Is SE23.life too cliquey?

SE23.life is lucky to have popular members who are well-known in the local community.

Some of these members add huge numbers of great posts on this forum, but I ponder how this makes new and casual visitors feel.

Do you ever feel that SE23.life is cliquey, and dominated by a small group of members that know each other in real life?

It’s vital to me to get the balance right, and to ensure no one feels excluded or pushed out of our discussions on SE23.life.

If there’s a consensus in the above poll, let’s work together on ideas to improve the situation.

Beware of confirmation bias! The people who feel outside of a ‘clique’ will probably not want to take part in a poll which shows how you voted. Assuming they have a user name that is.

So, a good question but I personally doubt this poll will help answer it. From an anecdotal perspective I would say that the whole verification process is off putting to many and may well give an impression of a clique whether justified or not.

And it doesn’t help that the first three answers are all essentially the same. It’s like the conclusion has already been decided.

Good point and I have altered the poll so it doesn’t reveal who voted.

All - please feel free to change your votes bearing in mind the poll is now anonymous.

I’m not sure how this poll will help as I know quite a few people just browse (& are not members) to see what local events are taking place, to check rail updates etc. The ones I know of find this really useful though wouldn’t be able to vote in the poll as they’re not members.

I suspect (and it’s just an assumption) that the casual browsers you describe would be put off by cliquey / individually-dominating banter more than the regular visitors?

Definitely not as they’re not members of any forums, but just use them for info & updates & find they get more info on here than other local forums

ETA Though that is just people I know so others may have a different view.

Over 20% of our membership is now verified (thanks mostly to @Pauline’s tireless efforts).

I remember when people posted negatively about our verification model on TOSS and suggested it was a way of restricting or controlling who can participate here. If other people have similar doubts about the verification system I’d be keen to understand this and improve it (maybe it’s just a case of improving the documentation).

(This poll is anonymous)

I’ve never really been sure what the point of the verification system is… Surely if you didn’t live in SE23 you wouldn’t be interested in this forum anyway? Being verified wouldn’t stop people being eejits online if that was what they fancied doing (and then the mods could block them?) and if posting for sale or wanted ads wouldn’t the usual common sense rules of EDF and Gumtree apply? (don’t pay before you’ve seen the goods and don’t take payment for pricey electronic goods in unlit carparks on your own).
Totally happy for someone to explain the point of them though as I may have missed it. I think I’m verified now (?) which is handy for DMs.
I find this site much easier to use than TOSS but it does seem that the conversation is dominated by a small group of pals / local traders. It’s irritating but hopefully when the site gets busier it won’t be as noticeable.

The point of verification in the first instance was to make the forum more friendly, and make users more accountable for their actions, which helps make an inclusive community that feels safe. People WILL be eejits online. But they are much less likely to be if they are represented here as ‘real people’ not just user names and avatars. It’s about making a shift in people’s perception about how they behave online, in the cause of making a forum that’s truly local.

Any forum of this nature is going to have an 80-20 law or 90-10 or some other Pareto formula. Meaning - a small number of contributors will be responsible for a large number of the postings. I’m not sure that makes it cliquey.

Possibly the existence of the verification process makes it ever so slightly off-putting as it’s not the way most forums work, as far as I know. The anonymity that comes from using a pseudonym can be used in a negative way - hiding behind an alias and therefore not being accountable for your postings - or it can be a kind of legitimate self-defence mechanism, enabling people to say honest (but not inflammatory) things that perhaps others might not like (eg, “I’m all in favour of more big shops at Bell Green”) but because you don’t know who your audience is, you feel protected from any direct encounter with people who are upset by such views.

Also, I suspect the success of role-playing computer games shows that people like being able to go online and be a character, possibly different from their public persona.

Anyway - it’s far too nice a day to be banging on about this. I’m going outside to inspect the gardens.

In terms of the poll, it’s an interesting jumping off point that can test the temperature of this issue. Should @anon5422159 want to get a better reading of what’s really happening, he’d need to think about polling ‘lurkers’, which is probably the sort of interaction such users don’t want.

It seems to me there are two key reasons why people read but don’t participate:

1. They have no interest in being part of the forum, just using it as a resource (which is of course fine);
2. They feel the forum as it is is too cliquey and doesn’t provide the broad base of discussion that would make it feel welcoming.

