TalkFreelance Just Isn't The Same

They deleted my post HAHAHA~

My name is james and i am 16 from the uk and i have been a member of this forum for about a month now and i have seen it change a bit since i started here. There are certain people that keep making great designs and no one buys them. So i think what is the point in designing. Then i see on other forums were some one have made a rubbish design and it sells for $80-$150. I cant seem to see why. ( i know not all of us has loads of money but every thing seems to only sell for $50 or less on here.)

I hope the forum gets better and there is a new part to the forum that makes it much better, like a tutorial section were people post tutorials on how to make things or code things. eg like how to make hover buttons or some thing like that.

Also i think that it would be great if the admin came up with some competitions were you could win something (like a template or a design that some one donated say).

Most of the new members just come here to sell one design and go again which annoys me. coz they just span the first five and when they get the five they go strait to the marketplace I think they should ever have to post much more or something else but my brain has stopped working and i cant think lol.

These are only my opinions and i want to see what you lot thought about them.

Forums are not really build on Contests, however the quality of Articles and Posts. It's member interaction has a lot to do with it, thus new members wanting to come, and do the same, mingle with the rest.

I could possibly tell you, if the Marketplace would be suspended for a couple of weeks, people would slowly decline. Their are a few old skoool ( ) members that post a heck of alot more, quality posts and quantity wise, than new ones; this includes me.

Move the marketplace down... Let's face it, it's a joke. Hardly anything decent sells here, and it just doesn't encourage people visiting the site that some random proxy is being sold for 10$.

Move up the discussion forums & maybe up the design critique aswell, they used to be very popular forums but by moving them down, nothing interesting happens. If you put the forums that used to be best down, where nobody goes (I hardly doubt new members scroll all the way down to partake in a discussion), there will obviously be lesser (interesting) posts.

Personally since my time at TF, things have changed dramatically. No offence to Zee or anything, because from the time I became a part of staff and getting to know Zee more he is a really good guy, but like Anthony said Robson made running this forum his full time priority and made sure things were right.

I think TF is heading down a lane it shouldn't be going down and I think if everyone joins in and does there job, I believe it could become yet another level higher in relation to web development forums.

I will put my all into trying to make this forum one of the best as this was the forum were I really started to make a name for myself and were I learned the skills I have, so I want to give TF something in return for doing so.

Regards

I'm humbly confident the community much appreciates all the input from us caring members. From what I have seen, the entire community feels that there are many key ingredients missing from the forum. More specifically, high quality articles that serve to educate and inform fellow freelancers. Undeniably, every single one of us have much to learn, but I can honestly say that in the past 10 months or so, I have not learnt a single thing freelance wise from TFL. This community, like other communities, should be a community flourishing with educational posts of members informing members. Brothers helping brothers, and all that.

It's quite clear from me putting my neck on the line with being unsure of the reaction I'd get, that the people who have contributed up to now are aligned with my feeling that Big Zee simply doesn't have the enthusiasm there to sustain this once thriving community. I do not know Big Zee's intentions when he took over the forum, but I feel maintaining the glory days were not a high priority - for whatever reason.

Consequently, if changes are going to come about where we can inject life back into the old dog, then changes are going to have to come about. I admire people who say they are going to contribute to the community with articles, but in the reality of it all, and speaking for myself as well, we are all very busy individuals. Being a freelancer and perhaps an entrepreneur is not so simple as working 9-5 and collecting an inevitable pay cheque. I feel to bring the community together, new and old members alike, requires the introduction of rewards. Much like a treats for dogs resulting from good behaviour. That in itself will give members back rewards for contributing to a community that has long been regressing.

With all the forums out there that are flourishing, TFL is in desperate need for that instillment of vivaciousness that is quite self-evident from past history, achievable. However, the only way to achieve these goals are by rethinking the core of TFL. Without it banality will dominate and members will be depleted.

I'll likely post a more thorough response to this topic later but I would just like to throw something out in the open before people continue with the "Big Zee this, Big Zee that."

We can contribute articles, topics, posts -- things of interest -- ourselves without the involvement of Zee or the staff (the latter will hopefully help guide our input). Just because there is no central figure to head the community, at the moment, is no excuse for not doing the things that we can do without that 'leader'. I'm fairly sure that every single one of the regular members here, and many more besides, could write one article, tutorial, overview, something within the realm that this forum covers. If only a percentage of us actually get something down and published that would be a huge and extremely valuable asset to the community -- without the involvement of the big guy at the top.

The point is though that people simply would not do that. In fact, I think only the individuals who had something to gain would. There is no way a forum will be sustained through article writing by itself because freelancing is a job that takes up a lot of time. I for one would not write articles, even for TFL, if I wasn't getting something in return. DigitalPoint, although I dislike the community, share their AdSense revenue. We ourselves should not exert ourselves and see the money drop into the hands of Big Zee, who incidentally seems non-committed to the amelioration of the community, because a community is made up of all those members who contribute things to it, it's not made up of one man at the top hoarding the pittance the website makes.

