be interested to hear what some of our lurkers/guests (non-registered members) think about this site ... i have often seen guests what appear to be "registering" to the forums, but never actually follow through with the user sign up process for whatever reason ... why is that? as mentioned before there is no e-mail verification process required when signing up a handle here ... once you've completed the user sign up you can start posting right away ... i tried to make that as smooth and as easy as possible for new people ... it's admittedly kind of a headscratcher for me personally ... would like to better understand the issue there we're definitely getting fresh eyeballs to this site no doubt about that, as i have seen hits come through from reddit and google (finally) ... but again, nothing materializing on the new user end front as of yet ... kind of odd honestly anyway, if you are a lurker/guest out there and reading this post please do hit us up and let us know what you think of this forum ... is it possible that the front page is just a tad bit too overwhelming for the new guy out there? is it laggy? possibly because of all of those page widgets? again, i'm just trying to better understand what we're dealing with here, and how to make this site as smooth as possible for everyone please let us know!
just a quick public service announcement here: tomorrow will be marking exactly 1 month that we have been online here at TSMF. happy 1 month anniversary. thx to all of you who make this place great!
Cy I would bet it's because of the SSL. Many antivirus programs throw up all kinds of ominous warnings when you try to register without it.
thx @Steven! i'm gonna have a thorough look into this on this coming weekend and see if i can switch over the server to SSL (https) ... i may need to take the server offline for a couple hours either saturday or sunday as i make these changes. and lastly, this is mainly for our night owls here- @Baggi @fireopal @stock1234 i know you guys have all mentioned to me how the server tends to go offline during the very late night hours (typically from 2am eastern) that is largely due to the server backups i have in place at that time. well, i am now thinking of pushing that back an hour to 3am eastern because i see some of you guys are up during those late night hours posting on the forums. would this work out better for y'alls? let me know! thx. very sorry for those late night inconveniences gang!
Bumping this thread back to the top again. So as we're nearing our 2nd month online, I just mainly wanted to get some more input/feedback from everyone on how we can make this place better and a bit more "lively" if you will. This thread was mainly meant to serve as a way for everyone to come up with their own input/ideas to make this place active. Seems like a lot of folks are reluctant to post on the forums. Not entirely sure why that is. I'm also unsure how we can sort of "spark" the discussions around here. I've tried doing the competitions, which seems to bring members checking into the forums regularly, but that doesn't really bring much in the way of good solid discussions to the forums. What do you folks think? Anyway, I hope you all are enjoying the long weekend! Looking forward to this month of September.
Gotta give it some time CY, I did a quick check and we are not coming up in the Search Engines yet. Content will fix that over time. I am curious if you have any stats on registered members vs active members or visitors vs registered members? I suspect you will find the ratios similar here. Another thing to note is that now we are competing with the old site, I suspect that hurts both sites numbers. and of course we are in the summer doldrums. I have run several forums over the years, and they always seem like a grind to get thing going. It will happen just probably slower than you wish.
I gotta agree. Time is your friend. Plus, we are in the summer months of the markets. Wait until the traders aren't focused on getting their kids back to school and other stuff. And just wait until their is a market crash. Then suddenly everyone will be interested in the markets again.
Just a really quick heads up in here to everyone for early this week! While I don't anticipate there to be any site issues this week, but as you folks already know by now there is a large hurricane (Irma) ripping through the southeastern part of the country right now. It's entirely possible due to the heavy rain + winds that we may experience some intermittent power outages around here tomorrow and Tuesday, thus potentially bringing the site offline for however amount of time. If this should occur at any time early this week, know that this is the reason! Don't want you guys thinking that I pulled the plug on the site or anything. The storm is expected to make a more westerly turn over to Tennessee sometime tomorrow, so my area should only just see some rain and a little wind but nothing too serious to cause much issues. Anyway, I'm hopeful that we don't experience too much in the way of downtime (if any at all) this week. Keeping my fingers crossed!
i'm a couple of days late with this post here, but i just thought to mention that we just passed the 2 month milestone the other day that we have been online here at TSMF. happy 2 month anniversary everyone! can't say this enough but a big time thx to all of you who make this place awesome!
I agree it is a great forum and Cy is doing a great job, but it would take patience and time initially before we get more members and discussions here. Sorry for not being as active as I want to. Once I am settled into my new home, I will try to post more
Sounds good @stock1234! Can't say this enough but seriously thanks so much for all the great contributions you bring in here daily! It's really awesome that you're still able to contribute here even with your big move! You da man. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out how to get this site listed on the Google key phrase stock market forums. Seems like my forum introduction video that I had put together a few months back made it on the 1st or 2nd page of that key phrase but not the actual link to this site here. Doesn't look like a lot of people are clicking in on that video either even though that thumbnail image is kind of attractive lol. I honestly thought that would draw in at least a few clicks. Nope.
That is exactly as I would say it. Swamped at work and with the house, made 1 trade in over a month...
Just a real quick heads up in here for everyone... I am going to need to perform a monthly maintenance of the server perhaps either this weekend or the next. It's very possible that the site may be offline for a bit during that time. I am not 100% sure if it is going to be this weekend or next weekend though, but I just thought I would inform y'alls in advance so you all know the reason why the site may be inaccessible for a couple hours on either Saturday or Sunday of this weekend or the next. Apologies for this inconvenience! It's just something that I need to do routinely to ensure that this site is running smoothly for you guys.
So I've noticed a few new members signed up to TSMF the past few days. 6 new members to be exact which might not seem like much, but we haven't had any new user sign ups for the past few weeks. So, to get 6 new sign-ups in the past few days is quite noteworthy. I'm not entirely sure how they're reaching us though since we're still not listed on any of the major search engines as of yet...but is it possible that people are finding us via my forum introduction Youtube video? I see that my video has moved up closer to the top of the 1st page under the Google key phrase stock market forums. I'm now showing it as the 5th item down on the first page under that key phrase. Could someone also confirm this for me? Type in stock market forums into a Google search and see where that video is showing up for you guys. It used to be that the video would show up on the 2nd page, but now I'm seeing it on the 1st page of that search, and much closer to the top. If it is true that the vid has moved to the 1st page for everyone, then that is pretty encouraging news for TSMF going forward!
I may be wrong here with this assessment, but it sure does seem to me like we've been taking another hit to traffic on this forum here as of late? I've noticed we've been slowly losing some of our members. I've been trying to send out weekend e-mails to all of our active members here that has a list of all of our active threads on TSMF, but sadly that does not seem to have much of any affect on bringing members back to check in and participate on the threads. I'll have to be honest here but I've been feeling a bit discouraged about all of this. I'm not entirely sure what I might be doing wrong here? Or perhaps what I need to change, or what people would like to see more of here? Any and all ideas are very much welcome from you guys who still do frequent and contribute to this board (which I so greatly appreciate). I'm all ears at this point to sort of spark things back up in here... Thoughts and input would be much appreciated from you guys!
Sorry haven't been active lately. Working 70+ hours at my job and the rest at the new house. Havent traded at all lately with EQUIFAX being the only exception. The site is great and hopefully you don't get discouraged, haven't been on the other one since this one was born. Sadly 1 member felt the need to dictate everything so I signed out permanently...
