If I Were King of SCF... - CONTEST ENTRY

[TheTGB]

If I Were King Of Sports Card Forum...
by spoodini






I believe that many people are often afraid to answer these tough questions on what they would do if they were in charge of www.sportscardforum.com and would shy away from them. I, on the other hand, am not afraid because I know first hand how the staff on Sports Card Forum works and believe that my opinions may speak for others on the website. I would like to start by saying that if you agree or disagree with these opinions, please let that be known by posting in the comments section of this blog or on the thread that SCF will create for this article. The more feedback the site receives, the better it will become.


First, I want to say that I mean no disrespect towards anyone on the website, it's owner, nor it's staff members. I've been a member and staff member myself and understand a lot of things go on behind the scenes that regular members like myself do not see. But from a member's perspective who wants to see things better, I'm going to criticize what I do see and offer suggestions for improvement. I know people will take things personally so I will avoid naming names. This article choice was chosen for a reason, and that is to help SCF grow and improve upon itself. With that comes the opportunity for SCF to self-reflect and look towards a brighter future.


Let's start with some little things that can be quickly and easily improved. The first thing I notice when coming onto the website is the tabs for SCF News and product schedules. While the news has been updated frequently as of late, I would like to see the product schedules updated accordingly. Currently, as of April 10, 2011, these schedules have not been updated since November 2010. There has been countless products released since then. It would be beneficial to SCF to keep the members looking at the website for this information instead of browsing the web and other websites to find this information. The longer people stay on the website, the more ads they see, the more revenue that comes in that can improve the website. Moving on, there is a forum for charity auctions right at the top of the page and there hasn't been an auction since July of 2010. With the flurry of natural disasters recently, this forum just hasn't been used. If shown near the top it's going to be viewed quite a bit. If you want to show that you care for charities and have a specialized forum set up, use it. If I were to come to the site and seen this forum and then seen it hasn't been used, I would wonder why. I haven't seen a thread to take donations to be auctioned off for the floods in Australia, earthquake and tsunami in Japan, or the member emergency fund (if that is still active). Also at the top is our Twitter feed, it just doesn't get used as much as it should. The SCF Facebook is solid, but the Twitter feed is just as important as Twitter has grown. I think everything posted on the Facebook should be posted on the Twitter and even more considering Twitter is just an “update status” site. The use of hashtags and retweets could help grow the site. Lastly, on simple things, I miss seeing and knowing who is online at any given time. I understand the strain on the server but if there is any way that this can return I know it would make a lot of people happy. Finally, I believe SCF needs to make their official reviews more visible. Add them to the tabs at the front of the page or make it it's own forum near the top by the Announcements page. I'm sure the sponsors would absolutely love that and might send SCF some more stuff with more responses to their product!


Now I would like to discuss something that may cause people to hate me or try and get me banned from the website. I want to discuss the different sports areas and what I see that needs to be improved. First, I will start with the Football area. From a member perspective, I believe the football area to be the best run of all the areas. The activity in all the areas is great and the staff keep things entertaining with constant group breaks and contests. I know having the most popular sport on the website may be tough for these staffers, but I believe they handle their workload well as well as keeping members engaged. The only suggestion I have is to keep doing whatever you are doing and keep the members entertained during the lockout. I think more college football chat will keep things active until the NFL sorts out it's issues.


I'd like to move down to what I believe to be a close second, the hockey forums. Despite being the forgotten sport in America and on the website, this area is booming with activity with members from around the world. Their numbers are small, but their activity is top notch as these collectors are some of the most die-hard on the site. I would put them in the same league as the racing collectors. I don't frequent the racing forum frequently but I know they are obsessed with racing even though the number of collectors there is low as well. The only recommendation I would make for each of these areas is just to do their best to find more collectors. Find ways to promote the site and your areas specifically through contests, promotions, anything to get more people to join and check the site out. Maybe even crossover our current members to start collecting your sport. Your numbers will grow and make SCF as a whole a better place.


Moving on to basketball I would like to see more discussions in the card chat and sports chat area. The idea of posting the nationally televised games was a good one, but what about other NBA news? What's the injury status of Tim Duncan as reported by ESPN? Who is jockeying for playoff positioning? What product is coming out soon and opinions? The number of collectors and activity is there, I just get bored while browsing the basketball forums. Try starting some group breaks and get some more interest in the cards coming out.