It’s a really hard balance to strike. I know some people love a good gossipy forum. But that sort of interaction can drown out what this forum is really for - being a local resource. At the same time, we don’t want a sterile online noticeboard.

Existing users can really help by thinking about the topics they post. Are they relevant to the purpose of the forum? If things get chatting WITHIN locally relevant topics, that’s fine (to a degree!)

Personally, threads like the one about ‘favourite quotes’, for example, don’t sit well within the context of the forum as a whole.

Another way of thinking about it is the difference between a parish council all meeting together to discuss things that are good for the local community - and a conversation down the pub, which can be as wide-ranging as you can get. Personally, I’m not sure I always want to be talking about shops, traffic, schools and crime.

Totally agree with you Rachael, and to pick up on one point in particular:

I think this topic and the “favourite movie” topic could both have been really friendly and fun topics that included everyone.

But instead they were both used to broadcast from within the clique and were dominated by a single person. I almost removed my reply (about my own fave movie) because I felt so frustrated by the way the topic went.

I know also that I dominate Politicos and have started the vast majority of topics there. This is something I’m trying to tone down (and certainly will tone down when I’m back in full time work).

I have no idea what you mean by that. What was there about either of those threads that prevented anyone from joining in?

On the movies topic, my post was drowned out amongst quickly buried by 12 posts from someone else. Maybe others wouldn’t mind this, but it annoyed me and made me feel like the topic wasn’t a sincere attempt at finding other people’s favourite movies, but instead was an excuse to broadcast loudly about one person’s preferences. 12/15 replies were from one person.

Now it doesn’t matter what I feel, particularly, but if other members felt the same way, this matters to me and the forum.

I think ‘broadcasting from within the the clique’ is puttting it too strongly. Perhaps in simple terms, if a thread turns into someone talking to themselves, the mods should step in. Luckily the movie thread did turn into a conversation (I very much liked some of the recommendations).

How about an automatic temporary brake on a person posting if they post more than, say, five posts in a row in a single topic? Is that something the forum software can handle.

This is probably a separate issue from general cliqueness which, as pointed out above, there is always a tendency towards in forums. I once removed myself from a forum after discovering I was the third most frequent poster there, although I had been there months and other years!

The software will present warnings about domination and sequential posts, but only on desktop / iPad. I don’t think there’s room for this in the UI on smartphone screens. As for a harder limit, I’ll look into the software features, but offhand I don’t think this exists.

I think a private nudge from moderators could work here, provided the people involved are willing to accept this. My nudge was ignored last night.

The person you’re talking about is me Chris, sorry if I annoyed you.

I won’t post for a while so you probably don’t need the poll so much now.

Nooooo we need you😃

Pauline I’m a big fan and advocate of yours, like many others round here.

You are important to this forum, and I consider you a friend. I said what I said after sitting on it all night and worrying about the potential fallout of being open with my opinions here. But I know you share my personality type in terms of favouring being open, truthful and direct with people, so I hope you understand this is not an attack on your character, but a comment on posting style. I mean it constructively and I’d be very sorry if you stopped posting altogether.

Seriously???

But if there’d been an equal number of postings generated by several people not just one, you wouldn’t have felt drowned out?

Well… yes! Because then it would have been a conversation, no?

Anyhoo, I see the point in the verification thing now (thanks Rachael) but, just as a suggestion, would it be possible to enable DMing for everyone, and then people can have two person conversations without worrying about boring other posters (esp when discussing the finer points of say, bin collections on a particular street or arranging to pick up something posted on the wanted boards).

Maybe verification could unlock some real life FH benefits? Perhaps entry to one of the famous Crafty Beer raffles, or a cuppa in one of our fabulous coffee shops?

I’m very nervous about doing so. Other local forums attempting to replace the original SE23 forum were hit by someone PMing porn to all members. Our software may be able to mitigate such an attack but there’d still be damage done, and I’m not sure it’s worth the risk.

