Hey Cliff, since Google has code that filters through a site & identifies objectionable content, it doesn't seem much of a stretch to imagine applying that code to filter incoming submissions.
A warning message could be provided to the poster much like the PIP oversize message. The poster could then alter the post to make it acceptable. That could prevent a disgruntled person from shutting PFF down, considering that they now know how.
Objectionable content could be blocked before it's on the site. Might as well accept the unavoidable censorship up-front.
That is one of the ideas I'm toying with. But it's hard to determine where blocking content based on common sense ends and censorship starts.
quote
Originally posted by TK:
Has Cliff ever mentioned the monthly costs to run the site? I wonder what we are looking at. It's hard to decide what would help without knowing, I certainly wouldn't begrudge him making a good profit but we can toss $10 here and there and be nowhere close. I can roughly guess but this isn't horse shoes.
It varies wildly. I pay a monthly fee for server co-hosting and bandwidth. Then there'the added costs of hardware (upgrades). But most of the costs is in the form of spent time. I spent quite a bit of time each and every day to keep everything running smoothly. Time I could have spent on my "normal" work.
I never made it a secret that I would like to see PFF actually creating an income for me. I don't see why that would be any different than any other Fiero vendor out there making money on the Fiero community. The way I see it, ads are a good way to do that.
Anyway, I feel I need to repeat what I said earlier: wiping TO/T is not an option. It's PFF's bar, its place to unwind and be with friends (and foes). It's the communities meeting point where you don't need to talk about Fiero's. It's important for PFF as a whole. But it has gotten a bit rough and dirty in there and it needs cleaning up. That's all. It doesn't need to be demolished.
Google has a place you can submit URLs to be crawled. This will update Google's cache. It takes a few days to happen, but at least not the months it can take for them to scan on their own.
My understanding was that Google had some specific pages in mind.
It varies wildly. I pay a monthly fee for server co-hosting and bandwidth. Then there'the added costs of hardware (upgrades). But most of the costs is in the form of spent time. I spent quite a bit of time each and every day to keep everything running smoothly. Time I could have spent on my "normal" work.
Anyway, I feel I need to repeat what I said earlier: wiping TO/T is not an option. It's PFF's bar, its place to unwind and be with friends (and foes). It's the communities meeting point where you don't need to talk about Fiero's. It's important for PFF as a whole. But it has gotten a bit rough and dirty in there and it needs cleaning up. That's all. It doesn't need to be demolished.
Can you put a number on it? Are we talking $10K, $20K, etc?
Anything in OT that hasn't been touched in a month is probably done. You wouldn't walk into a bar, and ask what was being discussed last month, or try to continue a discussion that hasn't been discussed for a month.
It varies wildly. I pay a monthly fee for server co-hosting and bandwidth. Then there'the added costs of hardware (upgrades). But most of the costs is in the form of spent time. I spent quite a bit of time each and every day to keep everything running smoothly. Time I could have spent on my "normal" work.
I never made it a secret that I would like to see PFF actually creating an income for me. I don't see why that would be any different than any other Fiero vendor out there making money on the Fiero community. The way I see it, ads are a good way to do that.
Anyway, I feel I need to repeat what I said earlier: wiping TO/T is not an option. It's PFF's bar, its place to unwind and be with friends (and foes). It's the communities meeting point where you don't need to talk about Fiero's. It's important for PFF as a whole. But it has gotten a bit rough and dirty in there and it needs cleaning up. That's all. It doesn't need to be demolished.
My comment was in support of you making a good profit on PFF. People are saying we can do this or that to fill the ad gap. We don't even know what gap we are trying to fill. It sounds like you have a plan. I'll let you work that plan.
You wouldn't walk into a bar, and ask what was being discussed last month, or try to continue a discussion that hasn't been discussed for a month.
Wait till you get my age and go into your local VFW/American Legion hall bar--same discussion that was going on last time you were in there is going on again, for months on end.
I know that this goes entirely against what your intention has been with PFF, but have you considered some sort of moderators? This is why really large forums have moderators; to moderate the content. You don't necessarily have to give them the ability to outright ban members if you wish for the ratings system to stay in place. You could simply set out a specific set of guidelines for them to follow to ensure that they remove content such as what is being talked about that is violating Google's policy. Let people continue to argue politics and religion or whatever in O/T, but give moderators the ability to snip posts when content that violates your forum income pops up.
