The Official Questionnaire for New (or Old) Members

[John Faulkner]

This thread is designed to provide feedback for the admin/moderators straight from the fingers of new members. Although this thread is aimed at new members, old members are free to take the following questionnaire as well.

To all new members: there are 7 simple questions relating to your experience of ANIMEBOARDS.COM. Just copy and paste the questions and provide your valuable feedback.

Ratings will be averaged, giving a powerful indicator of public opinion.

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The Incredible, Awe-Inspiring, AnimeBoards.com Survey to End All Surveys

Question 1
How did you come across AnimeBoards?

Question 2
How long did it take between registering for an account and being allowed to post?

Question 3
Out of 10, how would you rate AnimeBoards in terms of satisfying your needs from an anime messageboard? (0 = AnimeBoards is total dogshite; 10 = AnimeBoards is the best anime messageboard ever)

Question 4
Out of 10, how would you rate the performance of the moderators in their roles? (0 = sack the moderators; 10 = the moderators are like digital deities)

Question 5
Out of 10, how would you rate the performance of the administrator in his role? (0 = he calls himself an admin?, 10 = he is God, Allah, Buddha and Vishnu rolled into one)

Question 6
Out of 10, how would you rate the quality of discussion here? (0 = unmitigated crap - it's like an effing morgue here for starters, 10 = it's like conversing with Nobel prize winners)

Question 7
Do you have any other comments?

Your answers are the life-blood that will last for generations.

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[Jura]

Question 1
Maybe a 2-3 years ago? It was from Google and this place didn't allow Yahoo emails.

Question 2
More than a day. It took me days because I had to go through my spam bin for it (a reason why email verification should be removed).

Question 3
(2) But I still sorta like the place mainly because I can see what it once was (can't exactly say it's filling any needs). This place no longer suits the needs of people who join forums and people expect more. Were avatars always this restricted? 100 x 100 and at least 20KB is the norm. The limit it is now reminds me of 8 or so years ago.

Question 4
(2) I haven't seen much moderation likely due to the forum's activity. I got a reply from a post I reported and nothing was done. When I tried to better explain why it should be unstickied, I couldn't PM the person.

Question 5
(?) I haven't seen the admin online, but I think the person did a good job in the past. I haven't been here long enough to see him/her in action.

Question 6
(7) It meets my standards. Some of the older threads seem to be good reads actually.

Question 7
http://animeboards.com/showthread.php?p=537849918
Most of what I mentioned could be done is there.

There's other forums like the NarutoFan forum where there tons of spam and flames. Avatars are massive. People who post at those kinds of forums are people who just download anime. Those things make me leave. <<

[Morbius]

Come on people... Why haven't you responded yet? This is the Official questionnaire here...

[Pengi_Ken-Ohki]

Yay, a thread where I get to talk about my favourite topic...me!

Question 1
How did you come across AnimeBoards?

I came in via Eva2000.com. Originally I was searching for Eva answers and got caught up in the complex discussions. Eventually I ventured out of Eva CC/Discussions and never went back.

Question 2
How long did it take between registering for an account and being allowed to post?

I don't recall a delay..

Question 3
Out of 10, how would you rate AnimeBoards in terms of satisfying your needs from an anime messageboard? (0 = AnimeBoards is total dogshite; 10 = AnimeBoards is the best anime messageboard ever)

7. The board has a good variety of opinions, and lots of maturity. Its only not a 10 because obviously Im unlikely to find many responses these days =(

Question 4
Out of 10, how would you rate the performance of the moderators in their roles? (0 = sack the moderators; 10 = the moderators are like digital deities)

8. The mods were never power trippers. They were respected members of the community who took on extra responsibilities. Those problems no longer plague us, hence, I do not care that the mods are more or less inactive. (Actually aside from Drizz I rarely saw a mod moderate a real user)

Question 5
Out of 10, how would you rate the performance of the administrator in his role? (0 = he calls himself an admin?, 10 = he is God, Allah, Buddha and Vishnu rolled into one)

>_>
<_<
10
This post has been edited by Eva2000 on 28-11-2008

Question 6
Out of 10, how would you rate the quality of discussion here? (0 = unmitigated crap - it's like an effing morgue here for starters, 10 = it's like conversing with Nobel prize winners)

3. Without DraniX I might be lost!

Question 7
Do you have any other comments?

I think that messageboards everywhere face a fundamental problem of being replaced by sites like Facebook which give individuals more freedoms in expression/communication. So please stop lamenting change.

