Given that this site isn't high up in the list of google results, how will this forum attract new members? Can it move higher up the list, and if so, is that achievable?
Comments (96)
ArguingWAristotleTiffOctober 22, 2015 at 23:21#3442 likes
I would be happy to host a Facebook page for The Philosophy Forums . The Facebook page that we had for the other forum brought around 10 new followers a week. It's an idea!
I was thinking the exact thing. I even googled the question, and it gave some ideas. It would seem that if you Google "philosophy," you'd want the name of this site to appear on those sites somewhere. PF has 12 years of building itself up, but we'll get there.
Buzzwords, topical discussions, lots of tags on topics, and lots of activity. Those are good ways to improve search engine rankings.
I doubt that PF gets as many hits from people searching the words "philosophy" or "forum" as it does from them searching phrases, or topics that are discussed there.
It takes time for Google to like you. It comes down roughly to (a) site structure, load speed and other software issues, (b) how many other sites link to this site along with how much Google likes those sites, and (c) high quality changing content that's relevant to people's searches. There are many other aspects but I haven't been paying attention to SEO for the past couple of years.
PF is at the top because of its age, reliability, crawlability, and masses of high quality content. Its rise to the top of the search results is one of Paul's great successes. If we can get as much high quality philosophical discussion going as possible, as soon as possible, we'll have some chance of picking up people from Google. But the competition is immense and it won't happen any time soon.
The Google bot has visited the site, I think, but it didn't stay for long. It may be back in the next couple of weeks, and hopefully then it'll take a closer look and index more pages.
There may be some technical barriers here. It's possible that this forum software is not very SEO-friendly, and because I'm not in control of it I can't quickly make the necessary changes. However, technical issues, i.e., aspect (a), are the least important when it comes to pleasing Google; if there's relevant content here the bot will find it.
One thing I can do is set up a Google Analytics account and add the site to Google Webmaster Tools. They'll help me see how the site is performing month to month.
Didn't take all that long in my experience. I once co-founded a website that earned over forty thousand members, and over a million unique visits a month, in only a few months. Of course it it had a lot of quality content, I should know, I wrote most of it. Though, I also was strongly opposed to ads, paying for anything, and eventually doing any work, preferring to leave it all to my dozen unpaid staff members, and owner programmer of the site, and it eventually flopped in my absence.
Point being, I think that we could do a lot, if we just made a lot of serious topics, on all of the issues, grew the content, kept up to date on current events, and discussed them as well (probably most importantly), and well, then we would see plenty of results.
I don't know anything about programming, and how important that is for google to like us though.
I'm also going to do an analysis of the site's SEO-friendliness and if there are big issues I'll add them as feature requests to send to the developers.
The site gets 65% on seositecheckup.com (or something like that--it was yesterday I did it). Many of the problems it flags up are not that serious.
ArguingWAristotleTiffOctober 23, 2015 at 00:35#3670 likes
Woo hoo! Sorry about the plural and thank you for the correction because it really matters. I will set up the page and link you to it before it goes live so everyone can give their input, then the administrators here can give fiinal approval
I think we should also try to think of different ways of doing things, organizing things, or whatever. As you'll have noticed, I unimaginatively set this site up mostly in accordance with PF.
Off the top...reading groups that we all participate in, say one philosophical paper a month or something (reading groups don't have to be full books). First suggestion, an easy read: "The Extended Mind" by Clark and Chalmers.
ArguingWAristotleTiffOctober 23, 2015 at 11:50#4490 likes
Does anyone know Twitter or InstaGram? I don't hold an account for either but it would seem that we could set up an account at both, for The Philosophy Forum. Is it possible that we could bring in too many folks at once, to effectively moderate?
ArguingWAristotleTiffOctober 23, 2015 at 12:31#4530 likes
I need some ideas of a Profile Picture for The Philosophy Forum Facebook page. Basic letters work but I see that TPF is taken in images on Google. If you can think of anything post it and we can change it as the wind blows or keep it consistent.
Mayor of SimpletonOctober 23, 2015 at 12:50#4542 likes
I did send out 50 invites to the potential "safety boat" (in case PF dies) via PF PMs... but I maxed it out and had to quit for a little while.
Anyway...
... it seems this 'Ark' is about to become a 'luxury cruise ship' and PF might well hit an iceberg.
ArguingWAristotleTiffOctober 23, 2015 at 12:52#4552 likes
Okay I need a list of those who should be Facebook administrator's but here is what I have so far, so please feel free to *Follow* 8-)
https://www.facebook.com/The-Philosophy-Forum-1638176023130776/
Tiff.. I was wondering... would it make sense to put a blurb on the facebook page that directs people to the old PF... just to explain what password trafficking is and how to stay safe?