PFF has been around for an incredible amount of time. It's admirable that you and others are going to dig through threads but there are threads that go back in time to the 20th century here. There's no telling what questionable content is shoved into some of the really old obscured threads. I think that having some amount of moderators on hand would help to alleviate these sort of instances occurring, rather than letting content build and build for the past 18 years or so and now having to deal with digging it all out.
I know that this goes entirely against what your intention has been with PFF, but have you considered some sort of moderators? This is why really large forums have moderators; to moderate the content. You don't necessarily have to give them the ability to outright ban members if you wish for the ratings system to stay in place. You could simply set out a specific set of guidelines for them to follow to ensure that they remove content such as what is being talked about that is violating Google's policy. Let people continue to argue politics and religion or whatever in O/T, but give moderators the ability to snip posts when content that violates your forum income pops up.
PFF has been around for an incredible amount of time. It's admirable that you and others are going to dig through threads but there are threads that go back in time to the 20th century here. There's no telling what questionable content is shoved into some of the really old obscured threads. I think that having some amount of moderators on hand would help to alleviate these sort of instances occurring, rather than letting content build and build for the past 18 years or so and now having to deal with digging it all out.
I offered to be a moderator many years ago and was shot down.
Originally posted by Khw: Interesting thought. I wonder how many would donate items to raffle or sell to fund the forum?
On another forum I use, there is a simple system in the Classifieds section to send proceeds to the forum operator. Works pretty well, I think. If you're selling a small part you can just send to the proceeds to the site. $10 to me for shipping, $10 to him for the item, or whatever, and everyone gets a warm fuzzy.
I'm also on a *heavily moderated* car forum that has very low traffic and I know the owner's entire income is derived from the site. Ads are primarily google, but also banner ads for site sponsors and extra-cost features for classifieds... if you're selling your car, you can send $15 and have your classified ad appear as a rotating banner, etc. For folks like TFS or Rodney who must generate a substantial portion of their business from this site it'd be a good deal. For folks like doublec4 or Danyel who have a side-business based on PFF, $15/mo a month to direct people to their classified would be money well spent... AND it'd keep those niche products in production in view for everyone to lust after.
Just a few things I've seen in production that seem to work.
I will mention that second site does have memberships, in most places I've not seen memberships work out. Short term, a bunch of people sign up but over time it just doesn't pan out. For that second site where memberships do seem to work, extra services are included - members get an @site.com email address as well as image hosting and access to a private forum. I don't know if that's a value for most, but it is for those folks. Although thinking about it, paywalling off T/OT keeps it out of Google's eyes, and those people who want to use it can pay $10/yr or whatever to keep it active and ad-less and unmoderated. I'll bet the randoms who drop by never look in there anyway.
[This message has been edited by thesameguy (edited 04-25-2016).]
Having never bothered with the OT section here, I wouldn't miss it a bit.
I don't see any reason for PFF to be a place for any kind of hate speech, derogatory talk about any group/protected class of any flavor, or even marginally questionable pictures/images. So if OT is being used in those ways, I'd be for **** -canning it. There's no shortage of places on the Internet for stuff like that, I just don't think this needs to be one of them.
For me, the value here is three sub-forums: General, Tech, and The Mall.
I don't see any reason for PFF to be a place for any kind of hate speech, derogatory talk about any group/protected class of any flavor, or even marginally questionable pictures/images. So if OT is being used in those ways...
O/T was never meant to be used in the way you've described. The rules against that have been in place from the get-go.
The simple elimination of O/T would accomplish nothing. The tech threads would then become the depository of such talk. None of us want that either.
Originally posted by thesameguy/lorennerol/Spiders1:
"Kill off OT"
If you've read Cliff's responses, you understand that your suggestions are problematic. 1. OT is the most visited section and not for Fiero related conversation. 2. As the most visited, it creates the most ad revenue, so closing it down or somehow making it invisible to Google would in effect cut revenue from ads. I honestly doubt that those who spend most of their time in OT are going to suddenly start spending the same amt of time in GFC/Tech or the mall. In that scenario, I probably will not either. 3. And most important, Cliff has stated several times he simply does not want to shut down OT.
I had a chance encounter a few weeks ago while I was wearing my Pontiac ball cap. While chatting with some young people, one comment was made about "getting those old polluters off the road." Knowing which way the google wind blows, it makes me wonder if there could be a different motive here. There are a number of us that probably wouldn't have been able to get our go-carts on the road if it hadn't been for PFF and the Cave. Thoughts?
