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  • #16
    Originally posted by sensij View Post
    I don't subscribe to the negative narrative some have described here. By any measure I understand, forum traffic has been healthier in 2017 than ever before, and continues a steady trend of growth. The cost effectiveness of residential PV systems may bounce around as subsidies gradually taper off, but I think the macro forces that have driven adoption are still intact, and over the next 10 years, the idea that even storage technology may become economically viable for residential applications suggests there is plenty of market still to develop.

    I think the collection of knowledge and experience that solarreviews.com has fostered here is the internet at its best, but the challenge to do even better remains. If contributing time as a moderator helps ensure that others will have the same opportunity to learn and contribute that I have had over the past few years, then please take this post as me "stepping forth and speaking up".

    PS... lost in Pete's glamorous description of the perks of being a moderator, they get a higher character limit for signatures, too, right?
    I guess I'm sort of negative on the future while agreeing with a fair amount of what you write, some of that agreement however being contingent on the idea that the macro forces you write of are for the most part mostly the usual marketing hype that oversells the possible benefits of PV. That'll be with us always.

    I also believe there may be more traffic (and that's good for forum advert. revenue), but I think I've noticed a shift in the nature of the content of the conversations here more to the line and character of the general demeanor and tenor AZWS postings, with fewer turnkey/grid tie/vendor installed postings than in the past.

    That shift, to the degree it exists and continues, and being neither good or bad, may tone down the spleen venting around here, partly because DIYers and hobbyists are often a little less concerned about saving money than other things and so removing the constant reminders and things about cost effectiveness (or the lack of it) that seem to generate a lot of angst, justified by righteous indignation or not.

    I'm counting myself out of consideration as a moderator. First and primarily, I've got too much going on. Secondly, in spite of my best efforts, I suffer fools badly. Thirdly, while it ain't for me to say how things ought to be, and without rancor, I don't agree with a lot of how the game is run around here. Fourthly, I don't want the power or authority, nor do I trust myself to edit or eliminate posts by others in an objective manner. It ain't worth the hassle to me, and would only, sooner or later, come to a bad end. As long as I don't cross a line some mod(s) may see as inappropriate or offensive, I get to pretty much write what I believe is correct and helpful. I think that's a fair amount of involvement and does as much good as (for example) if I got to tempt my ability to resist common sense and eliminate most of Dan K."s posts as soon as I saw them.

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    • #17
      Amen!

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      • #18
        Originally posted by sensij View Post
        By any measure I understand, forum traffic has been healthier in 2017 than ever before
        Really?

        It seemed to me that the number of legit (non-spam/linkfarm) posts dropped when it switched to the new software/interface a year or two ago.
        But I do not have access to the statistics to tell. (And it'd be impolite of me to scrape the website to gather the data)


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        • #19
          Originally posted by foo1bar View Post

          Really?

          It seemed to me that the number of legit (non-spam/linkfarm) posts dropped when it switched to the new software/interface a year or two ago.
          But I do not have access to the statistics to tell. (And it'd be impolite of me to scrape the website to gather the data)

          how that wisdom goes: "correlation does not mean causation"? drop in traffic could be for other reasons over such period.

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          • #20
            Originally posted by max2k View Post

            how that wisdom goes: "correlation does not mean causation"? drop in traffic could be for other reasons over such period.
            I'm not arguing that it was causative.
            I'm saying it felt to me that there was more (legitimate) forum postings in early 2015 than there was in early 2017.
            sensij is saying that 2017 traffic is "healthier in 2017 than ever before" - but it doesn't appear that way to me.
            I don't have the hard data though - just anecdotal observation.

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            • #21
              WOOOHOOO I for one would like to welcome our new moderator Sensij and I would really like solarix to consider stepping forth, remember you dont HAVE to do anything you will have the ability to edit or delete spammers or bad info if you see fit and I will look to sort out the extra sig space.

              Re the numbers and traffic, well your kinda both right, traffic is up but posts are down, this in the most part is due to me manually approving new members, or deleting them, when I started doing this manually I realized that over 50% of new registrations were spammers or self promoters, so I hope members have noticed a massive drop in spammers but this has had the effect of slowing down legitimate posters. This process of manually going through new members is very time consuming and it is slowing down posts, so it will get sorted one day, its just the solarreviews.com folks have been busy building a new version of solar-estimate.org and I cant get any of the programmers time at the moment..

              Overall we are happy with the site and have a few things in mind for future development, dont worry solarpaneltalk.com is going OK and will be around long into the future, lets face it, we are only just beginning to install solar

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              • #22
                I am willing to be a moderator. Can't say how consistent I'll be as we are way busy these days....
                BSEE, R11, NABCEP, Chevy BoltEV, >3000kW installed

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                • #23
                  Thats awsome thanks so much solarix and sensij, I will contact our I.T guy and switch you guys over to mod in the software. I will also write to you both with a bit of a beginners guide as to what you will see in your mod dash board and how it works.

                  Good to hear your busy solarix we have been flat out since the good people of South Australia were told we now have the most expensive power in the world, dont feel as though you have to do anything, more that if you are on the forum and you see some spam you can delete it, or edit it. Just ease into it slowly, thanks so much for stepping up I am sure MIke, Suneagle and Inetdog will be as happy as me, I feel like Christmas has come early, what a wonderful day.

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                  • #24
                    Hi All,

                    Just want to welcome and thank the new mods, sensij, solarix and sdold, you guys rock, I called Greg (our main IT guy) but he is busy doing stuff so I have clicked the switch that I think turns you into mods. If anything weird happens let me know. You should now see a button at the bottom of the page that says "mod" click on that to goto the Mod dashboard, you can do things there like search and ban etc. When looking at posts you can also click edit to go and edit posts....more later..a truck load of panels has just turned up and its onto the forklift for me, cheers

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                    • #25
                      Thank you sensij, solarix and sdold for stepping up to the plate. The new "S" pack. Solar Pete, hope this helps ease your load and gives you more time to enjoy life.
                      2.2kw Suntech mono, Classic 200, NEW Trace SW4024

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                      • #26
                        I don't want to be considered for moderation - at least not any time soon but, FWIW, I can give my impression from a new forum user standpoint.

                        1) The sign up approval is odd. By the time I got the approval I had forgotten about registering. I know it is a proactive defense against spammers but still odd and potentially discouraging for new members.

                        2) It is hard to know whom and what posts to give credence. A lot of posts here (or any forum) does not make an expert. I'm starting to gather that some here are experts and some are enthusiasts and some are newbs like me. At first blush, it is impossible to know the grumpy guy in the corner is the guru.

                        3) Yes, some posters can seem a bit abrasive but I know I can be as well. It does not help your new members though. I'm not suggesting any point of action here, just saying...

                        4) The ads and the links to quotes and the post footers and the page banners and ... holy crap!

                        5) The signature limit is another oddity. I'm not sure what that is supposed to accomplish. I don't guess it is really good or bad.

                        6) I don't know what this place was like in the past but there is not much traffic here. Maybe I'm just used to more active forums.

                        Just my pair-a-dimes...

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                        • #27
                          One thing that might be discouraging forum posts is the quirk where vbulletin truncates posts at the first non-ascii character. It's really annoying... usually it happens when you innocently copy some quoted text, and the stupid web page you're copying from used smart quotes instead of normal ones.

                          One way to work around the problem might be to just allow utf-8, see
                          google.com/search?safe=off&q=HTML+Character+Set+utf-8+vbulletin

                          There may be a better way, I dunno, I don't know jack about forum software.

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