Could this forum succeed where others failed? [May 2016]

This is the third ‘alternative’ forum to se23.com. The other two, created by individuals annoyed about how SE23.com was run, did not last long.

Although this one is technically superiour to any of the others, what makes you think that it will become the main forum for discussion of SE23 issues and wider issues that interest people in the area?

Evidence from other areas (and our own area in the past) shows that two forums trying to do the same job will not succeed in the long term.

Hi Arthur - perfectly reasonable questions. I have discussed the other “alternative” sites with some locals, and the feeling seemed to be that they failed because they didn’t offer any compelling advantage, and quickly became overrun with spam (including some porn - which sounds a bit suspicious to me).

SE23.life may look simple, but the community management aspects of it are sophisticated. The site grants access to features (including moderation capabilities) automatically as members build their reputation. The flagging features allow spam to be dispatched with minimal effort. And since I’m solvent from my day job, I won’t need to fill SE23.life with adverts to make money.

This new forum is also real-time updating and mobile friendly - which is important as 75% of our users are on mobile phones and tablets.

I have plenty of experience creating websites with large communities. In my spare time I have built http://www.caption.me/ (the web’s liveliest caption competition), http://www.askatheists.com/ (#1 in Google for “atheist quotes”), http://www.streetlend.com/ (local lending) and http://www.cointouch.com/ (for finding bitcoin trading partners in your extended social network).

I love social media (and real-world) marketing, and have a healthy budget to promote the site funded by my career in financial software development.

I’m also sincere about the local community - meeting residents and local traders in person, working with them to shape the forum, and responding quickly to any questions and suggestions.

I will surprise you, I promise.

In reality, any forum will become the success or failure the community wish it to, and the owner and management of the forum allow it to.
Past attempts have indeed seen “bullying” from suspicious places, which was quickly retracted when accusations were made.

I feel the neutral way @anon5422159 is launching this site, and with lots of forethought clearly given to its set up, running and direction. I have every faith that the community needs a voice, and also a friendly place where they can discuss things without selective editing, deleting, and merging of conversations.

The alternative is an old format, dated levels of interaction, limited in set up, and for me SE23 Life is a great breath of fresh air. Mobile view, very controllable, and appealing.

I’m all for people wishing to stick to what they know, but I for one am willing to consider alternatives, and right now, there is a great one on offer.

Hi Arthur

I’d just like to mention here that as far as I know the individuals (and certainly one in particular) that tried this before were not very up on IT. As far as we can all see this is not the case with this one. I believe this will be very successful & will take a forum for SE23 into the 21st century rather than being stuck in a time warp. I for one am very excited about this

Any local site that I can read on my cheap Android phone is a bonus. I rarely post in the other place these days as the only time I can read it properly is on a desktop.

Im only here because of the slick clean look if i’m honest.

You we never my favourite person @MrRobinBankks on another forum! But willing to try again

I was OTT and too forthright in the old forum. I’m willing to be a reformed character here

Fresh starts are good for everyone.

Regarding our politics - there are currently two @admins here. Me and @thirstforwine. I’m right-leaning and he is left-leaning. Every action we take is logged and visible to one another. So I’m confident that political bias won’t creep into the running of the website.

A post was split to a new topic: The Great EU Debate - SE23.life Edition

Let’s hope. The spam ruined the last effort I saw, while the moderation problems continue to both stifle the original forum, and leave me feeling like I need a wash after visiting it. Good luck Chris.

My hubby created one of the other alternatives because he was over moderated on the main SE23 site - but it didn’t take off. I’m not sure we did a great job of getting word out that it existed and now we’ve moved out of the area and don’t have time to put the effort in - but still have property in HOP so like to keep an eye on things. I really hope this one succeeds - so far so good!

Just a quick hello to all, and congrats to @anon5422159 for taking this project on. May it succeed where others have not. One of the most useful things about a number of local Facebook groups is the opportunity to get rid of unwanted stuff easily. What are your thoughts about posting for sale or giveaway items?

You’re very welcome to do so, in the wanted/offered category. Non-commercial listings only, please, and just one per day max, to avoid crowding out the other discussions.

Cheers for joining the forum!

I like the clean look of this site and am grateful for the efforts of Chris, anon64893700 and others to bring this into being. I sincerely wish this new forum well. Moderation of forums is not an easy task but I like the “rainbow coalition” of moderators with different views.