Originally posted by thesameguy:........For folks like TFS or Rodney who must generate a substantial portion of their business from this site it'd be a good deal. For folks like doublec4 or Danyel who have a side-business based on PFF, $15/mo a month to direct people to their classified would be money well spent... AND it'd keep those niche products in production in view for everyone to lust after. .......
I have ABSOLUTELY have no issue with that as long as ALL people who make and sell products here pay their fair share .... and totaly agree with that concept ... I usually at the end of the year tally up my profits and send around 10% to Cliff .... any other vendor do this ??
Thanks Cliff for all the work you do .... my offer still stands
I'm sure Cliff will do what is best to serve his needs and feed his family, but running PFF as a social media alternative to Facebook seems to me like a losing proposition. It has none of the user friendliness of modern social media and all the the overhead of forums... the worst of both worlds.
I personally would support (financially) to keep the GFC and Technical sections open, but you couldn't pay me to support the O/T. Despite the denials, it's just a cesspool of hate speech.
And as Don has just finished covering, retaining O/T is the best bet for Cliff financially.
Less revenue than before is more revenue than the current none.
quote
Originally posted by Patrick:
There have always been rules in O/T. They need to be enforced.
Having run an Internet forum, I can tell you first hand that this is far easier to say than to do. If it was easy, it would be getting done already.
Again, haven't ever been in the OT section, not even once in years. But have had more than one person tell me on the side that they avoid this site entirely because of things that have been allowed to stay posted in there. So in that light, if the bullcrap gets cleaned up and is really banned (IME this takes banning USERS and IPs), maybe the net loss isn't all that much because some people come back to the site.
Originally posted by jscott1: ...... I personally would support (financially) to keep the GFC and Technical sections open, but you couldn't pay me to support the O/T. Despite the denials, it's just a cesspool of hate speech.
I strongly agree with that also... I dont mind paying a Sellers fee here per month ,,, but DEFINATELY NOT for OT section
I know and have great respect for JScott, I know him to be an honorable, honest man and great supporter and contributor to all things Fiero. I also agree with JScott and others, that OT has, to a great extent, become in the last couple years, what my mother would have called a "den of inequity", but that is only a fraction of that section's participants, and only a fraction of that section's threads, but, the noisy bearing gets the grease, and those threads with all the hate and cursing seem to stay on pg 1 forever or very quickly replaced by another and then another just like it making it appear as if that is all that is there. Reading comments from people who don't frequent OT tells me it not just a matter of making OT an ad friendly place, but also one of remaking it into a respectable place where contributors have or at least show consistent respect for one another. Soe will cry 'foul', bring up freedom of speech lost! bemoan 'politial correctness run amok' and what not-- and some may leave. That is their prerogative, but ot needs to change.
Having said that, I can also remember years when GFC was rife with arguments, name calling, accusations, threats of physical violence and everything OT is now said to be and the adversity often spilled over into Tech and the mall sections. GFC was 'fixed' and OT can be as well, tho probably not as quickly or as easily.
I know and have great respect for JScott, I know him to be an honorable, honest man and great supporter and contributor to all things Fiero. I also agree with JScott and others, that OT has, to a great extent, become in the last couple years, what my mother would have called a "den of inequity", but that is only a fraction of that section's participants, and only a fraction of that section's threads, but, the noisy bearing gets the grease, and those threads with all the hate and cursing seem to stay on pg 1 forever or very quickly replaced by another and then another just like it making it appear as if that is all that is there. Reading comments from people who don't frequent OT tells me it not just a matter of making OT an ad friendly place, but also one of remaking it into a respectable place where contributors have or at least show consistent respect for one another. Soe will cry 'foul', bring up freedom of speech lost! bemoan 'politial correctness run amok' and what not-- and some may leave. That is their prerogative, but ot needs to change.
Having said that, I can also remember years when GFC was rife with arguments, name calling, accusations, threats of physical violence and everything OT is now said to be and the adversity often spilled over into Tech and the mall sections. GFC was 'fixed' and OT can be as well, tho probably not as quickly or as easily.
Thanks MaryJane... To be fair I haven't gone in O/T in a long time so perhaps my assessment is not totally accurate. But there have been a handful of times someone sent me a link and described the conversation that was ongoing and it was to say the least unpleasant.
It seems unfair that Google is cherry picking from a very statistically insignificant number of posts and judging the forum unfairly. In the 15 years I have been here I have not seen a more family friendly corner of the internet. By Google's own standards I would not hesitate to let any age member browse the forum. In theory it shouldn't be that difficult to clean up the few offending images and words, but I don't know how you keep it that way. There has to be some kind of automated technology that can help.
