Looking for beta testers for a new airsoft social website

[Cannonfodder]

They are topic focused rather than people focused.

Good. It makes searching for info on a topic easier and I don't have to search through a load of posts which are just attention seeking bellends trying to get likes and followers.

2. Threads get messy when people have a conversation. I can't for example reply to you without quoting your message and posting onto the main thread. 

Nope. You can private message and tag forum members in posts

. We can't easily introduce new features. I'd like to see a UK map of airsoft sites, with the ability for sites to register and give us updates on gamedays, share events to an events calendar and give notifications to those that want it. Profiles aren't that intuitive and it's difficult to how different info and fields to different roles e.g. A gamesite owner will want to use the site in a different way to a player. 

There's already a good website (https://playairsoft.uk/) which has a good list of sites nationwide.

As for sites they can have their own section of  the forum where they cam make announcements etc. Whether or not they choose to use them is down to them and as most people who run sites don't do it as a main income, I can seem why they wouldn't want the hassle of another social media platform to manage 

4. Honestly, forums just look outdated. Not such an issue for older players but for Gen Z, it matters. 

In your opinion and opinions are like arseholes..... 

Great! But good UI shouldn't require a lesson in how to use it.  It should be easily accessible and obvious, not buried away and to be brutally honest, formatted horribly. Have you tried using that game sites map on mobile?

It doesn't. Tbh this sounds like a you problem and want to be spoon fed

I uess time will tell but I believe there is demand for it. 

People believe the earth is flat and vaccines cause autism but it doesn't make them true. Do you have any data or evidence for this demand?

 

[Bo B]

Thanks to those of you that have submitted interest. I'll email you individually to say hello and share some next steps. 

I realise that suggesting change is hard for some people but I hope to see you soon. Just be open to the idea that maybe this isn't the pinnacle of  human interaction online. 

If anyone else is interested, the form will stay open for a while longer.

https://forms.gle/3XmzrtZzgYtp6AAaA

 

[Skullchewer]

Oooh, not seen one of these for a while.

 

[Tommikka]

. Have you tried using that game sites map on mobile?

Yes

I do most things on mobile, the computer in my pocket blows away most of those that I learned my old man skills on, and I’ve got finger skills for an old man

View attachment 133812

I genuinely had no idea about those areas of this site. It's a symptom of the forum structure. Lots of cool things buried away. Bashing new features into a dated forum structure is part of the problem. 
 

What you’ve described as a building block is rolling back to a much more dated structure, if you have resources and ability then starting from scratch works and could make you the next social media giant, but using tools to build works much better

(you’ve already pointed out that you’ve started off with a web builder, so you could just as well start from a social builder such as a forum environment - these are available as commercial off the shelf and open/community source environments 

The look and feel isn’t set in stone, and the functions can be made as visible or as deeply hidden as system owners desire - and if it doesn’t work as desired there’s a programmer out there somewhere that will code it in

By the way, I really appreciate you engaging with me on this. 

 

[Tackle]

You're assuming a lot there but thanks for the constructive comments. Keep up the good work

Your profile pic looks young, hardly a stretch to make a guess at your age, prove me wrong, what year were you born ?

As for your project, good luck, I really mean it, I'm sure there's a market for it, probably all the gen z's that are incapable or too lazy to use the search function & expect to be spoon fed & have their arses wiped for them, we see them on here regularly,  we'll send them your way.

Your welcome  ? 

 

[Bo B]

Your profile pic looks young, hardly a stretch to make a guess at your age, prove me wrong, what year were you born ?

As for your project, good luck, I really mean it, I'm sure there's a market for it, probably all the gen z's that are incapable or too lazy to use the search function & expect to be spoon fed & have their arses wiped for them, we see them on here regularly,  we'll send them your way.

Your welcome  ? 

You have such a strange and ugly attitude. I guess that's another problem with forums and pseudonymous users too.

Hope you're OK. 

 

[Lozart]

good UI shouldn't require a lesson in how to use it. 

You are correct, but everyones idea of "good UI design" is different. For example, I work in Industrial Automation, part and parcel of that is operator interfaces for machines. Every client we have wants their UI a certain way which in and of itself is fine but if an operator is familiar with how machine A works and then has to go and work on machine B which does exactly the same thing but is made by a different company then the UI will be different so will require familiarisation.

