Feedback wanted

[SparkOut]

I agree... but the point I meant to make was that places like FB are the easiest/"best" ways to expand the notice of PB and get people to come and look, not that PB should "move over" to a FB community rather than "here".

[Scurra]

One thing that may have got a bit confused in the discussion is the differentiation between this forum (which is not currently open to new members without application and is - theoretically at least - fairly well hidden from random web searches) and the puzzle site itself.

The reason for splitting them in the first place was precisely to create the effect we currently have - a public face and a private face. However, it is now more confusing for people in the public area who might stumble across it, because the puzzle site appears only to relate to the magazine subscription part, and is not a "puzzle" site in the sense that they might expect.

As well as the Snark magazine, I have been gradually trying to rewrite the web presence so that it reverts a little bit more back to how it was before. In other words, the puzzles from new magazines will be posted on the "private" part, as it worked originally. Meanwhile the "public" site will feature stuff like the Snark and some other free puzzles, and will offer magazine subscriptions (one aspect of which is membership of this "private" space.)
And it's the "public" area that we will want to promote on-line. People who then find their interest raised sufficiently to want to subscribe to the magazine will end up in this "private" area. But I genuinely don't think it is in the rest of our interests to have a gazillion random people turning up on this forum!
(Whether we have a reduced forum on the "public" site is something that is also open to discussion, but it probably wouldn't be anything like what we have here.)

So no, I'm not saying that we ignore FB and Twitter and all the rest of that process. And I'm not saying that I don't want anyone else to join our little "club". But I do think that there is fine line to walk between making the puzzles available to people but without leading to spambots or troublemakers ruining the experience for everyone else.

[kathlyn]

That seems the sensible idea Scurra, then it's more like a vetting process before being allowed to join the 'private section' having proved they are genuine puzzlers.

[Bunnylump]

Could the .com site maybe have a puzzle query thread where people could post questions? I don't mean chat threads or all the rest of the malarkey, and I don't mean where they can start up new topics or do what they like. I mean just a single thread where they can shout HEEELLLLLPPPPP!! Then any of us lot could maybe give them little spoilered pointers to get them going? That way, if people seemed nice, normal (or just weird like US lot ) and were genuine puzzlers, we could privately invite them here? Any one of us could have a little input and it would take the pressure off "da management".That would also save Scurra from being bombarded with questions via e mail, and would resolve the issue of "gazillions of new people" on here. Could you not then keep the .com site as it stands so that we can go there to print out puzzles, but anyone who hasn't subscribed couldn't actually open them? In fact, you could leave the query thread so that anyone could see it? That might just trigger some interest in itself.


Then we could keep our site intact and maybe get the odd few new faces here too, but newbies would have somewhere to go to be able to access the puzzles AND to get help. Otherwise the same thing will happen as happened with all of my friends. They'll buy one issue and then not do anything with it, and won't buy another one. And as my twin wisely said, Scurra, although it IS "their problem" if they can't solve puzzles, it is YOUR problem if they never come back and you can't pay for your teabags and pints of milk...

But I do think that the dreaded facebook probably would be a good ADVERTISING medium, and as Fraggle said some judiciously worded tempters / quotes would almost certainly work very well. I would note, however, that it would probably need someone to monitor it, in case any negative feeback / scams got attached to it. And no, I'm NOT volunteering (I don't DO facebook!!) Also, I thought that Fraggle's idea about posting it on Amazon was a really good idea.

[SparkOut]

I must confess, I thought the purpose of the topic was to increase PB circulation, without spending a fortune. I don't expect the PB "format" to translate to Facebook. But it will be a lot easier to reach a lot more people by that means than spending on "traditional" advertising. That's what I was on about.

[Bunnylump]

Oh, right, sorry, I'm probably sidetracking. (Pretty unusual for me, I think you will agree...)

[Scurra]

And yes, I agree.
For me, the question isn't necessarily how to increase "circulation" as such. It's what to do with that "circulation" when we get it! We know from bitter experience that presenting people with the pure, unadulterated PB can be completely terrifying - just like almost anything that you haven't seen or tried before and have no reference points for.
So the question is how to present the idea to them without either compromising on what it actually is, or misleading people, but making sure that those people who would enjoy the thing can find that out. This is not an easy question to answer.

[Bunnylump]

Basically, where do people with lots of spare time hang out??

Hey, just a minute, what AM I doing here again??

Is it possible to advertise on any other puzzle sites?

[supersleuth]

If I've understood The Rabbit properly, I think I agree with her

Specifically I think it would be good to have some sort of open thread for people that are struggling. This would surely be encouraging and help people to stay engaged. And yes, they could potentially be invited to join this forum in due course.

[Redfraggle]

Can I ask how many of you have ever joined Facebook? I know Looby is on there and Bunnylump.

[LAT]

Not me I'm afraid.

[Laura]

I'm on there.

[Bunnylump]

Well, I did join it AGES ago, but NEVER go on it, following an unfortunate incident.

[clvrlad]

and you know im on there :-p

[chazzie]

Not me

[Wulfruna]

I only 'joined' in a technical sense, in order to access something put up there by someone else. I already spend far too much time in front of my computer, so don't really want to get caught up in the whole Facebook scenario..... I'd have even less time for life!

[giraffe]

I am on it, but mainly so I can occasionally look in to see what the offspring are up to! I have a total of about seven "friends", my children, neice, two SILs and a very old school friend. But I never speak to any of them on there. I find it interesting to see what my neice is up to.

[strep98]

Sorry late to the party again.

No ideas (what's new) I think people do find these types of puzzles difficult to start and my experience with wyse99 proves that, she is a cryptic god to me, but anything else id beyond her ken without detailed help, she would have given up after the first issue if we didnt have puzzle lunches, she has shown some puzzles to her colleagues and they have walked awaty mumbling. I don;t know what the solution is but FB may be a start.

[MBH]

With the same 'technicality' as Wulfruna, I have a 'fake' profile that I never go into. [The email address is @freeserve.co.uk for crying out loud ] 4 friends including a course instructor that I knew for 4x2 hour sessions and never interacted with on Facebook.

I'm not 'Anti-' very many things, but I've got nothing good to say about FB from a personal point of view. No use to me and I'll be pushed into it kicking and grousing when at some stage I'm "forced" to take it seriously. [Work, etc].

[Scurra]

I would hope that you are never "forced" to take it seriously. That would be as bad as being told which newspaper you could read and hiding the existence of any other newspapers...

One of the big problems is that - amongst a lot of people who use it, at least - there is this wide-spread perception that somehow Facebook is The Internet - it's surprisingly similar to how, twenty years ago, AOL and Compuserve were The Internet for most people. Probably because most people prefer to think that they are safer in what is called a "walled garden". Personally, I tend to think they are more vulnerable - precisely because they think they are in a "walled garden"...
There is also a perceived convenience - again, my feeling is that this is a faulty perception: Often people learn to do something in a particular way and even though there may be a simpler, more straightforward (and sometimes better!) way to do it, they will stick with the first thing they learnt because it "feels" right. (This is especially common with computers, as I'm sure MBH will agree!)

Another problem is that "the Internet" is kind of liking looking out of your front door and seeing the whole world all at once, rather than just your street. It's a bit intimidating. Even tools like Google only serve to remind you how big the world is. Facebook, by contrast, does a good job of hiding the size of the world, so it doesn't feel as scary.