Change and Reform for the...Forum!

[Lallous]

Dear members,

As you may have seen lately, there have been some changes in the staff of the Orange room. We are taking this opportunity to give the forum a new breath of life . This forum is ranked first in the Middle East with more than 16 000 registered members. We are looking for your feedback so That we could make this place even more enjoyable. This forum became FPM’s official forum a year ago, but its identity is mostly due to this big family where each one shares this feeling of belonging regardless of his/her political affiliation. It remains one of our most addictive pastimes where everyone, especially the expatriates, gets a glimpse of home and stays in touch with our dear Lebanon.

Unfortunately, this big number of human resources fails to translate into a commensurate activity. The forum’s activity has been steady for the last few months in spite of the growing number of members and visitors.

Starting from that, here are some few questions: we are asking you so to help us develop a strategy to exploit this hidden potential. Politics are only a part of this strategy. We welcome any suggestions regarding the community forums too. We want to know what kind of subjects, activities, etc would get you involved in participating more actively. What are the strong elements and the weaknesses of the forum in its current actual form?

For our members who became inactive, what is it that you lack to start participating again? Are you disentangled from Lebanese politics, this forum or both? Please share your insights.

For visitors, what could we do for them so they may register and get tinvolved? By the way, you would be amazed by the number of recurring visitors who never registered.

For our recent and regular members, why aren’t there a greater number of initiatives? The moderating’s policy is set to be very loose; did it have a perverse effect instead of its intended aim?

Always remember that no matter how much effort we,the staff, put in, we stand no chance without your cooperation. The forum's level is intimately related to the members' commitment. If you don’t submit threads, ideas, feedback, etc., then nothing would change. So please take this opportunity to share with us some constructive criticism and we are all ears for you.

The Orange room staff

[Abou Sandal]

Great forum.Great moderation.Participation is a little lazy lately,but probably mostly due to the political and social conjunctures.

I suggest the administration sends an E-mail to the old and valuable members who suddenly stopped posting,and try to get them back.

Keep it up.

Thanks.

[hannaalsayssa]

i love the forum,it is like home away from home.
i would love to suggest some ideas though
1-allow our avatars to be active and to accept larger sizes of pix.
2-as we give thanks, allow us to also get no thanks ( but for each thx or no thx a min of 1 hour wait must be observed in order to limit abuse of it)
3-a bit easier on the moderating.
lately i must admit it is easier .
a bit of rough language during heated arguments sometimes adds spice ( many other foreign forums are looser in that field).
4-merge otv thread & the regional rooms too with the political one ( radical idea bass worth the try).
5-allow some threads for jokes in the local political forum, it will liven up matter, at least one thread that emcompasses all kind of jokes and funny stories
6-create a thread of world caricatures only , we have excellent members who can post wonderful links and stories.
7-try to engage members by trying to know each member kaza ( by the specific members posting a brief history about their kaza)and than select a kaza for each month decided by popular voting to be discussed..in all aspects ( political, cultural, posts pix, etc..)
8-a thread for rumours and stupid stuff , that will be a hit i am sure ( we lebanese thrives on that LOL)

finally i want to thank the administration, the mods and the members who make up the forum a lively place,ALSO the members who represent the other point of view.
u have no idea how this forum help us the expat keep in daily touch with home

[ceaoun]

For instance (ironically), this thread and the negative responses ( or critics) are in violation of Rule # 18 of this Forum.

I suggest more pro-active roles of Mods/Staff in instigating debates and fueling controversies in relation to all aspects of life and all political spectrums to include FPM and its allies.

Relax the roles on starting a thread and make it start ASAP when submitted. Try not to merge a new thread with an old one ; it might inhibit people once in a while from starting a new one thinking it might get merged(some people don't like mergers).

I have read many posts lately telling people to go to their own Forums and play there instead of posting some unpleasant (politically) remarks here.

And most importantly, if you want more participation, there is nothing better than incentives:( P.P.P.) :Pay Per Post (of course just a joke)

[The Jade]

Having seen the forum change in the past couple of years, here are my observations:

We want to know what kind of subjects, activities, etc would get you involved in participating more actively.

If this is to be FPM's official forum, why don't we have exclusive news from FPM's staff (cadres, MPs, etc).

By exclusive news, I mean interviews with MPs, leaders, etc.
A place where we could ask our MPs some questions and get answers from them.

What are the strong elements and the weaknesses of the forum in its actual form?

There are many strong elements in the forum, some of them related to the very organized team and the faithful members who keep this forum alive.

