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Joe Needs Feedback - How can the Shark Pool Be More Useful and Better? (1 Viewer)

Joe Bryant

Joe Bryant

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Staff member
Hey Guys,

Need your feedback. We've done this a few times and thought I might start a new thread here. 

Please give your thoughts on this big question:  

How can we make the Shark Pool Be More Useful And Better?

The goal I have for this board is simply that. I want it be a place and community that's useful for people playing Fantasy Football. 

So let's hear it. What kind of things would you like to see more of? Less of? Don't be shy. Dream big. We of course can't do everything everyone wants. But I'd like to hear what you're thinking. 

Joe

 
The pool is only as good/bad as the participants. Bad threads will eventually fall off the
front page. Posters will tire of calling each other trolls(I hope). The board does go crazy
with breaking stories but then levels off so I don't think it is a matter of you doing more.
I think it is a matter of you doing "it" better. An example would be in the Philly/Dallas
threads with two? posters turning the thing into a drawn out argument. Maybe I should
have reported them but didn't.

This thread is going to turn into a pi$$ and moan session. With maybe a good idea coming
out of it but your going to have to wade through a LOT of posts to see it.

I can't stress enough of doing less or the same but doing it better.

 
I think it's awesome that you are asking for feedback across all of the forums Joe.   We all thank you for the platform and environment that you and your staff provide us with.   I pretty much gave you the same answer in the FFA thread--but the best way to make these boards better is through active involvement/participation of the staff.   I think especially so in this forum. You and your staff are obviously well versed in the world of fantasy sports--but I also think that a more visible presense by your staff/administration will naturally keep out a lot of the "garbage" that tends to suffocate these boards.   I'm not talking moderation--I'm saying that active participation in all of the forums will naturally result in people not behaving as poorly.  There is a reason why police departments will sometimes leave empty parked squad cars in visible areas.  The mere sight of a police vehicle has an effect on the driving habits of people.  Encourage each member of your staff to spend maybe an hour or two a week on these boards participating and getting involved.  

It'll make the boards better, you and your staff will feel closer to the users, and your own staff will have first hand knowledge and experience to how things can be improved.  

 
Not sure it's a shark pool issue, but breaking news, needs to actually be breaking news.  Not hours and hours later. Not sure if you can beat/match the twitterverse, but it would help make the site more relevant. 

Eta: Been here forever joe, thx for what you've done and keep it up!  I've gotta get a shot of my ski helmet for you. I put a black eyed joe sticker on it, after last year's tshirt exchange. 

 
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No major complaints on my end with existing shark pool but thanks for asking.

I'd just increase the mod presence to more quickly eliminate unnecessary threads, merge duplicate topics and if need be delete posts when it turns into such incredible pissing matches that finding a kernel of info is like looking for that needled in the haystack. I don't know how these things work with mods, if it needs to be a staff member, but if they are not up to the task I'd recommend giving that authority to some key designated people who post frequently. Just needs to be the kind of poster that does not delve in pissing matches, which frankly eliminates someone like me, but I'm thinking someone like Faust. Maybe Faust is a mod and I don't know it, but if he's not people like him should be.

 
DA RAIDERS said:
Not sure it's a shark pool issue, but breaking news, needs to actually be breaking news.  Not hours and hours later. Not sure if you can beat/match the twitterverse, but it would help make the site more relevant. 

Eta: Been here forever joe, thx for what you've done and keep it up!  I've gotta get a shot of my ski helmet for you. I put a black eyed joe sticker on it, after last year's tshirt exchange. 
Click to expand...
Thanks @DA RAIDERS  Let's see that ski helmet!  And I agree on breaking news. It'll never ever beat the twitterverse as that has a zillion people listening vs the audience here.

But we CAN do better is intelligently discuss the news. 

So I think a few things on breaking news:.

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

Stunner from LA: Chargers’ TE Hunter Henry suffered a season-ending torn ACL today, per league source. Did it during a drill, running downfield, untouched. Second opinion coming Wednesday.
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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?