[John Faulkner]

Some of the older threads seem to be good reads actually
If you want a really good read, I recommend looking up the posts of the member dez1982. He has a reputation as a top-quality poster and I consider him to be the wittiest person I have ever come across on the Internet, maybe in my entire life offline as well. Here's one of his "highlights" thread for starters:

http://www.animeboards.com/showthread.php?t=56997

Come on people... Why haven't you responded yet? This is the Official questionnaire here...
Exactly, why haven't you responded yet? This isn't any s-hitty old survey some moron on the street asks you to take, it's the official, incredible, awe-inspiring survey to end all surveys and the lifeblood that will last for generations and secure your passage to heaven. Do it.

7. The board has a good variety of opinions, and lots of maturity. Its only not a 10 because obviously Im unlikely to find many responses these days =(
Some pretty high scores you're dishing out here.

I think that messageboards everywhere face a fundamental problem of being replaced by sites like Facebook which give individuals more freedoms in expression/communication. So please stop lamenting change.
But if people stop lamenting, there wouldn't be a good variety of opinions now, would there?

[Jura]

If you want a really good read, I recommend looking up the posts of the member dez1982. He has a reputation as a top-quality poster and I consider him to be the wittiest person I have ever come across on the Internet, maybe in my entire life offline as well. Here's one of his "highlights" thread for starters:

http://www.animeboards.com/showthread.php?t=56997


I cannot view it.

[John Faulkner]

Try Page 2:

http://www.animeboards.com/showthread.php?t=56997&page=2

Failing that, the thread is called "The very best of ... Dez1982" and can be found easily using the search functions.

[Pengi_Ken-Ohki]

I think that we're just going to see a move from centralised sites to decentralised groupings. For a long time the internet has been grouping itself off into smaller and smaller groups. Complaining that an anime site is dying when the reasons are obvious (anime becoming more mainstream, web 2.0) is just a nuisance that solves nothing. Only our bonds to the place will bring people back. That can't be changed by site redesigns or mods treating a web community like a second job.

[John Faulkner]

I think that we're just going to see a move from centralised sites to decentralised groupings. For a long time the internet has been grouping itself off into smaller and smaller groups.
There are still many large messageboards with intense posting activity, see this for hard facts:

http://rankings.big-boards.com/?sort=week

MMORPGs and other types of online virtual worlds are also gaining in popularity.

Complaining that an anime site is dying when the reasons are obvious (anime becoming more mainstream, web 2.0) is just a nuisance that solves nothing.
Total nonsense. Complaining about other people who have offered loads of suggestions for improvement, by offering hypotheses that are by no means proven, is just a nuisance that keeps this place in the status quo, stifles any attempt at implementing change (no matter how easy the changes are to implement) to test hypotheses of the reasons behind messageboard decline, and keeps the AnimeBoards population trapped in a stupefied state of a self-fufilling prophecy. That is the true definition of solving nothing.

And claiming that anime becoming more mainstream and the introduction of Web 2.0 automatically means little activity on anime messageboards is specious reasoning. Look at the link I gave above. Active messageboards discussing mainstream subjects such as music, celebrities, Naruto, TV, American Idol (good Christ), Pokemon, NFL, NHL, movies, boxing, anime (there's one site called Cemzoo, never heard of that one before), Playstation 3, fashion, and video games in general. There is no guaranteed negative relationship that would bring a messageboard grinding to a halt. It is certainly not "obvious" that this relationship is the sole or main reason for the decline of AnimeBoards, and I struggle with why you keep saying this without considering other factors as well.

Only our bonds to the place will bring people back. That can't be changed by site redesigns or mods treating a web community like a second job.
Pure hypothesis. There is no empirical data to back this up for AnimeBoards because not much has changed at all over the last 4-5 years. To prove that only people's bonds are bringing/will bring people back, you need a control where significant changes have been made and still activity does not improve (It's basic logic). Nobody's done that. That was one of my key points. When this place was on the decline, the management team could still have tried to lessen the damage by making significant changes to see what will happen. Nobody's done that. Another one of my key points. The case for inaction is a total farce.

Other members have already given other reasons why this place went down the dump, such as server crashes, the length of time it takes between registering for an account and having it activated, the fact that nobody bothered to activate new members' accounts for a lengthy amount of time this year etc. (i.e. local issues that could have been counteracted, not just some bloody deterministic global Internet/social trend which AnimeBoards is destined to succumb to - it's totally, absolutely, utterly ludicrous to think that global trends are the only cause without hard evidence). Also, if only bonds bring people back, then why not try to create more activity here so that new members develop new bonds that will bring them back? Furthermore, I have made suggestions on changes that are p-iss easy to implement, which certainly do not require treating this website like a second job, more like a 100th job, and which have the possibility of improving activity.