But having said all that I maintain that 99.999% of the time I am in GFC, the technical section or the Mall looking for ways to support the Fiero Community. Maybe if O/T was a friendlier place I would want to go there, but nearly everyone that I knew that left the forum it was due to the bullying they received in O/T.
It's been a long time but I'd like to say hi to Mary Jane and jscott. And I agree with ya'll.
The other problem I see with the "moderator" thing, is that too many people can't be objective towards others thinking. As such, I mean, if someone is a moderator and they don't like someone for certain reasons, they will be harder on that person. Not necessarily intentionally. It's very hard to have a non-bias moderator who only steps I. To eliminate non-family friendly material or to shut down major disputes. And also not be affected by whether someone likes him/her or not. I was an AOL chat room monitor in 98. It's not an easy job to do. A forum is a bit easier, except you have specific people you deal with on specific topics. Not a chat room setting.
Difficult but not impossible, and not without making someone somewhere unhappy, but that's the nature of the beast. Before the rating system Cliff moderated all sections only on his own and did a great job, but I'm sure it was very time consuming and took his personal assets away from family and his business, as well as his 'down time'. Still, there are forums all over the world being relatively peaceful and well maintained as far as protocol and posting discipline goes. Even with the rating system tho, from time to time, the board's trouble spots still have to be looked at by a human. Cliff can't look at all the posts constantly and neither can any moderator, so he may be completely in the dark if no one clicks on the "Moderated by Cliff Pennock" link at the top left of each section and lets him know there is trouble brewing. The fact that he doesn't get notified very often, is one of the failings of the membership--for whatever reason. Same will hold true even if a separate or junior moderator is assigned. If they don't 'know' there is an ongoing problem, then neither they nor Cliff can fix the problem, tho it would be much more preferable if every member treated others with respect and I have at times failed in this regard too. Things within the membership simply have to change way more than management style and layout of the board tho I would like to see more adherence to and when necessary, stricter enforcement of the few posting rules we already have, for those hard heads that just don't seem to 'get it'.
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 04-26-2016).]
Originally posted by Cliff Pennock: Anyway, I feel I need to repeat what I said earlier: wiping TO/T is not an option. It's PFF's bar, its place to unwind and be with friends (and foes). It's the communities meeting point where you don't need to talk about Fiero's. It's important for PFF as a whole. But it has gotten a bit rough and dirty in there and it needs cleaning up. That's all. It doesn't need to be demolished.
I agree, not that it matters to most but it is like the forums bar, a place to hang out and shoot the **** , ***** moan about this and that as well as just talking about the world events, like the water cooler for those who work in an office. Even Cliff come around to tell us things about what's going on in his life.
Correct me if I am wrong but isn't there other SE that do the same thing? I am a computer idiot and have never tried to hide that fact.
As others have said, Its cliffs bar and we have to abide by his rules, so in the case of Cliff and google so seeing **** slides down hill as they say, it all comes down to us.
there I let the forums filter take care of my words instead of changing the spelling of the words, lets see how that worked and if it would pass googles rules.
Steve
[This message has been edited by 84fiero123 (edited 04-26-2016).]
There were rules and had they been followed this issue would not have ocurred. Just like any other organization , when a group relaxes they're communication they develope a balance between the meaning of what is said and who is saying it. This is not something that google's software may be able to do, yet. What is certain is that every single one of us are now recalibrating back to the rules already in place. After going through this, most of us will be more careful both in what we post but also quick to help new members know what those rules are. I still think this community does a good job of handling confrontation and uses the ratings system as a last resort.
Most of the forums with moderator only need them for 2 reasons (imo)
1- The members have nothing to lose if the forum is closed or shut down. They still have many other (clones) similar forums to go to.
2 - They want to limit their membership to a specific subject, ideology, political mindset, ect.
PFF is a Fiero fan and owner community. There really is not a true alternative. Which generates the "buy in" that motivates members to protect it. Just my opinion , but moderates would have to have a stake in the loses and benefits of the forum's success because who ever has the task of moderating this group will have perform at the same level of maturity and patience as demonstraed by Cliff himself. I would not be considered nor would I be able to. I think there are enough moderators already. They don't need the ability to terminate membership or threads.
Now! it would be interesting to see a designation (like , Monitor) given to certain members at Cliff's choosing who can suspend a thread from public veiw and block adsense code rendering until reinstated by Cliff. That would not be censorship. I would bet that Cliff would quicky recognize the difference between a forum issue and maverick monitor. Just a thought....