 
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DA RAIDERS said:
Not sure it's a shark pool issue, but breaking news, needs to actually be breaking news.  Not hours and hours later. Not sure if you can beat/match the twitterverse, but it would help make the site more relevant. 

Eta: Been here forever joe, thx for what you've done and keep it up!  I've gotta get a shot of my ski helmet for you. I put a black eyed joe sticker on it, after last year's tshirt exchange. 
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Nope.  Like NBC used to say, "new to me".  If I am fresh off the golf course and checking my lineup at 12:45 I still need to know who's been benched, arrested, or hospitalized after some bad bath salts.  "Breaking" simply means "not the same drivel that's been posted in this player/team thread for the past 7 weeks about how cool they are".  Team threads are an interesting study.  Some do a pretty good job of updating the thread title to indicate what's current.  I used to run the Raiders thread until a Nofun Nancy decided it wasn't acceptable to have a little creativity with it and ninja started this year's so now everyone that's not a fan has to read it regularly in order to not miss anything.  As a die-hard Raiders fan it turns my tummy to have to read the Donks thread but it's the only way I know if anything is happening with their team.  But the Jets, all I gotta do is look at the thread title to know if anything new is up.

 
You've probably heard this before but the search engine could really use an upgrade.

If people could track down threads or players or topics more easily that would decrease multiple threads where people can't find a thread to post so they open a new thread.

I think a more robust search engine would help out immensely. 

 
Bracie Smathers said:
You've probably heard this before but the search engine could really use an upgrade.

If people could track down threads or players or topics more easily that would decrease multiple threads where people can't find a thread to post so they open a new thread.

I think a more robust search engine would help out immensely. 
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That's not under FBG's control. That is a Invision board software issue. For better search results you can use Google
with a search Footballguy's message board command.

 
I don't understand the issue with search.  It's fine in my experience.  Before the upgrade it used to default to a Google search rather than "these forums" but that was easily fixed with the drop down.  I have no problem finding what I am looking for.

 
Hankmoody said:
I don't understand the issue with search.  It's fine in my experience.  Before the upgrade it used to default to a Google search rather than "these forums" but that was easily fixed with the drop down.  I have no problem finding what I am looking for.
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It's clunky sometimes. But I too don't quite get the issue. It's clearly not as smooth as google, one of the smoothest sites in the world.  But when people say the "search sucks", can you describe exactly what you're having trouble with? What you're doing and what is not working? Thanks.

 
Please return the AC Forum to what it used to be. The revised format is not user friendly (to me) and people are  often not posting their questions there, instead we are seeing them mostly in this forum. I can't see who last posted in a thread and I don't care who voted on a question (which no one seems to).

I use to post in threads there all the time to help answer questions for people, but I rarely do so anymore. This was a case of fixing something that wasn't broken and I would like to see it as it was before.

Just my :2cents:

 
Joe Bryant said:
It's clunky sometimes. But I too don't quite get the issue. It's clearly not as smooth as google, one of the smoothest sites in the world.  But when people say the "search sucks", can you describe exactly what you're having trouble with? What you're doing and what is not working? Thanks.
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The issue is intermittent quirks like zero results for a topic so you search by the author who has over ten thousand posts and it would still come up with zero results and then frustration would kick in.

Once again, intermittent quirks which make it truly maddening because you can't replicate an intermittent issue because ya know...

 
jvdesigns2002 said:
the best way to make these boards better is through active involvement/participation of the staff.   I think especially so in this forum
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:goodposting:  

The golden era of the Shark Pool was when @Chase Stuart, @Adam Harstad, @Sigmund Bloom, @Bruce Hammond, @Maurile Tremblay, @Jason Wood, @David Dodds, and other staff members were regular posters. Personally, I would happily sacrifice a healthy number of the articles in exchange for more active forum participation.

 
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squistion said:
Please return the AC Forum to what it used to be. The revised format is not user friendly (to me) and people are  often not posting their questions there, instead we are seeing them mostly in this forum. I can't see who last posted in a thread and I don't care who voted on a question (which no one seems to).

I use to post in threads there all the time to help answer questions for people, but I rarely do so anymore. This was a case of fixing something that wasn't broken and I would like to see it as it was before.

