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The Boards are in trouble

gkm

By gkm,
in Celebrity Cruises

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gkm

gkm

Posted
Posted

Laura, Walt, Anne, please tell us what's going on with the boards. This is terrible! You're going to start losing people if this kind of service continues. New people aren't going to post because the boards are too slow. We try to get on the boards and it's slow. After we FINALLY get there, we can't read/write to it because it's TO SLOW. I think I'm speaking for most of your loyal members, and we can't even read the different threads! It takes too long. I try to go to my roll calls and my favorite ones and I have to keep trying and trying to get it to open. When I finally get in, and find something I want to respond to, sometimes it's impossible. I am finding that I finally give up in frustration and go to something else.

 

I think it would be good if you at least told us what the problem is and what the solution will be. The previous excuse doesn't hold water. I've looked at who's on the board, and the times that this is happening, and it's now ALL THE TIME. I don't think that volume is the problem. Maybe we need to go back to info-poop. It might have been a little slower, but nothing like this!

 

Garry

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newtocc

newtocc

Posted
Posted

Garry, I totally agree, I spend seconds and seconds of my life thinking up my inovative responses that serve no purpose at all, but when they don't post, I bumm for minutes and minutes, if you add it all up, I'm loosing seconds and seconds and minutes and minutes, so far I've lost an hour and a half, I want it back! I make 4700 dollars an hour, Laura, where do I send the bill?

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Host Anne "Live from...." Rare

Host Anne

Posted
Posted

Garry et al ~ I'm sorry I don't have answers for you. I'm experiencing the same challenges. I've sent a note to Laura and asked for an update. I know it's frustrating but I hope you'll hang in there.

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Host Walt

Host Walt

Posted
Posted
... I make 4700 dollars an hour, Laura, where do I send the bill?
Is that all? Seems like this is petty cash for you Newt.

 

In any case, expect an update tomorrow. No, not a check :rolleyes: , just an update.

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bob278

bob278

Posted
Posted

I know this has to be very frustrating for Laura and she has patiently replied to many posts. But if the problem relates to volume, then it simply isn't going to get better unless the owners invest more money.

 

I've thought about starting a poll to see if people would be willing to pay a small fee ($10/yr?) if it would guarantee that the boards would always act like they do in their good moments (lately those have been all too few). I'd pay it in a heartbeat. I just don't know where that poll should go. Wonder what one forum everybody goes to?

 

I love what these boards can be, but I absolutely hate what they are a lot of the time lately. It's kinda tough to complain about something that is free. But if it doesn't work well, it isn't much of a bargain, even at that price.

 

Over 100,000 members. If only 75% were willing to pay $10, that'd be $750,000. Ought to be able to get some serious server upgrades for that. Hey, maybe it would cut out some of the advertising and we could name names!

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raudacruise

raudacruise

Posted
Posted

If traffic is increasing the owners of the board should be able to get more from their advertisers. If cruisecritic starts charging a fee, it will be the main source of income for them because advertisers will walk away.

 

Laura have you thought about a permanent solution to this problem? There are a lot of us "nerds" out here that can offer advice.

 

This current thing is no more stable (and maybe less) than infopoop.

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turtlemichael

turtlemichael

Posted
Posted

Bob

 

I may be wrong but as far as I can tell the business the board is in is that of providing a targetted market to which the cruise industry can advertise. The owners appear to draw their income from this resource. If there are no participants they can't sell their advertising.

 

If there were a fee to participate that would clearly, but to what extent who knows, reduce the number of participants. Those that remain would not be a better quality cruising market, just those who are really interested to particpate in he boards. I therefore think that any business would need to look carefully and do the sums before they introduced a fee.

 

Of course, if the boards don't work there is less participation anyway and so that's the area I think they should be addressing their attentions. I am sure that at least those employees in the cruise lines marketing departments who spend the advertisng dollars would be looking at the boards to see what sort of return on investment they provide and would thus be aware of the problems and complaints. Hopefully they will also bring pressure on the board owners to fix the problem. :confused:

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catmand

catmand

Posted
Posted

I thought it was a volume problem, have cable and have major problems with the boards it seems from about 3 pm on CAlifornia time, it's all you east coasters getting home from work. I am usually up around 2-3am my time and never have had speed problems. Oh yes, good morning!

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bandit0000

bandit0000

Posted
Posted
Garry, I totally agree, I spend seconds and seconds of my life thinking up my inovative responses that serve no purpose at all, but when they don't post, I bumm for minutes and minutes, if you add it all up, I'm loosing seconds and seconds and minutes and minutes, so far I've lost an hour and a half, I want it back! I make 4700 dollars an hour, Laura, where do I send the bill?

 

f this is what you earn, I want to marry you, you could keep me in the style I have come accostomed to lol;)

Cheers,

lisa

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tbelian

tbelian

Posted
Posted
This is terrible! You're going to start losing people if this kind of service continues.

 

Absolutely!... where is the compensation?! ... I think a free cruise is in order, or, at the very least, a free upgrade.

 

Oh, wait, we are talking about the boards, not the cruise ships .... oops.

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bob278

bob278

Posted
Posted

I'm not convinced it is as simple as volume because the problems vary so much. We have cable at home and I use utilities to verify my download speed. I am consistently in the 2.8-3.0 MB range whether the boards are slow or fast. I have had both great experience and lousy response at just about any time of the day. (OK, I don't think I've ever been on the boards between 2:00 -6:00 AM Eastern time, but have been at some point in almost every other hour of the day.)

 

The volume issue was raised by Laura and that's why I said if it's volume related, it won't get better by itself. Michael, I understand that this forum is supported by cruise related businesses and they have a vested interest in having many members who will see their ads. But if the performance suffers, people will leave. I wonder if more people would leave if the performance remains so unpredictable than would depart because they were upset over a small fee.

 

While I would much rather the boards remain free and keep the performance up, I don't see anything wrong if we had a small fee. The key word is "small". In order to support what we'd all like to have, I'm sure it requires a significant investment and I wouldn't want to pay the entire cost off of fees. But having the advertisers pay the bulk would still keep this pretty cheap to us. I think all parties could benefit. The advertisers get the audience they want, we keep the relationships going and the owners make money.

 

We have an emotional investment here that I would hate to lose. I check two or three other cruise boards (both commercial and non-commercial) and, while a few of the same people are also on them, it isn't the same. There is far less traffic (it goes fast, but there isn't that much information or give-and-take) so it would take a long time to get one of them built up to the level we have here. I'd like to see the CC folks take steps to make leaving unnecessary. It would be "foolish" not to. ;)

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idssms

idssms

Posted
Posted

I tried for about 20 minutes an hour ago to get on from Explorer. It just got me frustrated so I went back to another Auto website.

 

The next time I tired (just now) it got on in a milli second. I have fast cable modem so its not my modem speed.

 

In the past month its been very difficult for me to get on this board at certain times.

 

Although I am in favor of a monthly fee of say $10, I dont think the majority of cruisers using this board would pay for various reasons. But as long as I am guaranteed less frustration with logging on and going to subscribed threads it would be more than worth it to me.

 

Laura, If you decide to charge by the month or year, thats fine with me but nothing more than $10 per month which is fair to me based on other sites that I am subscribed to, Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, (some unmentionable sites), etc.

 

Florida-Man Don

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gkm

gkm

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I personally don't think charging would work or is the answer. I don't think newbies would come on board because they wouldn't realize what a great place this is. I also think that a good many of the people who now use the boards wouldn't if they had to pay a fee. We have brand new people on our roll call and if they had had to pay I don't think they would have posted.

 

Garry

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