Why so quiet?

[downer]

CHE didn't want visitors. They wanted subscribers. The Fora didn't seem to provide subscribers. The effort it took to keep The Fora going wasn't worth it to them.

[lightning]

I would be here much more often if this discussion board was still operated by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

And I would visit the Chronicle of Higher Education much more if it still contained an online discussion board.

The Chronicle of Higher Education really shot themselves in the foot.

CHE didn't want visitors. They wanted subscribers. The Fora didn't seem to provide subscribers. The effort it took to keep The Fora going wasn't worth it to them.

My uni had an institutional subscription (at great expense, I might add), so everything on the CHE web site could be accessed by me and my co-workers via institution log-in credentials or being physically on the campus LAN. When the CHE dropped the Fora and comments on articles, I don't think it was a coincidence that my uni dropped their institutional subscription. The Fora added value to the CHE product, but the CHE didn't seem to think so. It's a loss for CHE, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not all that concerned about no longer having access to CHE articles. The articles really started going downhill.

[ciao_yall]

CHE didn't want visitors. They wanted subscribers. The Fora didn't seem to provide subscribers. The effort it took to keep The Fora going wasn't worth it to them.

The way you get subscribers is getting visitors, who are then exposed to the subscriber-only content.

The way you keep subscribers is building personal engagement and connection on a website, which keeps them returning and remembering why they didn't mind paying for content.

[downer]

CHE didn't want visitors. They wanted subscribers. The Fora didn't seem to provide subscribers. The effort it took to keep The Fora going wasn't worth it to them.

The way you get subscribers is getting visitors, who are then exposed to the subscriber-only content.

The way you keep subscribers is building personal engagement and connection on a website, which keeps them returning and remembering why they didn't mind paying for content.

Maybe so. But it's hard time for journalism and there's some liability in having random people add comments on pages that a web based source hosts. IHE also scrapped reader comments. I remember there was once a thread on the old fora about how many people there had CHE subscriptions, and almost no one did. So it didn't work for them. Maybe if they had done it differently, it would have. As I recall, they didn't even run ads on the old fora. I haven't seen any other online journalistic publications which allow completely free range reader generated discussion and use it as a way to generate subscriptions.

NY Times and other papers do continue to have reader comments on articles. Slate does it too. I'm guessing that they hire one or more people to supervise those comments.

These days Reddit occupies the main space for free range discussion. That relies a great deal on volunteers.  There's Twitter, and academic twitter was interesting. It probably still is but I left twitter.

[Anselm]

Maybe we can have a recruitment drive?  Invite a coworker to join The Fora.

[downer]

Maybe we can have a recruitment drive?  Invite a coworker to join The Fora.

I'd never do that, although I was chatting to a teacher friend the other day about how internet academic discussion places can fill a gap left by the deterioration of academic life.

[Parasaurolophus]

Maybe we can have a recruitment drive?  Invite a coworker to join The Fora.

I'd never do that, although I was chatting to a teacher friend the other day about how internet academic discussion places can fill a gap left by the deterioration of academic life.

I've pointed some friends and acquaintances in our direction.

What we really need, though, is to be Googleable. Preferably on the first page of results.


So... we need to be linked to from prominent pages (including, shudder, ReddIt). What else goes into SEO these days?

[Wahoo Redux]

It would be easy to post this address on Reddit if you like.

[Myword]

There are tech people who specialize in this, paying for higher priority in search results. I don't know of any myself.

[Parasaurolophus]

I've tinkered with some of the forum's guts, which I think should help with indexing. We'll see whenever the Google spiders come crawling.

It would be easy to post this address on Reddit if you like.

I think it's good to do that sort of thing whenever the opportunity arises.

[polly_mer]

Have you considered how little content is available without logging in?  I have vague memories of discussions early on about locking down to members only.  However, there's no reason to join based on the publicly available content.

In contrast, some corners of Twitter are still very active with the kinds of discussions the CHE fora had in the heydays.  I received a Goodbye Cruel Fora-like response the other day on a thread about why self-funded humanities PhDs were a bad idea.

However, someone did recommend these fora on the professors subreddit in advance of the 12 June going dark.  Maybe you'll pick up a few.

I'm not coming back because the conditions prompting my leaving have not changed with that person still here as a regular participant while being humored for spewing ignorance.

Pity.

[Wahoo Redux]

Polly, you are greatly missed.

Perhaps just tone it down a bit.

[Parasaurolophus]

It's worth a try. I can rejigger those settings.

[KiUlv]

Reddit is not bad but it is so huge that one never learns the personalities and the discussions tend to meander + it is a much more difficult ap to read.

I joined this forum years ago. I read a lot, but didn't post very often. Unless I bookmarked, it was hard to find my way back sometimes (especially after it moved). I joined Reddit late in the game (just this past year, I think) and have spent some time there. I remembered about this place when someone posted it on Reddit, and I was happy to find my way back.

While Reddit is huge, as mentioned, and it may be hard to get to know people, this board has a sense of a well-established "club." It felt hard to "break in" as someone who was new to the profession (I'm still junior faculty, although I'm not a "junior" in life :D). Initially, I felt like I was trying to tiptoe into someone else's exclusive party. That, combined with the threads that can go on for years, makes for an overwhelming (maybe even intimidating) experience for those new to the board. I'm not saying that is necessarily bad, but it does make me more hesitant to try to jump in. I do appreciate the relative privacy, though.

Just a few rambling thoughts-- pardon my intrusion!

[ciao_yall]

Reddit is not bad but it is so huge that one never learns the personalities and the discussions tend to meander + it is a much more difficult ap to read.

I joined this forum years ago. I read a lot, but didn't post very often. Unless I bookmarked, it was hard to find my way back sometimes (especially after it moved). I joined Reddit late in the game (just this past year, I think) and have spent some time there. I remembered about this place when someone posted it on Reddit, and I was happy to find my way back.

While Reddit is huge, as mentioned, and it may be hard to get to know people, this board has a sense of a well-established "club." It felt hard to "break in" as someone who was new to the profession (I'm still junior faculty, although I'm not a "junior" in life :D). Initially, I felt like I was trying to tiptoe into someone else's exclusive party. That, combined with the threads that can go on for years, makes for an overwhelming (maybe even intimidating) experience for those new to the board. I'm not saying that is necessarily bad, but it does make me more hesitant to try to jump in. I do appreciate the relative privacy, though.

Just a few rambling thoughts-- pardon my intrusion!

Welcome!

I found this group to be very helpful and welcoming. Still, they are very direct. If you come here asking for advice, you will get pretty straight-no-chaser advice, even if it probably wasn't what you wanted to hear. If they disagree with you, they will tell you point-blank.

Personally, I appreciated that directness in learning how to transition from a corporate to academic career.

Jump in, KiUlv, the water's safe! Those fins are dolphins, not sharks.