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Ideas and Recommendations for Improving The Cantina

Discussion in 'Forum Feedback (The Cantina)' started by Viral Hide, Sep 4, 2014.

  1. Lock_S_Foils

    Lock_S_Foils Red Leader

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    You are so right!! I cannot tell you how many times I go to push the "post" button and get the old "you are over the 140 character limit" flag.....so there I go trying to cut words, etc.....expanding just a little, maybe to 240 or 300 chars would be perfect....
     
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  2. ZebroGodilla

    ZebroGodilla Darklighter Ace

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    The comments, which I just tested, have a 420 character limit. This wasn't an issue, as I cut a few words and it all fit in the way I intended. 420 in a post would be hard, as profile posts tabs would be elongated, but anything near that number of characters would be nice.
     
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  3. p03

    p03 Human/Cyborg Relations

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    Hey guys I was in two minds whether to ask and just do this anyway perhaps in the general sequel trilogy discussion section or perhaps you could create a new section part that is dedicated to the actors themselves? It could be something like a dearly departed (from the trilogies)section in which we could perhaps update fans on what there favourite actors and actresses are doing after Star Wars? Like I put a lot of information on Daisy / Rey pages of up coming work but it's nothing to do with the film. Just floating an idea and it may bring back some old friends to the site?

    Also in the smilies, where's my yellow lightsaber? I asked yonks ago and it's still not arrived :p:p:p
     
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  4. DarthSnow

    DarthSnow Sith in the North
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    I don't know if its worth an entire section but we can float the idea. In the meantime feel free to use this thread I just recently created (great minds think alike! :)) and I will add to the OP to have it cover discussion of SW actors current projects, if it doesn't already.

    https://thecantina.starwarsnewsnet....outside-of-star-wars-who-do-you-follow.57915/

    Thanks for the input!
     
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  5. Jayson

    Jayson Resident Lucasian

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    Can there be a section for Fan-Made material on the top level?

    There's a definite portion of the fanbase who really enjoy fan-made projects, and the community encouragement among fans for fans to do so is usually very positive.

    Cheers,
    Jayson

    @NinjaRen @Angelman
     
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  6. Angelman

    Angelman Servant of the Whills -- Slave to the Muses
    1030th Grand Admiral ***** (Mod)

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    Do you mean, to separate the "Fanmade Content" folder from this folder (https://thecantina.starwarsnewsnet....-wars-cons-collecting-and-fanmade-content.99/ ) and put it on the Cantina front-page? I like the idea of that :)
    @Trevor, @DarthSnow, & @Stormagadon?
     
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  7. Jayson

    Jayson Resident Lucasian

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  8. NinjaRen

    NinjaRen Supreme Leader

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    This. Especially if there are Cantina members who are currently working on several Star Wars projects like @Jayson, @RockyRoadHux and myself.
     
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  9. Stormagadon

    Stormagadon Cantina Court Jester
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    What do you mean by top level? As in main page, or closer to the top on a sub category?
     
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  10. RockyRoadHux

    RockyRoadHux Ginger General

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    Make it a sticky thread, or like the ORPA - create a sub forum.
     
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  11. Jayson

    Jayson Resident Lucasian

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    This is what I'm referring to (highlighted object in red).
    Picture6.png

    Cheers,
    Jayson
     
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  12. Stormagadon

    Stormagadon Cantina Court Jester
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    Hm.

    Well, the Cantina has never shown a lot of interest in the fan films or cosplay, and other such stuff, so I don't see a pressing need to move that forum up any closer.
    ORPA only got it's own link on the main page because it was garnering so much traffic and interest.

    I'll have the other mods and Staff give me their opinions, but I think if you want to see this moved, we need the traffic to justify it.
     
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  13. Jayson

    Jayson Resident Lucasian

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    I would offer the devil's advocate position.

    Is it that fan-content has never had much interest on the Cantina, or is it that the Cantina hasn't supplied a visible enough path for the traffic to be guided to fan-content?

    This is somewhat like asking, "Is it that no one is interested in a product, or is it that the product is shelved in the back where far fewer people will notice it exists?"

    I don't have the answer. I could think of a few way to derive that answer, however.
    For example, you could look at the interaction metrics for the fan-material section and count how many read it, versus how many interact with it (e.g. ratings, replies, threads) and derive a score.

    Views / (ratings + replies + threads) = Score.

    Then you could compare that against every other section and see where it lands.


    I don't have access to check that data (reasonably), so I did my basic check by taking the threads and replies count for each main section, and the fan-material section (subtracting the fan-material values from the current parent section Cons, Collecting, and Fanmade Content current).

    CONTENT QUANTITY
    What I can say is that 50% of Threads and Replies of the Cons, Collecting, and Fanmade Content belongs to Fanmade Content with the next highest being Collecting at 38%.
    So within the section, it's definitely the lead.

    Now for comparison to the main sections.
    The Sequel Trilogy by far out paces every other section with 78% of Threads and Replies of all sections - with the next highest being stand-alone at 6%.
    Clearly we have an outlier blindness problem, so I'm going to remove the Sequel Trilogy section so we can zoom into the second tier data.

    Of that data, Stand Alone's top the tier at 29%.
    Rian Johnson brings up the bottom at 1.8%.