I'm familiar with Twitter. It's the only social media I use. Not sure how to advertise with it, but we used it for activist-related shtuff, and keeping tabs on news sources.
ArguingWAristotleTiffOctober 23, 2015 at 16:27#4940 likes
Reply to Mongrel It is really up to the administrators here. The PF Facebook page, which I was removed editor of with the sale, is still up but not a word or picture has changed or been updated. The PF Facebook page has a site address that directs them to the Forums themselves. Likewise the TPF has an address that directs a reader here.
Thoughts?
ArguingWAristotleTiffOctober 23, 2015 at 16:34#4950 likes
Reply to Moliere Is it possible to set up a homepage of sorts on Twitter? I sent out probably three posts a week on FB, one was humorous, one was quote from a Philosopher and one quote from a PF Member that linked it back to the forums. Sometimes that one joke or quote would garner 10 new followers on FB, other times it falls flat. Take a look at the history of PF Facebook and you will get a feel for the flow which can always be expanded with some help. https://www.facebook.com/philosophyforums
That's pretty cool. It is possible to set up something similar on Twitter, though you are limited in how many characters you tweet. You can always link-back to a blog of sorts if you'd like to post longer highlights.
I imagine something like https://twitter.com/nytimes account would be good to emulate. All you need is an email account to register. Then you need to garner followers and retweets to get noticed.
We need some more "lower quality" posters. Many of the current members are made up of a selection of the better posters from pf. Conversing with them may not be the best entry way for new members. We need people who are worried about solipsism, scepticism, have weird ideas about God etc. We need more people whose views are incorrect in obvious ways.
The outlaw Josey WalesOctober 24, 2015 at 00:04#6501 likes
It only takes one great idea or break through whether purposed or not by a average poster to over shadow and out do all those whom claim to be high level philosophers. Though, I wish I was a brighter crayon, I can only stay humble and hope the powers that be help my troubled mind find peace is the glaring depression that comes with not knowing.
Wet t-shirt Fridays may help.
But seriously I agree with some of the other comments about getting new blood.
But not the type that tells you that you have to be wrong because some bloody fella from 300 years ago said in his book that it was not the way I believe it is. People that spout old philosophers and their 250 year old defenses as if they were gospel without adding one iota of personal thought piss me off.
The outlaw Josey WalesOctober 24, 2015 at 00:14#6552 likes
To be honest finding new blood will be a group task. My wife has an instragram account with a few hundred followers that I could post a picture/link. We both have facebooks that can be linked along with Twitter. We can try what many are doing by using the old PF along with other Philosophy sites to respectfully share links with. But, even then it will be a slow process as the old PF did not peak for many years.
On the other hand we need to be warm and inviting. Respectful and not flaming towards new people with an open mind. I am not saying put up with trolls, I am just saying for now, you may need to endure some " low quality" and allow some to mature and evolve.
Reply to The outlaw Josey Wales I agree with that. I think back to my first philosophy class -- and all the horribly crass shit I said. We all talked over beers and gin and everything else, and no on recorded. . . it might be good to realize that we have come so far, and that it actually takes *time* to go further.
I say that as a relatively young person -- 31 now -- so . . . hopefully it's taken in good cheer.
Reply to Mongrel Libel against another website's owners is not a good way to get started. I suspect they have lawyers. And I find it very far-fetched that they're after anyone's password, especially since they'd expect passwords to be hashed.
Maybe so according to the notion that more = better, but the most fun times I had at PF were in '02-'05. For me, the discussions were more fun precisely because there were few enough people that I could actually read a whole thread instead of having to skim 10 pages super-quick. And it was possible to get a good back and forth going with someone. Why bother to post if there are going to be too many replies to engage with?
We need some more "lower quality" posters. Many of the current members are made up of a selection of the better posters from pf. Conversing with them may not be the best entry way for new members. We need people who are worried about solipsism, scepticism, have weird ideas about God etc. We need more people whose views are incorrect in obvious ways.
I'd never thought I'd say this, but apparently we need Randroids. :-O
Maybe so according to the notion that more = better, but the most fun times I had at PF were in '02-'05. For me, the discussions were more fun precisely because there were few enough people that I could actually read a whole thread instead of having to skim 10 pages super-quick.
Same reason I feel I do have the time to moderate here. For me the golden years of PF were 2003-2007 I guess.
Maybe so according to the notion that more = better, but the most fun times I had at PF were in '02-'05. For me, the discussions were more fun precisely because there were few enough people that I could actually read a whole thread instead of having to skim 10 pages super-quick. Why bother to post if there are going to be too many replies to engage with?