[Jura]

Oh my...last two replies are leaving me wit a lot to say.

What kept AnimeBoards.com active and going was when it opened and the name/domain. Back then there was a need for forums like these and since anime boards is apart of the name it made it easier to find (Google). When I fist found this site, it was very well placed on Google. Now it's just falling (and there are X00,000's of other anime related communities).

There's several things that hurt the forum and registration is without a doubt the main cause. People expect quick registration (other sites offer it) and no longer have the pateince to wait to post.
Please see bellow links:
http://www.internalcommshub.com/open/news/ruthless.shtml
The latest research into web habits shows people are becoming much less patient online – they want to reach a site fast, get the job done and then leave.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7417496.stm
shows people are becoming much less patient when they go online.
Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.
This site supports http://recaptcha.net/ as I saw it even on the registration form. With that and one question/answer it'll be hard for bots to register. Here we have two verifications, reCAPTCHA, and two Q an A like fields.

Which brings me to expectations. People have those nowadays with anime forums. They expect easy to navigate feature rich forums that look good. Yes, it's true it doesn't make a forum popular or big, but it does make the place attractive enough for the goal of getting users. Look at the average forum and you'll see much more graphic and CSS heavy layouts. Avatars are at least 100 x 100 (I get all my avatars from LiveJournal...amazing stuff there) and there's either a gallery, area for downloads, a site, social features other than the forum, image board, special profile fields, role play/battle add ons, radios, or other extras. You don't have to have all those, but you do need more to set you apart from the rest.

This place is old looking. Just look at the banner, emotes, and color choices. It's professional, but it doesn't capture the colorfulness of anime (which this forum is about). I remember joining several forums back around 2000 and they they had the similar avatar size we have now. Leads me to believe it has never changed.

Search engines became better at indexing content. Blogs are a good example. They're on topic, show all the keyword rich content on the front, and various SEO/user friendly tweaks. You average blog entry isn't nearly as detailed or on topic as most of the active and popular blogs out there.

Mods shouldn't be treated exactly like employees, but they are key members that are suppose to support new members and keep interest going in the community. There's two goals to most community based forums. One is to bring people of a common interest together and second is to make each member feel included or special. Being staff is much like customer service. You're still a member, but you did accept more responsibilities.

To sum everything up. Forums changed, people changed, and so has anime community out there. People just want to get posting, enjoy a modern well kept website, and get content that suits their selfish needs. Forums aren't dead, but every day it's becoming harder to make a new forum. From personal experience even word of mouth is becoming harder. I know I can't change much here as a (newer) member other than post, but what reason do I have as a member to do such?

Disappointing to not see replies from staff. Hope this post helps in some way though.

[Pengi_Ken-Ohki]

That there are thriving messageboards does not surprise me. I didn't say people had stopped going to messageboards, but rather that they can really find all the community they need in so many other places. Once upon a time, you'd rarely meet another person in your day to day life who could discuss themes and stories from anime, UNLESS you went to an anime club. Back then our subs were on VHS, distributed via various libraries and most of us had to watch the same stuff.
Back then, the release of the Evangelion (End of) movie was a huge deal that lots of people were interested in.

Nowadays? There is so much anime saturation that when you say "Anime" to someone they dont go "oh, is that like manga?" (They ask this thinking of the company). Nowadays people GET evangelion jokes, some without even having seen it. Hell, Ive seen just about every single anime that is now on store shelves at my local stores, and those stores have a 'Limited' selection. Once upon a time you could see every licensed anime (that was decent) in a weekend or two.

Anime is not a tiny niche anymore. Its a huge market that has even affected the drawing styles of places like Disney. My 60+ year old mother watches anime. More than me even.. granted that is in part because of me..but the point is, the need to come together has evaporated because we can find local friends who know wtf Naruto is.

Personally I think if animeboards wants traffic it needs to stick with the hardcore- manga. Its availability is high, but it isnt aired all over the damn place. Fans of manga are nearer the old school "Robotech is butchered Macross *snort* *snort*" type fans.

[John Faulkner]

When I fist found this site,
When did you first find out about this site?

There's several things that hurt the forum and registration is without a doubt the main cause. People expect quick registration (other sites offer it) and no longer have the pateince to wait to post.
A particularly AB-relevant quote from your links, from usability guru (whatever the hell that is) Jakob Nielsen:

People want sites to get to the point, they have very little patience
And that is why you need people here, the admin or the currently bone-idle and clueless moderators, to activate accounts everyday. New members are not going to wait around to post. I've often seen new members just floating around but unable to post, and nearly all of the time, they never bother coming back. This is just school-boy management.