Just my :2cents:
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Thanks. We'll be keeping the ac as it is now but I agree we need to do better in keeping the threads out of here. Please use the report function when you see them. 

But I'll also say some people (not saying you @squistion)are too sensitive on this. We get threads reported when the topic is how will the saints RBs fare this year. People will say the posts trying to make it a who do I Draft thread when in reality it's legit discussion others are interested in. 

Which is really the entire point of not allowing who do I start questions - they usually have only value to that one person. 

If it's about a player and lots of people are interested in the discussion the thread stays here. 

 
Just Win Baby said:
:goodposting:  

The golden era of the Shark Pool was when @Chase Stuart, @Adam Harstad, @Sigmund Bloom, @Bruce Hammond, @Maurile Tremblay, @Jason Wood, @David Dodds, and other staff members were regular posters. Personally, I would happily sacrifice a healthy number of the articles in exchange for more active forum participation.
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Thanks. I know it won't go back to that simply because of time constraints. But I do see us getting back to a time where the forums were a place where new people came in and earned the respect of others and became staffers. 

One big part of that we haven't really talked about is I want us to improve the vibe in the shark pool to where knowledgeable people want to post more. I've had people say the pissy behavior from a few have then thinking they'd rather contribute elsewhere. 

That's of course a bigger problem in our other non NFL forums but it's a thing here too. 

What I want us to do is help create a place where smart people live to contribute and engage in discussion. That's on all of us to do. 

 
Interesting. Can you give me details on Xenforo?  Mainly how does it differ from Invision? I know we won't be able to take on a project as big as changing board software until the offseason but it's always good to know own what is out there. 

 
Bracie Smathers said:
You've probably heard this before but the search engine could really use an upgrade.

If people could track down threads or players or topics more easily that would decrease multiple threads where people can't find a thread to post so they open a new thread.

I think a more robust search engine would help out immensely. 
Click to expand...


nightmare said:
That's not under FBG's control. That is a Invision board software issue. For better search results you can use Google
with a search Footballguy's message board command.
Click to expand...
How does one do this?

Joe Bryant said:
It's clunky sometimes. But I too don't quite get the issue. It's clearly not as smooth as google, one of the smoothest sites in the world.  But when people say the "search sucks", can you describe exactly what you're having trouble with? What you're doing and what is not working? Thanks.
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For me it's the fact that virtually any time I want to search something either in "This Topic" or "This Forum" I need to go to the second level (advanced search). Never is an extreme word but it really feels like I never get any relevant results using the default search from the page or forum I am in at the time.  Once you get to the advanced search features it works well enough, and I am grateful that I no longer have to use +search +engine "-is -good" +sucks qualifiers.  It also doesn't handle misspellings well at all, but I understand that you really cannot do much about any of that.

I guess it really comes down to a matter of convenience. Switching tabs to google for a specific FBGs search, or having to dig down and then back out of three levels to get the information you are looking for is a minor PITA. Totally first world problems but IMO improving efficiency is its own end.

 
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Chaka said:
How does one do this?

For me it's the fact that virtually any time I want to search something either in "This Topic" or "This Forum" I need to go to the second level (advanced search). Never is an extreme word but it really feels like I never get any relevant results using the default search from the page or forum I am in at the time.  Once you get to the advanced search features it works well enough, and I am grateful that I no longer have to use +search +engine "-is -good" +sucks qualifiers.  It also doesn't handle misspellings well at all, but I understand that you really cannot do much about any of that.

I guess it really comes down to a matter of convenience. Switching tabs to google for a specific FBGs search, or having to dig down and then back out of three levels to get the information you are looking for is a minor PITA. Totally first world problems but IMO improving efficiency is its own end.
Click to expand...
Google.com. lower right corner, settings, advanced search, It brings up a new search page. You'll see a bunch of boxes.
you want to use the first one for your specific search and about 3/4ths down the page is a site or domain box.
Put footballguys.com/forums in that one.