One possible problem with this new platform as opposed to PF is that all posts work kind of like Facebook comments or even internal replies, in that they're inline, quick and AJAXy. The temptation is to post, post, post.
The Google bot finally turned up and indexed a few pages on the site. I hope it won't be long before it comes back and crawls through the categories and indexes some of the discussions.
Maybe so according to the notion that more = better, but the most fun times I had at PF were in '02-'05. For me, the discussions were more fun precisely because there were few enough people that I could actually read a whole thread instead of having to skim 10 pages super-quick. And it was possible to get a good back and forth going with someone. Why bother to post if there are going to be too many replies to engage with?
This. A friend and I started a discussion forum for Leftist literature a few years ago. While it had less than 50 members was the most productive time for reading groups, email exchanges with academics and so on. Friend left due to general malaise, so the admins (self included), decided to promote growth.
A few years down the road it's very difficult to discuss anything due to people spamming Mario-Stalin pictures and shit-talking Jaden Smith for an inappropriate understanding of Hegel.
Probably something structural about it. More people means more replies to older posts in the discussion if everything is working well.
Libel against another website's owners is not a good way to get started. I suspect they have lawyers. And I find it very far-fetched that they're after anyone's password, especially since they'd expect passwords to be hashed.
Libel? What the fuck are you talking about? And no.. it's not far-fetched, Paul. How do you think password trafficking works? You don't sit there trying to guess a hashed password. You let a computer do the guessing.
Was the mention of lawyers supposed to be a threat directed at me?
Reply to Mongrel
Nobody who has criticized Porat has done anything wrong @Paul. And I'll say it again here: He is a potential criminal and the warnings about passwords should still be up on PF. That's not libel or slander or even an unjustified appraisal of the situation. It's a recommendation of a common-sense safety measure. I don't think Paul was threatening you though Mongrel. And he is putting pressure on Porat to be more open. Personally, I will never trust the new owner and I think it's a travesty he's in charge of PF. But I think the best thing to do is to move on and forget about him. It's a polarizing issue and there's not much point us arguing about him here anymore.
For me, the discussions were more fun precisely because there were few enough people that I could actually read a whole thread instead of having to skim 10 pages super-quick. And it was possible to get a good back and forth going with someone. Why bother to post if there are going to be too many replies to engage with?
I totally agree with this. It seems to me this new site would do well to keep things small and quality-focused. Why do we need to push for new members if all our favourites are here already? I haven't posted on PF a lot for several years, largely for the reasons Paul mentions. Sure, we might get accused of being elitists, but which philosophers haven't? ;)
Reply to Baden Sane words. It just sounded like Paul was insinuating a threat. It brought out my "bring it motherfucker." As for moving on.. I wish the best for everybody including the old PF.
It seems to me this new site would do well to keep things small and quality-focused. Why do we need to push for new members if all our favourites are here already? I haven't posted on PF a lot for several years, largely for the reasons Paul mentions. Sure, we might get accused of being elitists, but which philosophers haven't?
I think if we grow, it needs to be a slow and sustainable growth. There's no point us paying for space if that's being filled up with low quality posts by low quality posters, which will drive away some of our good posters. On the other hand, we do need new members to keep things fresh. All of us were new members once, right? Anyway, great to see you here coolazice. It was a loss when you left old PF.
Reply to Mongrel The only way a computer is going to guess your password is if it's a really bad password, and password crackers have the same chance of guessing your password whether they have the database or not. Hashed passwords do not help the guessing.
And libel lawsuits can happen whether justified or not. I'm not a lawyer but I'd think anyone involved in any official way with this site should be very careful not to actually accuse Porat of a crime for which he was technically found innocent, or this site might be targeted over it? But lawyers feel free to correct me.
Google's started indexing the discussions:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Athephilosophyforum.com
Promising.
Maybe Paul has a point about not being in a rush to grow, but my feeling is that we need to be visible in the search engines just to maintain the turnover of active members we'll need as some members inevitably drift away or become inactive for a while. And anyway, I liked the constant arrival of new members at PF and want to achieve that here on a smaller scale. We don't want to be the ex-PF members club, right? Reminiscing about Banno's red cup, blue blood, and goats.
Anyway, great to see you here coolazice. It was a loss when you left old PF.
I never actually left! I stopped posting for the most part, but I did still read the threads... I found my favourite posters' thinking to be deeper than my own... but it's very nice of you to say so.
Reply to Mayor of Simpleton
jamalrob, of course. He needs to get more traffic so he can sell this site to Vaygmedia in six months and start another. Eventually Vaygmedia will be the proud owner of hundreds of philosophy based forums!
