Poll: News vs Forum

[icleolion]

Inspired by https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=160888 and countless others.

Kind of interested to know how many users of this forum browse the news page? Would the forums benefit from a ticker like summary of latest news articles? Is the fact that there is a news page not clear enough for users who are directed straight to the forum by search engines?

 

[Duke]

It's the tab immediately next to the Forum tab up there ^^^^.

 

[the Interceptor]

I'm kind of ashamed for it, but I never noticed the news page until two years ago or so ... and I've been here for over six years. And I only went there because I was pointed towards it by another forum member.

So if you ask me: hell yes we need a ticker!

EDIT:
Also, may I just say that it's incredibly hard not to read your posts in my head with a "this grinds my gears!" Peter Griffin voice, icleolion.

 

[icleolion]

Also, may I just say that it's incredibly hard not to read your posts in my head with a "this grinds my gears!" Peter Griffin voice, icleolion.

excellent

 

[BobK]

There's no "sometimes" option on the poll, which is what my response would have been.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

A good chunk of the news actually breaks here on the board first, if you know where to look...

 

[icleolion]

There's no "sometimes" option on the poll, which is what my response would have been.

Poll question asks if you pay any attention to the news page, so for the purposes of this poll, sometimes = yes.

A good chunk of the news actually breaks here on the board first, if you know where to look...

Indeed, but from what I've managed to spot so far in my limited time around here, a lot of it breaks in the main GT5 forum which is a mine field of poorly titled threads.

 

[Keef]

During the hype of GT5 I got in the habit of checking the News page occasionally. I like the blog design.

 

[DGiant2000]

I follow GTPlanet on twitter (that and celebrity stalking is all I use it for!!). Everytime a new item appears in the news blog, Jordan posts it (I hate the word tweets) on twitter and I know to check the news page. It's a good way of staying abreast of developments when I usually just browse the forums.

 

[Jordan]

Indeed, but from what I've managed to spot so far in my limited time around here, a lot of it breaks in the main GT5 forum which is a mine field of poorly titled threads.

Yeah, the primary goal of the blog is to digest and organize the wealth of scattered information presented in the forum, and it's been very successful. Though I don't have exact numbers on hand regarding the number of people who visit both the forum and the blog, the site's home page is the second-most visited on the site (behind the GT5 forum), with 2.1 million monthly page views. Individual blog post pages average around 55,000 views each. I do believe there are a lot of "lurkers" who regularly read the blog but do not participate in the community, as evidenced by the sharp reduction in blog comments after I required forum registration to post last fall.

 

[iNiff]

I subscribed to the news so I get emails about any news items that go up. I usually don't go to the News page itself unless its to reread a post again or view it outside of my email program.

I've seen other sites reformat topics into news articles and the "comment" links take you to the topic on the forum and allow you to discuss there. I find this the best method. That way you can have a News forum for the people who don't take notice of the other pages, as well as a News page for those who want it formatted in a different way.

 

[icleolion]

I do believe there are a lot of "lurkers" who regularly read the blog but do not participate in the community...

Yeah, up until GT5 was released I paid no attention to the forum and just read the blog. I suppose maybe thats why despite scouring the forums heavily now, I still look at the news page first.

I follow GTPlanet on twitter

I only just noticed the big twitter icon in the bottom right!

 

[SkylineObsession]

Me and my fiance check out the news page a fair bit now that i remembered its there.

 

[BobK]

I start every session on GT Planet at the news page. That's because my home page has a link to https://www.gtplanet.net, not https://www.gtplanet.net/forum. I could change it easily enough of course, but it's only one click to get from the news page to the forum anyway.

 

[maximumattack]

I get an RSS feed of the news page on my home page, that makes me sound kind of sad really

 

[Beliall]

I look at the news page daily, Its my bookmark and I head to the forums from there.

 

[DKLion3s]

I look at the news page daily, Its my bookmark and I head to the forums from there.

This! 👍

 

[the Interceptor]

Jordan, have you ever considered embedding the comments of the news section into the forums? I know this system from other websites. Every posted bit of news has an equal thread in the forums. The first post contains the news, and all the comments show up as posts. Basically it's like a forum thread, only that it shows up on the news page as well as the forums.

This way, the news page remains as usable and practical as it is now, but the news automatically make it to the forums as well. Forum users accessing the site through "New Posts" however will be notified of the latest news automatically.

 

[Jordan]

Jordan, have you ever considered embedding the comments of the news section into the forums? I know this system from other websites. Every posted bit of news has an equal thread in the forums. The first post contains the news, and all the comments show up as posts. Basically it's like a forum thread, only that it shows up on the news page as well as the forums.

This way, the news page remains as usable and practical as it is now, but the news automatically make it to the forums as well. Forum users accessing the site through "New Posts" however will be notified of the latest news automatically.

Yes, I'm familiar with that sort of system (vBadvanced's CMPS), but it's not the best fit for GTPlanet. I don't really want blog posts to be part of the forum, as the topic has usually been discussed for hours or days before I get around to writing about it, and the duplicate discussions would be a bit awkward. I also use WordPress because it offers many significant advantages as an independent blogging platform, especially in terms of search engine optimization and scalability. I can, for example, enable disk caching on the blog to handle extreme traffic surges (a feature which saved the site from total collapse during GT5's release).

 

[the Interceptor]

Right, I didn't think as far to be honest. Good to see you've already considered this nonetheless.

 

[icleolion]

I also use WordPress because it offers many significant advantages as an independent blogging platform, especially in terms of search engine optimization and scalability.

Your forum isn't doing too badly at all in terms of search engine optimization. The number of times I've done an automotive/GT5 related search and one of the top 3 search results is something on the GTP forum AND it's a thread/post that's only a few hours old!

 

[Jordan]

Good to hear. I've had a few instances where I was searching for something completely unrelated to any GTP topics (I thought), clicked on one of the results without looking at the URL, and found myself at my own site!