 

 
nightmare said:
Google.com. lower right corner, settings, advanced search, It brings up a new search page. You'll see a bunch of boxes.
you want to use the first one for your specific search and about 3/4ths down the page is a site or domain box.
Put footballguys.com/forums in that one.
Click to expand...
You can also just use the normal Google search box (or the address bar in browsers like Chrome) and include "site:footballguys.com/forum" as one of your search terms. So if you want to search for Philip Rivers, type "site:footballguys.com/forum Philip Rivers".

 
nightmare said:
Google.com. lower right corner, settings, advanced search, It brings up a new search page. You'll see a bunch of boxes.
you want to use the first one for your specific search and about 3/4ths down the page is a site or domain box.
Put footballguys.com/forums in that one.

 
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Thanks. Sincerely.

Seems like a PITA but at least I have the option now.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
You can also just use the normal Google search box (or the address bar in browsers like Chrome) and include "site:footballguys.com/forum" as one of your search terms. So if you want to search for Philip Rivers, type "site:footballguys.com/forum Philip Rivers".
Click to expand...
Even better.

Excellent MT.  I will totally forget how to do this by the time I want to use it, but it is good to know it's out there.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
You can also just use the normal Google search box (or the address bar in browsers like Chrome) and include "site:footballguys.com/forum" as one of your search terms. So if you want to search for Philip Rivers, type "site:footballguys.com/forum Philip Rivers".
Click to expand...
I'm a 2 finger typist so clicking a bunch of times is just as fast/slow for me as typing that out.

 
Bracie Smathers said:
You've probably heard this before but the search engine could really use an upgrade.

If people could track down threads or players or topics more easily that would decrease multiple threads where people can't find a thread to post so they open a new thread.

I think a more robust search engine would help out immensely. 
Click to expand...
:lmao: :yes:

At this point I have to imagine this has to be something they can't do.. right?  Because if they could, and haven't, that would be weird.

 
Joe Bryant said:
Interesting. Can you give me details on Xenforo?  Mainly how does it differ from Invision? I know we won't be able to take on a project as big as changing board software until the offseason but it's always good to know own what is out there. 
Click to expand...
I just took a few minutes looking at possible boards to consider  (The main issue being search function)  Xen is more a knee-jerk suggestion  https://xenforo.com/demo/

 
Dismattle said:
I just took a few minutes looking at possible boards to consider  (The main issue being search function)  Xen is more a knee-jerk suggestion  https://xenforo.com/demo/
Click to expand...
Cool. I'd love to hear what folks think are the specific details on how it's different than Invision. Moving board software platforms would be a gigantic project with a ton of pain for transferring id's and old content. Not saying never. But the upside will have  to be huge to justify the downside  

 
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Joe Bryant said:
Thanks. I know it won't go back to that simply because of time constraints. But I do see us getting back to a time where the forums were a place where new people came in and earned the respect of others and became staffers. 

One big part of that we haven't really talked about is I want us to improve the vibe in the shark pool to where knowledgeable people want to post more. I've had people say the pissy behavior from a few have then thinking they'd rather contribute elsewhere. 

That's of course a bigger problem in our other non NFL forums but it's a thing here too. 

What I want us to do is help create a place where smart people live to contribute and engage in discussion. That's on all of us to do. 
Click to expand...
I can't speak for anyone else, but I can tell you the "pissy behavior" from others made me stop posting my completed trades in the Dynasty Trades thread. I got tired of being essentially called an idiot for trades I did, even though I always gave detailed league context as to why I did the particular trade in question.

I got tired of the abuse and now just crowd source my trades on Twitter with polls and get feedback in the form of 100-200 votes, with the actual written comments/tweets being surprisingly more respectful and less insulting than what I was getting here.
 

But I do see us getting back to a time where the forums were a place where new people came in and earned the respect of others and became staffers. 
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I do miss the days where this message board acted as the de facto farm team for future staffers. Adam Harstad was probably the most interesting and insightful poster in Dynasty related discussions, so I wasn't surprised he was brought on board, although oddly, he doesn't seem to write much anymore (if anything) about Dynasty leagues, which seems odd to me, but maybe his interests have shifted elsewhere on the fantasy landscape.

