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Post by Admin on Jun 29, 2016 1:13:45 GMT -5
I've added two links to the bottom of the page that can quickly transport this forums members to the freeboard forums set up by past BDC members for the Red Sox and Patriots.
Keep in mind that the Patriots link my require you to be a member there to be able to post while the Red Sox forum is generally open to guests.
This forum (Boston Home Court) is routinely open to guests for short periods of time only, as a means to minimize riff raft and keep the forum secure for it's members. If/when an expanded membership is desired to add to the variety of opinions and number of discussions we will open to guests for longer periods of time as long as we can monitor and control rule breakers and trolls that are only intent on stirring up trouble rather than sharing good discussion, ideas and opinions.
My thanks to pumpsiegreen for sharing the code to enable me to provide the new links to our forum membership.
Hope you find this a convenience and worthy addition to this forum, Admin
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Post by bostonts on Jul 1, 2016 15:44:52 GMT -5
Thanks for adding - you've done a really fine job so far, appreciate you giving us a great place for Celts banter.
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Post by elvissurfs on Jul 4, 2016 15:05:08 GMT -5
Bummer is that I have to log in to view this site, but not the Pats board...If people cant view this site without logging in, how is the board going to grow?
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Post by Admin on Jul 4, 2016 18:54:38 GMT -5
Bummer is that I have to log in to view this site, but not the Pats board...If people cant view this site without logging in, how is the board going to grow? The Red Sox board has been continuously open and stopped growing at 85 members. When admin there asked me why I shut guests out, I told him so viewers will join rather than lurk and we've gone from 75 to almost 150 members over that time. Some do to draft & free agency no doubt but if I didn't require membership a lot of those members maynot have joined. The Red Sox admin has taken my advice as it seems he is now taking a similar tact. As far as the Patriots are concerned ... they have never been open to guests only unless they have started opening recently to get more viewers to visit and join before they close it again. I myself am a member there cuz it was the only way to visit at the time as guests weren't allowed there. They had such a following from BDC they didn't need to allow guests in and I bet they close it again. I'm satisfied with the growth we have over the short time we've been up and running (2 months) ... |
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Post by elvissurfs on Jul 5, 2016 8:58:31 GMT -5
Came back to delete my post, but you have already responded...main thing for me is that it is nice to just view without logging in...I rarely post...the board is great...glad to have access to it however it works....thanks
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Post by Admin on Jul 5, 2016 9:52:18 GMT -5
Came back to delete my post, but you have already responded...main thing for me is that it is nice to just view without logging in...I rarely post...the board is great...glad to have access to it however it works....thanks I appreciate the question as others may wonder the same thing. Another reason for limiting guests, they can become a nuisance with trolling comments as they can respond with a temporary username. If these same trolls join we have more control over them once we have there IP address for warnings, time outs or banning if need be. In any event, I'm glad you enjoy the forum and hope you don't let the log-in proceedure stymie you from participating ... in fact, we hope logging in encourages you to comment more often! Admin |
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Post by pumpsiegreen on Jul 5, 2016 11:08:35 GMT -5
I've added two links to the bottom of the page that can quickly transport this forums members to the freeboard forums set up by past BDC members for the Red Sox and Patriots. Keep in mind that the Patriots link my require you to be a member there to be able to post while the Red Sox forum is generally open to guests. This forum (Boston Home Court) is routinely open to guests for short periods of time only, as a means to minimize riff raft and keep the forum secure for it's members. If/when an expanded membership is desired to add to the variety of opinions and number of discussions we will open to guests for longer periods of time as long as we can monitor and control rule breakers and trolls that are only intent on stirring up trouble rather than sharing good discussion, ideas and opinions. My thanks to pumpsiegreen for sharing the code to enable me to provide the new links to our forum membership. Hope you find this a convenience and worthy addition to this forum, Admin Unfortunately, we closed the Sox forum to guests. This became necessary because a forum member inquired about putting one of the guests on ignore, and as far as I can tell, its impossible to do that to a guest-you have to be a member to be ignored. I realize its a bit inconvenient to have to join the forum, but joining is easy and it doesn't commit you to posting at all. I know that this forum is presently closed to guests as well, probably for different reasons. |
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Post by Admin on Jul 5, 2016 11:18:08 GMT -5