Mayor of SimpletonOctober 25, 2015 at 23:32#10162 likes
This is terrible, but it came from my wife and not me.
She noticed that the websites of Vaygmedia were:
[i]Mom Training
Yummy Deserts
Top Fashion Wear
Glamor Post
Fashion Fixation
Fashion Scope[/i]
She ask me why the owner of this stuff is so stupid and cannot spell.
The only way a computer is going to guess your password is if it's a really bad password, and password crackers have the same chance of guessing your password whether they have the database or not. Hashed passwords do not help the guessing.
And libel lawsuits can happen whether justified or not. I'm not a lawyer but I'd think anyone involved in any official way with this site should be very careful not to actually accuse Porat of a crime for which he was technically found innocent, or this site might be targeted over it? But lawyers feel free to correct me.
Obviously I'm not suing anyone.
OK. Let's say someone buys a database of login names and hashed passwords, but decides it's just not possible, given time, to crack the passwords that correspond to those emails. Really? OK. But he is in a position to start storing passwords that are typed in.
Compare this scenario with the notion of buying a 10 year old philosophy forum with the intention of growing it for the sake of ad revenue. Let's imagine that there is great success and in a matter of a few years, $5000 per month is coming in for various websites that have been developed. After taxes, a single owner in Montana would have a nice thing going. If it's three guys in NYC splitting the proceeds.. it doesn't become inconceivable, but there's something odd about it. How are they finding time away from their full-time jobs to work on this project, which for each of them is just a mildly lucrative hobby? Are they eccentrics or something?
Eccentrics or criminals? All it takes is the fact that one of the three has a history of being suspected of cyber crime to engender suspicion. Surely, if there's no criminality on the scene, dude will be happy to explain what happened that brought him to the attention of the authorities. But he says nothing that actually makes any sense, but appears to be turning away from opportunities to clear the air. Maybe he has recently addressed it. I haven't been over to the old PF site lately.
What I'm saying is that the mere fact that Paypal fraud and identity theft is big business whereas ads usually aren't, leads me to what I'd call a legitimate question here. That's it: a question. If anyone has actually accused anyone of a crime, I didn't catch that.
I realize unjustified lawsuits happen. Any moron who sues me for libel will come out the financial loser, though. If your intention was to warn people to avoid committing a crime, that's great. Let's just say that's all you meant to do and leave it at that.
Reply to Paul Your post indicates he was technically found innocent, although that was not my understanding of the articles I read. The matter was civil, not criminal, meaning reference to guilt or innocence entirely mischaracterizes the proceedings.
Of course, I'm just going on what I read, but if you know more, do share.
Now that PF is a for profit company, are you currently on its payroll or do you remain there as a volunteer?
Regarding whether this site should grow, of course! It is far from unwieldy at the moment, and I look suspiciously upon any suggestion that it remain a tiny, uncompetitive entity. We can worry about being massive and cumbersome at some point in the very distant future.
My suggestion is that a collaborative effort be made to arrive at a meaningful marketing plan outside of public discussion groups. We are no doubt mostly among friends. Mostly, just mostly.
There's a reason that the new owners over at PF are suggesting articles on topical current events, that can be plastered to popular web feeds. This is probably the best way to bring in traffic. Of course people are making a lot of search engine inquiries into what is current and topical, and having links to your site from other sites with a lot of traffic all improves your traffic. We can always sort the wheat from the chaff later, but that actually is a really good strategy for popularizing the website. I say that we steal it.
Reply to Wosret This site actually comes with a blog, which I turned off because the header link got in the way of the subscribe link. One use for that is to post OP's about current events. Or there's nothing stopping us setting up a Ghost blog, or another kind of site, at a subdomain, e.g., articles.thephilosophyforum.com.
Incidentally, I noticed that the Refugees discussion was the first one to be indexed by Google.
Yes, I think that we should do that, turn on the blog, or set up the subdomain. I believe that Tiff was going to be working on facebook and twitters pages, where articles could also be posted.
Yeh I think the blog is a good idea. I do like it here, seems a breath of fresh air after years at pf, but it's currently tiny. There's a danger that if it doesn't grow people will just lose interest and leave. It would be good to know how pf managed to take off itself and how long that took.
I'm happy to help out writing some articles for the blog. Unlike Hanover my oppions are more appreciated inside the forum (I think) and may be seen as somewhat eccentric to the public, judging from the reactions of my friends. But, I can write about more pop issues such as evolution etc.
Incidentally, I noticed that the Refugees discussion was the first one to be indexed by Google.
Nice.
I've noticed that some of the more eccentric or specialized threads at least on the old PF found their way quite high in a Google searches. Hopefully same happens here too.