If you design a UI from an iOS users perspective, it will not feel intuitive to an Android user and vice versa. You may not be familiar with the layout of this forum because it's not what you use but those of us that use forums a lot are very familiar with it because it uses the same platform a lot of other forums do. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that the utopia of universal UI is not easy at all.

 

[Madhouse]

Thanks to those of you that have submitted interest. I'll email you individually to say hello and share some next steps.

If said testers could post some screenshots & share their experience here too I'm sure there will be more valuable community feedback from those of us unwilling to be a bets (sic) tester.

 

[Bo B]

You are correct, but everyones idea of "good UI design" is different. For example, I work in Industrial Automation, part and parcel of that is operator interfaces for machines. Every client we have wants their UI a certain way which in and of itself is fine but if an operator is familiar with how machine A works and then has to go and work on machine B which does exactly the same thing but is made by a different company then the UI will be different so will require familiarisation.

If you design a UI from an iOS users perspective, it will not feel intuitive to an Android user and vice versa. You may not be familiar with the layout of this forum because it's not what you use but those of us that use forums a lot are very familiar with it because it uses the same platform a lot of other forums do. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that the utopia of universal UI is not easy at all.

That's a fair comment. Thanks for sharing. 

Would you say that as time goes on, more people are trending towards forum style UI or the pages/newsfeed style UI that we see on platforms like Facebook, insta, Twitter. Or maybe something else entirely?

I'm not really here to fight any particular corner to be honest. I'm interested in working out if we can do something better for the wider community. Maybe forums are the answer. Maybe they aren't. 

 

[Jez_Armstrong]

TL;DR 

Guys comes to forum to steal members for his forum? 

 

[Lozart]

That's a fair comment. Thanks for sharing. 

Would you say that as time goes on, more people are trending towards forum style UI or the pages/newsfeed style UI that we see on platforms like Facebook, insta, Twitter. Or maybe something else entirely?

I'm not really here to fight any particular corner to be honest. I'm interested in working out if we can do something better for the wider community. Maybe forums are the answer. Maybe they aren't. 

I'd say that people gravitated towards social media based groups but are starting to be pushed back down the forum route due to restrictions being placed on firearm related social media content.

Personally, given the nature of discussion around what we enjoy, I find the long form format of the forum more useful because it goes further than "sik gun innit" and technical advice can be in a more detailed style.

 

[Chev Chelios]

Oh for sure Lozart, new Youtube and Facebook guidelines going to kill pew pew content. Cant even show putting a suppresser on a barrel. Forums build more of an archive for future readers on topics they may find useful in the future and just offer more of a community. 

TL;DR 

Guys comes to forum to steal members for his forum? 

I mean stealing implies ownership, right?  I don't think this forum has much to worry about one of the best run forums regardless of media around. (AFK while I clean the brown off my nose)

 

[Bo B]

I'd say that people gravitated towards social media based groups but are starting to be pushed back down the forum route due to restrictions being placed on firearm related social media content.

Personally, given the nature of discussion around what we enjoy, I find the long form format of the forum more useful because it goes further than "sik gun innit" and technical advice can be in a more detailed style.

If the only reason people are gravitating back is because thry are being forced to i.e. no alternative, that kinda highlights the point I'm making. 

There is certainly a need for the longer form format, I'll admit. 

I wonder if there would be a way to build onto this. So that the huge archive of info can be saved but we'd still have a modernised interface for those that want to use it.  

?

TL;DR 

Guys comes to forum to steal members for his forum? 

Haha! There are certainly more time effective ways to generate members than sitting on a forum thread replying to gatekeepers. 

 

[Tackle]

Like many here, been a member of many good forums, most of which died a slow painful death when fb came along & most airsoft sites switched to an essentially free medium that was (then) easier to update, but then fb uk became part of the "nanny state" & changed all the rules pertaining to airsoft etc, which in turn wasn't helped by the average low iq fb user not being able to grasp the new restrictions, so pages started getting clobbered & disappearing, some might say not necessarily a bad thing.

Now we've got players returning to the forums in droves, again, some are good to have, & some are a pita asking questions that have been asked, & answered, hundreds of times before (& can usually be found via the search fuction)

Thankfully, most of the time, the quality of the longstanding members here shines through, as does their patience in helping these new members. 

