quote:

2wanderers: here I am posting in the afternoon, to help with your complaint.

It's appreciated.

I think it would be valuable for you to do some research on who are the customers booking hostels, cars, insurance, etc. Are they us--the forum users? Are they others? I think that could make a big difference on how you approach things.

In marketing speak, I think you need to figure out what is the "brand essence" of BnA--what you want people to think of when they hear "Boots n All." When I think of BnA, I think forum. It looks like many others here do as well. I personally don't think of BnA as my all-in-one travel resource. For me, it's my first stop in my information-gathering process. I'm going to turn to hostels.com when I book a hostel (unless I have a free voucher), because they have loads of reviews. I'd rather not have to look there, then come over here to book.

I also agree with many others on trimming the number of forums--you get lots of the same types of conversations in many different places. And it's definitely time to kill the London forum. Or add a New York City forum, a Bangkok forum, a Sydney forum...

I use the forums and pretty much nothing else. I will almost always choose face-to-face options for booking travel or buying things over using the internet. This has nothing to do with fear of technology, it's more of a loyalty to local services and keeping people in jobs.

It seems as though the bulk of the regular forum users are the exact opposite type of person from what the rest of the site caters to, but I don't think that's a bad thing. It's hard to see what the real focus of a 'company' is sometimes and as much as the regulars would like it to be, the focus of BnA does not seem to be long-term DIY travelling.

I'm having to click around the site to see exactly what else goes on here, and I guess that says something about my regular interaction with the site. In the past I have browsed through the articles when researching a destination but I usually find them to be uninformative and uninteresting and tend not to read them any more. I know I've posted a few articles as well, but in retrospect I was doing that just to put my early work out there and not for anyone else's benefit.

I don't read blogs. I have one (non-BnA) but it's for personal use and aimed at friends and family. I just can't stay interested in reading about other people's trips. I find that most of the talented writers out there are getting paid for their work and what gets left behind in blogs is just not that interesting for the general public.

I've come to realize over the last few months that the internet is a wasteland of money-making opportunities with no real content. I'd rather pay a small annual fee for ad-free forums and [paid and discriminatingly accepted] articles than see ads on a website. Sites like http://projectvisa.com/ just make me naseous with their complete lack of design aesthetic and ridiculous ad placement. I'm pretty used to just filtering out website ads but it's annoying to have to scroll through the BnA text ads at the top of the forum and the having to look at self-advertising image ads like the one for the Ireland Logue. On a completely unfair personal note: I can't stand the usage of 'logue'.


Sorry, that's a lot of negativity for one post but I'm ill and stuck at work. I've been really turned off of what the interweb has to offer these days and am feeling so inundated with garbage that I don't know how I ever spent as much time online as I once did.

BootsnAll does have some great people and I do like reading some of the discussions. It's what's kept me coming back here irregularly for the last 6.5 years.

Edit: as this is post 666 for me then consider it to be a bit of the devil's advocate in me.

"For insiders, I think if people simply list places they've been in the last 12 months, you could come up with a database where there names would show up and you could ask them for help." - RobinMarie

I think this is a fantastic idea. I generally respond based on my knowledge of placed I have just visited. Ex: I used to post a lot in Europe forum after I got back from Europe and now I'm in the Asia forum because I just traveled all around asia this past summer.

Fantastic idea!

First, let me say that I love the forums here and try to post when I can. I haven't been here a lot lately, but that's more because of my demanding job than anything else. I also agree with a lot of the comments I've read, but I do believe that some of the problems deal with plain logistics. The software is really not conducive to quick posting. I've mentioned this before, but trying to add a link is a giant pain - in fact, trying to format any text requires about 5 extra steps. I also agree with whoever posted regarding the sheer number of links on this site - I really wish the layout/design of this site was a bit more aesthetically appealing and/or user-friendly. Makeovers can be a good thing - people get bored with looking at the same design over a long period of time. And a more cohesive look would make it easier to maneuver.

Overall, though, I truly do value the advice I read here - this is the first place I come to when I'm looking for information about travel, and I try to give back when I can.

Sounds to me like we need to work on getting the Insiders section and hostel reviews improved...

Thanks for the excellent feedback so far.

I used to be a regular, and I still pop on from time to time. The one major thing keeping me from getting engaged again is the sheer number of forums. Too many. I don't know where to post anything, stuff gets forgotten about... it's almost like you're trying to set yourself up as being better than the Thorntree - even though you're setting up the board like the thorntree. Does that make sense?