Thanks and welcome to the site!

Many thanks for your kind words. I’m happy just to have been invited to play a part in this new venture.
Nice description of the moderation team too

Pleased we’ve risen to page 2 of a Google search for “se23 forum”

I’m aiming for the first page and have updated my online profiles and other websites to include links to SE23.life. It would be really helpful if you know of local bloggers to encourage them to write a small piece on SE23.life with a link. I can provide a press release, traffic analytics data showing the growth, and high-res / vector images if required.

Tweets linking to https://se23.life are also really helpful - thanks in particular to @pauline, @anon64893700, @Kate, @StDavid, @thirstforwine and @PeckhamLido for sharing this forum with their followers

I’m going to be doing my own blog of it soon. Just to add my opinion. Not massive but can’t resist doing one.

The reach of popular SE23.life Facebook posts is staggering:

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Big thumbs up from me on the new forum, just found out about it from Pauline! Nice to see people use technology well, change and progress is a good thing.
Not sure how I missed it on Facebook though…
Will try to do my bit for promoting it to local friends.

Thanks @LiseOfFH - promotion is key at this early stage. Welcome to the forum!

Add a profile pic so you can get verified x

voila!

Great stuff @thirstforwine - your blog must have been really popular when you posted more frequently to it in the past - it has a great Google ranking.

I was looking through the old posts. Is this one (back in 2008!) related to the building work you and @anon64893700 are now posting on SE23.life?

Wasn’t fun I can tell you. I have lots of pictures too lol
That’s brilliant progress on Google.

yes, I guess, though in those days we were all a little less sophisticated about SEO and rankings, (and to be honest didn’t care too much about it)

as for the building work, we’ve been blessed (!) with some terrible developers in this area recently who undermined several decent buildings. It is a shame. I just hope the new buildings being put up last. There are too many examples of shoddy work around here - like the terrible (exterior) state of Glaischer Court - the building on the corner of the South Circular & Hurstbourne Rd.

… but that was yesterday. Today, we’re on PAGE 2 of a search for “se23” Tantalisingly close!

We’re getting there, folks! Thanks to all those who have blogged, tweeted and linked to https://se23.life !

Brockley Central have spotted SE23.life and raise an interesting question in their blog post “Facebook vs the World”

The biggest advantage I see here to a Facebook group is that an FB group is like a single notice board with lots and lots of notices all pinned on top of each other. Hard to find information that is not very, very recent. The great functionality of this site gives it a huge advantage over FB and over more old-fashioned forum software, in my opinion.

I don’t agree with the thinking of it.
Facebook is not an alternative, nor built for proper discussions. Subjects become fragmented due to the different ways people interact with Facebook. Also the issue of different levels of personal security sometimes impacting the way a “discussion” can appear.

Facebook is great for some aspects of social interactions on a local level, but can be a clumsy, complicated format at times.

It is also difficult to moderate, easy to manipulate, and just not the right place for certain interactions, especially long running issues.

It all comes down to how you want to interact with your users. Fun and friends chit chat, and a little beyond, fine. But that’s about it. (IMO)

Interesting also that it has been noted that a fair chunk of the content is generated by “the mods”, but surely the core of people who start to create a community do just that to make lay the foundations of what is built on it?

My thoughts exactly @RachaelDunlop
Can you even search the contents of a Facebook group? (probably can these days)

I agree, @RachaelDunlop. Also, as I put in my comment on Brockley Central:

Facebook is for photos of kittens!

Nicely put @anon5422159
Facebook is great for some stuff (like kittens as @Londondrz said lol) but for the more compelling discussions, not so great. Besides, FB is seen a “socialising” these days, so actually being encouraged to meet in person regularly is brilliant for the forum.

Forum 1 - Facebook 0

On a serious note, I joined FB to keep up with friends across the world. To start with it was great but it seems to have descended into rants about The Tory Scum/Pharma companies/Memes. I have stopped feeds from a number of friends as a result but have not unfriended them. This is why a forum wins over FB for me.

I just replied to your comment Chris

Same here. In fact over Xmas and New Years just gone, I deleted everyone from Facebook as I realised a lot of people on there were just “friends” and not actual friends. You can always tell that when you go through a low.
I already know from this forum that I have made some amazing contacts who I will stay in touch with.

I have totally changed the way I use social media now, and most people who I am friends with on Facebook, I don’t follow. My feel is pretty quiet these days.