I've added two links to the bottom of the page that can quickly transport this forums members to the freeboard forums set up by past BDC members for the Red Sox and Patriots. Keep in mind that the Patriots link my require you to be a member there to be able to post while the Red Sox forum is generally open to guests. This forum (Boston Home Court) is routinely open to guests for short periods of time only, as a means to minimize riff raft and keep the forum secure for it's members. If/when an expanded membership is desired to add to the variety of opinions and number of discussions we will open to guests for longer periods of time as long as we can monitor and control rule breakers and trolls that are only intent on stirring up trouble rather than sharing good discussion, ideas and opinions. My thanks to pumpsiegreen for sharing the code to enable me to provide the new links to our forum membership. Hope you find this a convenience and worthy addition to this forum, Admin Unfortunately, we closed the Sox forum to guests. This became necessary because a forum member inquired about putting one of the guests on ignore, and as far as I can tell, its impossible to do that to a guest-you have to be a member to be ignored. I realize its a bit inconvenient to have to join the forum, but joining is easy and it doesn't commit you to posting at all. I know that this forum is presently closed to guests as well, probably for different reasons. Agreed ... Maintaining security/control is almost impossible with guests unless you happen to be online when they are too, then you can capture their IP address and give a warning or even a temp banning to gain control but it's more important to keep members happy. |
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Post by Admin on Jul 7, 2016 23:47:07 GMT -5
The other night I went over to the Patriots Forum to see if they had any comments about our new link to their forum (as well as the Red Sox forum) and was dischanted by what I found. In the interest of transparency and full disclosure, I will provide a copy of the comments by the Admin there and my response ... I hope the members here agree with my response and certainly hope that if you think the layout, board organization or sports themes are confusing, an annoyance or "eye sore" that you'd let me know or make suggestions. Since I haven't gotten but a few very good suggestions for improvement, some of which I did act upon, I have to assume most everyone is satisfied and think the forum is user friendly as well as secure which is the ultimate goal. Anyway, here's the comment and my response ...
patriotsfans.freeforums.net/thread/236/links-red-sox-celtics?page=2&scrollTo=11499
May 23, 2016 11:50:04 GMT -4 TFB12 said in response to pumpsie:
79 members and growing is nice, considering the slow start. Well done, keep with it pumpsie. I think most people quickly jumped to the talksox forum before someone took action to start a new sox forum. Since you stepped up and took action and stuck with it I see it growing. Hopefully many will convert over and you get back most of the BDC people.
As for the Celtics forum, how many members do they have? I have no idea what they are up to over there. They blocked the site to guests, making it a members only forum. They say our forum will fail because it's too big, too many members and then they want to combine the Celtics and sox forum. They have too many categories over there, I don't like the structure, it's an eye sore, IMO.
Good work, pumpsie. Keep it up.
My Response:
We have 140+ members now. (7/7/16')
What we are up to? A Boston Sports Forum ....
It's easy to let guests visit when you start with as large a base as you did here with the BDC members jumping from that ship to this one. The Celtics board at BDC was dead and maybe 50 posters from there came over to the new board. I watched pumpsie leave his site open to guests and saw that nobody was joining while he was getting 5-10 times the amount of guests each night as members. They had no incentive to join and I told him so and now he has closed to members only for "security reasons" (which is one reason I remain closed to guests) but one has to wonder if it isn't also an effort to get those lurkers to join.
Secondly, guests can log-in temporarily and troll the board. It's impossible to monitor or ban these trolls unless you happen to be "johnny on the spot" as they are posting. Members want a troll free forum and the best way to do so is by having registered users with IP addresses. I have only had 1-2 problems to date quickly resolved and the members are all very happy.
I don't see why members here or at the Red Sox forums will register on these boards but not the Celtics board so they can come and go as they please ... what's the big deal? Once registered they can move back & forth w/o having to login each time. I'm a member here ...
I never said the forum would fail! I said you were growing so fast that you had no idea or control over future expenses to remain ad free and indeed the main discussion here has been what to do with so many page views. You sound like you have even considered closing this site and establishing a new one! I have no inclination. I decided to grow up to 100-150 members and see how the page views developed over 90 days to see if the cost to the forum could be minimized for the long run rather than close down and seek refuge at another board once again because we became too big.
I prefer to stay at $8/mo ad-free as that's a cost I think the membership will be willing to take on ... to each their own, but I'm trying to grow and maintain a forum that has longevity and satisfied members that stay around. Once I realized that 150 members was doable I proposed to pumpsie that we merge to the benefit of both forums in order to reach that goal faster and initiate more interaction on the discussion boards but he wanted to remain independent. Since that decision, we have continued to improve our forum as much as doable and ultimately reached that 150 goal on our own. You know how pumpsie has faired. When satisfied that we can stay ad-free at a minimal cost, we may take on more members, as long as the cost doesn't grow exponentially as it looks to be doing here.
