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Drone – not a bad shout. I’ll mull that over, might be a fair bit of work but I like the idea.
Reet – Fair points re TAPK. Quite often decisions re-banning are very tricky and I’ve admitted previously that I do tend to give the benefit of the doubt more than I perhaps should. The difficulty is that for every person who was glad to see the back of the aforementioned, there is another who thinks I’ve been too harsh and that they should still be here.
But you are right, I did encourage the ‘grandstanding’ as I did (for a while at least) enjoy certain aspects of TAPK’s slightly tongue-in-cheek self proclamations.
I guess the bottom line is that it’s difficult to please everyone so I try to get somewhere in the middle-ground. But feedback like that referred to in this post is very useful in helping me keep on track. I’m still a learner at this!!
I’ve been posting now on here for just over 4 years and IMHO the mood of the forum now is vastly superior to when I joined. I gave up on the forum initially due to the unfriendliness of so many of the posters and the constant ‘first-name terms’ of some posters made the forum seem very cliquey indeed.
In terms of racing analysis we are fortunate to have so many posters who offer really insightful assessments of races day in day out and if you’re currently following one thread in particular (I won’t name it to save the poster’s blushes) then you will probably be considering giving up the day job and backing his tips for a living.
I wanted to reply to this thread, because i always think it is important to give credit where credit is due.
I think David has done a fantastic job with the forum in recent months.
The development of the forum has increased, more features, more interaction with members, and in general, a lot of effort has clearly gone in on his behalf.
I think the work of David should be congratulated, and his efforts should be recognised, not threads asking about which is the best forum, etc…
This forum has defineately lost its spark and thats a shame as for the past couple of years it was certainly the best read on the internet!
I am delighted with the response to this thread as like i stated in my initial post this forum is the best read on the internet and thats the way i want it to stay,i do believe that things had gone quiet on here and if the only good to come out of this thread is that its encouraged members to actually post their own thoughts then i’m happy.What i have noticed over the years on here though is, there are the Politicians,the Racegoers,the Historians,the Horsey types,the would be Tipsters,the Scientists,the Mathematicians and the Gamblers.There is defineately a Cliquey feel to each and particularly so in the Tipster category whereby it was most notably the cause of friction ultimately caused by those trying to knock King Gord from his throne,a lot of the animosity directed at him was caused by the frustration of those who just didn’t get him,even now he is still centre of conversation,Bosranic summed him up perfectly to Marmite.Cormack did the right thing in banning him as he was always going to be a victim of his own success.
I was a bit peeved with Winkleman’s posting erroneous figs re-our site performance so just in case people doubt my assertions re user numbers and traffic here is a screen shot showing the difference in Visitors during March 2010 versus March 2011. I’m not suggesting he made those up, just that they were totally wrong.
Hopefully you can read this –
http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz321/cormack15a/UniqueVisits-1.jpg
Not very readable – on the graph the green line is last march, the blue this march.
I’ll post the actual figs in a bit.
As the data is unreadable from my screengrab here are the figs from it –
Figs for Unique Visitors –
Mar 2011 – 39,121
Mar 2010 – 20,236Increase year on year +93.32%
Data from Google Analytics. Count isn’t perfect (there are certain technical issues with counting Unique Visitors) but this data uses same count both years so will be directionally correct.
The rest of our metrics show similar improvements (some of the measures are affected by redesign work which makes like for like comparisons year to year difficult) although they don’t all have quite the same level of increase as the Unique Users count.
Sorry to harp on but we’ve all (and I include all the regular and not so regular posters and supporters of the site too in this comment) put in a
hell of a lot of work
this last couple of years into TRF to try and improve it and grow it so we can offer a better site. We think we’re on the right track and constantly look at a range of measures to ensure we are making progress.
I appreciate that the figs aren’t everything but they do (for example) help indicate to us whether people are returning to the site, which is a pretty good barometer. Also we track the areas of the site that are visited most and stuff like that. We’re not very sophisticated with what we do with the info (largely due to time constraints) but it just kind of helps keep us on course. The info is also shared with advertisers, without whom we couldn’t continue to run the site .
So it just really grates when you get someone like Winkleman, who clearly has some sort of personal issue with TRF and it’s members, trying to denigrate all that work and effort and the goodwill we have with our very loyal membership base.
Right, I’ve got that off my chest – I can go to bed now!
To put those Unique User figures into some sort of context, the Racing Post had a daily circulation of 61,588 during March (source http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=46989&c=1 ) – so our figures are pretty fair I think.
Right – now that I’ve justified myself to myself I am DEFINITELY off to bed this time.
I have been a member here for more than two years now, although not the most frequent of posters. I am very much of the opinion that the forum has improved vastly in that time, especially with the respect shown by the majority of contributors to others.
When I first joined, I felt like a ‘nobody’ and often felt my contributions were overlooked (maybe not even read) – especially by those with jobs in the racing media. As the core of regular posters has evolved I think the discussions are much more rewarding to be involved in. Much of the cliqueishness has disappeared without any tangible reduction in quality.
I am a fan of the ‘Big Races’ section especially. Having previously felt somewhat guilty of freeloading as I posted primarily in the competitions sections, the Big Races forum has been a perfect antidote. Whilst not being an uncontrolled free-for-all, there is a particularly inviting atmosphere there to illuminate the rationale behind your selections. The sheer depth of information for each race make it essential reading for me on a Saturday morning!
The clock really does need to be sorted. How hard can that be?
Not having a pop, Corm, but having correct timed posts, particularly in time sensitive competitions, is quite important.
Even if you don’t think it’s important, some would think it makes the whole site look amateurish. I’m telling you that in a loving and caring way
The clock really does need to be sorted. How hard can that be?
Not having a pop, Corm, but having correct timed posts, particularly in time sensitive competitions, is quite important.
Even if you don’t think it’s important, some would think it makes the whole site look amateurish. I’m telling you that in a loving and caring way
On a related note, I wish there was some way to adjust the time zone, like most other forums have.
Mr P – you’re quite right. I’ll try to get it sorted once and for all. It’s a techie issue, to do with servers, etc (I think there are about 4 clocks in the system, located around teh world, so it really isn’t as easy to solve as you (and I) would think it should be – or so I’m told)
Miss W – you can adjust your timezone via your Profile set up. I’ll try to have a look and send you a guide as to where/how you do it.
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You don’t seem to have youtube embed command.
"Miss W – you can adjust your timezone via your Profile set up. I’ll try to have a look and send you a guide as to where/how you do it."
David, you cannot do that anymore.
Regards
When I’m not logged in the clock is spot on, but when I log in it’s one hour behind, strange!
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