snidely I owned and ran a large message board for several years. It had about 15,000 members most of that time. For years I had this guy that would do everything he could to start arguments and controversy. Most of his posts were political, religious, sexual or simply antagonistic in nature. He was a gay liberal atheist male and the demographic of my typical user was wealthy, religious and conservative. For years I had members email me, PM me nonstop about almost every post he made saying if I didn't do something about him they were going to leave. I had to redirect all of my report post mail to an address I didn't use. I didn't boot him because I analyzed my server's stats and this guy was pure gold to me even though 99% of his posts didn't relate to the theme of the site at all. (I was able to coach him into not attacking other members personally). All of these users that complained about him would stay online all day long to see what he was doing, to argue with him, to criticize him or complain about him. I had a staff of 15 volunteer moderators and 1 paid moderator. They all came to me one day and said we can't deal with this guy anymore. Several of them had came to me individually over the years. Realizing I couldn’t run a message board without a good staff I gave in and banned him. 3 months later the message board was dead. People simply didn't have a reason to check in everyday and stay online for hours at a time anymore to get their 2 cents in, to criticize what he said or have the last word with him.
If you know anything about the website business the value of your site is based upon your statistics. Namely how many unique visitors you get, page views and your bounce rate (how long your users stay on the site). Having several users stay online all day long because they are involved in an argument or like looking in on an online drama is very good for those statistics. Online drama is irresistible to folks in the same way that gawking at a car accident is irresistible to folks. Deep down people don't want other people to get killed or hurt, but they can't help but look. It is human nature.
A website is judged by potential advertisers based upon those numbers . Those numbers don't distinguish if that activity was generated in a political thread, an argument, a tale of sexual conquest or any other subject matter unrelated to the site. All they know is the site has good or bad numbers. Take away all of those topics not related directly to the theme of the site and the those numbers drop by a lot.
If you know anything about the website business the value of your site is based upon your statistics. Namely how many unique visitors you get, page views and your bounce rate (how long your users stay on the site). Having several users stay online all day long because they are involved in an argument or like looking in on an online drama is very good for those statistics. Online drama is irresistible to folks in the same way that gawking at a car accident is irresistible to folks. Deep down people don't want other people to get killed or hurt, but they can't help but look. It is human nature.
A website is judged by potential advertisers based upon those numbers . Those numbers don't distinguish if that activity was generated in a political thread, an argument, a tale of sexual conquest or any other subject matter unrelated to the site. All they know is the site has good or bad numbers. Take away all of those topics not related directly to the theme of the site and the those numbers drop by a lot.
Quote
Originally posted by: snidely333
Eight people arguing about the same old shit everyday is not the type of activity the owners want. I can't believe you can't understand that.
Originally posted by: snidely333
Quote
Originally posted by: malibber
Odd thing is I noticed after all the threads were deleted today it died in here in terms of activity. The death of a message board comes when controversy is eliminated. Some people say they hate it, but the view counts and the lack of activity when those types of threads aren't here say otherwise.Quote
Originally posted by: friedmushQuote
Originally posted by: drmilled
I see that the topic about the decline of the U.S. credit rating and Judge Judy have been removed - while the sordid topic about Bagiant is still available for further comments. I also know that the LV Advisor has the right to remove topics- but let's be realistic, why are topics of real value being removed while other topics of dubious value being allowed?
Doctor, you have seen the 100 or so notices from LVA that political posts are not allowed on the Free For All, right? That they have determined that watching people bitch and oversimplify highly complex issues and turn them in to a sound bite, a la Rachel Maddow or Bill O'Reilly as the first exposure to LVA is considered in their minds bad for increasing business, right? And that there are hundreds of political message boards that you can wax poetic?
Eight people arguing about the same old shit everyday is not the type of activity the owners want. I can't believe you can't understand that.
