Make Digit Great Again!!

yea, the forum.

I'm back. Permanently.

So, what are the issues?

I want to say sorry for locking 'the Off-topic thread', it did kill the forum afterall.

I think we should reduce the number of sections. Large sections worked when we had traffic, now we don't. We have too many subforums.

D

Whatsapp + Telegram groups. All important discussions seem to be shifted there.

Best thing to do is bringing back old members.

Geek-With-Lens said:
Whatsapp + Telegram groups. All important discussions seem to be shifted there.

this is just sad. ico and dashing_sujay already warned about this thing. It is really hard to bring back the glory of old times again.

- - - Updated - - -

101gamzer said:
Best thing to do is bringing back old members.

I understand how you feel. But that isn't possible

We, have to take care of the forum now.

I think more interaction with Team Digit members would be good. Like actual discussions with them or they could ask for the community's point of views by creating threads here.

First of all, welcome back [MENTION=26711]ico[/MENTION].

I agree that Telegram and Whatsapp have shifted traffic and random discussions. But I think its not a main 'cause' of actual decline of forum traffic. It was eventual.

Time have shifted to instant messaging, instant gratification and 'groups', where a few but regular and sometimes known people talk about anything under the sun and without the strict moderation that a forum has. Reddit is also a thing many prefers now and could the 'blame' be attributed to.

Anyway, yes but the first thing that this forum need is restructuring of forum sections, already discussed in mod zone long ago. I believe though, a sudden complete overhaul of the existing structure can very well be detrimental and thus changes should be discussed thoroughly before implementation.

Migration to Xenforo is another thing, and I don't know its impact, since there are no major bugs in this vB based forum anymore. A glossy UI may be the need of migration tho, but I believe 'value' is decided by a forum's discussion/members rather than looks. Many forum members prefers a simple but functional forum, rather than a glossy but confusing/complicated user interface.

I think digit magazine have started introducing its readers to forum more diligently now and I think its working too. Since we are getting new members, but I don't think retention period is any good, so they quit before they start.

Next thing to work upon to increase traffic is to allow/encourage users to share stuff. We can also have more section moderators who would like to post new threads and start a discussion. And by encouraging users I do man some kind of incentive system, rep or rewards. (No mater how much I personally dislike it).

Step 1: Take measures to prevent spammers
Step 2: Profit!??

SaiyanGoku said:
Step 1: Take measures to prevent spammers
Step 2: Profit!??

We are taking the maximum measures possible.

But when spammers are humans, not bots, not much can be done.

SaiyanGoku said:
Step 1: Take measures to prevent spammers
Step 2: Profit!??

Sorry, what do you mean by profit?

Sent from my LG-D802T using Tapatalk

jackal_79 said:
Sorry, what do you mean by profit?

Lol. Looks like you are not familiar with 'profit' meme. Read here: ???? PROFIT!!!! | Know Your Mem

One more idea is that Digit could share interesting threads or posts on their twitter account. Kind of similar to what /r/India is doing.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

Most of the member who are active are old ones ....I am always happy to see you guys

How the reputation system works in our forum I simply don't know but here are some examples about how reputation system works in other forums.Please analyze them and if need be follow the same system here to encourage new comers as well as old timers.

examples of reputation system in forums - Google Searc
Sent from my ASUS_T00K using Tapatalk

D

^ Yes, a reputation system with trophies would be interesting and may encourage users to be more active here.

Geek-With-Lens said:
^ Yes, a reputation system with trophies would be interesting and may encourage users to be more active here.

Oh..God, just see the MIUI forums with Trophies :shock:

Zangetsu said:
Oh..God, just see the MIUI forums with Trophies

Their "trophies" seem more like cancer to me. :lol:

More than the trophies I think the old members can bring back life into this forum.

Sent from my LG-D802T using Tapatalk

D

jackal_79 said:
More than the trophies I think the old members can bring back life into this forum.

