Damn..Anybody come around here anymore?

[ROBERTS]

Pretty DEAD in here lately..

[Kul Straff]

I believe that the "not great" performance of the forum it's due to the dated forum platform itself as a promotion tool. The phpBB forum platform it's great for intimate personal exchange, but as an atleast "good" promoting tool it has a LOT of limitations. Nowaday web business went to use a "magazine" style of website. Articles are ilustrated with a picture and have the option to post a comment as a member or as an anonymous guest. On the side columns of the web the products are displayed, as a store. And forums like this one lies underneath of that main "billboard" website as a more intimate "private club".

I think DoF just has to adecuate their main site, where they have the same info in the center and in the columns. In the center column of the site each new comic (or "article") should be posted in a similar way as blog sites does it. Where anonymous or registered members could comment on the comic review. It's a tough decision cause you will be dealing with lots of trolls who hate this kinda stuff, flaming the articles, but the visits will rise to the roof, and the discussion in THIS forum will be hot like hell. That's the way it is everywhere, I don't think the admins should be afraid of that.

Dof has all the elements to put on a massive crowd gathering, they develop their own products, and they have garnered good solid control for more than a decade over a controversial business genre. Put on all those elements together and you have a winning formula for web crowd gathering, it will be like honey for the bees. As long as all that people get exposed to the products listed on the side columns all the flaming rage and controversy will be positive.

[Ferres]

If people ask me stuff I answer, but few ever do.

[Demosthenes]

I still visit almost daily.

[Thon]

There's a few of us hanging around, but obviously not enough to keep a lively debate going.

I guess it's down to what to find here. If there's no response, why bother posting?

Both of you, Ferres and Roberts, are lively and fairly quick to respond. But it's mostly Q&A, not so much discussion of future content or previews. Jost noting, not complaining. The livelier threads often covers future content, like who should be the next hottie to appear in Robert's next Starfuckers episode (it there will be one). That drew some crowd for a while.

There's a good deal of action going on over at the Erenisch forum, where Erenisch is equally quick to respond as you two are here. But there's also a lot of fan created art and stories that keep the forum active. This has of course lured the Erenisch fans away from this place (when it comes to Erenisch specific topics, some of us still lurk here for other topics).

The same could be said about the Fernando forum. His threads here was among the most active ones. But then he created his own forum. Which was great. For a little while. Now it is all but dead since Fernando has deserted it since three months (last login was nov 26th I believe). Before that it was livelier than this forum for some months. Now the people over there is mostly angry and disappointed. And quiet.

Nuria used to answer a few questions, although already back then, far to seldom to keep up interest. Bego is not a very active poster. I believe a more active participant from 'official Dof' would be needed to get this forum going.

[ROBERTS]

Yes...ask 10 people what would work, get 10 different answers...all of them pretty much in line with each individuals' personal desires.
We're in some pretty strange times. Back 10 years ago, hot and crazy discussions were 24/7 all over the web, with dozens of participants..and nobody cared if your "platform" wasn't the most modern. People were just EXCITED to have such a place. I had a forum on my original site and damn, it was a non-stop online sex party
I guess they're not so excited anymore?

[Kul Straff]

I guess they're not so excited anymore?

I agree, with you, these forums were all the rage 7 or so years ago, but as in traditional business, market war on the internet for "the crowd", became same as competitive. The crowd migrated to better offers wich involve better 'technologies'(technology is the same, promotion designers are better).
Today crowds have access to infinite ammount of nasty stuff much more nasty than the comics here, and mainly with the option to freely comment anonymously the whole day about any crazy shit, for instance: "it's the hentai's nipple insertion fetish even possible?" hahaha!

And that's the whole point, much of the web interaction happens in fast anonymous and non-stop comment exchange. The day only have 24hs, these guys choose a community and they stay there. The difference it's made by the geniuses who give them the board (filled of products) for them to chat the whole day. I tell you the crowd it's there, and they grow and grow in numbers, and also are more "excited" every second. They are as crazy as ever, but they are gathered by the best. They don't want to register, they don't want to wait, they don't want "rules", they don't want "private clubs" and dark forgotten dated crevices in the internet.

