Expanding Rand Paul Forum - seeking input

[William Tell]

I remember there was an online poll we were focusing on winning last year. That's the sort of thing I'm thinking off. We did it through PM's to keep our strategy off the public net. It would have been simpler some other way than individual PM's.

 

[specialkornflake]

I don't like sub-forums. I've only every really looked at a few forums on this site. First, I think it was Ron Paul Grassroots, then it was General Politics, then it's now this Rand Paul forum.

 

[orenbus]

I don't like sub-forums. I've only every really looked at a few forums on this site. First, I think it was Ron Paul Grassroots, then it was General Politics, then it's now this Rand Paul forum.

Yep, that is going to be an example of most of the users and new users on RPF. Thanks for sharing that, +Rep.

 

[afwjam]

agreed

 

[orenbus]

One general forum will have boring yet actually helpful topics that will get overwhelmed by gossip posts that get tons of replies.

I agree it's a struggle against the mass noise, but at least those threads will have a fighting chance if the posters and few others involved are committed to keeping it up. The alternative is they get cast out into the wilderness where some may go but most users won't.

For some reason the whole scenario reminds me of this scene.

 

[orenbus]

//

 

[GunnyFreedom]

Maybe add policy tags throughout so discussions on "Policy X" will be easy to find.

Foreign Policy
Domestic Policy
Monetary Policy
Drug Policy
Abortion Policy
etc

and then push up some controls where it's easy from Rand's Home Page to click on a tag, or a policy and see a list of those articles.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

This x 10000! (only, I don't think it needs to necessarily be private -- but there definitely needs to be a sticky-thread that centralizes tactical ideas, suggestions, and strategies from RPF members for both Rand's online and offline ops teams... or better yet, a page that presents our current top ideas/suggestions/creations so that the campaign can quickly check-in and see what we most want them to know about/be made aware of).

More ideally, RPF should have a formal representative/liaison between us and Rand's digital team (Vincent Harris) whose job it is to brief them weekly (and/or immediately whenever necessary) on the best ideas, suggestions, recommendations, and/or work-product (re: epic youtube videos, gifs, memes, etc.) made by RPF members since the last brief was submitted.

They say they want to "crowdsource" the campaign ... that's my idea for how to efficiently + effectively do so

So many Rand supporters are seriously skilled web devs, digital marketers, designers, video editors/producers, etc. -- it would be a huge advantage for them to make them feel like their ideas/work might actually have a chance at being picked up and used/shared/implemented by the campaign.

A cloister for RandBadgers only lol. I like it.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

If I'm a complete stranger and I don't know this guy, I come here, and what I want to see is "where does he stand on [my pet issue]."

So if every thread impacting gun policy was tagged gun policy, I am thinking you can put buttons or menus on the front page to just scroll down click whatever policy you want and read it.

For it to work, you will kind of have to point neon signs to the thing, it's out of normal so random visitors may not know what it is. Or a reframe. "Discussions categorized by policy positions, click here"

and that just goes to your tag system. No subforums. Or across several subforums. Even better, I like the subforum plan you already have, but add the tags on top of that, and a user clicking for tags will get articles from all of Rand's subforums. That way you have both organized for browsing AND easier for users to find.

 

[ghengisconrad]

Video subforum.

Maybe even make it so everything with youtube or /video/ url in the url of the OP gets directly copied or collected there.

I have kind of a routine of watching news videos while drinking my morning coffee. This would change my life.

Thing is, I don't wanna miss a thing. Not one new Rand Paul video; so I comb through all the front page threads to "make sure" i have them.

I wouldn't have to do that if I could trust something to collect the videos.

 

[CaptUSA]

Video subforum.

Maybe even make it so everything with youtube or /video/ url in the url of the OP gets directly copied or collected there.

I have kind of a routine of watching news videos while drinking my morning coffee. This would change my life.

Thing is, I don't wanna miss a thing. Not one new Rand Paul video; so I comb through all the front page threads to "make sure" i have them.

I wouldn't have to do that if I could trust something to collect the videos.

I agree with this. One of the pleasures of this site is that all video clips of interest are posted here at some point. It would be great to be able to easily find them all in one place.

 

[philipped]

I would suggest a section in a Rand Paul forum where we can make suggestions to candidates RANDPAC should endorse and spend money to help elect in 2016 throughout the country.

 

[Jamesiv1]

Rage against the tyranny of too many oppressive subforums.

Only one we need is "Kelley is HAWT"

 

[philipped]

More ideally, RPF should have a formal representative/liaison between us and Rand's digital team (Vincent Harris) whose job it is to brief them weekly (and/or immediately whenever necessary) on the best ideas, suggestions, recommendations, and/or work-product (re: epic youtube videos, gifs, memes, etc.) made by RPF members since the last brief was submitted.