FB tries to own everything - it can’t and shouldn’t.

I wrote a little about that some time ago (still relevant as blogs remain unloved) but maybe the solution, at least in part, is hyper-local forums instead?!

http://thirstforwine.co.uk/confessions-of-a-social-media-mall-rat/

Today, we’re delighted to welcome to our 300th member, @Stevew

Thanks for joining, Steve!

It is interesting looking back over a month of this forum. It has proved to be incredibly successful due to an impressive format and good marketing.
Most of my favourite posters on the two local forums are now here, and the quality and quantity of discussion on the other forums has reduced somewhat.

There are a few issues that I would suggest need changing, and I hope to feed them into the development process over time. But I really want to say well done to @anon5422159 for giving us a first rate forum. And thanks to the others for making it a real community administered forum.

We’ve all seen forums come and go in the past. After an incredible month I think it is pretty obvious that this forum is here for the long-run. The question is now over the future of other sites. I had almost written off forums in the age of social media, I’m delighted that this forum has shown that this does not need to be the case and that there is space for a community forum with a range of people with different views discussing local and non-local issues. Although it can be tough when we are asked to consider opposing views, it is what builds a community, not tears it apart.

I’m sure we all now want to see this forum go from strength to strength. And I wish it every success.

Thank you for the gift of se23.life

Thank you @Michael, that is a very kind appraisal and I really hope not to let you and the others down.

As I’ve grown more involved in this website I’ve felt fundamental changes happening in my own attitudes to people and the area we live in. It’s been positive for me personally, although I suspect my fiancé would like to have me back at some point this year. She is an SE23.life widow and I owe it to her to take a step back and to delegate more responsibility for the running of this site to others in the community, and make less of a strident impact with my own opinions, especially after a few pale ales on a Friday night.

Many thanks for your message, it means a lot.

Completely agree with you on that @Michael

Couldn’t have put it better

This is all about the community & I’m still bloody working, but finishing in a mo

Agreed.

I’ve just posted in the Great EU Debate suggesting something which I think could be changed for the better - e.g the balance in that discussion - and where my suggestion to improve things is to invite others in, which is what I am about to do. Hopefully a packed meet up June 30th!

Thanks Tim. The Politicos category has no shortage of lefties and Remainians, but I’ve been an (overly?) vocal minority there.

Having wised up to this, I’ve bitten my tongue and sat on my hands for several days in Politicos, as I hope you’ve noticed! It’s actually been tough, but I respect people’s concerns so I’m going to continue to curb myself until @Michael says something REALLY outrageous and the red haze descends…

UPDATE: it didn’t last. I just felt compelled to respond to @Brett. But I will keep trying!

But you’re right - getting more people into a debate is always good, and Robin Orton (whilst I don’t agree with his politics) seems well informed.

By the way, folks - if you clicked Tim’s link to the debate and were denied access, this is easily remedied by opting-in to the Politicos category (if you dare!)

Get back posting on the EU debate Chris @Michael has only gone & done it

Nice fresh look on this site, absolutely. Though the huge amount of white space is wearing out my scroll wheel - and finger! - but I look forward to less politically-intense discourse with @anon5422159, TBH.

Two questions: First, looks aside, I’m not quite clear why we should all be abandoning a website that we’ve all used quite happily for many years (the advertising was pretty minimal and unobtrusive). Sure it’s a competitive world but the other site’s administrator must have run the site for little more than beer money - and now we’re all jetting off to a cooler party?

Second, where did you get my email address - which I would have thought was safeguarded by the other site’s admin?

Hi Andy and welcome to SE23.life. There are many reasons I created this site in light of the competition - they’re mostly outlined above in this thread, so I’ll give you time to browse and read them rather than me rehashing them here.

I see you were invited here by a regular member of this site. I can’t comment on how he got your email address, but I am sure the owner of the old forum maintained data security, so no need to assume any kind of leak from his website.

The admin of the old site was making £750-1500 per month (I know because I was in talks to buy his website) so it was indeed a little more than beer money.

Just FYI, the owner of the old site contacted me with a warning. Any mentions of him or his site by name may be treated by him as illegal defamation, and as a result I have reluctantly agreed to automatically censor his name and mentions of his website. You may hear mentions of “TOSS,” which stands for “The Other Similar Site”

Depends how much beer you drink…

Just a quick word, for everyone’s benefit, on defamation.

