffer. Simply because there’s so many of you guys.

I’d like to see the Henry news have played out exactly the way you described with the exception it would be a Shark Pool member posting: “Hunter Henry, TE Chargers - It has been confirmed that Hunter Henry tore his ACL and is out for the season. In my opinion the Chargers have to bring back Antonio Gates to help replace the loss of Henry. Discuss.” And then you and others go at it. That makes great content. After we establish that’s the kind of content you can read here, I think you’ll see even more people contributing. It’s a virtuous circle. Good content attracts good contributors who generate good content and so on.

This is exactly what I’m hoping to encourage here. And I’d love for you to be a part of it. 

I think that is a little relevant.  I'm actually (pleasantly) surprised to see that you're in here daily.  I think others would appreciate knowing that too.  So maybe even though it seems trivial, throwing a 'like' or a quick (non policing) comment here or there randomly will show that presence.  And I think even showing that presence will go a long way.  People might be less rude, "trolly", etc if they're part of a thread that they know you or other staffers are reading.  Presence seems to be the key word that everyone here is wanting.  I fully understand from a revenue standpoint it may not be important, which is why you can be creative with how you exhibit such presence.  Like another suggested, it could literally be a mandatory 2 posts and 3 'likes' a day from your well known writers, anywhere in the SP.  It's not the full solution, but I think a little could go a long way here.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Joe,

I am a long time lurker and subscriber for well over 10 years to your site...here is what I have noticed over the past years and why these boards are not nearly the same as they used to be (take this all constructively).

A few years ago there were a ton of great posters such as SSOD (know as Adam Harsted) and others of the same who would post a ton of great info. Along the way either you or another site (in the case of Chicago Arch) takes them away from the forums and hires them as staff. By making them staff you took all their great content away from the forums and put them behind the paid firewall (probably to make more money with better content to offer for subscribers). For someone like me who pays it was not a big deal...but in the process it caused these boards to decline majorly as all the good posters now were pay only as subscribers and would write articles instead. As the posters get plucked it causes less interaction here and hence the decline. For those of us who play dynasty and IDP it is really noticeable.

I guess a question you need to think about is if you are willing to let all the pay content come back to the boards like it used to be 8-10 years ago. That is the only way you can truly revive these boards back to how they used to be.

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback. I understand your point and it's a fair one. Let me keep thinking on that. 

 

[Slapdash]

As you've seen here, it's not exactly a group open to change and improvement. That's most of it. 

But I think we can improve it. And again, hope you'll help. 

Part of it is that you are asking this question during a time of the year when it is really going to be the hardcore and dynasty players.  A lot of outstanding content is being produced here during the off-months and there is not much breaking news.  So consider your audience is probably a group of posters whom really enjoy this content and don't want to see it go away.  Things should and do operate differently as we get closer to the season, which seems to be the time period you would see both an influx of new users/breaking news.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Part of it is that you are asking this question during a time of the year when it is really going to be the hardcore and dynasty players.  A lot of outstanding content is being produced here during the off-months and there is not much breaking news.  So consider your audience is probably a group of posters whom really enjoy this content and don't want to see it go away.  Things should and do operate differently as we get closer to the season, which seems to be the time period you would see both an influx of new users/breaking news.

Agreed. One has to definitely factor the time of year in for all this. 

 

[Hankmoody]

Joe,

I am a long time lurker and subscriber for well over 10 years to your site...here is what I have noticed over the past years and why these boards are not nearly the same as they used to be (take this all constructively).

A few years ago there were a ton of great posters such as SSOD (know as Adam Harsted) and others of the same who would post a ton of great info. Along the way either you or another site (in the case of Chicago Arch) takes them away from the forums and hires them as staff. By making them staff you took all their great content away from the forums and put them behind the paid firewall (probably to make more money with better content to offer for subscribers). For someone like me who pays it was not a big deal...but in the process it caused these boards to decline majorly as all the good posters now were pay only as subscribers and would write articles instead. As the posters get plucked it causes less interaction here and hence the decline. For those of us who play dynasty and IDP it is really noticeable.

I guess a question you need to think about is if you are willing to let all the pay content come back to the boards like it used to be 8-10 years ago. That is the only way you can truly revive these boards back to how they used to be.

That's not going to happen, and it shouldn't have to.  This is a business and they are just trying to maximize revenues.  That's normal.  I wouldn't expect to see that quality of content on free forums.