Sent from my LG-D802T using Tapatalk

It does becomes difficult for people to stay active on online forums as life progresses. I used to be very active on this forum before but then I needed to take a long break to focus on other things. Similarly, old members must have been busy in their life. Some might be married now, etc.

Another idea which could be to host TDF live meet in one or few cities. All old members and new members can get a chance to meet there and can discuss on how to revive the forum. What say?

Geek-With-Lens said:
It does becomes difficult for people to stay active on online forums as life progresses. I used to be very active on this forum before but then I needed to take a long break to focus on other things. Similarly, old members must have been busy in their life. Some might be married now, etc.

Another idea which could be to host TDF live meet in one or few cities. All old members and new members can get a chance to meet there and can discuss on how to revive the forum. What say?

IIRC this used to happen long time back.

From what I feel is, people have moved onto platforms like Reddit.

Reddit is just one of the many social sites that I frequent, TDF included.

D

Zangetsu said:
IIRC this used to happen long time back.

Yes, it used to happen before. I was thinking if we could manage with a Mega TDF Meet.

ico said:
From what I feel is, people have moved onto platforms like Reddit.

Does that means there is no hope for this community?

Geek-With-Lens said:
Yes, it used to happen before. I was thinking if we could manage with a Mega TDF Meet.

Does that means there is no hope for this community?

If discussion is interesting more people Wil get involved.

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Things can be turned around actually.

New forum software and a revamp of the sections will help.

What goes hot and what not is decided by the current generation users. 15 yrs ago, forum was the best platform out there to get into discussions , asking specific queries and finding information in general.
Since last 5 years, there have been drastic change in this medium, we have seen all sort of platforms from 4chan to reddit to to facebook to twitter to instagram. People follow whats popular at that moment. Even if such portals cant provide the uniformity of a forum, they still get around with it. Stackoverflow and stack exchange received major user intake (those who used to use forum for tier queries often)

Though its not like forums will be history though. No platform can completely replace forum. Some added features and a rewamp of old UI should be the first steps imo.
People often get confused at so many sections. Condensing them will surely help a bit.
Also, there should be some weekly discussions thread. Like we have those periodic topics in many subreddits. This will make the regulars of the forum more active. And the news will encourage those users who occasionally visit forums.

Thats all comes to my mind at the moment.

One thing that was a problem for me was that when i registered on this forum i didn't receive the activation email immediately. I had to contact mods through other means to get it activated. And after a month or so i got the activation email. Think about all the people trying to register on this forum and they don't receive activation emails!

I think this forum is the most active for tech discussion. I haven't seen other sites where the Indian community is active and good for tech related discussions.
reddit india is mostly about politics (there is a NSFW subreddit but no tech subreddit wtf!)
techenclave doesn't seem to be that active
ivg seems mostly of playstation crowd
other sites are mostly global and i hate social media like FB, twitter

Get more forum representatives from different companies like ASUS, Sapphire etc..
They must be tasked with answering questions put forward by people here, regarding service issues etc.. (Like the WD representatives)
Not blatant advertisement like the msi guys do

[MENTION=26711]ico[/MENTION]

We need real geeks back in this forum. We need to have those big-boys in the tech department who knows a mighty ton about PC hardware and software.
We also need men like Kyle or say Brent or W1zzard from International forums who posts genuine articles, hardware roundups, benchmarks which are not plagiarized or blatantly biased, and drive the core concept engine of a tech-forum forward.

There always can be debates and fan-boy wars, but we need people who have actually seen or done geeky things way more than most visitors in this forum have done, such a way people will visit this forum not only for solution but to start-off knowing things from here.

We need more cilus.

chimera201 said:
One thing that was a problem for me was that when i registered on this forum i didn't receive the activation email immediately. I had to contact mods through other means to get it activated. And after a month or so i got the activation email. Think about all the people trying to register on this forum and they don't receive activation emails!

I think this forum is the most active for tech discussion. I haven't seen other sites where the Indian community is active and good for tech related discussions.
reddit india is mostly about politics (there is a NSFW subreddit but no tech subreddit wtf!)
techenclave doesn't seem to be that active
ivg seems mostly of playstation crowd
other sites are mostly global and i hate social media like FB, twitter

Activation problem is solved now. I understand there was an issue with load management. We moved to a separate subdomain, to solve this.