(1) Mentioning the other site by name does not constitute “illegal defamation”.

(2) Defamation kicks in if you say something that (a) isn’t true and (b) can’t be regarded as a reasonably-held opinion. Saying “the other site looks out of date” could be a reasonably held opinion. Saying “I think it is run by an axe-murderer” would not.

(3) You do not have to actually name someone to be sued for defamation. They simply have to be identifiable. “The guy who lives in the purple house and always wears lime green shirts” is an identifiable person, whether or not you even know his name. I once worked on a magazine that got sued for libel (defamation) by a company that we not only did not name, we didn’t even know their name. We’d made a comment about the poor quality of printing at a daily newspaper. Their print machinery company sued. The lawyers demanded a very long apology. They also demanded that we do not name the company in the apology - which was a bit surreal, having to apologise to a company we couldn’t name for something we’d said about their client.

(4) In my non-professional view as a journalist and editor, I’d say you’re sailing closer to the wind with your acronym than if you named the site itself. Defamation is all about bringing someone into disrepute - and schoolboyishly using an acronym like ‘TOSS’ might be interpreted as an attempt to do exactly that.

Okay, so that wasn’t a quick word. The laws of libel do need to be treated with respect - but a mature and reasonable approach will keep everyone out of trouble - and avoid the lawyers getting richer.

Would any other local forum owner want to stand up in a courtroom and try to prove (s)he is the “TOSS-master” of which we speak? Imagine the jury trying to maintain their composure…

On a more serious note, I don’t think I’ve ever criticised any other forum on here, let alone criticised one unfairly. But thanks for the definitions, @AndyS. Good to know.

If being schoolboyish on the Internet is deemed illegal, God help us all…

Welcome to the forum, Andy. Excuse me while I go off on a bit of a tangent, but you’ve set me off thinking again about something I find fascinating in the way users have come to view forums.

I think your comment I’ve quoted above really reflects where local forums sit in their users’ psyches. ‘Abandon’ is an emotive word. People DO feel loyalty to forums, but I wonder why? I think many people see them as a neutral public service. They feel grateful that admins set up and run them. Indeed, many special interest forums are run by people with a real passion and for little reward. Others are run (quite legitimately) to provide a small but steady income stream to the admin.

On the flip side of the loyalty issue is the way people often feel ownership over the forums they use, especially local forums, and get up in arms when they don’t like decisions the admin makes. The truth is, any forum is a dictatorship. The admin can rule it whatever way s/he sees fit. Most admins run benign dictatorships because they want members, they need traffic and advertising. Users begin to feel that approach to running a forum is the accepted norm. They feel it SHOULD be shaped to suit them, that admins are OBLIGED to keep them happy because that’s what they experience at the user end. It’s like Facebook, but on a smaller scale. Users are the income and traffic-generating ‘product’ not the client, but they just don’t know it.

This forum has been set up with a lot of transparency about who owns and runs it, what they get out of it and what the users get out of it. In the early days much of it has been shaped by user feedback. Hopefully the result will be a forum where both members and admin mutually benefit each other. Many local forums are struggling to retain members. To survive, this forum needs to provide something users can’t get from other forums but also, and in my opinion more crucially, that is not provided by social media like Facebook and Twitter.

There’s nothing to stop people using both forums, of course, and some people do still post in both.

Sorry, I’m not yet familiar with this site - is it possible to message other participants? I can’t see any buttons for that. Thanks!

Hi @AndyS - this is a feature that is unlocked automatically for established contributors to the site.

This helps defend our members against abuse.

I heard other competitors to the old forum suffered mysterious episodes of porn being sent out to all users via private messages.

We have a number of safeguards on SE23.life to help prevent this happening here.

No, it’s not illegal - and I didn’t mean to give that impression. But I reckon if you’re regarded as being deliberately provocative towards a rival that could get into a situation where things deteriorate, aggrieved parties get lawyers to write stern letters, etc etc etc. Not that I’m suggesting you have or would - just offering a free thought. The fact that there’s commercial competition might possibly undermine ‘satire’ as a defence!

Re messaging. Makes sense. Thanks for that.

Just wanted to add to this thread that I love the way local businesses, groups, society’s, association members, museums etc feel comfortable posting on this forum & not just about them but as themselves joining in conversations. I’ve not witnessed this on any other local forums.