 
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squistion said:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I can tell you the "pissy behavior" from others made me stop posting my completed trades in the Dynasty Trades thread. I got tired of being essentially called an idiot for trades I did, even though I always gave detailed league context as to why I did the particular trade in question.

I got tired of the abuse and now just crowd source my trades on Twitter with polls and get feedback in the form of 100-200 votes, with the actual written comments/tweets being surprisingly more respectful and less insulting than what I was getting here.
 

I do miss the days where this message board acted as the de facto farm team for future staffers. Adam Harstad was probably the most interesting and insightful poster in Dynasty related discussions, so I wasn't surprised he was brought on board, although oddly, he doesn't seem to write much anymore (if anything) about Dynasty leagues, which seems odd to me, but maybe his interests have shifted elsewhere on the fantasy landscape.
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Agreed. It's probably worth saying this from the other thread where there seems to be a lot of folks opposed to improving things.

*****

It's probably time to say exactly what I'm thinking too. The boards aren't as useful as they once were. There's a reason none of the staffers contribute much here anymore. It's because the boards in their current form aren't very useful. I used to use the boards a lot for helping craft my thoughts on players and the "our view" for breaking news and such. I haven't done that in years mostly because I don't find them nearly as useful as I once did. And that's mainly because of the structure and people name threads so poorly. 

It's no secret message boards are fading. In it's current form, the Shark Pool is less useful than it was. 

As I said way earlier, we have an internal discussion platform for FBG staff. Where we do exactly what I'm hoping to do here. News happens, it gets posted with the link, and discussion goes hot and heavy about what the story means. It's great.

I'd like to see that here as I think we have a ton of smart people who can do the same.

But the feeling I get is you guys would rather just keep it exactly as it is and not do anything to improve the boards and make them more useful. 

I don't want to push a ball uphill. If you guys are that adamantly opposed to change that I feel certain will improve the boards, it's may not be worth doing. 

 
A couple things:

1-Is there any way for us to be able to turn off the star icon for threads in which we have posted in the past but which we no longer want to see the star?

2-For the “Breaking News” threads, would it be possible for you (FBGs) to send out texts to people?  If you could, and we had our text names/numbers stored in our FBG account settings, those texts could contain links to the FBG thread on that news. 

 
Maybe a tutorial on using the search function in detail or posting tables of stats & such.  Maybe better formatting tools and/or help.

 
Joe, I want to sincerely thank you for your determination to keep the Shark Pool as the single best source for fantasy football discussion.  

There are two features I would like to see.

1.  I most often look to open the most recent post first.  If there was a way to sort posts within a thread by most recent first, I believe that would be very useful.  

2.  I find it useful that threads I have posted in appear within the forum with a star, and some users go as far as to post a dot within the discussion just so the discussion is starred.  Would it be possible to identify a thread as a favorite and then have a link to all my favorited threads?  This would allow me to select or deselect any particular thread to appear among my favorites so that I may quickly access the issues I have identified as most important to me.

Thanks again for all that you do!

 
socrates said:
Joe, I want to sincerely thank you for your determination to keep the Shark Pool as the single best source for fantasy football discussion.  

There are two features I would like to see.

1.  I most often look to open the most recent post first.  If there was a way to sort posts within a thread by most recent first, I believe that would be very useful.  

2.  I find it useful that threads I have posted in appear within the forum with a star, and some users go as far as to post a dot within the discussion just so the discussion is starred.  Would it be possible to identify a thread as a favorite and then have a link to all my favorited threads?  This would allow me to select or deselect any particular thread to appear among my favorites so that I may quickly access the issues I have identified as most important to me.

Thanks again for all that you do!
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Thanks @socrates   And yeah, I'd be lying if I didn't like being asked a question by socrates...  The answer though is both these things are controlled by the Invision board software and unless I'm missing something, neither are supported by Invision. But that's not to say never. Thanks for being part of the boards. 

 
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Joe Bryant said:
Thanks @socrates   And yeah, I'd be lying if I didn't like being asked a question by socrates...  The answer though is both these things are controlled by the Invision board software and unless I'm missing something, neither are supported by Invision. But that's not to say never. Thanks for being part of the boards. 




