My local community website - an outsiders view

In response to this thread on Sydenham Town Forum http://bit.ly/r1U4XN

I have lived in Sydenham for nearly 9 years and first discovered the Sydenham.org.uk  website a few years ago. Even though I’ve lived in the area for the best part of a decade, work has meant that there has been little time left to investigate my local area.  So when my lifestyle changed a little I was at first a reasonably regular visitor to the site, taking an interest in local developments, community events etc etc. I often perused the forums and on a couple of occasions found useful recommendations for tradesmen. I was really keen to try and get to know my local area better.  

But more recently, I’ve become less inclined to look at the site. Although it is intended as a forum, rather than a “news” site, the fact that it has a news section, history, info etc is an added bonus. But if you are going to carry those sorts of pages, then the news should be up to date and the other pages should be updated, kept fresh, new information added. Otherwise there’s little point.

But I digress. Going back to the forum. I agree with what some of the posters say about some of the other regulars: whilst most are interesting, mildly amusing and have something constructive to offer, others are aggressive and bordering on offensive. Personally, I don’t tend to get easily offended and take what people say with a pinch of salt (or give the benefit of the doubt to a sarcastic side which hasn’t come across in electronic format). That said, I’d rather not get embroiled in those types of debates and so have never got involved with the forum. I spend enough time on other forms of social media as it is, both for personal enjoyment and for work purposes.

I’m such a late comer to the site – I understand it’s been going for years, will have had its own agenda which no doubt has changed over that time, and the regulars enjoy using it for what it is. From an outsider’s point of view I think you could entice more new people not by radically changing the forum – but by revisiting the rest of the site. How about updating the news pages, with details of upcoming events for example. Yes, these can be announced in forum posts, but surely those posts are more about discussion, debate, sharing of ideas and information. Specific announcements are one off statements (which can always be followed up in the forum of course). A recent example: I live close to Mayow Park (the Silverdale side) – I understand there was an open air showing of The Italian Job last week. I knew nothing about this (even though I’d recently been on the site) and only found out about it by overhearing 2 people on the train home who were part of the organisation. Maybe there was something lurking about on the site – but as forum posts work on a “real-time” basis and many don’t have time to go digging about, that type of thing can be easy to miss. I liked Tim’s recent post on the playscape opening in Mayow park – but I probably would never have seen it without him posting the link on this thread (which incidentally I came across on Twitter).

By small developments to the site, just to keep it fresh and relevant (without turning it into a full-blown news website) you will entice more passive users to the forums – hopefully getting them engaged as more active users. I’m not proposing that it would need to compete in the same way as some of the other community sites out there, but if you want to mix it up a bit, get some new blood in and hopefully create a greater collective voice against all those proposed train timetable changes, shocking redevelopments or introduction of permit parking, or just getting more people involved in local events, then making it an overall more user-friendly site would be a good start.

There is definitely still an argument for still having forums such of this, as opposed to traditional media, blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc. But whether you’re a local site or a multinational organisation, someone somewhere still has to make a decision about what the site is trying to achieve and make it work to the best of its ability within that remit. So if the intention is to just be a forum, get rid of the other stuff (out-of-date info doesn’t appeal to anyone) and stick to the formula already in place.

I initially intended to post this on the Sydenham Town Forum itself - however I feel I've droned on a bit, gone a little off track and will probably be accused of sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but if I bring myself to voice my opinion on something, I guess I must be at the very least passionate about it. Bring it on I say!