Our software automatically enables PMing at trust-level-2 (so there’s no need to get verified in order to PM people). In addition to this, mods do selectively enable PMing for new members who haven’t yet reached trust-level-2

Ah (eww) OK! Sounds sensible

It’s not cliquey, if some people post regularly so what, I am sure there are watchers who enjoy some of the repartee.
I personally post when something interests me or I feel I can add a useful input. That said I look at a lot of posts and do not participate that my choice.

As for knowing anybody foreign travel has prevented me from attending any meetings. So I suppose my fellow posters have missed the opportunity for enrichment my company would provide

As someone living south of Catford I am interested in anything which affects anyone living in the local community south of Catford Bridge…sometimes I feel like pulling up the drawbridge…Know what I mean?

Many people who don’t live in SE23 are interested in this forum - they work, shop or engage in other activities in SE23, just as people living in SE23 are interested in forums covering SE20, SE26 etc.and support businesses in those areas.
Lewisham West and Penge Constituency covers areas such as Forest Hill, Sydenham, Crystal Palace and Penge; people living in these areas may well be interested in the Politicos section.
Which begs the question - is SE 23 life (and other forums) a little too parochial in their outlook?

I like that because I can then look at other forums to get a feel for what’s going on in their area.

I for one feel isolated in debates, it feels like everyone on here is of similar age and therefore for some reason has the same mentality. I disagree with 99% of the topics on here but it’s good for a laugh every now and again

Sorry, I should have said live or work or likes to visit.

I’m intrigued. What age bracket do you think everyone is in on here?

Quick, @anon5422159, make a poll for age ranges!

I’m about to go cycling round Richmond Park but this would be a great time for a reply-as-new-topic and a poll (click the cog in the editor window and click “Build Poll”).

I’ll let someone else take the baton

But let’s see @Mr_Robin_Banks’ guess before opening the poll!

Yes, let’s open a poll. I’m guessing the majority is in their 30s or 40s.

lol that’s a wide range

I know, 20 years is quite large, so would be saying middle aged people. let’s say 35-45?

Not at all. The mere blinking of an eye, from my perspective.

No fallouts or hard feelings from my side Chris & I also class you as a friend, but as the original poll probably came about after some posts by me it’s probably best & fair I don’t get a vote on this

Only verified members can view the lounge category.

sigh

I wish.

I’d say no, it’s not too cliquey at all.
Frankly, like ‘real life’, people can choose to chat and get involved in the banter, or they can choose to observe and (hopefully) enjoy that too.
Yes I definitely see some more familiar chat amongst the regulars here, and it seems like there’s some well formed friendships, but I don’t see how that’s cliquey. To be cliquey would be to make others feel unwelcome… But I’ve never seen someone trying to get involved and being shunned in any way.
Whether or not there’s a particular age range or demographic, that’s not really something that bothers me, it’s just another network of people that might be likeminded and I’m interested to hear the views of as a collective anyway. And again, as in real life, if you feel you’re an ‘outsider’ in terms of age or whatever, all the more reason to get stuck in and open the debate with a different view on the topic… that’s how we broaden our lives isn’t it?
The ONLY thing that I find a bit irksome is the regular discussion about whether something should move to politicos… To be fair, I haven’t fully understood what it means, but if it’s generally that we should avoid making threads too heated and political, I find that sometimes puts me off posting, as I don’t want to be told off… but maybe that’s the school kid in me

This forum is more alive than the other place and isn’t full of trolls or those looking for a wisecrack as on EDF.

All forums feel cliquey, this is in their nature and not a criticism of anyone, but this one is very welcoming to my mind. I am sure its good effects operate as much via its many lurkers as via those who participate.

Other special-interest forums I use have an ‘off-topic’ category which people can choose to ignore/opt out of, and I think we need one. It’s a different function to ‘the Lounge’ and should not require the same level of qualification in order to post to it. Favourite movies etc belong there.

‘Verification’ is an unfortunate and rather Orwellian term but I completely support its intentions – I am sure this is a more civilised place because of it.

Dick (aged 64 & 5/6)

Thanks Dick

I like this idea. What do others think?

That sounds like a good idea from my perspective.

In terms of cliquey, there is a certain amount of that but no more than you can find in regular social circles and people do put in an effort to try to include non-regular posters as well. Overall I don’t find it off-putting.

Also I do recommend people to go to the meet-ups as they make you feel more included on the forum afterwards and also meet a great bunch of people.

