F me. This place has gone to shit. Imagine modding a dude with the history of Decentric, on this forum and others. Now I read that JLM has requested a ban? Left? Whatever it was, that's just sad.

Never seen the feedback section get so much action. Very common feedback it seems too.

Is there even a WWC thread?

Even Whirlpool's activity has shrunk significantly, still a busy forum but no where near what it was in the 2000's 

Forums in general just aren't as popular as they used to be sadly :(

its up to the members to keep things going.......
Not hard imo.
There is enough quality in here still that I see.

change my mind about this post

social media have taken over forums . Why go to a forum when you got facey, Twitter,insta et el for all your news and views. 

442 is, by far, the most toxic forum I frequent with the lowest level of discourse. Maybe just bin it eh.

Anyway, people have moved to twitter, FB etc - can't change that.

so facebook and twitter have no toxicity? 

Of course they do. Don't be stupid. It is easier to avoid it however.

Am i the only one experiencing difficulties posting?
And whats with the latest change and the lack of an icon to post pics?
How about a heads up?

The forum just needs to connect via Twitter etc a bit more. 

The problem is that back in the good old days of 442 before it became ftbl  we had numerous posters who used to troll and banter but it was all in good fun and if they went to far they wouldve been banned straight away. Now the trolls have gotten worse and mods ignore the problem or the trolls make it like they're the victims even though they derail  threads 

Should probably think yourself lucky if that's true

Yep, hit the nail on the head.

I've recieved dms  from certain trolls which I wont post as their beyond pale. What makes people think what they post or write online isnt traceable? 

Wait what lol.

Scratches head also 

You should only say et al when talking about other humans not entities.

are people still using facebook??

Over the years I got some dms.  Mostly ignored but one I had to report to police since it involved naming my eldest daughter.  

Holy fuck.

Glad you haven't received anything recently though.

that's fucked up

Very, very late to this, but for what it's worth...

1. How did you initially discover the forums?
Was definitely through the articles back in the day. Must've been around 10 years ago. It was eye-opening to discover real discussions among real fans that went way beyond the pithy stuff in the papers.

2. What’s kept you around?
Haven't posted a great deal over the years, but picked up a bit recently. Been living abroad for the best part of a decade, so the A-League is perhaps one of my main anchors to what's happening back home. I sometimes wonder if I'd be so into it if I still lived in sleepy ol' Newcastle. My interest in EPL, for example, is at an all-time low. So, I do a lot of work in social media, and quite frankly I'm over the type of kneejerk, know-it-all discussion and hot takes that FB and Twitter engender. For all the petty squabbles here, I usually feel like I can also expect reasoned analysis, different viewpoints expressed in a reasonable manner and a few laughs that aren't for the wrong reasons.

3. Any ideas for acquiring new users?
That's a tough one. I couldn't tell you the last time I looked at this website's homepage. I do think merging the boards would help consolidate discussion. Rumor Mill used to be pumping! The optimist in me says 'more original content!'; the pessimist that the vast number of casual fans out there are mostly interested in rumors and outrage. I guess the A-League is finally getting to the stage where we can get nostalgic about the early years, so there might be some mileage there. (Yes, I supported the NSL in its dying days, but it's so hard to find good info even on the last few seasons.) I like reading some of the historical stuff pages like These Football Times put out about 'golden eras' and great teams of yesteryear and forgotten maestros (I often think about players like Chichi Mendez, Kresimir Marusic, Troy Halpin, even Nick Carle, who should be looked back on as absolute cult heroes),  so maybe more localized stuff like that. Maybe that's just my own weird tangent.

That's really interesting insight. Perhaps you could fitler the 'outrage' articles into completely different categories. Worth some deep thought.

How about we divide the forum in two, with a snowflake section for the easily offended. In this area, everyone would agree with the OP and congratulate each other on their posts - not too much celebrating of course. 

Bowen

Have done some thinking and have an idea, and I am note sure how the forum will react but would welcome, feedback to see if it’s a good idea or the worst suggestion ever made on the forum.

But first a couple of little thing that drives me crazy, a breaking story can have multi people starting a threads and for me it makes sense that’s mods would move the latter threads to the one that was started first. Second like many the name calling and so on needs to kept in check otherwise why come back.

Now back to my idea and its possible it’s the worst ever suggestion or makes a lot of sense.

Some framing to start with, mainstream media gives few Football stories and forums in the say early days of forums where were people could spread good news and mention the positive things that never made the media… in fact back in the day Football stories were rare so forums provided a place to go.

Today Forums have competition from, various other online platforms. Meaning we need to make the site worth a visit.

Finally… OK OK … the idea.. the mods create a concept of forum journalist / writer or what ever name you wanta call it. The idea is posters could submit to the mods essentially a Football article for there judgement that this is a mod recommended and supported thread. The articles be between 500 & 750 words and be reasonably well written and written in a way to encourage debate highlighting a particular aspect of Football in Australia. Smaller threads  as always could be started by anyone and key articles as now published with a link.

In NodeBB you could create a group called "Forum Writer" "Researcher" or the such, then make it invite only. Anyone who creates content like you suggested could get invite by KA himself for what it's worth. You can create groups for specific tasks of the forum "Moderator" "Social Networker" etc

Jeez , why do we want to over complicate everything nowadays , soon we will have to have a degree in journalism to post on here ffs , it’s meant to be about football discussion and a bit of fun not “NodeBB” whatever the fuck that is.

Sounds like a very good idea, but I wouldn't worry about the length of the article.  A well written 250 word article giving fans an update on a particular team's training in the off-season could be just as interesting as a 750 word piece and may bring some new people to the forum,.