Our community and forums

[rocketdoctor]

This is bugging me.

 

We are losing good people and probably due to that stupid forum link.

 

How hard is it for the controllers of an NHL team site to change the link to the forums?   Or do they want to?

 

TD as Mod I am guessing you have no control over it.   Peepz as admin can you do anything or know someone that does?

 

Also is it possible we can invite people back by sending them a generic email from the forum database?  It would be great to get these boards buzzing again.  And let's face it JJ's schtick is getting old (joking, sarcasm etc) but it is better than nothing!!!

 

[travel_dude]

I'm not really sure how to get people back.

The website change was impossible for me to resolve for my own log in.

Had to email Peeps' personal email to get it resolved.

 

Saying that, the reality is that people come and go.

Some come in now and then.

Whether they get ticked off or have other things going on in their lives is unknown.

A few have really busy work schedules.

Carty is unavailable right now.

Deeds comes on now and then.

Same with Kehatch.

Cross hasn't been in since the change.

There's about 12 people on the Flames pool that regular's post, just not very often.

[rocketdoctor]

We need more people TD our GDT threads are full of 2-3 people.

 

and that stupid link is not helping matters.

 

We need a recruitment drive.

[The_People1]

Sorry I wasn't aware the link from the main site was broken.  The Flames website team just leaves us alone. Unfortunately quite literally.  I'll get in touch with them.

 

I'd like to see more people around here too.

[travel_dude]

Just now, The_People1 said:

Sorry I wasn't aware the link from the main site was broken.  The Flames website team just leaves us alone. Unfortunately quite literally.  I'll get in touch with them.

 

I'd like to see more people around here too.

 

If you try to get to it from the top navigation bar, under Fans and message boards, you get a message that the page isn't found.

On that page, if you click on Browse, you get the right page.

 

I suspect there are a few that encountered the same issue as me, where it wouldn't allow me to log in.

Said something like the security page was wrong.

You managed to fix my account, but that was by email between us.

 

Some had no issue whatsoever getting back in.

I don't know if users still have issues.

Cross hasn't been on since.

But it's hard to tell, as we have people that come and go.

 

[LouCifer]

I had the same issue with the link from the flames site (fans > message board). My bookmarked link failed (of course). And I got back on by accidentally clicking the browse link or something… that’s how I got back here. But the link on the main flames page needs to be fixed. 

[420since1974]

I'm still having an issue logging in.

When I try to access the message board from the nhl.com/flames navigation bar (fans), I get the following message:

Sorry

The page you requested does not exist

Contact us

I am then forced to sign out, then re-sign back in for access to this board.

It's only a few extra clicks, but seems totally unnecessary.

[conundrumed]

15 hours ago, The_People1 said:

Sorry I wasn't aware the link from the main site was broken.  The Flames website team just leaves us alone. Unfortunately quite literally.  I'll get in touch with them.

 

I'd like to see more people around here too.

Even to just google, "flames forum", this site doesn't come up in the search results.

[jjgallow]

21 hours ago, rocketdoctor said:

This is bugging me.

 

We are losing good people and probably due to that stupid forum link.

 

How hard is it for the controllers of an NHL team site to change the link to the forums?   Or do they want to?

 

TD as Mod I am guessing you have no control over it.   Peepz as admin can you do anything or know someone that does?

 

Also is it possible we can invite people back by sending them a generic email from the forum database?  It would be great to get these boards buzzing again.  And let's face it JJ's schtick is getting old (joking, sarcasm etc) but it is better than nothing!!!

 

 

 

I thought I'd give you all a break during the regular season so we can all just enjoy hockey but if you need me to come in here and annoy people I'll definitely do my part.

[jjgallow]

21 hours ago, travel_dude said:

I'm not really sure how to get people back.

The website change was impossible for me to resolve for my own log in.

Had to email Peeps' personal email to get it resolved.

 

First of all I think we all need to thank the mods for doing a very good job for free of keeping this forum running, which is my #1 vice and stress reliever.

 

Some humble suggestions on some things that may help:

 

1.  The links (obviously).   The links are an issue.  If you can't find the forum there's not going to be a lot of new or even existing users.
      

       But to be more helpful, if the website team needs to be approached, and we Really want to get this going like it was back in the "old" days,

       The message boards need to be One click away.  They need their own button on the header menu, rather than being a sub-menu.

             But yes, just...broken links in general need to be fixed.

 

2.   Backwards Compatibility - for SEO and navigation.   
      I actually like the new url structure much better, but both links need to work for some time until google has it sorted with its AI.

            https://community.fans.flames.nhl.com/    is much better than
            https://fans.flames.nhl.com/community

 

            But the website team could do us a huge favour by putting a fowarding page rule into cloudflare or whatever they are using so that both links work.