Well I'm one of the new members you're talking about. I've been following the original PF for about 4 years. (I was unable to join due to a technical problem.) It was a very interesting and educational experience to say the least. At any rate, I always got the impression that a lot of new posters had never read the posting guidelines, which really get your message across and never read through some threads to get a feel of what's expected. You might consider adding the guidelines on this site. Also when some God proofs or science of morality came along you all really seemed to enjoy trying to get through to them. Just my two cents.
By my count 64 people have joined the old PF in the last week.
We're not in a competition with old PF over how many new members we each attract. That's a competition we can't, as of now, win. They have over 13 years of building up exposure. We've had a week. We are, however, in a competition with them about which of us is the best place to do quality philosophy. And that's a competition we can and will win.
ArguingWAristotleTiffOctober 27, 2015 at 12:45#14120 likes
My wife just ask me to check the assumption that the new members of PF simply join and never really post.
Since October 1st there have been 205 new members and only 5 have posted 10 or more posts, whereas 128 of them have never posted anything.
Indeed we have some people here who have joined for the sake of 'playing the safety net card' in case PF goes sour, but really... 50% of new members since October 1st have never once posted a single thing. :s
Interesting if nothing else.
We are making the effort to attract 'active members', as far as I can tell.
... and it's worth it for an advertiser to have only 100 sets of eyeballs see their ads? :s
So you understand why I was so confused at this purchase too...
... good to know I'm not alone. ;)
Meow!
GREG
btw... maybe it's like Chinese Restaurants here in Austria? They are what Chinese Laundries used to be in terms of 'laundering' dirty green to be cleaner greener green. :-$
Reply to Mayor of Simpleton Well that would make some sense of all this wouldn't it? How many ego based impulse buys are you going to get from 100 people in the lucrative pursuit of philosophical truth?
Mayor of SimpletonOctober 29, 2015 at 20:37#17430 likes
Reply to Monitor
That was the first reaction of my wife. (she's wicked smart!)
Explains why I'm happily married. (L)
Meow!
GREG
Postmodern BeatnikOctober 29, 2015 at 20:41#17441 likes
Given that this site isn't high up in the list of google results, how will this forum attract new members? Can it move higher up the list, and if so, is that achievable?
I don't want to disregard the importance of new members. But one very important lesson that this site should take from PF is that curating a site's membership is just as important as growing it (indeed, perhaps more important than growing it).
Note that it's The Philosophy Forum, singular. I always hated that plural nonsense.
To each their own, but it wasn't nonsense. PF is made up of several forums (e.g., ethics, metaphysics, feedback), some of which had subforums (e.g., logic and math homework, politics, religion). These forums were also arranged in sections (philosophy, not quite philosophy, and off-topic). Calling sites that are arranged this way forums is actually quite typical in communities that devote themselves to multiple topics or that restrict certain areas to specific topics.
Reply to Postmodern Beatnik I understand the terminology PB. My use of the word "nonsense" was more expressive and emphatic than precise: I always found the plural usage unintuitive and grating, because for me, the web site was the forum, which happened to be divided into various subject areas. I'm not sure of the history of message boards, but I imagine that subject areas or categories came to be called "sub-forums" only because the original boards were modelled on the hierarchical file directory structure, where the whole forum is the parent node and child nodes are instances of the same kind of object.
Several terms still in use in the world of discussion forums (that is, web sites that host discussions) reflect how things were done in the early days, such as "thread". I'm happy to be moving away from many of the terminological and functional conventions of that software, because I think they can be alienating, distracting or needlessly obscure. That, at least, was my own experience.
This may just be a matter of taste. In any case, I did not mean to malign PF in particular.
The way we do it here seems more logical to me too. It's a forum with categories. Full stop. But, of course, each to their own and @Postmodern Beatnik's point about the importance of curating present membership is well taken anyhow.
I don't want the site to be as big as PF. I don't have time to read every post in every thread I post, and respond to them thoughtfully. PF was more of a home when it was smaller, and even then I didn't really enter PF until 2006, roughly a year after I presume it was the right size. I think it should be our aim to have around 200-300 relatively active members, at most (defined by at least 1 post a week), with maybe 1000 floating members (defined by at least 1 post per month). Anything beyond that would just be a torrent of repeated topics, over and over again.
At the end of the day, I'm here to discuss and hear interesting ideas, and occasionally fuck around with other philosophers on a relatively on-demand basis.
Also, I don't really care for inter-forum wars, but I also dislike the blocking of suggesting movement to another, smaller forum, from relatively active members to others. These are relationships that have been built over multiple years while in PF, and suggesting an alternative place shouldn't be frowned upon. But in anycase I can't do anything about it, so I'm not gonna concern myself too much about it, except that, previously, I didn't really have an opinion about the new owners of PF, but now I think they're a buncha fascists (term used colloquially).