In fact this thread is a great example of that, how many times have we had either new members, or longtime lurkers, pop up with a brainwave that's gonna revolutionise some aspect of airsoft, whether it's the mediums we surf to glean info, the kit we use to play the game, or some kinda new angle on how a site is designed & run, & within reason, sometimes through gritted teeth?, we humour whatever wannabe entrepreneur that's fielding their ideas.

End of the day though, when you break it down, it's a physical game, that relies on physical equipment & the KISS approach, anything else is wasted on some players,  & the remainder probably don't have the time or patience to embrace something that's over conceptualised.

@Bo B not a dig at you, your trying to field an idea, just the reality of getting new ideas off the ground can be a long & often fruitless journey.

 

[Bo B]

Like many here, been a member of many good forums, most of which died a slow painful death when fb came along & most airsoft sites switched to an essentially free medium that was (then) easier to update, but then fb uk became part of the "nanny state" & changed all the rules pertaining to airsoft etc, which in turn wasn't helped by the average low iq fb user not being able to grasp the new restrictions, so pages started getting clobbered & disappearing, some might say not necessarily a bad thing.

Now we've got players returning to the forums in droves, again, some are good to have, & some are a pita asking questions that have been asked, & answered, hundreds of times before (& can usually be found via the search fuction)

Thankfully, most of the time, the quality of the longstanding members here shines through, as does their patience in helping these new members. 

In fact this thread is a great example of that, how many times have we had either new members, or longtime lurkers, pop up with a brainwave that's gonna revolutionise some aspect of airsoft, whether it's the mediums we surf to glean info, the kit we use to play the game, or some kinda new angle on how a site is designed & run, & within reason, sometimes through gritted teeth?, we humour whatever wannabe entrepreneur that's fielding their ideas.

End of the day though, when you break it down, it's a physical game, that relies on physical equipment & the KISS approach, anything else is wasted on some players,  & the remainder probably don't have the time or patience to embrace something that's over conceptualised.

@Bo B not a dig at you, your trying to field an idea, just the reality of getting new ideas off the ground can be a long & often fruitless journey.

Thank you for being a bit more constructive with your comments. I appreciate the time you've taken to type that out. 

 

[Skara]

Forums survive for two reasons: Quality content and filtered access to it.

You can't have only one of them, there is no quality content without filtered access and vice versa.

A simple registration process (provide an email address, a username and a password) is a formidable tool to keep most of the retards away.

Look at facebook pages, almost all of them are shitholes where the same questions are asked over and over and over again in a 15 minutes span from one another, where half the comments make you want to commit a genocide and where people mostly parrot whatever the celebrity of the month said.

Also as Tackle said, spoon feeding information is wrong...

What was the saying?

Give a man a fish.....

 

[Rogerborg]

Guys comes to forum to steal members for his forum? 

Pretty much.  Like a stranger walking into a pub and saying "Hey new besties, this place sucks, come and help me build a rival wine bar next door.  Why?  Well, it'll be better because it'll be better."

Cool story, good luck, I'll love you when you win.

 

[Bo B]

It isn't what I wanted to hear but I appreciate you all taking the time to say it. 

Just to clear things up, I'm not trying to 'steal' people from you. If I was, this certainly isn't the way I'd go about it. 

When things open up, I invite you to come take a look around. Don't worry, having a play around over there won't mean you're cheating on your forum wives haha.

Pretty much.  Like a stranger walking into a pub and saying "Hey new besties, this place sucks, come and help me build a rival wine bar next door.  Why?  Well, it'll be better because it'll be better."

Cool story, good luck, I'll love you when you win.

I haven't said this place sucks. You're getting defensive for no reason. That said, if you want help with your wine bar, give me a shout. 

 

[Rogerborg]

I appreciate you all taking the time to say it. 

Just to clear things up, I'm not trying to 'steal' people from you.

I haven't said this place sucks.

You're getting defensive for no reason.

You're getting defensive for no reason.

Anyway, congratulations on your Usenet prize.

 

[Cannonfodder]

Considering you don't know what this platform will offer, whether it's anything different or the same as what's already out there, makes this whole idea look like you don't have a clue about what you' want this new platf, hence the reason you dont have people lining up to pat you on the back and tell you what a great job you're doing. 

Oh, and loose the passive aggressive attitude. It just makes you come across as a petulant child who can't stand being told no