2
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Thanks @Joe Bryant.  I suspected as much, but I figured I would put these items on my ultimate wish list!  Keep up the great work.

 
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socrates said:
Joe, I want to sincerely thank you for your determination to keep the Shark Pool as the single best source for fantasy football discussion.  

There are two features I would like to see.

1.  I most often look to open the most recent post first.  If there was a way to sort posts within a thread by most recent first, I believe that would be very useful.  

2.  I find it useful that threads I have posted in appear within the forum with a star, and some users go as far as to post a dot within the discussion just so the discussion is starred.  Would it be possible to identify a thread as a favorite and then have a link to all my favorited threads?  This would allow me to select or deselect any particular thread to appear among my favorites so that I may quickly access the issues I have identified as most important to me.

Thanks again for all that you do!
Click to expand...
To open the most recent reply to a thread, click on the time it was posted, beneath the poster's name.

 
Joe Bryant said:
Agreed. It's probably worth saying this from the other thread where there seems to be a lot of folks opposed to improving things.

*****

It's probably time to say exactly what I'm thinking too. The boards aren't as useful as they once were. There's a reason none of the staffers contribute much here anymore. It's because the boards in their current form aren't very useful. I used to use the boards a lot for helping craft my thoughts on players and the "our view" for breaking news and such. I haven't done that in years mostly because I don't find them nearly as useful as I once did. And that's mainly because of the structure and people name threads so poorly. 

It's no secret message boards are fading. In it's current form, the Shark Pool is less useful than it was. 

As I said way earlier, we have an internal discussion platform for FBG staff. Where we do exactly what I'm hoping to do here. News happens, it gets posted with the link, and discussion goes hot and heavy about what the story means. It's great.

I'd like to see that here as I think we have a ton of smart people who can do the same.

But the feeling I get is you guys would rather just keep it exactly as it is and not do anything to improve the boards and make them more useful. 

I don't want to push a ball uphill. If you guys are that adamantly opposed to change that I feel certain will improve the boards, it's may not be worth doing. 
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Couple of things:

1. First off, trust your gut.  

2. This platform is 15+ years old.  The format at least hasn’t changed much in that time.  So re-visiting the purpose of these boards almost seems overdue.

3. At the same time, some good points about staff engagement on these boards is viable.  It’s been missing for awhile, and it’s been felt.  And to the concept of a ‘farm system’ a function the SP used to serve to an extent, that level of endorsement lent more weight than you might have given credit to.

4. There’s another thread here that talks about a ‘premium’ board for those Insider subscribers to accomplish point #3.  Might be time to consider.  

Bottomline: think about the type of engagement you want to cultivate with the FF community, leverage your knowledge to scale it and also protect it and provide aspirational aspects to building that community.

 
I brought this up in the other thread...but since everyone is mentioning the “farm team” to be a staffer...that is one of the reasons the boards have declined. By losing the posters to become staff (don’t get me wrong...they all deserve it) it takes away from here in the forums.

I would love to see them back and posting more often as it leads to more discussion for me to read.

I personally sign up every year just for the DD (when I used to do redraft), 10 second primer, and MFL discount. I never read the articles (except Bloom 100 and Bramel Tiers) as I play exclusively IDP dynasty now.

i like the forum content and read it (even if not being part of the discussion). Lately there is a lot less discussion though...for some reasons I stated above. But I find it useful during this time of rookie drafts and also during each week of the season as breaking news comes out.

One thing you may want to do (and this is not bashing this person...as he adds valuable content) is to ask Faust to put Rotoworld in the quotes he does about individual players...currently he just puts the quote without using the source and that is a very different thing than when he links to other sites. I don’t know if it could be considered plagiarism or not...but you don’t want Rotoworld coming after the site for not giving them the courtesy after taking their quotes about individual players.

 
Joe Bryant said:
There's a reason none of the staffers contribute much here anymore. It's because the boards in their current form aren't very useful. I used to use the boards a lot for helping craft my thoughts on players and the "our view" for breaking news and such. I haven't done that in years mostly because I don't find them nearly as useful as I once did. And that's mainly because of the structure and people name threads so poorly. 