D

Where is [MENTION=68896]Cilus[/MENTION]? Long time no see. He used to be a lot active and involved in so many knowledge-full discussions here. I had only joined the forum after viewing his posts.

ico said:
Activation problem is solved now. I understand there was an issue with load management. We moved to a separate subdomain, to solve this.

If it's fixed then great :thumbs:

Geek-With-Lens said:
Where is @Cilus ? Long time no see. He used to be a lot active and involved in so many knowledge-full discussions here. I had only joined the forum after viewing his posts.

Cilus was one of the legends here. He might have got more responsibilities in life so he left

TheSloth said:
Cilus was one of the legends here. He might have got more responsibilities in life so he left

Yeah we miss cilus,d3p,vickybat and all of those good old guys.

build the Wall already !!

You wouldn't expect people who actually know about things to answer relatively low-level questions, answers to which are available in abundance already. I am sure you must seen the sort of topics people query/discuss about nowadays :/ .
Give them challenging and sensible open discussion and they will participate, and grow in numbers.

Apparently, we don't see many tech enthusiasts, hobbyists crawling the forums while showcasing their skills -at least not the way it used to be back in those days. No modders, hackers, and real techies - just bunch of wannabes roaming around throwing opinions as they feel.
I would love to participate in discussion, but I barely see any interesting topics worth the time and even if one does invest the efforts - it doesn't get going.

What is gone is gone (at least in regard to good old members), but there are surely few things we could do to stand from now on.

Many members have already given useful suggestions. I'll jot down what comes to my mind:

Forum upgrade- We need to upgrade the forum to probably xenforo ( [MENTION=1]Raaabo[/MENTION] said that he is soon going to do that, don't know when).
Control spammers- Maybe vB is the culprit here (not really sure).
We, the mods, need to be a bit lenient IMO. Locking off-topic thread, disabling BB codes in signature, and many more things have swayed away many members till now. A little bit troll activity, in limits though, must be allowed to make sure the charm of the forum is lightened. I so used to enjoy good old vickybat vs ExtremeGamer arguments against boring copy paste config suggestions now a days.
Many people who have the know-how about things don't really involve themselves anymore. Some got busy in their lives, some became lurkers and so on. I also got busy due to job commitments . We need to push a bit to gain momentum and that won't be possible without active participation from all.
Digit administration has shown so much apathy towards the forum whenever issues cropped up or whenever their support is required to push the forum. I understand that it's purely financial decision but I sincerely hope that the attitude changes.

That's all from me.

And yes, I'm up for whatever it takes to rebuild things.

Aameen !

Focus on mobile access.

With the smartphone revolution unless people are already in front of a PC/Laptop screen, they are shifting to mobiles as the way of accessing internet. This gives advantage to app based or app capable fora.

Digit forum is accessible through Tapatalk which is good and actually this is what keeps me involved here still. But an exclusive forum application of Digit could give a distinct advantage and a better connect.

Also I think the forum should earn its upkeep by properly using advertising. Stick to ethical and user sensitive advertising (not heavy auto-play videos or flash ads) and enable for even signed in users.

Keep the pages lighter. Reddit is good in this aspect.

We already have Tapatalk. Its mobile enough I think.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

Is there any revenue sharing with Tapatalk? Having own app will help with that.

Also involvement will be more with own app.

Tapatalk has VIP subscription. They share a percent of payment with the forum owner.

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Desmond David said:
I think more interaction with Team Digit members would be good. Like actual discussions with them or they could ask for the community's point of views by creating threads here.

Yes, we are guilty of not being here, though the forum was always meant to be for readers, and usually only I have been active here in the past anyway... The mentions were added as a way to tag us. Will have to see how this works in xenforo though.

Desmond David said:
One more idea is that Digit could share interesting threads or posts on their twitter account. Kind of similar to what /r/India is doing.