Yes

 

[nayjevin]

Yea I agree in regards to security, in regards to communicating info someone may not necessarily want to discuss in the open, but with other forum members idk. For example (not sure if this is still the case) but back in 2012 we had to send out multiple PMs through forums with a 5 member limit addressed in the "to" field at a time. So say you had a group of 15 that would be three separate PM threads you would have to track and keep everyone filled in by copying and resending messages to the other two groups. We eventually just switched to emails, but for convenience social groups would make things easier as an all in one and part of forums, also some people don't like sharing out their personal email addresses or check them regularly, but still want to be included in the discussion.

I see what you mean. Food for thought: Are online polls important? If so, who are you hiding coordination from? Why?

I don't like sub-forums. I've only every really looked at a few forums on this site. First, I think it was Ron Paul Grassroots, then it was General Politics, then it's now this Rand Paul forum.

'New Posts' is how I use the forum. I go to the forum index page about twice per year to get to the site guidelines forum. There could be 1000 subforums and it wouldn't change the way I use the forum at all. This is an issue that has been discussed before. Everyone uses the forum differently. One cannot expect 'new posts' and tags to be used efficiently by random internet user, unless a major overhaul of design is undertaken to make those usages prominent and obvious. Therefore what is the best catchall strategy for all ways of using the forum?

My philosophy is to breakout a subforum when it is handy to have a type of thread together for reference, but a tag doesn't suffice. For instance, gossip. It's handy to have it together because it's handy to have it out of the way of the rest of discussion. A tag 'discussion' doesn't work because it applies to every thread on the forum. Therefore subforum.

If I'm a complete stranger and I don't know this guy, I come here, and what I want to see is "where does he stand on [my pet issue]."

So if every thread impacting gun policy was tagged gun policy, I am thinking you can put buttons or menus on the front page to just scroll down click whatever policy you want and read it.

For it to work, you will kind of have to point neon signs to the thing, it's out of normal so random visitors may not know what it is. Or a reframe. "Discussions categorized by policy positions, click here"

and that just goes to your tag system. No subforums. Or across several subforums. Even better, I like the subforum plan you already have, but add the tags on top of that, and a user clicking for tags will get articles from all of Rand's subforums. That way you have both organized for browsing AND easier for users to find.

This is all good, the neon signs are vital. People will not use the most efficient path without it. If tags become 'the' way to find things, vs subforums, a major design change is necessary, or we'll just end up with people who can't find anything.

Video subforum.

Maybe even make it so everything with youtube or /video/ url in the url of the OP gets directly copied or collected there.

I have kind of a routine of watching news videos while drinking my morning coffee. This would change my life.

Thing is, I don't wanna miss a thing. Not one new Rand Paul video; so I comb through all the front page threads to "make sure" i have them.

I wouldn't have to do that if I could trust something to collect the videos.

This is a place for tags IMO. Then a massive VIDEOS button.

 

[jbauer]

Less = MORE

There is already 25+ subforums on this site. The interesting stuff will stay at the top. The stuff thats not will fall by the wayside. Almost an analog for capitalism.

 

[orenbus]

I see what you mean. Food for thought: Are online polls important? If so, who are you hiding coordination from? Why?

Oh I wasn't talking specifically about polls if the other person I was replying to was talking about that. Was just saying in general "social groups" addon may be a nice to have on forums as another way of communicating.

 

[orenbus]

'New Posts' is how I use the forum. I go to the forum index page about twice per year to get to the site guidelines forum. There could be 1000 subforums and it wouldn't change the way I use the forum at all. This is an issue that has been discussed before. Everyone uses the forum differently. One cannot expect 'new posts' and tags to be used efficiently by random internet user, unless a major overhaul of design is undertaken to make those usages prominent and obvious. Therefore what is the best catchall strategy for all ways of using the forum?

I think most users by default are going to come to a forum and think one thing, where is everybody?

They will look for the subforum that has;

1. The most current users viewing
2. The most most recent posts in an active forum
3. a forum that has a title called "general" or something specific to the overall topic/theme of the forum


Then they set up camp and stay there for a very long time until they realize they can hit "New Posts". But using the "New Post" link is for the hard-core forum users that can manage keeping track of a number of threads going on at the same time, the ones that are going to be clicking it 20+ times per day to see what is going on, a lot of users aren't interested in that they are fly-by members that come maybe a few times a week if that to see if anything "new" is happening. Also Some (most?) never realize they can click "New Posts" so they stay in that most active forum forever, or unless another forum area takes it's place, then back to 1,2,3,wash,rinse,repeat.

 

[William Tell]

I see what you mean. Food for thought: Are online polls important? If so, who are you hiding coordination from? Why?

Obviously there are much more important things. But with the family leader poll, we had our reasons for not talking openly about our elimination strategy. Other candidates supporters were following us. Its not that big a deal at all, it was just an example. Food for thought.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

This is all good, the neon signs are vital. People will not use the most efficient path without it. If tags become 'the' way to find things, vs subforums, a major design change is necessary, or we'll just end up with people who can't find anything.

I don't mean for tags to become 'the' way to find things, just special-use. Like finding policy discussions on a Presidential candidate. The point being you can have things in 5 different subforums, all organized perfectly, and some noob who just wants to read about "guns," can.