Which leads me to the area that bores me the most and is what I primarily collect, baseball. I feel like baseball should be up there with football. The activity is there, there is no doubt about that. There are a ton of collectors, but it's lacking excitement. It's the same contests, never any group breaks, it seems like the same things day after day. I have seen some good discussion posts from members though but I'd like to see baseball use some of my same suggestions for basketball. Baseball used to be number one on SCF in terms of threads and posts. I know football is booming in popularity but with all the hot rookies in baseball and all the hot topics over the past couple seasons I don't see how it has fallen that far behind. They use the term potential when discussing rookies. Baseball has the potential of someone like Mike Stanton of the Florida Marlins. But right now it's pitching like an under performing Red Sox rotation.


The one thing I recommend to every one of the areas and I would implement again in a heartbeat is official sport trading nights. We have a chat room and a chat system that never gets used. Start doing your group breaks live on those chat nights on camera, you don't have to give out prizes if you can keep everyone entertained just for hanging out in the chat room. Hold live contests on nationally televised events for low end cards. There is so much you can do with the chat rooms that it is probably the coolest and most under-utilized part of the website.


I hate to call other areas “secondary” but I think they are doing a good job for what they do. The Other Sports area is getting huge with the increasing popularity of MMA and it seems Wrestling is gaining steam again. I think they would benefit from adding another mod or two that knows the sports and the cards. Maybe even move them to the front page or make their links clickable in the description of the other sports forum. These forums have more posts and threads then Vintage Trading and the site layout should reflect that.


Finally, I would like to end with how I would improve new members and reading the rules. There are a ton of rules, some people like that and some people don't. It's needed when people start complaining that there is nothing against doing something in the rules or someone who thinks they can do anything or say anything they want if it's not in the rules. However, new members who are polite and want to get started trading right away are probably put off by reading everything and I would estimate 90% don't read the rules before joining or after joining. I mean, who reads a Terms of Service agreement in full when they join a website? With that I recommend the New Member Test. Pass the test and something is gained. Card cash, a free pass when breaking a small rule, something to urge the members to read the rules and that they understand them. This could be given by someone on the New Member Team to those who were interested in winning something for passing the test. It would make reading the rules less of a chore and increase the number of members who read the rules when they join the website. If more members read the rules and understood them, the less work the moderators would have enforcing them. I know you can't keep track of all new members or get them all to message you so if it's possible I'd also make someone joining scroll through the rules and click “accept”. If this can be added, I also believe that it will be beneficial as people will not have an excuse that they “didn't know”.



In all, I love SCF, I really do. However, with that love comes my desire for the site to improve on the things I find to be flawed but easily fixed with some work by both the members and the staff. The members can learn to play and trade together while following the laws of the land so the staff can keep everyone entertained and having fun. The staff can work together to make it more exciting and fun for the members. If everyone worked together things could only go up from here and the sky is the limit for the best sports card site on the web. I just hope this opinion article helps open up some eyes on both sides as to what they would do to improve the site and I challenge everyone to voice their opinion on what they would do to make SCF a better place online to trade.

[troygoesdeep]

k.

[andrewhoya]

If more members read the rules and understood them, the less work the moderators would have enforcing them.

Yes, it would lessen moderators hassles, but what about the New Member team? Think of all those tests they would have to send out, grade, etc.

I agree with some of your other ideas, though.

[TheTGB]

Just ideas. Throwing them all out there. But getting people thinking is the beginning.

[spuds1961]

The reason the baseball area may be lacking is that it has only 5 mods while the other areas have more,also baseball is no longer nor has been the number one american sport for years,football also has alot more going for it,as the lockout also leads to discussion,whether it be negative or positive.Spoodini,you were staff at one time,if you think baseball is lacking so much come back join the baseball staff and help us fix it.I do like your constructive criticism and I feel you have some good ideas.As far as the baseball forums go you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink,I've tried some contests and I've written articles and if you haven't noticed everytime I break a box whether it be hobby or cheap retail it always gets listed.I think part of the major problem with the baseball forum is it is the most exposed sport on espn and other sports networks,so by the time we the baseball staff report on something everybody has already seen it or knows about it.I also feel that our members could help us out by being a little more active,as I've noticed in alot of my breaks 80 views with no replies,how hard is it to type sorry man that break sucked or wow cool insert something would be better than nothing.I will hop on your suggestions and try and give some new product reviews and tell people about what they can expect in any box I may purchase,also it's a very busy time for me work wise working for an ambulance company in Mississippi,and as you can probably tell by the news reports sportscards are not a top priority right now.