This for me has made this forum a success already as we can post as residents even though others may know who we are & most of us are local residents after all.

Thanks @anon5422159 once again for setting this up & thanks for having me as a member of the team.

Just so everyone knows I don’t get special treatment as a local trader because I’m a team member & that’s the way it should be

Perhaps that’s what happens when posts are deleted by the administrator without explanation, people leave.

Speaking for myself, I no longer participate on “The Official Community Forum for Forest Hill and Honor Oak, London SE23” because I had two posts deleted without explanation, also I was unable to find out anything about the ownership and management of that so-called forum.

Pleased to have you here, @DevonishForester.

My account was put into a special mode on The “Official” Forum, where I had to wait for the admin to approve each one of my posts before they became visible. And there was no explanation for those he rejected. Quickly got to the end of my tether with that forum.

I also resent the fact that my login was rescinded, so I was unable to send any private messages to other forum users to let them know why I would no longer be participating in the forum.

Me too - I’d rather like to defend myself and this site on the “Ignore List” thread, where a number of porkies have flown around - but I’m unable to.

Oh and new accounts require personal approval from the owner (you have to email him with your desired post). Extraordinary!

Welcome @DevonishForester. The main aim around here is to be transparent and fair. We have a team of mods who can be summoned as if by magic when @moderators is included in a post but in general we try to moderate with as light a touch as possible. The exception is political discussion which is whisked away into Politicos, which is an opt-in group separate from the main forum. Any questions - ask away! Have a mooch around and let us know what you think.

We now feature in the #2 spot for Google searches on “SE23” and “SE23 forum” - having recently risen from #3. Tantalisingly close to the top spot.

If you run a website, blog, social channel etc, you could help our forum by linking to us (https://se23.life).

Can’t wait to make the next #announcement::tag

No. 1 when I search se23.

Shame its not the official forum though.

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Excellent to see, thanks. This is what I see, too - but only when logged into Google (it’s a result personally tailored for me by the Google hive mind).

If you log out I suspect you’ll see SE23.life at #2, which I think is what most of the public will be seeing.

I get two hits for TOSS, followed by this forum. TOSS results are 1. the homepage and 2. the SE23 specific page.

I get the same when I search for SE23 Forum.

As a complete aside… I always chuckle when I google Amazon Fresh that this is the first listing which comes up.

Pleased we’ve broken the local record among SE23 forums: SE23.life had 42K visits in the last month:

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This equates to a very healthy 183K page views:

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Go forum!

Hi Chris - credit where credit is due - you’ve done a great job with the forum and thanks to the moderators as well for keeping the place amicable -always a tricky balance.

I see your closest rival is now claiming 50k visits per month…

I saw that. Up 10,000 overnight, quite an increase!

What are the rival sites?

If you search for “SE23” in Google and scroll down past the #1 spot, you’ll see our competition

The algorithms are pretty mysterious and murky but as I understand it, Google is so personalised now that different people may see different top results. Factors like your location, search history etc can affect what comes up. I’m not a techie expect, just know a bit about SEO.
PS are people really still looking at TOSS?!

What I find really surprising is that local businesses (eg Matoom) are being persuaded to spend £35-90 per month to advertise to the tiny audience of that forum.

Is there a local SEO / online ads company that’s in partnership with TOSS I wonder?

Some probably think they are advertising here, on the forum where there has been so much discussion about new local businesses.

Winkworth now include the forum in their property listings (using an excerpt from @saretap’s Metro article).

Example: https://www.winkworth.co.uk/properties/11180326/sales/st-pauls-conversion-taymount-rise-london-se23/NEW180080

Nice one!

Made it Chris, can I have your autograph??

Excellent job! Any thoughts of adding .london domain?

That’s a good domain name but would add £46 per domain to my annual renewal costs - the .life domains (I have a lot of them) already cost me £36/domain/year.

And also I think the .life brand is nice and snappy

Was suggesting as an extra rather than a change but yes - no point in paying more than you need to!

Alexa measures the popularity of websites and compares them to similar web sites.

Screenshot_20180318-2257331440×2560 191 KB

Interesting info, thanks.

The East Dulwich Forum has a formidable ranking:

We’re headed in the right direction though:

The “SE23” Google search is looking a lot less confusing now, as the old forum (who altered their site title to match ours) drops down the rankings away from the #1 spot:

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4 posts were split to a new topic: SE23.life Mobile App?