Yes, we plan on publicising the forum on social media once we get done with the migration to xenforo.

sam_738844 said:
@ico We need real geeks back in this forum. We need to have those big-boys in the tech department...We need more cilus.

Agreed, how do we get them back. Suggestions?

All members who want to check out a temporary install of the xenforo forum can do so by following this:

Insert the following values at the bottom of your hosts file:

Code:

139.59.51.11  forum.digit.in
139.59.51.11  www.forum.digit.in

You will find your hosts file (on PC) at:

Windows: %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\drivers\etc\
Linux: /etc/hosts

You will need to edit this with admin privileges.

WARNING: You will not be able to access this live forum from the PC which has these entries in the hosts file. In order to disable the forwarding to the other server (with the Xenforo install), you will need to comment out the entries you added (or delete them):

Code:

[B]#[/B] 139.59.51.11  forum.digit.in
[B]#[/B] 139.59.51.11  www.forum.digit.in

Come there and test and offer suggestions about what to change, or any bugs you notice. Avatars have not been imported, this is a known problem.

Remember: Discuss stuff here, NOT THERE, because all data from that test server will be deleted when we do the actual import.

just tried it.

it feels buttery smooth and more responsive.
Awesome!!

Looks good that new forum.

Needs a dark theme.

anirbandd said:
just tried it.

it feels buttery smooth and more responsive.
Awesome!!

So much happy to hear that Digit is finally taking the big step towards Zenforo.

I hope that Digit will get transferred to the new Zenforo style soon.

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That's it? No more feedback?

Is there any ETA on the Xenforo launch? I can't try it out right now since I don't have access to my PC right now and my company laptop doesn't have admin rights to edit the hosts file.

Raaabo said:
That's it? No more feedback?

Gaming section need to reworked. Only three sub sections are needed Games(Includes PC,Console and mobile games),Discussions(for discussing games related stuffs),Game Deals( Deals on steam,origin,uplay,gog etc).

Perhaps a games trading board as well? Like a marketplace for exchanging games with steam cards, keys, etc? Or even giveaways.

I'm hoping to take it live in a week. Bug testing by multiple eyes would be appreciated.

Is it hard to migrate? Are the DB schemas similar between Vbulletin and Xenforo?

I asked this before and everyone gave feedback before as well, but it was some time ago...

Do you guys like the reddit layout? Would you like it if we used the reddit source code and layout for forum?

Raaabo said:
I asked this before and everyone gave feedback before as well, but it was some time ago...

Do you guys like the reddit layout? Would you like it if we used the reddit source code and layout for forum?

I don't think so. We might as well create an official TDF subreddit instead.

I think a normal multi-board forum is good enough for discussing similar topic threads.

Raaabo said:
Do you guys like the reddit layout? Would you like it if we used the reddit source code and layout for forum?

Some threads like photography etc will not work that well under reddit layout.

i vote to keep digit as a forum and not migrate to any other style.. specially not reddit.

What? Why would anyone think of using a Reddit layout for a forum? It's bad IMO.

It's like wandering around a maze.

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Desmond David said:
I don't think so. We might as well create an official TDF subreddit instead.

I think a normal multi-board forum is good enough for discussing similar topic threads.

+1 for this.
Also, not a fan of reddit layout.

anirbandd said:
i vote to keep digit as a forum and not migrate to any other style.. specially not reddit.

+1 for this.

anirbandd said:
i vote to keep digit as a forum and not migrate to any other style.. specially not reddit.

+1 Agreed

I like the theme to be like LinusTechTips forum...

Air Cooling
Woosh

Liquid and Exotic Cooling
Sploosh

You can't make something great without matured members. And as far as I know most of them don't have time or simply not interested in this forum, so you can't make it great, it was good when I first came here though. Though slowly the trolls crept in.

We are no less than the trolls.

But yes, a forum is only as good as its members. I have been here since the PhpBB days. Those were the days.

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Deport the trolls !

I don't know what is available format / platform.
If it works as easy like a whatsapp group / topic wise discussion with proper notifications & fast response then it may work good.