Integrate so there are less forums with more activity and so that it is far easier for people to keep up with it. Otherwise you're going to alienate your core group.

quote:

Originally posted by meagicano:
I used to be a regular, and I still pop on from time to time. The one major thing keeping me from getting engaged again is the sheer number of forums. Too many. I don't know where to post anything, stuff gets forgotten about... it's almost like you're trying to set yourself up as being better than the Thorntree - even though you're setting up the board like the thorntree. Does that make sense?

Integrate so there are less forums with more activity and so that it is far easier for people to keep up with it. Otherwise you're going to alienate your core group.

Thumbs up.

Thanks for everyone's feedback on this one. I'll leave this thread open for now in case more stuff comes up.

In the meantime, all your suggestions have been read and are being worked on. Specifically - we are working on updating the Insiders. We are calling that section Insdiers 1.0 - the new one is creatively called Insiders 2.0 (nothing todo with web 2.0 - just the 2nd version of it)

I'll post more about it when we have a beta ready for testing. Cheers!

Is there or could there be a section where members can find out what part of the world other members live in? Say for example, you live in Timbucktoo, you could then see if anyone else does. Or if you're in Outer Mongolia you can find other s etc.

This would be helpful in a number of ways - "meet-ups" could be organised like booties do in America. Living on the other side of the world so to speak often makes you feel a little left out, and this would be a way of combatting this.

Have a nice day, Whistler.


Travel broadens the mind and flattens the wallet. SMC.

I think you started this thread well with a "mission statement" of sorts, as to what you'd like BnA to be. So, I'd suggest following that up with doing some thinking on the "flipside" of that. I'd think hard on what you do NOT want BnA to be. So many people dive into mission-statement-writing with "we will be this" or "we will do that". It's also wise to establish the foul lines, what you won't be, what you won't do, what you'd unreservedly send elsewhere, etc.

Then, as you look over the site & community as it is now, you'd think on what about the site that is NOT within the pail of that mission, what is outside it's aims, etc.

I don't like when people are mean, or attack the asker of the question. Often, they might be a little bit, oh, not having explored all their avenues, shall we say, or sometimes people just attack. That SUCKS!

I also wish there was easier ways to find information about countries. Sometimes when I tool around with other parts of the site, it gets confusing.

I do LOVE BNA!

I think 'new posts since your last visit' should be a link at the top rather than under the 'search' tab. I didn't find it until today.

quote:

Originally posted by Insubordination:
I think 'new posts since your last visit' should be a link at the top rather than under the 'search' tab. I didn't find it until today.

I didn't know it was their either until I read your post

Now my 2 cents...

FORUMS:

I've been using the forums about 12 months now - thanks to the people who post here it is a really good forum. I can't say thankyou enough for all the helpful replies to my questions.

In terms of improvement I would suggest a few things:

The layout could be better, I know ads are there for a reason, but I feel you could make the header across the top a bit thinner. And lose the bar of ads and links down the side, it just looks scruffy.

On the main forum menu I wonder why 'members forum', the most popular and the obvious first call for new members, is halfway down the list? For sake of convenience could it not go at the top?

In regional forums (Africa, Europe) might it be useful to have a FAQ thread. Of course specific questions will always need specific answers, but there seem to be a number of general questions that get asked repeatedly by newer members.

On a personal note it would be cool if you could do more with the 'forum stats' section. Like a list of the top 20 members by total-posts etc...

Edit:
HOMEPAGE:
I have always felt that the bootsnall homepage is very skitzophrenic (like yahoo.com on steriods). I know it is meant to be a resourse for 'everything' on travel, but does every link and sub-category have to be on the front page. In particular it took me almost 5 minutes the first time I visited to find the forum link hidden up in the top right corner. Maybe it could be advertised more prominently if you want to get more people on the forums?

BLOGS:
The blog homepage is similarly difficult. I only visited it a few times but it does not appear to have a proper search engine, if you use the search box it searches all of bootsnAll rather than the blog zone. even the 'browse by tags' option is not great since it throws up hotel reviews as well as genuine blogs...

Quote:
_____________________________________________________________-
Originally posted by Craze-boi:
On a personal note it would be cool if you could do more with the 'forum stats' section. Like a list of the top 20 members by total-posts etc...
______________________________________________________________

When you click on 'community', if you scroll half-way or so dawn the page, under 'What's New' is Statistics for the ;ast 7 days. Click on 'Most Active Members' and the information comes up. Did you not realise it was there or were you hoping it could be improved?

Have a nice day, Whistler.


Dear Lord, please make me chaste, but not just yet. SMC.