But I'll concentrate on the weaknesses here:

1) One of the main weaknesses of this forum is the lack of independant or rather anti-FPM voices. (there are a few, bit a time came where there were almost as many anti-FPM than pro-FPM people).

Some of the threads turn to cheerleading, which don't get us anywhere.

2) The fact that some threads with no added value are allowed to be opened and others that might be interesting, or critical of the FPM would not be allowed to see the light of day

3) The fact that some members are still kicked out depending on the humor of the Admins.

4) The fact that some rules are broken by the administration and nothing is done about it, but when a regular member does it he gets a warning

5) The fact that any opposing voice is quickly attacked by the members. And I know that the administration has nothing to do with it, but I think that it has to show the good example and lead the way by allowing people to elaborate on the ideas and organizing a good way to counter the critics.

For our members who became inactive, what is it that you lack to start participating again? Are you disabused from Lebanese politics, this forum, both? Please share your insights.

I'm not inactive now since it's elections time.

But when nothing was going on, the forum became so one-sided, so critical of opposing voices that it became a cheerleading forum, which is nothing related to FPM's teachings

For visitors, what could we do for them so they register and get them involved? By the way, you would be amazed by the number of recurring visitors who never registered.

Can't say a thing here

For our recent and regular members, why aren’t there a greater number of initiatives? The moderation’s policy is set to be very loose; did it have a pervert effect instead of its intended aim?

Because most of the time initiatives have been killed.

For example, we've been asking for more than 2 years now to have an interview with a cadre or an MP. And when we did that, the administration told us that it's either not the time or that it's taking care of it.

And since I was a member I saw 2 interviews one with Ziad Abs and another with Ghassan Mkheiber I think.

The forum is not using its full potential to get new things done.
It could for example propose for some members to gather all the questions that we need to ask for the MP and go to the MP's office, ask the questions and come back and post them on the website.

I think that the forum administration should start to delegate stuff to their members.

Always remember that no matter how much us as a staff put efforts, we have no chance without your cooperation. The forum's level is intimately related to the members' commitment. If you don’t submit threads, ideas, feedback, etc., then nothing would change. So please take this opportunity to share with us some constructive criticism and we are all ears to you.

The Orange room staff[/size]

[shevchenco]

A not-so-hidden link on tayyar.org would increase the number of visitors and, hence, the registered members and discussions. After all, this forum has become a part of tayyar.org.


according to alexa:


Where people go on Tayyar.org: What's This?

* tayyar.org - 75.8%
* forum.tayyar.org - 22.7%

[Souss]

Originally Posted by Lallous

Are you disabused from Lebanese politics, this forum, both? Please share your insights.

Originally Posted by Lallous

why aren’t there a greater number of initiatives? The moderation’s policy is set to be very loose; did it have a pervert effect instead of its intended aim?

Sometimes, threads that don't conform with FPM's views are deleted and the mod team doesn't reply when asked about the deletion.

You can't censor people and not respect the time and effort they put in, and then ask for their contribution and initiatives.

[kappa273]

threads with more than 1000 replies work negatively for the forum....

I am not talking about the Elections threads (Beirut, Batroun, Zahleh, Metn, etc....)

but when a thread reaches more than 1000, many will shy away from putting down their idea by far that it could have been discussed previously and it is impossible to review 1000 posts to check it out....

also, after 1000 replies, it becomes very difficult to know for sure what the topic is and what has been discussed so far...

Also I would like to see official FPM members discuss their ideas here... like it has been done in the past... questions are asked ahead of time and that member gets to answer them at his own leisure...

i wish FPM would use this forum to release non-official messages, stories....
this would bring more attention and can be used as a gauge to measure people's reactions...

kappa

[Ignatius]

It's a very personnal opinion and it only explains my lack of contribution in the last couple of months :
- prohibitting copy/pastes of articles or analysis coming from other websites reduced the "raw material" that enabled discussion, but the legal aspect of such copy/pastes is an important thing to take into acccount
- I also understood that links are prohibitted unless accepted by the target site, this also reduced the number of potential starting points of our discussions and that on a legal level doesn't seem to be justified
- And last but not least, I had too much work in the last coupe of months which kept me away from the forum at least from contributing

[SeekNirvana]

Good initiative Lallous.

You guys have a lot of power in shaping the discussions in the political forum: the topics of discussion are one part, the quality of posts is another. By "quality" I don't refer to the Gemayelist one, rather a more basic one at the levels of politeness and decency. Perhaps a closer look at the bahwarjiyyeh posts can help.

rgds,