So far my searches are find content that has already been edited or removed. If there is something else please point me in the right dirrection.
[This message has been edited by jmclemore (edited 04-26-2016).]
I just posted a message minutes ago from my phone. I tried to pull up fiero.nl on my desktop (only minutes later) to receive a page loading error "Server Could Not Be found" .
1. The forum design (self moderating) 2. OT value to the forum members 3. OT value to Cliff (main source of ad revenue) 4. OT value to Google (they can live without it) 5. How Cliff wants to moderate it (no moderators) 6. How Cliff wants to fund it (ads in OT) 7. What the OT users want to say (pretty much anything)
Google funding isn't compatible with OT. OT is the number one source of ad revenue. Google is one of the top advertisers. Enough people in OT think they can say anything and not affect 1-6. Cliff can't stay on top of it enough to satisfy Google. Not enough people are willing to personally fund OT (I'm not.) Cliff can't depend on that funding.
It can't be all things and we are trying to make it all things. I think we finally blew it up. Enough defending OT.
[This message has been edited by TK (edited 04-26-2016).]
For fun, post something in OT and then immediately search for it on Google. Yeah, that fast. Think about what has been posted in OT. It's all out there. Forever on the internet. I avoid posting anymore to push back on the stupid so my user name isn't associated with it. I did enough in the past to know I will always be associated with that crap. There are sites better suited for 50% of what is here (like Fire and Ice.)
Is it this crap that is making Cliff money by the number of hits or is it just us in OT looping and generating multiple hits from the same people? This is our legacy?
[This message has been edited by TK (edited 04-26-2016).]
I think I may have a solution to the O/T question.
Unless I'm mistaken, at one time a thread originator (aka "the O/P") had the ability to delete threads that he started. I think that ability should be reinstated for O/T - at least on a temporary basis. That way, someone who believes that his/her thread is important to retain, can leave it be. OTOH, someone who wants to delete all of his/her threads can do that. (Obviously, we all already have the ability to go back and edit our individual posts.)
I don't think I started anything questionable, but I certainly wouldn't have any problem deleting any of my threads that have outlived their usefulness. Most everything that I want to refer back to is in Tech or General, anyway. With the exception of, possibly, a few "pet tribute" threads, or a coouple of random threads that I might find entertaining for some reason, most of my O/T threads are "just stuff". Others will obviously have their own threads that they want to retain. But surely not all of them.
Going forward, any new threads (posts?) could have a "report post" button.
[This message has been edited by Raydar (edited 04-26-2016).]
Will someone PM me and let me know what the plan is to move forward on this or what has been resolved, I'm confused.
Thanks
I don't think any of us know. We have been trying to identify and clean up things as Cliff asks but the final big plan isn't known. He will let us know soon enough.
it's probably back in one of the pages but did the OT generate revenue whenever it's accessed or only if there is a posting? Is it possible to overwhelm the OT with hits or posts to overcome Google's automated searches to a point that the questionable posts become insignificant? or does Google really find those 3 posts out of a thousand or find that one post that is against policy?
it's probably back in one of the pages but did the OT generate revenue whenever it's accessed or only if there is a posting? Is it possible to overwhelm the OT with hits or posts to overcome Google's automated searches to a point that the questionable posts become insignificant? or does Google really find those 3 posts out of a thousand or find that one post that is against policy?
not a computer person, just asking.
It's probably easiest to read Cliff's posts in this and the OT thread on the missing Google ads. He is communicating with Google and has explained it the best he can.
You said it better than I could. This is a difficult situation. If the technical section of PFF disappears I will be inconsolable. I can get a lot from the factory service manuals and Chilton's but it's not the same as searching the archives and conversing with a live human. I hope a solution can be found. My uninformed opinion would be to grow PFF such that the other sections generate enough traffic to earn revenue.
I have noticed a dramatic slowdown in forum traffic. At the risk of copyright infringement can we get something like a "LIKE" button? Often I read a thread and I'm looking for the like button. I know it's 21st century laziness, but hitting "reply" and putting in the PFF code of a "thumbsup" feels like too much effort. Maybe a macro that would easily create a quick reply with one button? There are probably a lot of lurkers that would post and create more traffic if it was easier.
Then of course this has been beat to death but an easier posting of pictures would drive traffic. Last Fiero event I went to there were approximately zero pictures posted because all the pics were on the facebook page. An easier picture posting might also drive traffic. Seems like just yesterday we were worried that PFF was using up too much valuable bandwidth and now it's suffering from a lack of traffic.
I think I may have a solution to the O/T question.