A WhatsApp like group undermines a forum. A forum is good for topic wise discussions. WhatsApp groups are just chaos.

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Desmond David said:
A WhatsApp like group undermines a forum. A forum is good for topic wise discussions. WhatsApp groups are just chaos.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

Exactly. And the knowledge gained gets lost for the group as a whole going forward.

Desmond David said:
A WhatsApp like group undermines a forum. A forum is good for topic wise discussions. WhatsApp groups are just chaos.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

If users miss the point of a social group like Telegram and WhatsApp then that's the problem with the users themselves. The "only" reason those "should" be there for instantaneous support, which can never happen over a forum. A social group can't kill a forum, but it has, because of users, and for the same reason this forum is in coma too. I really don't expect much when average age of users is like 18, sorry, can't happen.

There has been instances of spontaneous support from forum's MODs in case of any problem for any member.

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everyone grew up, have jobs and kids. bring in new school and college kids is the only way! this will happen if the main site is able to attract new visitors and then send them over to new forums.

I don't think its hard to get youngsters to the forum. Host some free Steam game giveaways for new joinees in some kind of raffle and they will come. No Indian kid in their right mind would turn down free stuff.

^ Yeah tom's Hardware is doing exactly that. And the way to enter is to answer a question which results in a discussion. If you just give it away people would just come here for the giveaway and not stay to discuss in the forum.

Tom's Hardware Steam Giveaway - Watch Dogs 2 - PC Gamin

True. We can be a bit smart about it like that.

Start a giveaway thread and tweet about it or share it on Facebook or some reddit subs (/r/IndianGaming for example) and people will come.

chimera201 said:
^ Yeah tom's Hardware is doing exactly that. And the way to enter is to answer a question which results in a discussion. If you just give it away people would just come here for the giveaway and not stay to discuss in the forum.

Tom's Hardware Steam Giveaway - Watch Dogs 2 - PC Gamin

+1 to this.

However, exclude them who give generic, spammy or stupid answers like these:

*forum.digit.in/mobiles-tablets/199...indows-orandroid-post2310202.html#post2310202

muralimude said:
Get the best android mobiles *removed spammy link*

More in this single thread:
*forum.digit.in/mobiles-tablets/198461-best-android-smartphone-under-30k.html

KumarPradeep said:
Samsung Galaxy S7 is the best choice. It has lot of good features with upgraded OS.

^ This guys just posts to increase post count.

stellajohn said:
From till today amazon was giving some discount on one plus 3 but from today it may be ended. But I suggest you to visit *removed spammy link* in which site you will get the short list of famous brand mobiles from amazon.

^ Posts without any relevant information.

thecrazythinkers said:
you can try at Amazon for mobile. they have lots of option as per your budget.

ithehappy said:
You can't make something great without matured members.

Matured members move on with life, become busy. Have jobs, relationships, kids, pay bills, taxes, etc.

Would it be good if we could have a Markdown based post editor instead of BBCode or along with BBCode?

Markdown is much simpler than BBCode and is used in many sites such as reddit and stackexchange.

Edit: Perhaps it would be better to maintain BBCode as well for compatibility with older posts.

Can we have images in spoiler tags by default and only start loading it after clicking it. It's annoying to find the relevant image in a thread full of images because of the slow loading.

And a better larger font for the posts by default and better higher resolution smileys. I haven't seen the new site btw talking in comparison to the current one.

Can we have the number of likes under profile itself.

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bssunilreddy said:
Can we have the number of likes under profile itself.

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Can we remove Sent from my blah blah. ?

dashing.sujay said:
Can we remove Sent from my blah blah. ?

What can we remove? I cannot understand.

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dashing.sujay said:
Can we remove Sent from my blah blah. ?

Yea that is a Tapatalk feature

bssunilreddy said:
What can we remove? I cannot understand.

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ZTR said:
Yea that is a Tapatalk feature

*weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/i-dont-always-send-a-sarcastic-text.jpeg