It'll come as no surprise that TFL doesn't earn that much any more to offer a monetary reward, and therefore I propose rewards where users can earn points to highlight threads, stick threads, and other means for their contributions. That way you're giving individuals something back to make them feel grateful for their contributions. If you simply wish to go down the route of writing articles, then you're not going to get any takers, and even the takers you do get, I expect, would be short-lived.

This is a question of changing the core. Various things are obviously missing on TFL. The community has seriously decreased in quality and worth since Big Zee purchased it all those months ago. I would even seriously consider some drastic changes to the marketplace - because as someone's mentioned previously in this thread, the marketplace is prevalent with, in absence of a better word, rubbish. Although we do know that one person's junk is another person's treasure so I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing.

If something is not done soon then I'm afraid this community is merely going to flutter away into migration until someone who knows what they're doing steps up and says, "Hey! This once flourishing community, it's been left to gather dust, but this is what we're going to do: ......"

If the community offered more incentives, I'm sure there would be more action.
There's been many insightful posts in this topic, but let's see something done. Why doesn't every member who reads my post start a meaningful topic in a section other than General Discussion, or give some truly meaningful criticism to someone in the Gallery Showcase... or share some of your good knowledge with the rest of us.

I'll be the first to admit to my inactivity, I do however lurk around, reading the posts. I've read every post in this topic, and I have to say its brought back some memories. TalkFreelance has had some great times, Robson's Christmas competitions had everyone participating, everyone wanting to win a prize. Back then this was a real community, everyone was happy. Something I specifically remember, a member was lacking enough funds to purchase gifts for his family, and Robson organized a small fund for him, and those who donated received linkbacks from the homepage (or whatever it was). My point is not about how truthful that member was, we'll never know, but it was sure a good community gesture.

Community gesture. When was the last time we had that? When was the last time everyone had something positive to say? Lately TalkFreelance has been based around arguments and a full sin-bin.

I haven't used any big words, or made this post sound credible, or whatever. This is coming directly from my view on the situation. I believe your action will fight the troubles. Just remember this before stirring up conflict:

Think before you bicker, and be polite as much as you can. Someone hijacks a marketplace thread of yours? Report it. Someone makes an illogical post in your sale thread? Report it, or simply PM a moderator who's online, we'll check it out and deem it appropriate or not. Someone's actions are way out of line? Again, report it or PM a moderator. These are just three simple examples of taking 'silently loud' action and not turning the thread into a mess.

Take a look at this:
http://www.talkfreelance.com/showthr...295#post400295

I spent around 15 minutes coming up with all of this, and to my best knowledge my words will help change the design for the better. Even if they don't, and true critique happens more often, members like Jakob will have more incentive to post in the gallery with their work. Again, just a small example, but 20 of these small examples and we're already progressing.

I also call upon Big Zee to be here for this community more often. I have to say the staff members are creative people and have ideas too, ideas which could definitely benefit the community. With Big Zee being offline every weekend and minimally online working on TalkFreelance over the weekdays, it doesn't give us much leniency to do things. Things that TF would benefit from. There's the initial "OK I like this idea" process, which goes on for anywhere from a week to a year. Once that's done, there's the permissions and information phase, which is a simple exchange of information or temporary upgrade of permissions to implement the OK'd change. This usually takes up to even a week or two, and that's only if the idea has been OK'd. My point is, we haven't easy access to the man who calls the shots, which gives me no incentive to even bring up an idea I may have.

Anyway, I feel like I need to end this somehow. So here's what I'll say: My comments on this matter call for action, action from the members and the staff, and the owner. We need to produce more incentives, and we're all capable of doing this. No one is expected to pump out articles, but I hope a small effort to keeping things peaceful by the members will only do us good. I also think the staff should come together with a bundle of ideas, and hopefully present them to Big Zee on day and have the best ones done. And, that's it.

I'm quite a new member, but I will say (and please don't take this the wrong way) that the management of this site is poor, and rarely do we see updates. As mentioned prior to my post, everything seems to take a lot longer than normal with this forum, eg the JS popup window and the news section. Why even go live without sorting this kind of thing out? Good forums generally have frequent updates (big or small) that keep the members talking, excited, proud to be moving on.

The delay on the skin created a lot of anger towards the site I feel. The wait was so long that it was nearly digged at in every post. Had the management decided to keep a skin release subtle and not make too much fuss, imagine how delighted some people would have been to just see one go live. That would be the exact reverse to what has happened.

Forum activity is also a huge downfall, without the posts the forum is nothing. Some people in this thread have pointed out that quality articles and posts are needed, but I suggest the number of people seeking knowledge far outweighs the number of people with the knowledge. Many of us are still on a learning curve.

We need someone to take over the forum that is passionate about it, someone who's not in it for the money. I have yet to see Zee come here and defend himself. Clearly he doesn't have time for this forum, it's too big a roll for him to take on.