Which brings me to expectations. People have those nowadays with anime forums. They expect easy to navigate feature rich forums that look good. Yes, it's true it doesn't make a forum popular or big, but it does make the place attractive enough for the goal of getting users. Look at the average forum and you'll see much more graphic and CSS heavy layouts. Avatars are at least 100 x 100 (I get all my avatars from LiveJournal...amazing stuff there) and there's either a gallery, area for downloads, a site, social features other than the forum, image board, special profile fields, role play/battle add ons, radios, or other extras. You don't have to have all those, but you do need more to set you apart from the rest.
I agree with some of these changes, but I fear most of your suggestions here are just too advanced for the AnimeBoards management team at the moment. You're working with people who have difficulty identifying and getting rid of a serial robotic spam-machine for about 5 months. You're working with people who refuse to get rid of pointless sub-forums with no posts for years. You're working with people who find it difficult to activate the accounts of new members on a regular basis. So I say you have some good ideas, but most of them have a cat in hell's chance of being realized.

This place is old looking. Just look at the banner, emotes, and color choices. It's professional, but it doesn't capture the colorfulness of anime (which this forum is about). I remember joining several forums back around 2000 and they they had the similar avatar size we have now. Leads me to believe it has never changed.
The admin had an orange and black design up when eliciting ideas for improvement. But that never happened. Radical change is not forthcoming. Radical change is what is needed.

Mods shouldn't be treated exactly like employees, but they are key members that are suppose to support new members and keep interest going in the community. There's two goals to most community based forums. One is to bring people of a common interest together and second is to make each member feel included or special. Being staff is much like customer service. You're still a member, but you did accept more responsibilities.
I agree with your assessment that mods have a large role in keeping messageboards interesting. Mods at AnimeBoards, however, do sweet FA nowadays. And when you try and engage them in a dialogue in this subforum, they do, guess what, sweet FA.

Forums aren't dead, but every day it's becoming harder to make a new forum.
Excellent point and one which is entirely relevant to the idiotic black/white school of thought which thinks that AnimeBoards had to become the stinking cesspool it is now regardless of any changes. Competition for the attention of Internet users has become markedly fiercer over the years, and thus, a forum requires good management to ride the waves and maintain a viable community. Quality of forum management is a big factor in why some messageboards are still thriving today and why some have died a horrible death (i.e. AnimeBoards). That, to me, is blindingly obvious. It is staggering to think that simply watching a messageboard slide into oblivion with minimal changes legitimizes the conclusion that nothing could have been done, or nothing can be done now, to improve activity. OK, if you tried something and it didn't work, then fair enough, but that is not the case here. No further action from this point on is the equivalent of seeing a non-swimmer fall into the ocean and just standing by doing nothing. We don't need the Ghost of AnimeBoards Future to tell us what will happen by taking this particular route.

I know I can't change much here as a (newer) member other than post, but what reason do I have as a member to do such?
Exactly. I honestly can't think of a single good reason for new members to even join up here as opposed to more active messageboards. Except perhaps for the posts of dez1982, the poet for our times.

Disappointing to not see replies from staff.
And can you think of any rational reason why they wouldn't reply? Can you think of a rational reason why some mods come here on a regular basis and don't bother moderating? Seriously, is this some f-ucked up bizzarro world we're living in here? I think you need to downgrade the mark you've given to the management team, to 0.

Nowadays? There is so much anime saturation that when you say "Anime" to someone they dont go "oh, is that like manga?" (They ask this thinking of the company). Nowadays people GET evangelion jokes, some without even having seen it. Hell, Ive seen just about every single anime that is now on store shelves at my local stores, and those stores have a 'Limited' selection. Once upon a time you could see every licensed anime (that was decent) in a weekend or two.
So does that mean people want to talk online about anime less or more? On the one hand, this extra popularity may encourage a greater absolute number of fans and hence a greater demand for Internet discussion, especially given that many fans use the Internet. On the other hand, it may lead to more discussions offline. But these two trends are not mutually exclusive, so unless you have evidence for one effect predominating over the other, then it's unclear that increasing popularity necessarily leads to less activity on anime messageboards. Especially in light of active messageboards discussing anime and other popular subjects.

Also consider the advantages of an Internet messageboard over other types of discussion mediums. You can conduct discussions in the comfort of your own home, you have a larger group of people to discuss with (NOT here at AB though), and you can discuss things in more depth than you might be able to in real life. Most adults I have met in the cities of developed countries have heard of anime, but do not really want to discuss e.g. the symbolic meaning of Princess Mononoke in the pub after work. Identify the advantages of your company or product, develop them, and market them to an audience. Do you see any of that going on here with AnimeBoards at the moment? Why adopt a business-as-usual approach when that clearly hasn't worked?