Too many categories? I was asked to provide space for the Bruins Board at BDC and cuz those guys were also Celtics members I decided to help them out. Once I did that it made sense to change the forum from Celtics to Boston Sports and provide space for our own members to discuss the other sports as well or new members looking for their own space. I also think our forum is much better categorized by topic per team which is much easier to use than scanning thru pages of topics to find a relevant or interesting subject for the reader.
An "Eye Sore?" Really? You and pumpsie have these stark white boards with blue or red logos and you dare say the C's board is an eye sore? I think one of the reasons our membership has gotten to where it is, is not only the easy access by category/topic but also the interesting background pics we provide, putting the reader/poster right into the arena/setting they want to discuss. We have an ESPN News Ticker for each sport (depending upon the theme/sport you are using) that provides recent news reports relative to your sport that connect you directly to the story with a click of the cursor! We have themes for each sport, so a Bruins fan can read/post to a background of Bobby Orr's famous goal with boards/banners decorated in the black & gold of the Bruins logo. Who wouldn't prefer that to a white board with black text other than a mobile user ... but we provide that as well anyway! No reader/poster that is a member has to be confined to using a default theme in Celtic Green or Stark White if they don't want, when at the Celtics forum.
I'm proud of what we've accomplished at the C's forum and if you or the members here don't like the layout or find it's too much trouble to join in order to have easy link access then I'm sorry ... you run this forum as you think works best and we do the same there ... I think we've taken the right path for our membership and that any members here or at the Red Sox forums that don't want to become members at celticshomecourt.freeforums.net to utilize the forum link are just being stubborn and really aren't that interested in coming to the C's forum in the first place cuz that's a lame excuse!
My 90 ad-free days runs out soon as well (late July) so I'll be interested to see what the cost per month will be here to remain ad-free ... it will help guide me in the future as to how large we want to grow. Sometimes "small-ball" has it's advantages ...
Regards,
E8 (C's Forum Admin)
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Post by Admin on Jul 8, 2016 0:19:20 GMT -5
Tonight the Admin at the Patriots Forum responded to my post and me his ...
Nice to see your membership numbers continue to grow. We have 237 members here as of today and I hope that number continues to grow as the season approaches. Concerning the closed forum to guests... we do not give guests the ability to post on here and every new member request has to be approved. This site does provide some good tools to weed out the potential trolls when a new person requests membership. I can see where having a closed forum to guest could be an incentive for new members to join to see what's inside but personally, that would turn me away. There aren't many forums, if any, that are like that and there is a reason for it. There are others to choose from that are open to lurk and see if I want to join. I'm not wasting time to join something that possibly is a dead forum. A closed forum gives the perception of something to hide or an unwelcome feeling. No thanks! But that's just my opinion, not saying I'm right or wrong. BTW, only the Patriots board is open for guests to view on our site. The other boards and categories can only be viewed by the members.
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Response: We aren't always closed ... I regularly open the forum to guests for a day or a weekend to get a good look at the forum and help them decide if it's for them. I doubt our membership would have grown as fast as it has if those that have had a peek weren't joining those that migrated from BDC ... the proof is in the pudding and we've added 4 more since I posted this comment here yesterday.
I don't understand how you can keep guests from commenting once you allow them into the forum. I am not a member at pumpsies yet when he had that forum open to guests all I had to do was submit a temp user name and check that I wasn't a bot and bingo I could post ... have you installed some extra security or are you missing the fact that guest can and could be commenting?
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I don't think remaining ad free is going to be an issue. So far our busiest month we had over 224,000 page views, our slowest month has been 125,000 page views. I expect well over 500,000 page views a month once the season starts, probably more in the 750,000 range. That would be around $70 a month to remain adfree. I have visited other forums on freeforums and the ads really aren't a big deal, they don't slow the forum down at all. Each page loads first and then the ads load second. Adblock still works on here and even if you don't use an ad blocker you aren't going to get a bunch of ads so I really don't think it will be an issue at all. As for closing the site, there is no intent to do so. This place will continue as long as people enjoy it and post here. If for some reason the majority of people do not like the ads then we can discuss a monthly fee or discuss moving to a independent forum. But moving to an independent forum will cost money to run and probably will require a monthly fee. As for file storage, I don't see that as a problem here so the only thing that we could really spend $ on would be adfree.