    The Fanmade sub-section, if I subtract it from the Cons, Collecting and Fanmade Content section and move it to the top tier, accounts for 2.8%, while the remaining Cons, Collecting, and Fanmade Content section accounts for 2.9%.

    So basically it's effectively equal to the Cons, Collecting, and Fandmade Content section in weight on its own, and that's with it being a sub-forum currently and not marketed to eyeballs on the main page.

    Now, if I take it a step further and discount new films entirely, thereby subtracting out Stand-Alone, Rian Johnson, and Sequel Trilogies due to being fresh and popular in movement at the moment, for how it stands among the population of sections that aren't directly related to new film material, then - again like Cons, etc... it accounts for about 4% of the total volume. The highest being TV Shows (which if you toss out newer shows vs older shows in similar logic to the above, then Fanmade content is about 5%).

    So it is indeed low. It's about 1% of the total content in the forums.
    That said, I think it's interesting to note that it's basically toe-to-toe with its entire parent section on its own (again, without front-page visibility).

    In fact, out of all sub-sections in any non-sequel and non-stand alone film section, the Fanmade section comes in second only behind the Star Wars Rebels sub-section, and 9th of any sub-section when including sequel and stand alone film sections.

    So, low, but not anything minor really given the context.

    CONTENT ENGAGEMENT
    Now let's look at engagement. It's one thing to have a bunch of stuff. It's entirely another if the bunch of stuff is a bunch of empty threads just laying around with no one engaging. There's no value to pushing stuff to the main menu which just gets filled with empty boxes of content (official SWNN news posts excepted for obvious reasons - which, btw, I'm not bothering to count in any of this post's metrics).

    In this view, your point comes out more.
    Replies account for 91% of the content compared against the average of the forum top section of 96%.
    Books & Comics also comes in around the same ball park.

    That said, having 90% of content in any section is pretty normal, so there's definitely no threat of empty box syndrome as the Cantina itself is just generally very well engaged in replies and conversations (i.e. it's not a forum that when you dive in, you find a bunch of 0's and last year dates on everything).

    But percentages can gloss over things sometimes, so let's double check this measure by running a ratio of replies to topics.
    In that view it's 10:1 for the Fanmade section. The average for the top section is 36:1 min(15:1) max(95:1).

    Of the sub-sections, it places 18th of all sub-sections.

    So there is a definite lean towards thread creation over thread discussion.
    Perhaps this is what you're thinking of a bit when you think of it as a low traffic section.

    In some regards, I think this is to be expected.
    It's a sharing zone. The main thing folks are going to do in that area is point out something that others aren't aware of.

    FINAL THOUGHTS
    What I can't look at is whether or not there's eyeballs trafficking in a relationship that's meaningful by scale.
    If the amount of views in the section compared to the amount of total content in the section is reasonably recent, then I would think it might be worth considering moving up to the main page for a trial period and checked on after a few months to see how it does.

    If on the other hand there's not a strong view count relationship to the content, then it might need to remain as a sub-forum logically.

    On first crude analysis, I'd say my impulse would be to try it on the main page for a while. It looks like part of its problem might be low visibility leading to low traffic volume in general. But I would also, if I were behind the curtain, want to see the deeper metrics to make that call.


    Cheers,
    Jayson
     
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  14. oldbert

    oldbert Guardian of Coffee Breaks

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    Great idea! Pushing the motivation to show the great potential of creativity within here is a very good thing to do!
     
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  15. DarthSnow

    DarthSnow Sith in the North
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    I guess I'm a little confused at the request. Are you even posting there now? And if not, why the push to make it more visible?

    With the "New Posts" section, The Cantina already has a system in place so that if you post something, no matter what forum or obscure topic or how buried in the Cantina it is, it will be visible to the highest percentage of site traffic. And if no one is posting in the Fanmade section currently, I'm confused about the gripes about lack of visibility.
     
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  16. Jayson

    Jayson Resident Lucasian

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    It was from observation of the Star Wars community outside of the Cantina.
    When you step out of here, fanmade material is shared and talked about a lot. It's probably the fourth largest topic in most circles. Movies > TV Shows > Books > Fan work.

    I'd almost venture to say the fanmade material of Star Wars is somewhat unique in quantity and in scale. The amount of highly technical fan projects in the fanbase is sizable, from restoration works to full movies.

    It's more that it dawned on me that while the access to fan material is on the surface elsewhere, here it's a bit buried.

    True, however in similar fashion we could argue why break up any of the trilogies and not just lump them as "Movies" since the New Post feature creates visibility.

    The reason is topical traffic isn't equal to dormant visibility footprint.

    If it were, then there would be only a need for one section and letting the New Post function sort out the rest by consequence of interaction.

    What's primarily missing in the idea is explorative discovery. If you don't know it's there, then your chances of going to it are lower due to basic web design theory. Top left > Bottom right. Level 1 > Level 2.

    Also, the idea of New Posts assumes traffic routing is primarily directed from the New Posts interface over any other by a sizable margin.

    Is this true? Does at least 2/3rds of traffic to threads derive from the New Post function?
    I'm not being coy. I don't honestly know.
    I know I personally hardly use it, but that might just be me?

    Cheers,
    Jayson
     
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  17. RockyRoadHux

    RockyRoadHux Ginger General

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    If you're on mobile you have to scroll down all the way to get to the New Post section, that's why I personally hardly use it for example. It's a different story if you use the desktop version though.
     
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