It may be time to review the purpose of the Lounge, which was set up in the early days of the forum. I think the idea then was to have a safe space from potential trolls and spam - correct me if I’m wrong, Chris.

I like the idea of morphing the Lounge into an opt-in Anything Goes / Off Topic section. The reason I suggest opt-in is because of how the landing page here works. Rather than having sections we have a ‘feed’ style home page. I think we would want non-members browsing to see SE23 related topics on the home page and not random musings of regular members.

But having a place for random musings does seem like a good idea. Pedants Corner, for example, is entirely off-topic and would fit in nicely with a new section.

I think the feed system works well and gives you the most active at the top which generally is there for a reason. These are the posts that people are passionate about whether serious or trivial. I think the forum being cliquey is neither good nor bad but other forums do show the last poster which allows you to skip threads that you sense may not be to your liking.

This one does too, although by avatar rather than name. Beside each thread is a little line of avatars: original poster first, most recent last, and a few frequent contributors to the thread in between.

The Lounge is a standard feature of all Discourse forums and is designed as an additional area reserved for highly-engaged members of the community who have been around long enough to understand the culture of the forum and who are able to take more of a role in steering it.

But this definition is just an “off the shelf” guideline and we’re free to use the Lounge for whatever we like. Although since it’s a standard part of the forum structure I don’t think we’re able to change the name. We are able to delete it, though.

How about a poll seeing if the users want a forum for general chatter, for things just like general ramblings.
The more “areas” which have appeared, opt in this, certain level to see this really does fragment a forum structure to the new user.
Unsure of where to post things, I have lost track of the times threads have been moved. Probably quite rightly so, but it goes to show the level of knowledge which is needed to post on a forum.

I said a long time ago that there should be a section for general anything. It should not be an opt in thing, as it is something you can mute anyway. But gives users a chance to lighten things up a bit. Ask silly questions, have a rant about life, or just post something that has nothing to do with Forest Hill at all.

Once you have a user base, don’t suffocate them with only being able to discuss the walls within which we live.

A chance for new users to stretch their legs before getting stuck into local debate with “the clique”.

I’ve chose to not post on this as I don’t think it’s fair of me, but Doh! I can’t help it after your post Michael which I think is a brilliant idea

How about a “Fun” category on the forum for people to post random topics @anon5422159 it could work maybe. I would love this but others might not, so just a suggestion from me & I’ll step back out now & let others decide.

I hear you @anon64893700 and I do remember when we started out there were some very popular threads that were general “getting to know each other” threads. They were really fun and interesting - especially as we were all starting on an equal footing and had the common experience of opening a brand new meeting place online.

Now that a lot of us know each other, it would be tempting to allow the forum to roll with this and for the conversations to get more interpersonal. I’d enjoy that, personally.

However, in real life when I approach an established clique I find the banter can be unintentionally exclusive - in-jokes, references to past conversations, more esoteric topics (of the kind you can discuss with closer friends).

I’m torn. I want two forums. One for the early-adopter crowd on SE23.life, which I am fond of and want to know better and have a laugh with. And another forum that fits the SE23 monicker and is about local issues, news, photos, events etc.

It may be that the two forums can co exist. But we have to be careful to keep the kerb-appeal for new visitors who haven’t yet been “inducted” into the circle of friends and who may not understand what the forum is for.

You may think I’m to blame for this. My position is that many things can impinge on politics, and vice versa, so I think putting political discussions where general readers of the Forum will not see them is artificial. The admins don’t agree, and since I have no plans to set up an alternative Forum, I can live with it. However, I think it better to split forums by tone rather than content, so on the Sydenham Town Forum there is the Town Pub, where discussions can be much more robust, while Town Café is for the warm and cosy. The main Forum, Town Hall, can take political discussion, but they get moved to the Pub when they become too heated.

Sorry I said I wouldn’t give my opinions on this subject, but my feet are itching to reply with this idea

Do feel free to ignore this if not appropriate.

But is it possible to have a:

• “Regular Posters Thread” where we are all visible after x amount of posts on here & can welcome all new members & point them in the direction of chats that may interest them.

Just a thought I think might work, but please discard if others don’t agree.

