For a long time I’ve been thinking about how to make this forum less Melbourne centric, and give it a broader appeal to those in other states. I think it’s a fairly reasonable statement to say that really, fixed.org.au is pretty much inhabited by Melbourne riders. This isn’t a bad thing, however, there is a bit of a clique thing going on.
So, if there are people in other states who have any ideas how this could work - Ie. possibly opening up more sub-forums, re-arranging things a little, etc, this is your chance to speak.
Personally I feel like less sub-forums would improve this site a lot. There’s such little turnover that threads can hang around on the front page for months.
One forum for bikes with half a dozen stickies of the most popular threads and a couple of the subforums. I like the fact that there’s a Polo subforum but maybe they’d be happier with a sticky in the bikes thread that would get read by WAY more people (since they’ll be in the “bikes” subforum for other reasons). People can still post new polo threads if it seems appropriate.
This one “bikes” subforum can incorporate help, fixed gear, linkblog, polo, cx, and the city forums etc. There might be a general melb, and a sydney thread etc and they get bumped when people use them. The person who currently wants to reply in a Tasmanian thread probably wouldn’t bother due to the fact that the previous post was a year ago, and nobody reads it. But if they reply in a thread in a general bikes section (or start a new one), people who know Tassie folk, or are ex-Tassie folk can answer. Currently why would anybody even enter that subforum, it has such low traffic? And so the Tassie subforum suffers from a lack of posts, like a few of the current subforums.
One subforum for post your bikes
One for pub
One for marketplace
Sure there’ll still be more Melbournites posting, and there will therefore be a few more Melbourne-centric threads but it’ll lump us all together as one community, so that we’ll all get to know each other a bit better. And Sydney folk will comment on Melb issues, and vice versa, and Adelaide, and Perth and country areas and whatever. I feel like it’ll be much more inclusive. But maybe others have a differing opinion.
Hey, that’s me, right?
Anyway, I’ve noticed the clique thing too, and since I kinda hang on the edge of it and get to know all these hipster folks who live a good 1 1/2 hours away, I kinda dig it.
But to someone who lived in like, Warragul or something, I’d think that it’d seem a little exclusive and shit.
But yeah, I reckon Sir Kev knows what time it is, simplify it a bit.
agreed that there’s too many sub forums. although i think cutting it back to three is a bit extreme. if it were up to me i’d probably consolidate it as:
fixed gear, cx/mtb, help, polo, tricks = bikes
announcements, linkblog, pub = pub
all the city forums merge into one meets/events forum
post your ride keep separate
trading forums keep separate
i agree that it would encourage more interaction between everybody, although obviously the majority of posters are still going to be from melbourne. attracting new members from other cities could be a little tricky.
2c follows.
The # of people coming to a FG-named site will be proportional to the # of people riding FG/SS/etc in each city. You could try and untangle the clique thing – sounds intriguing – or look at which sites folk in other cities/areas are visiting and either a) advertise there or b) haxx0r them. Just kidding.
I guess it depends on what’s in your mission statement … are there parts of the site that are growing/shrinking noticably in traffic? that might help decide what should be done or needs to be done to ‘restore the balance’. Shut down/merge the quieter areas? Or try and boost their traffic?
OTOH maybe folk in the other cities would rather be out riding than nitpicking and trash talking online, Melbs being a rainy shitty city half of the time and all that. Might just be the nature of the beast and/or an indication of ‘scene saturation’ (blue liquid!) here vs other locations. Sell more bikes?
[RIGHT]Caveat: I don’t know shit, please ignore the above.[/RIGHT]
Can McKenny put together a graph representing a breakdown of users from each region/city, overlaid with the parts of the site that are most frequently visited by each area?
National Fixed.org Championships? - Hold them in a different city each year, and make sure that city isn’t Melbourne. It’d pretty much be like the Messenger Championships but not as fast. Plus now that the forum has mutated and become a bit more multidisciplinary - image the number of events you could have.
I know it’s not exactly forum related, but in terms of the overall “scene” or whatever you want to call it, forming a club/association might be one way to bring about a bit more solidarity and unification across the nation?
There are a lot of possibilities and forming something official and organised at a somewhat early stage in the development of this “movement”, can only help with growth and i guess, making this site at least a bit more inclusive nationally.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while and the more i ponder it, the more sense it makes, the main benefit being that there could be something of a unified voice for fixed riders that want to be involved with it.
no gene, i organised that weekly ride, which was then turned into the SBC. hence my disassociation with that group.
your point being?
you could also take a moment to explain why you think this is such a terrible idea maybe?
so, without any form of organisational structure, how are these events run? or is everyone happy with one or two people to do all of the work yet again…
just making suggestions here people, don’t be hatin
No one’s hating Liam. I think the objection to a club or association (for me at least, chime in if its a different reason for others) is it undermines the reason i ride fixed. When i ride and race road bikes, its nice to be part of Cycling Australia, for insurance purposes as well as all the organised races and such. It’s good, in that context, to have backup and a unified ‘voice’.
Riding fixed for me is to get away from that, to get away from the sense of ‘community’, other than that of good friends who happen to have the same bike fetish disease. Fixed isn’t a movement in need of ‘growth’, but rather support at a grass roots level: ie. people having fun riding bikes who then might in turn find the fun in more ‘official’ cycling circles, such as road, MTB, Cyclocross, DH etc etc.
I appreciate what your saying, but i think pdub’s idea as well as, in the long term, Chaz’s idea is more ideal. Hey, couriers have never had a unified voice, like a union, due partly to the huge range of opinions represented in what is considered a clique, and they manage to have their championships.
My garbled 2cents.
i just dont want the FOA to be seen as somthing that puts its self out there as an organization, or a club. membership is not exclusive and never could be, it’s open to all, naming it as an organization(i use this word loosely) of sorts just seems to make it feel dirty and like its trying to hard.
i just like to stay away from the branding of things as such it would be
and i was only having a fun poke with the SBC thing man, no harm intended
It should be responsible for the annual design and production of fully sick tshirts, cycling caps and woolen jerseys, and that’s all
oh and maybe socks
socks would be cool