So, I'll channel my inner evil chakra into the universe and hope all falls into place, and different people get what they deserve.
Mayor of SimpletonOctober 30, 2015 at 13:44#18341 likes
So, I'll channel my inner evil chakra into the universe and hope all falls into place, and different people get what they deserve.
Amen! (Y)
Meow!
GREG
ArguingWAristotleTiffNovember 03, 2015 at 16:42#21552 likes
Hey guys! If you use Facebook and haven't become a follower of The Philosophy Forum Facebook page, do so today! Also, I have to find my fishing holes for discussions to link back here, getting us fresh members thru FB but I am still finding my way. So if you like a post and it doesn't go against your character, please use the (L) button as it makes it easier for me to link something I might not feel comfortable in taking a side in.
Thanks for your help!
Tiffers
https://www.facebook.com/thephilosophyforum
Grey Vs GraySeptember 16, 2018 at 16:50#2128240 likes
Currently it's at the top, Congrats.
Agent SmithDecember 16, 2021 at 15:06#6318900 likes
This is clearly a woman's problem. She wants to dress up, wear makeup to attract Mr. Right but then there's the risk of attracting the wrong kind of attention. This site is, to that extent, a she!
Comments (96)
I doubt that PF gets as many hits from people searching the words "philosophy" or "forum" as it does from them searching phrases, or topics that are discussed there.
PF is at the top because of its age, reliability, crawlability, and masses of high quality content. Its rise to the top of the search results is one of Paul's great successes. If we can get as much high quality philosophical discussion going as possible, as soon as possible, we'll have some chance of picking up people from Google. But the competition is immense and it won't happen any time soon.
The Google bot has visited the site, I think, but it didn't stay for long. It may be back in the next couple of weeks, and hopefully then it'll take a closer look and index more pages.
There may be some technical barriers here. It's possible that this forum software is not very SEO-friendly, and because I'm not in control of it I can't quickly make the necessary changes. However, technical issues, i.e., aspect (a), are the least important when it comes to pleasing Google; if there's relevant content here the bot will find it.
One thing I can do is set up a Google Analytics account and add the site to Google Webmaster Tools. They'll help me see how the site is performing month to month.
Point being, I think that we could do a lot, if we just made a lot of serious topics, on all of the issues, grew the content, kept up to date on current events, and discussed them as well (probably most importantly), and well, then we would see plenty of results.
I don't know anything about programming, and how important that is for google to like us though.
The site gets 65% on seositecheckup.com (or something like that--it was yesterday I did it). Many of the problems it flags up are not that serious.
Off the top...reading groups that we all participate in, say one philosophical paper a month or something (reading groups don't have to be full books). First suggestion, an easy read: "The Extended Mind" by Clark and Chalmers.
Anyway...
... it seems this 'Ark' is about to become a 'luxury cruise ship' and PF might well hit an iceberg.
Meow!
GREG
https://www.facebook.com/The-Philosophy-Forum-1638176023130776/
Thoughts?
I imagine something like https://twitter.com/nytimes account would be good to emulate. All you need is an email account to register. Then you need to garner followers and retweets to get noticed.
EDIT: Should probably add a mention in here --
@ArguingWAristotleTiff
Oh, I thought it was your page. Nevermind. :)
Let's see if anyone comes.
Meow!
GREG
While funny, I rather look forward to having a discussion with folk who ain't all fuggered up like that ;). Not that that's bad, but...
Maybe we could get into some other issues now -- even supposing that PF works out OK -- that we can "spar" with one another.
I certainly don't think that the average is outside of the extraordinary.
But seriously I agree with some of the other comments about getting new blood.
But not the type that tells you that you have to be wrong because some bloody fella from 300 years ago said in his book that it was not the way I believe it is. People that spout old philosophers and their 250 year old defenses as if they were gospel without adding one iota of personal thought piss me off.
On the other hand we need to be warm and inviting. Respectful and not flaming towards new people with an open mind. I am not saying put up with trolls, I am just saying for now, you may need to endure some " low quality" and allow some to mature and evolve.
I say that as a relatively young person -- 31 now -- so . . . hopefully it's taken in good cheer.
Maybe so according to the notion that more = better, but the most fun times I had at PF were in '02-'05. For me, the discussions were more fun precisely because there were few enough people that I could actually read a whole thread instead of having to skim 10 pages super-quick. And it was possible to get a good back and forth going with someone. Why bother to post if there are going to be too many replies to engage with?
I'd never thought I'd say this, but apparently we need Randroids. :-O
Same reason I feel I do have the time to moderate here. For me the golden years of PF were 2003-2007 I guess.