ETA This could be anything from the 80’s topic to D Rd Improvements, quotes & everything in between.

I know what you mean and I’m often sad to see stuff that I’m personally fascinated with relegated to the ~100 members of Politicos.

However, we have to respect those people who find politics unappealing. A lot of our members feel this way.

One thing which might be worth considering is to slow down the rate of change. A poll is often used as a means to made a snap decision on the same day. Why not leave these open for longer (is it possible to have a timer running on them?) to allow people who might only check in every few days to have their say?

That seems to be the fork in the road you’ve arrived at. My #1 interest in this site is your second option. A community website. I’d be happiest with just that along with the closure of Politicos. More recently it feels this isn’t the right place for it. And yes, I know I’m a regular user. I have no will power.

The rest feels too much like an SE23 Facebook and I’ve already got that with my SE23 mates AND non SE23 friends together.

Speaking only for myself, I mute the Politicos section not because I find politics unappealing but because of the way the discussions are inexorably steered towards party political sound bites that frequently have scant, at best, relevance to local issues.

Good point and let’s leave the polls on this topic open for at least a week before considering any action. Ditto for the SE26.life plan, which I took too far too fast.

How about the separate forum being for Politicos? Surely that is the thing that is furthest separated from a friendly community. Where as local topics, and friendly chatter go hand in hand.

But my point is that politics impinges on the rest of life. I would be dead against further ghettoisation

Totally agree who will decide who is an early Adopter? People who post or view the forum can decide if they want to participate or take offence. My view is any controversial posts will either be ignored or prompt interaction and thus enhance the forum.
If too many sub divisions are created then indeed this could be perceived as cliquey?

Perhaps its just me but i can’t help but think this is being overthought a tad !!

I view a community forum in a similar way to how I view a local society, cricket club, social group or book reading club etc - in the way there is generally a core nucleus that engage frequently and others who engage as and when it suits them or they feel the need/want to (which is absolutely fine).

As long as everybody is made to feel welcome and its kept clear that all opinions are equal then things are just fine the way they are. Keep it simple.

It’s an option, for sure. My concerns would be:

• Unlike an opt-in category, it wouldn’t be easy to move political posts from SE23.life to another forum
• We’d probably lose the verification aspect - something that keeps Politicos participants more sincere and helps avoid sock puppets
• We’d be competing with long established forums dedicated to political discussion

I think this is being overcomplicated.

If you want to amend anything, have an SE23 everything, and then an any other business type area. I would not have either opt in myself, everyone has access to both.

I guess the issue is most forums are split into a few distinct areas, where as this one has more ‘tags’ for topics, so it works differently, so I’m not sure how having an SE23 all and an everything else type headline categories would work here.

Honestly I think it’s fine as it is.

I also think it’s fine as it is. But there is a real danger that it might not remain so if certain trends continue.

The nature of our feed-style home page makes a lot of non-SE23 posts an issue. That’s why opt-in would be a preferred option for me, to keep the landing page focussed. Other forums that have landing pages that show categories rather than actual threads can handle it differently.

On that aspect I agree

Do you mean a published list of established members? I think a badge could be used for this, and I can probably add a badge that’s automatically awarded to the top posters. Each badge has its own page showing the list of people who hold the badge. We can make this page more accessible perhaps.

On the other hand (and given the topic we’re currently discussing), it might make new forum members feel they’re not joining as equals.

As for welcoming new members and pointing them towards relevant threads, I wholly encourage all established members to do so. I don’t think this requires its own category as such - it’s just a general “culture” thing and it’s something I love to see on this forum.

Quite agree Chris, I love seeing established members pointing out threads to new members on here that might be of interest.

I also agree with a few posts above that this forum is fab as it is

Badge would be good but personally I wouldn’t worry about that too much.

Just my opinion as one person though, sure others have more

Totally agree Pauline, I think it can be overworked. Currently posters get a like or a comment as recognition of their posts. We are dealing with people who must have a certain savvy to have joined.
Also the more segregation the more cliquey? Just my thoughts as a relative newbie

I’m with Chris on this. Although I have not always enjoyed the politicos area, it is easy to opt-in or opt-out if you feel it is necessary.

Politics can easily affect local issues or issues of interest.