Personally I think if animeboards wants traffic it needs to stick with the hardcore- manga. Its availability is high, but it isnt aired all over the damn place. Fans of manga are nearer the old school "Robotech is butchered Macross *snort* *snort*" type fans.
AnimeBoards needs to identify its target audience. Right now, this place is like a train-wreck. But it is a good time to re-evaluate the goals and aims of this messageboard, which includes a consideration of the target audience. Do we want to target stupid teenagers or more mature people? Since there are a lot of stupid teenagers on the Internet, perhaps a niche market for anime messageboards, currently ignored, could be young adults? I've already asked the moderators for their future visions, but that only established the fact that they have no visions at all.

[Shinobi X]

Question 1
How did you come across AnimeBoards?
Came across it through google as I was looking for an anime website with anime song's lyrics. Back then, AnimeBoards was heavily active so I decided to join the community.

Question 2
How long did it take between registering for an account and being allowed to post?
If I remember correctly, it's about a week.

Question 3
Out of 10, how would you rate AnimeBoards in terms of satisfying your needs from an anime messageboard? (0 = AnimeBoards is total dogshite; 10 = AnimeBoards is the best anime messageboard ever)
9/10
There was alot of members on here meaning that it will be a lot easier to meet those who are fans of the anime that I enjoyed, which I know a few. AnimeBoards is a very good messageboard and there people replying to topics in no time. Many of my questions were answered quick enough.

Question 4
Out of 10, how would you rate the performance of the moderators in their roles? (0 = sack the moderators; 10 = the moderators are like digital deities)
10/10
All the moderators I met back in the day when I was heavily active here are awesome. They are very active and are nice and kind to everyone unlike some mods in other forum websites (GT mods for example) who offend other members. Although I didn't get to become friends with any moderators here, I know they are great people as I never saw anyone whining about a moderator nor see any moderator trash talk.

Question 5
Out of 10, how would you rate the performance of the administrator in his role? (0 = he calls himself an admin?, 10 = he is God, Allah, Buddha and Vishnu rolled into one)
10/10
The admin is very active and also a very good admin. Like his moderators, he doesn't trash talk nor offend anyone here in AB. He treated everyone with respect even to those who he doesn't really know alot about, like me.

Question 6
Out of 10, how would you rate the quality of discussion here? (0 = unmitigated crap - it's like an effing morgue here for starters, 10 = it's like conversing with Nobel prize winners)

Due to my heavy inactivity here in AB, I would not rate this question.

Question 7
Do you have any other comments?

AB is an awesome place to hang out when there's nothing to do. I would also state that this forum is the forum in which I am very active in before I got really busy and hugely addicted to video games (seriously I am...... -_-). I should also state that I rated and answer these questions at the best with the memories I have in this forum. So if there was any differences now in AB, I wouldn't really know about it. haha

Have fun everyone! :)

[ACE2001]

Question 1
How did you come across AnimeBoards? I was looking for some information about Cowboy Bebop...and my life hasn't been the same since!

Question 2
How long did it take between registering for an account and being allowed to post?
About a few days

Question 3
Out of 10, how would you rate AnimeBoards in terms of satisfying your needs from an anime messageboard? (0 = AnimeBoards is total dogshite; 10 = AnimeBoards is the best anime messageboard ever)
9/10
For the past few years, there was alot of activity going on, but now and days, most people are either burnt out or moved on to bigger and better things in life. Still for me, this was the first messageboard that I felt real comfortable with.

Question 4
Out of 10, how would you rate the performance of the moderators in their roles? (0 = sack the moderators; 10 = the moderators are like digital deities)
10/10
When I first joined, the moderators were plentiful and doing excellent with the duties. All issues were being taken care of.

Question 5
Out of 10, how would you rate the performance of the administrator in his role? (0 = he calls himself an admin?, 10 = he is God, Allah, Buddha and Vishnu rolled into one)
10/10
The admin is awsome! I have much respect for the work he has done here so far...hopefully this place can evolve a bit more in the near future.

Question 6
Out of 10, how would you rate the quality of discussion here? (0 = unmitigated crap - it's like an effing morgue here for starters, 10 = it's like conversing with Nobel prize winners)

5/10
This is really tough right now....seems like the only real discussion going is in the Members Only portion. I say this board is in a definate recession period

Question 7
Do you have any other comments?
AB has been one of my favorite places to come to for these past seven years. Im so glad that I was able to find this messageboard. Had lots of good memories and conversations here. Although the times have changed around here, I plan to be a part of this community for as long as I can because this place means alot to me.:)