What they can do is encourage (require?) staff to continue participation on the forums.  There are 100's of threads here that don't cover paid content or go into far less detail than that does.  Just their presence and professionalism will keep the good threads moving.  Their biggest value is that they are another very informed voice in the sea of info out there.  I've seen threads about a player go on for a couple of pages and all of a sudden someone drops a great nugget like "yea, but do we really expect John Fox to be able to get that out of XYZ?" and all of a sudden the entire conversation gets looked at differently.  THAT is the impact those guys can have, more of those moments.  We don't need them to give their livelihood away to get those.

 

[Jacksonke1]

It is interesting to hear how the staff behind the scenes apparently holds the SP in such low regard though. Sure there are some juvenile moments captured for eternity, but there are some great posters who offer opinions and analysis that you would be hard pressed to distinguish from actual paid content.

I've been coming here off and on for a good 15+ years I think, with many subscription years thrown in there, and the SP is one of the features I enjoy the most for the real time point-counterpoint aspect of it. If five people instantly disagree with what I thought was the best plan ever.......maybe I have the rose-colored glasses on and should re-think it.

End of the day, if, upon being asked, customers strongly suggest that some occasional interaction would benefit the place, then shouldn't many of the staff say "hey, this could be better for the customer, could possibly generate more business for the bottom line and ultimately benefit us all?" I'd certainly want my own staff to feel optimism toward everything in my product with my name on it even if it was considered a freebie.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Sure there are some juvenile moments captured for eternity, but there are some great posters who offer opinions and analysis that you would be hard pressed to distinguish from actual paid content.




2

Agreed for sure @Jacksonke1  I think you guys are selling yourself short. There's tons of great contributors here and I'd like for that to continue. That's how it's always been from day one and how I'd like it to continue. The forum needs to be lead by you guys, not the staff. But I do hear you on what you're saying about more staff. 

 

[Noah Davis]

Why?

I don't get this at all Joe. To me it seems to encourage lazy behavior which is not going to make board participation "better".

Because some of us have limited time.  If the information is not easily accessible on this forum then we will migrate to locations where it is.  

 

[Noah Davis]

Hey Guys,

Spinnoff from this thread.

One of the best ways the Shark Pool can be useful is with breaking news.

We'll never ever come close to beating twitter and other social media as there are simply so many people listening compared to the audience here. So we'll likely never get it first here. And that's fine. What we CAN do much better here though is discuss it intelligently. The average poster here is way smarter than the average guy on Twitter when it comes to football. Let's use what we have.

For instance, if you saw Adam Schefter tweet on Hunter Henry's injury last week, a lot of the twitter discussion was the entirely predictable stuff with zero usefulness. It was "LOL at Chargers - should have drafted a TE" type stuff. That's useful to nobody.

We can do TONS better. But it'll take effort on your part. I think we should do something that is uniform like this:

1. It should NOT go in the master thread which might be years old and not have the right title.  It should be a new thread.

2. We likely should establish a standard way of making a new post. Something like: BREAKING (DATE) and (TIME including Time Zone) Full Player Name then Issue

So something like:   BREAKING - 5/22/18 10:00 PM ET - Hunter Henry Torn ACL

Then the the post needs to be whatever happened and most importantly of all A LINK to the story. If you don't have a link, say how you heard it. It's ok if you heard on radio or you heard it at the bar or whatever. As long as you're clear.

Something like 

https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/999102898561744896

3. Then we can discuss with the focus being on HOW THIS IMPACTS OTHERS. In other words, Hunter Henry news the other day should mostly be about who is going to see work now. I don't want to be cold towards Henry and I'm sorry he's hurt, but for most of us, the USEFUL discussion will be on what happens now. 

That make sense?

@Joe Bryant Wouldn't the easiest solution be to create another forum called "SharkPool: Breaking News" where you do exactly this and then auto clear any thread after 30 days so all information is fresh?  Maybe a sub-forum right below Assistant Coach? You would then avoid the master thread vs separate thread vs merge pain point.

Side note you should check out Weezer's cover of Toto's Africa....pure awesomeness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4c7EE8_IX0 cool story behind it too.

 

[Joe Bryant]

@Joe Bryant Wouldn't the easiest solution be to create another forum called "SharkPool: Breaking News" where you do exactly this and then auto clear any thread after 30 days so all information is fresh?  Maybe a sub-forum right below Assistant Coach? You would then avoid the master thread vs separate thread vs merge pain point.

Side note you should check out Weezer's cover of Toto's Africa....pure awesomeness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4c7EE8_IX0 cool story behind it too.

Thanks @Noah Davis Weezer rocks. That's fun. 

I think we've seen the trouble with subforums. Splintering off is something I try to avoid as much as we can. It works best for things we want to keep separate like the assistant coach forum. Breaking news is usually super hot topic stuff and right what this forum will be discussing.