One possible problem with this new platform as opposed to PF is that all posts work kind of like Facebook comments or even internal replies, in that they're inline, quick and AJAXy. The temptation is to post, post, post.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Athephilosophyforum.com
This. A friend and I started a discussion forum for Leftist literature a few years ago. While it had less than 50 members was the most productive time for reading groups, email exchanges with academics and so on. Friend left due to general malaise, so the admins (self included), decided to promote growth.
A few years down the road it's very difficult to discuss anything due to people spamming Mario-Stalin pictures and shit-talking Jaden Smith for an inappropriate understanding of Hegel.
Probably something structural about it. More people means more replies to older posts in the discussion if everything is working well.
Libel? What the fuck are you talking about? And no.. it's not far-fetched, Paul. How do you think password trafficking works? You don't sit there trying to guess a hashed password. You let a computer do the guessing.
Was the mention of lawyers supposed to be a threat directed at me?
Nobody who has criticized Porat has done anything wrong @Paul. And I'll say it again here: He is a potential criminal and the warnings about passwords should still be up on PF. That's not libel or slander or even an unjustified appraisal of the situation. It's a recommendation of a common-sense safety measure. I don't think Paul was threatening you though Mongrel. And he is putting pressure on Porat to be more open. Personally, I will never trust the new owner and I think it's a travesty he's in charge of PF. But I think the best thing to do is to move on and forget about him. It's a polarizing issue and there's not much point us arguing about him here anymore.
I totally agree with this. It seems to me this new site would do well to keep things small and quality-focused. Why do we need to push for new members if all our favourites are here already? I haven't posted on PF a lot for several years, largely for the reasons Paul mentions. Sure, we might get accused of being elitists, but which philosophers haven't? ;)
I think if we grow, it needs to be a slow and sustainable growth. There's no point us paying for space if that's being filled up with low quality posts by low quality posters, which will drive away some of our good posters. On the other hand, we do need new members to keep things fresh. All of us were new members once, right? Anyway, great to see you here coolazice. It was a loss when you left old PF.
And libel lawsuits can happen whether justified or not. I'm not a lawyer but I'd think anyone involved in any official way with this site should be very careful not to actually accuse Porat of a crime for which he was technically found innocent, or this site might be targeted over it? But lawyers feel free to correct me.
Obviously I'm not suing anyone.
It's time for me to do the same.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Athephilosophyforum.com
Promising.
Maybe Paul has a point about not being in a rush to grow, but my feeling is that we need to be visible in the search engines just to maintain the turnover of active members we'll need as some members inevitably drift away or become inactive for a while. And anyway, I liked the constant arrival of new members at PF and want to achieve that here on a smaller scale. We don't want to be the ex-PF members club, right? Reminiscing about Banno's red cup, blue blood, and goats.
I never actually left! I stopped posting for the most part, but I did still read the threads... I found my favourite posters' thinking to be deeper than my own... but it's very nice of you to say so.
Or an evolution vs. intelligent design debate....
http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/44/we-still-havent-had-an-evolution-vs-intelligence-design-debate-on-these-forums#Item_2
... or rather not.
Let's keep the twatterish farcebook crowd elsewhere. Besides... they have sooo many options anyway...
... oh!
And who really enjoys 'traffic'? >:O
Meow!
GREG
jamalrob, of course. He needs to get more traffic so he can sell this site to Vaygmedia in six months and start another. Eventually Vaygmedia will be the proud owner of hundreds of philosophy based forums!
She noticed that the websites of Vaygmedia were:
[i]Mom Training
Yummy Deserts
Top Fashion Wear
Glamor Post
Fashion Fixation
Fashion Scope[/i]
She ask me why the owner of this stuff is so stupid and cannot spell.
It should read:
'Vaginamedia'.
WOW! :-O
Meow!
GREG
OK. Let's say someone buys a database of login names and hashed passwords, but decides it's just not possible, given time, to crack the passwords that correspond to those emails. Really? OK. But he is in a position to start storing passwords that are typed in.
Compare this scenario with the notion of buying a 10 year old philosophy forum with the intention of growing it for the sake of ad revenue. Let's imagine that there is great success and in a matter of a few years, $5000 per month is coming in for various websites that have been developed. After taxes, a single owner in Montana would have a nice thing going. If it's three guys in NYC splitting the proceeds.. it doesn't become inconceivable, but there's something odd about it. How are they finding time away from their full-time jobs to work on this project, which for each of them is just a mildly lucrative hobby? Are they eccentrics or something?