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Response: Until I know what kind of commitment the membership wants to make to remain ad-free I will try to keep it to the monthly $8 fee so any user can make that donation if so inclined.
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As for the "eye sore" comment, that of course is subjective. I don't like a busy forum. Plain and simple. I don't think there is much that can be discussed about this as it's a personal preference, imo.
You have over 140 members, you created a forum to replace one that was going away, you should be proud of your accomplishment. I will be the first to say well done as I know the time it takes to get this thing going and keep it functioning on a daily basis. Keep up the good work and I hope members from here join your forum and vice versa. I think any suggestions and ideas we can give to each other will benefit all 3 forums. I check in on yours from time to time, and I hope you continue to stop in here.
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Response: I'd just ask that you'd let your members know that when they try to visit with the link that unless we happen to be open to guests when they use it, that they won't be able to enter. It's kind of hit or miss ... and it's not because we are looking for exclusivity but like you, want to control the security by having members rather than guests. We would appreciate their joining the Celtics forum so they can use the link and visit/comment as often as possible as a lot of the members of both forums have friends at each site ... I joined here cuz you weren't open to guests back in April and it was no big deal. In fact, since I did that I no longer have to login here ... I can move freely back and forth as a result and members here and on the C's forum have inquired why the link doesn't work when indeed it will work once they join our forum.
Where did you find out about the 90 ad-free days ... did you read that at my forum? I did a lot of legwork with the Proboards Admin to make my case for the BDC members and after a few good arguments got a biggie there to agree with me and award us the time ... curious if it happened for you after my go-around or if you got it before me due to the size of your emigration?
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Cheers, dude!
Back at ya!
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Post by Admin on Jul 8, 2016 2:22:22 GMT -5
The discussion above got me to go into the Help Pages to see if I could restrict Guests to viewing only w/o having the ability to comment (which eliminates the possibility of trolling or stalking). I was able to make the necessary edits so as of now the forum discussion boards (Sports Teams Only) will be open for access to all Guests. The Quick Links at the bottom of the page here and at other forums will now let members at those forums enter this forum with the link for viewing only. Of course we'd like them to become members and come here to engage in discussion with their comments as well so hopefully having this new access will encourage members at the Red Sox and Patriots Forums to be more active here in the future ... feel free to spread the word to any of your friends at those forums and encourage them to become members as well!
Thnx & Enjoy,
Admin/E8
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Post by Admin on Jul 8, 2016 12:16:02 GMT -5
I've added two links to the bottom of the page that can quickly transport this forums members to the freeboard forums set up by past BDC members for the Red Sox and Patriots. Keep in mind that the Patriots link my require you to be a member there to be able to post while the Red Sox forum is generally open to guests. This forum (Boston Home Court) is routinely open to guests for short periods of time only, as a means to minimize riff raft and keep the forum secure for it's members. If/when an expanded membership is desired to add to the variety of opinions and number of discussions we will open to guests for longer periods of time as long as we can monitor and control rule breakers and trolls that are only intent on stirring up trouble rather than sharing good discussion, ideas and opinions. My thanks to pumpsiegreen for sharing the code to enable me to provide the new links to our forum membership. Hope you find this a convenience and worthy addition to this forum, Admin Unfortunately, we closed the Sox forum to guests. This became necessary because a forum member inquired about putting one of the guests on ignore, and as far as I can tell, its impossible to do that to a guest-you have to be a member to be ignored. I realize its a bit inconvenient to have to join the forum, but joining is easy and it doesn't commit you to posting at all. I know that this forum is presently closed to guests as well, probably for different reasons. After talking to the Patriots Admin, I went back to the help board to find a resolution to allow Guests to view but not comment as they have it set up at the Patriots Forum per Admin there. I found the fix to block guests from responding or starting new threads and have made the fix here so we are now open to guests full time. If you think this will resolve your problem, let me know and I'll help you with the settings on your forum to do the same. |
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Post by Admin on Apr 11, 2017 10:57:29 GMT -5
Since taking care of the "security issue" we now have links to other forums for the Pats, Sox & Bruins at the bottom of each page ... these forums are all Proboards related and members can move freely from one to another but unless logged in can only read (posting by member log-in only for security purposes)the posts w/o responding.
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