It's no secret message boards are fading. In it's current form, the Shark Pool is less useful than it was.
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There is a chicken/egg problem here. The Shark Pool was more useful when the current FBG staffers posted regularly in it. Now it is viewed as less useful, but is that the reason they don't post any more or is the fact that they don't post anymore a reason it is less useful?

Apparently, @Joe Bryant would say the former. I say the latter.

 
Just Win Baby said:
There is a chicken/egg problem here. The Shark Pool was more useful when the current FBG staffers posted regularly in it. Now it is viewed as less useful, but is that the reason they don't post any more or is the fact that they don't post anymore a reason it is less useful?

Apparently, @Joe Bryant would say the former. I say the latter.
Click to expand...
bingo.

 
Joe Bryant said:
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. 
Click to expand...
Posted this in other thread, but this thread seems to be more relevant to improvements.

I think the bolded above 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 5-10 minutes a day in here... or 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.

@Jason Wood @Adam Harstad @Maurile Tremblay @Sigmund Bloom @Bruce Hammond  We miss you guys, we need you back.

 
Deamon said:
Posted this in other thread, but this thread seems to be more relevant to improvements.

I think the bolded above 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.  




2
Click to expand...
Thanks. It's appreciated. 

 
Just Win Baby said:
There is a chicken/egg problem here. The Shark Pool was more useful when the current FBG staffers posted regularly in it. Now it is viewed as less useful, but is that the reason they don't post any more or is the fact that they don't post anymore a reason it is less useful?

Apparently, @Joe Bryant would say the former. I say the latter.
Click to expand...
That's a fair question @Just Win Baby   But I feel strongly it's the former. Most message boards or facebook or slack groups  I'm familiar with around a business are dominated and led by the people in the community. That's the power of the board. There are always "experts" or "leaders" who organically rise towards the top and become known as people to trust. But that's earned in the board. Not appointed by the company. But I do understand what you're saying. 

 
I am not sure whether the pool would be the place for this, but as a busy dad with two teens and a double-digiter, I don't have the time I used to on a Sunday morning to not only navigate last minute changes, but also have research on who to start in one easily-accessible place.  I know I can pull up a cheatsheet (and that is helpful), but I'd love to dig a layer deeper on that quickie info...i.e. not only who is starting against a weak secondary, but WR"X" (who is WR9 overall) will be matched with CB"Y" (who is CB53 overall).  I guess I want that extra layer in there so I can make the decision whether to start a DeDe Westbrook (who may be ranked 27th for the week) over Robbie Anderson (who may be ranked 26th).  I think if a thread with info like this is pinned in the Pool and updated weekly by staff, then I can be in the Pool, and get may data, my updates and my advice all in one place.

This September will be 15 years since I have been a FBG, and while I love all the work put into giving us "more", it has become more difficult to navigate on the fly.

Spoon feed me like a weak, fat baby.

 
Joe Bryant said:
That's a fair question @Just Win Baby   But I feel strongly it's the former. Most message boards or facebook or slack groups  I'm familiar with around a business are dominated and led by the people in the community. That's the power of the board. There are always "experts" or "leaders" who organically rise towards the top and become known as people to trust. But that's earned in the board. Not appointed by the company. But I do understand what you're saying. 
Click to expand...
I don't think we are in disagreement on the bolded. The individuals I named did organically rise as you describe, but then they became FBG staff and generally stopped posting in the Pool. I realize some of that is just life happening, changing priorities, etc. But it seems certain that part of it is devoting time they once used in the pool on other FBG responsibilities.

I don't know your arrangement with your staff, i.e., how you pay them for content, make assignments, etc. I have just been saying that I would like it if some of their other responsibilities could be converted to requesting them to spend more time participating in the forums. Like I said in one of my posts, I'm not holding my breath. This sort of comment/request for more staff time in the Shark Pool has been made pretty much every time you have asked for feedback, and it hasn't happened, so it seems clear that you have other priorities for your staff/business, and that is obviously your prerogative.

 
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