Eccentrics or criminals? All it takes is the fact that one of the three has a history of being suspected of cyber crime to engender suspicion. Surely, if there's no criminality on the scene, dude will be happy to explain what happened that brought him to the attention of the authorities. But he says nothing that actually makes any sense, but appears to be turning away from opportunities to clear the air. Maybe he has recently addressed it. I haven't been over to the old PF site lately.
What I'm saying is that the mere fact that Paypal fraud and identity theft is big business whereas ads usually aren't, leads me to what I'd call a legitimate question here. That's it: a question. If anyone has actually accused anyone of a crime, I didn't catch that.
I realize unjustified lawsuits happen. Any moron who sues me for libel will come out the financial loser, though. If your intention was to warn people to avoid committing a crime, that's great. Let's just say that's all you meant to do and leave it at that.
Of course, I'm just going on what I read, but if you know more, do share.
Now that PF is a for profit company, are you currently on its payroll or do you remain there as a volunteer?
My suggestion is that a collaborative effort be made to arrive at a meaningful marketing plan outside of public discussion groups. We are no doubt mostly among friends. Mostly, just mostly.
Incidentally, I noticed that the Refugees discussion was the first one to be indexed by Google.
I'm happy to help out writing some articles for the blog. Unlike Hanover my oppions are more appreciated inside the forum (I think) and may be seen as somewhat eccentric to the public, judging from the reactions of my friends. But, I can write about more pop issues such as evolution etc.
I've noticed that some of the more eccentric or specialized threads at least on the old PF found their way quite high in a Google searches. Hopefully same happens here too.
Yeah I know, and there're reasons for that, and if I may be so bold, many of those reasons have left the place.
Who doesn't like fish in a barrel?
... and how many have posted anything or been active online more than 2 hours?
Meow!
GREG
... or do you mean a barrel of monkeys?
Meow!
GREG
We're not in a competition with old PF over how many new members we each attract. That's a competition we can't, as of now, win. They have over 13 years of building up exposure. We've had a week. We are, however, in a competition with them about which of us is the best place to do quality philosophy. And that's a competition we can and will win.
Very few. When I first started following the OPF there were about 48,000 members and most of those who actually posted are here now.
Thanks for the Welcome.
My wife just ask me to check the assumption that the new members of PF simply join and never really post.
Since October 1st there have been 205 new members and only 5 have posted 10 or more posts, whereas 128 of them have never posted anything.
Indeed we have some people here who have joined for the sake of 'playing the safety net card' in case PF goes sour, but really... 50% of new members since October 1st have never once posted a single thing. :s
Interesting if nothing else.
We are making the effort to attract 'active members', as far as I can tell.
Quantity vs. Quality... ;)
Meow!
GREG
... and it's worth it for an advertiser to have only 100 sets of eyeballs see their ads? :s
So you understand why I was so confused at this purchase too...
... good to know I'm not alone. ;)
Meow!
GREG
btw... maybe it's like Chinese Restaurants here in Austria? They are what Chinese Laundries used to be in terms of 'laundering' dirty green to be cleaner greener green. :-$
That was the first reaction of my wife. (she's wicked smart!)
Explains why I'm happily married. (L)
Meow!
GREG
Quoting jamalrobTo each their own, but it wasn't nonsense. PF is made up of several forums (e.g., ethics, metaphysics, feedback), some of which had subforums (e.g., logic and math homework, politics, religion). These forums were also arranged in sections (philosophy, not quite philosophy, and off-topic). Calling sites that are arranged this way forums is actually quite typical in communities that devote themselves to multiple topics or that restrict certain areas to specific topics.
Several terms still in use in the world of discussion forums (that is, web sites that host discussions) reflect how things were done in the early days, such as "thread". I'm happy to be moving away from many of the terminological and functional conventions of that software, because I think they can be alienating, distracting or needlessly obscure. That, at least, was my own experience.
This may just be a matter of taste. In any case, I did not mean to malign PF in particular.
At the end of the day, I'm here to discuss and hear interesting ideas, and occasionally fuck around with other philosophers on a relatively on-demand basis.
Also, I don't really care for inter-forum wars, but I also dislike the blocking of suggesting movement to another, smaller forum, from relatively active members to others. These are relationships that have been built over multiple years while in PF, and suggesting an alternative place shouldn't be frowned upon. But in anycase I can't do anything about it, so I'm not gonna concern myself too much about it, except that, previously, I didn't really have an opinion about the new owners of PF, but now I think they're a buncha fascists (term used colloquially).
So, I'll channel my inner evil chakra into the universe and hope all falls into place, and different people get what they deserve.
Amen! (Y)
Meow!
GREG
Thanks for your help!
Tiffers
https://www.facebook.com/thephilosophyforum