The most crowded sites relies on third party products and data, so they can deliver two articles a day for the crowd to fest in dumb chatting and ZERO investment... But that will get against them more sooner than later... Because the interesting thing, it's that the ammount of data available it's becoming redundant. People can have the latest blockbuster at a click's distance, and they just don't care anymore. People download stuff that they don't even watch afterwards.
I think the over-abundance of free shit opens a big oportunity for specialized products. The crowd wants to be involved in the process of the stuff they want to consume. And here's when people like you, or Erenich, or Fernando can take huge advantage. DoF shouldn't let you guys going separate ways trying to gather people alone, you're DoF best assets. This web has all the elements to achieve what you guys are devating here, those elements are just needed to be put in the right place, and presented the right way.

[LOLord]

- Well, i'm on trying to draw my very first Dof comic for now, so i'm extremely nervours. That's why i must keep focus on my stuff.
- I think people love discussion with more example images than letters, like in this topic: http://dofantasyforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1373.

[ROBERTS]

It seems Kul wants to be a webmaster and web promoter for a big global porn website..
We might have something to discuss, if your mechanical ability matches your big talk.
We should explore this further.

The biggest issue in all of this is simple..there's no profit in FREE. You can't operate a free format web presence and not have some people dedicating TIME to managing it. It's like opening the doors to your house and putting a FREE PARTY sign up...in seconds you are full of crazed lunatics beating holes in the walls and stealing the furniture. Even if you DO keep the barbarians somewhat civilized, you STILL need to provide them with entertainment and drinks and food...all this costs time and money to produce.

There are very good reasons for having a forum requiring a membership system. A sign-in. It keeps the barbarians, the spammers, the anarchists, the gypsies, the assholes, AWAY. There is no money in having 100,000 free idiots eating your bandwidth running up your server bills requiring moderation and attention. There's no money in it, and in fact, it costs a LOT of money to do.

Personally, I don't give a f@ck about being the "biggest" chat forum in BDSM comics. So what? Only gamers and geeks and techies get off on such badges. I'm none of those.
I give a f@ck about popularity of course, but of my WORK, not my free party forum full of trolls. I give a f@ck about people who are serious and don't play around like children. I give a f@ck about being the most successful online BDSM/r@ape comics artist on Earth, which I have already accomplished as of 12 years ago...which means dollars. You tell me how having 100,000 crazy fools in your chat raising hell 24/7 and running up the bills somehow MAKES me money and we'll have that discussion seriously. Otherwise I think it's pretty useless.

[Kul Straff]

Roberts, please don't get me wrong. As I pointed out in my earlier comment (maybe I can't express too well in my broken english), websites which relies on material made by others stealing the audience from people who actually invest in quality products like DoF, well, I totally agree, that sucks. I'm not saying otherwise.
I'm just trying to figure out what element could help people to stay around. A free chating board in the main site could be one step, of course not giving access to material for free! F@ck that! The internet it's full of free shit already, all I'm saying is to give the curious peeps some place to lurk around on the door step. BUT, of course, as you said, that implies more bandwith and more work hours controlling the crowd. And you're right, that means to invest money in a bunch of hooligans coming to trash everything. My point is, if you have 100 thounsand people fooling around, a percentage of that will be the quality bunch you're looking for, if the crowd of viewers are 5 thousand that quality percentage will be much less.

A simple web consumer like me can't talk big or teach anything to guys like you who's been in this business for more than a decade, I stated that from the beginning. I just want to contribute to the site, and I know in advance that I'll be getting quite a bunch of lessons. That's what discussions are for, exchanging ideas. Of course! I would like better to discuss more interesting stuff like new fetishes for this BDSM comic genre we all love here. And that's what I'm gonna do right now...