[Pheebs888]

published article here: https://www.sportscardforum.com/artic...ts-card-forum/

[TheTGB]

The reason the baseball area may be lacking is that it has only 5 mods while the other areas have more,also baseball is no longer nor has been the number one american sport for years,football also has alot more going for it,as the lockout also leads to discussion,whether it be negative or positive.Spoodini,you were staff at one time,if you think baseball is lacking so much come back join the baseball staff and help us fix it.I do like your constructive criticism and I feel you have some good ideas.As far as the baseball forums go you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink,I've tried some contests and I've written articles and if you haven't noticed everytime I break a box whether it be hobby or cheap retail it always gets listed.I think part of the major problem with the baseball forum is it is the most exposed sport on espn and other sports networks,so by the time we the baseball staff report on something everybody has already seen it or knows about it.I also feel that our members could help us out by being a little more active,as I've noticed in alot of my breaks 80 views with no replies,how hard is it to type sorry man that break sucked or wow cool insert something would be better than nothing.I will hop on your suggestions and try and give some new product reviews and tell people about what they can expect in any box I may purchase,also it's a very busy time for me work wise working for an ambulance company in Mississippi,and as you can probably tell by the news reports sportscards are not a top priority right now.

I wasn't sure if I was to respond here or not, but it's probably better I do.

I do not believe the number of mods has a lot to do with activity in the baseball area. I do agree that baseball's numbers are not the same as other sports anymore as football has definitely turned into America's sport and baseball has turned into a sham with the steroid era. I see the things you guys do, but it's also the same things other sports do. Other sports also do more things to get members motivated as well. I understand the fact it is exposed on ESPN, but isn't football almost more exposed during football season? The football forum is booming during football season. We're a month into baseball season and it has picked up a little bit, but as you said, it looks like not many people are posting. Are baseball forum people shy? Bring up a controversial topic to get them posting! I also think that a lot of baseball people use several sites as baseball cards are still, in my opinion, more popular then any other sport. Reviews or previews would work great to get people chatting about things in sports cards. And don't worry about where your time is delegated, obviously the southeast is going through a difficult time. That's where your team members should be picking you up and helping out. I'm not trying to call anyone out, but I don't see many people from the baseball team posting besides about two of you. I'm just calling it like I see it, not meaning to offend anyone. I understand they could be busy in real life, even when I was on staff I would go away for a little bit and recharge. Maybe it's just time for some new blood on the baseball team? Actively search for some MITs? Go bug Andrew? (lol)

As for me coming back on staff to help baseball, I've thought about it. But I'm not sure some people on baseball staff would enjoy me there, lol. Especially if they get to read this. :P Plus I'm working on other projects while trying to find a full time job (still!). I wouldn't want to do it unless I was ready for 100% of the work and I've been happy not worrying about doing staff stuff. That's why I'm giving my opinion on the site. I let someone high on staff know a few months ago and have seen some positive changes, but then this article idea came up and I thought I'd add in some more that maybe haven't been done yet or things that have gotten worse since. Baseball was in it's glory days here on SCF when I first started trading here back in 2005. That's the one part of the site I miss being active and strong so that is why I kind of rode that forum kind of hard.

Thanks for the response on that bud.

[andrewhoya]

Nevermind

[TheTGB]

andrewcstein, sorry.

[Paintball]

I don't know if I should butt into this discussion or not, but I find the claim that baseball fans seem to be in some way less active then football fans on this site very wrong. Let's face it, the main focus of this site is providing a place for card collectors to bring their boxes of cards they want to trade and finding other collectors doing the same thing. I find the baseball trading threads just as active, if not more so, then the football, basketball, and hocky trading threads. Baseball just has a different type of fan then these other sports and doesn't lend itself to instant gratification by both the fans and the card collectors. Baseball season is a long season, great players have long careers, and the fans follow the games,season, teams, and players with a kind of quiet reverance and hope. We might not say much or give our opinions very often, but we are very much out there and are big, big fans of the game. In my humble opinion baseball is still the game of life.