by Route42 » April 10th, 2016, 1:35 pm
I don't know if it's possible for the forums to return to the "glory days" of WMM--the Internet in general has been moving away from the standard message board as a way of interacting. The shift right now seems to be to Facebook groups, subreddits, and Tumblr-style blogs/Chan-type boards. And being that I'm not a youth anymore (alas... is there a file for that?? Answer, yes, yes there is) I may still be behind the times on what the hip are using.
More important, I think, is trying to get more people to vote on files and comment on them. Right now, for most files, the only gauge we have is the # of downloads since most users aren't bothering to rate. That could be due to downloading and not listening (or waiting long enough that they may not even be sure what file it is they're listening to), but is more likely that they're not quite sure how to give a star rating to something like hypnosis. Is it fair to listen to a file, not like it, and rate it one or two stars? Because maybe it's just not your thing and is actually pretty good. Is it fair to listen to a file regularly for a couple of months, see nothing from it, and rate it one or two stars? Because maybe it's just not a topic your subconscious mind is willing to accept. Or maybe you are seeing effects and aren't even aware of them. The lack of ratings/comments for most files is understandable, but also frustrating as a user.
It's easy, I think, for a new visitor to the site to get overwhelmed by the raw number of files that can be downloaded. There are over 6,500 files (equaling 134 pages) available. And, if we're being honest, a good number of those are crap. But when good files and bad files have 0 ratings, it can be discouraging for the new user who hasn't learned to filter out certain, ahem, uploaders. So maybe one option would be a curated list to pull out the notable files and hypnotists for easy perusal--something for the new users, casual users, and anyone interested in browsing a variety of topics at once without actually diving into the full file list cesspool and place to go.
(I recognize that the logistics of such a thing probably falls under the category of "Too Much", but I'm just shooting from the hip here.)