Unless I'm mistaken, at one time a thread originator (aka "the O/P") had the ability to delete threads that he started. I think that ability should be reinstated for O/T - at least on a temporary basis. That way, someone who believes that his/her thread is important to retain, can leave it be. OTOH, someone who wants to delete all of his/her threads can do that. (Obviously, we all already have the ability to go back and edit our individual posts.)
I don't think I started anything questionable, but I certainly wouldn't have any problem deleting any of my threads that have outlived their usefulness. Most everything that I want to refer back to is in Tech or General, anyway. With the exception of, possibly, a few "pet tribute" threads, or a coouple of random threads that I might find entertaining for some reason, most of my O/T threads are "just stuff". Others will obviously have their own threads that they want to retain. But surely not all of them.
Going forward, any new threads (posts?) could have a "report post" button.
I don't ever remember being able to delete my own complete thread once someone else had viewed it or posted in it, but the key word there is probably "remember".
And no archived post can be deleted or edited by the original author.
My uninformed opinion would be to grow PFF such that the other sections generate enough traffic to earn revenue.
So, if I have this correct, OT was not originally on the forum. It was added in part to alleviate the problems in GFC that sometimes spilled over to Tech. How long after the forum started was it added? 1 month? 2 years? I assume the problem wouldn't have arisen and become bad enough for the section to be created within a couple of months. 2 years might be a bit long, but I would think by 2 years it would have gotten to the point that change was needed. But, I also look at how long we had OT before "Other Cars" and "Other Mall" was added and 2 years may still be a bit conservative but let's go with it. So, OT has been around for say 15 of the 17 years this board has been in operation. During that 15 years OT averaged 12,934.3 posts per year for 194,015 posts to date currently. If it had been in existence for the entire 17 years that would be 219,883 posts to date with the average of 12,934.3 posts per year.
Tech has had 125,056 to date and GFC 145,190 posts. That's 270,246 combined or about 50,000 posts more combined than OT could have had if it was here from the beginning according to it's current average. Now, that's 2 sections to it's 1 and all of what would have been OT prior to it's existence still being counted as part of GFC. If we were fair and took the OT out of GFC and they had all been in existence the entire 17 years, it would probably be pretty close to 50% OT and 50% GFC/Tech.
I don't see the ability to post pictures easier and a "like" button as viable alternatives for replacing about 50% of the sites traffic. Heck, now with the Fiero being at the very least 28 years old, I would wager that GFC and Tech actually see less than half the sites traffic
* All that aside, I would imagine posts from Uhlanistan (sp) should probably be checked and several deleted considering his "rants".
Posts should not be confused with page views and visits. Views/visits=web traffic. Whether one posts or not, or whether one is a member with posting privileges or not, he/she still sees the ads.
Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. This necessarily does not include the traffic generated by bots. Since the mid-1990s, web traffic has been the largest portion of Internet traffic.[1] This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit.
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 04-27-2016).]
Posts should not be confused with page views and visits. Views/visits=web traffic. Whether one posts or not, or whether one is a member with posting privileges or not, he/she still sees the ads.
Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. This necessarily does not include the traffic generated by bots. Since the mid-1990s, web traffic has been the largest portion of Internet traffic.[1] This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit.
Unfortunately, Cliff is probably the only one who can see that but he's already said OT is a high traffic section. I'm just going by the number we can see and even if we look at total posts divided by topics, GFC/Tech is right at 18 posts per topic and OT is just over 18.5 posts per topic. Everything I have seen suggests that OT is near 1/2 of the forums traffic. That's a lot of traffic to try to replace for a vehicle forum that often acknowledges that with the Fiero being such a niche market, it's just not profitable for whatever company to make that custom part for it.
So, if I have this correct, OT was not originally on the forum. It was added in part to alleviate the problems in GFC that sometimes spilled over to Tech.
I could be wrong, but I seem to recall that O/T was a part of the forum when I joined in 2001. I don't know if it was there on Day 1 but it seems to have been there all along.
I don't know if this is a correlation or not, but O/T traffic seems to have ramped up in late 2008 early 2009. Maybe on January 20, 2009 not to put too fine a point on it. Seems like people had a lot of things to talk about around that time. Or it could be that people were laid off and had lots of time on their hands, I honestly don't know.
Also that is around the time when the trouble makers came into the forum, many were banned, and the anti-forum was created. Lots of drama and also lots of web traffic. Things have quieted down considerably in recent years. Honestly I had no idea that 50% of the traffic on this site was in O/T.