 

            BTW, for SEO,    https://forum.calgaryflames.com   really would have been the way, or as close to this as they could get.

 

3.    Less  private threads, more public threads.     

        Think of it this way, our biggest user and promoter is google AI.

        The vast majority of this site right now is set to private threads and can only be viewed when logged in.

        This is creating massive search penalties, the Flames forum barely comes up in a google search and that doesn't work in 2021

        Nearly all threads should be public.   We are missing out on 1000's of searches every day.   I understand that comes with some risk.    

         Be brave, be bold.

 

4.     Keep the data and history.    The archiving and pruning/deletions are also causing massive SEO penalties.

             From a personal perspective, it is of course annoying when I put time and effort into my drivel but I know it's going to get pruned/archived.

            From an SEO perspective, it's suicide to have dead/pruned/private/deleted threads.

 

            The goal is content.  This is how you win.      The Flames fourm has more history and content than any other competitor.
                                           But for some reason, it's been archived/locked/deleted/pruned.
                                   Disk space is cheap in 2021.   The website team should utilize every last bit of content we have.

                                   I would even go as far as to suggest restoring old data.   but that is a bit of work.

 

5.  Configure SEO, get SEO plugins.     

          Clearly hasn't been done, should be done.
     An example, the URL to this post is 
        community.fans.flames.nhl.com/topic/23290-our-community-and-forums/#comment-860600
       A good SEO plugin will incorporate the title of the post, and tags, and will allow the thread to be found in google.

 

 

6.   The logins.     Since the NHL.com integrated authentication with this forum, user registration and login is no longer intuitive.

                        I would suggest improvements but maybe that isn't realistic.
                        Possibly an attainable goal would be to make a public sticky post with instructions to help users get logged in and solve common problems.

 

 

This forum should, by rights, be the largest flames forum anywhere and I do think we have the right people for it.

 

Flames are definitely showing that they specialise in hockey, and not website management, and, ultimately, that's probably for the best.

 

 

If it really came down to it, we could come together, I'd be willing to help, and put a proposal back to the Flames on how to grow the forum.
            Obviously either more control over the site is needed, or more engagement with the team is needed.   
            An action plan could be put forward with proposed benefits in doing so.

         

right, back to real life for a bit.

[conundrumed]

17 minutes ago, jjgallow said:

 

 

I thought I'd give you all a break during the regular season so we can all just enjoy hockey but if you need me to come in here and annoy people I'll definitely do my part.

Don't give yourself too much credit jj, we all know that you're being contrary and actually love everything that you speak against.

We know that you know Pelletier is a very good prospect and hasn't hit his ceiling, you just don't want to curse it.

So you raise up a different prospect to keep your excitement low key.

[rocketdoctor]

30 minutes ago, jjgallow said:

 

 

I thought I'd give you all a break during the regular season so we can all just enjoy hockey but if you need me to come in here and annoy people I'll definitely do my part.

 

Glad you took in the light hearted way it was meant JJ.

[rocketdoctor]

 

JJ some of what you posted went over my head but I get the gist.

 

Peepz is the guy to talk I think so I will leave it in your obviously far more capable hands!!

 

It would be really good to get this place buzzing again.

[conundrumed]

2 minutes ago, rocketdoctor said:

 

Glad you took in the light hearted way it was meant JJ.

From the make-believe vision of jj that I have formed in my cyber-friend mind, I doubt he would.

I think he's one of the funnest posters, you can't fault convictions, real or imagined. He'll always have a comeback.

Love that about him. Posters will even get mad at him, he stays the course and stays level.

He's without a doubt a smart guy.

I miss when he isn't posting. He gets reaction. That's the whole point.

What's the saying? Even a broken clock is right twice a day.lol

Would be nice if he had input on how the forum runs. No doubt it's in his field of expertise.

[robrob74]

18 hours ago, travel_dude said:

 

If you try to get to it from the top navigation bar, under Fans and message boards, you get a message that the page isn't found.

On that page, if you click on Browse, you get the right page.

 

I suspect there are a few that encountered the same issue as me, where it wouldn't allow me to log in.

Said something like the security page was wrong.

You managed to fix my account, but that was by email between us.

 

Some had no issue whatsoever getting back in.

I don't know if users still have issues.

Cross hasn't been on since.

But it's hard to tell, as we have people that come and go.

 

I can’t remember how I got back on. I might have had to delete cookies or my caches or something like that so the memory wouldn’t go back to the parts where it was unavailable. And maybe I had to renew a password. But I thought the site was done for. 
 

I wonder if they’d warn you if they were shutting  it down 

[robrob74]

41 minutes ago, jjgallow said:

 

First of all I think we all need to thank the mods for doing a very good job for free of keeping this forum running, which is my #1 vice and stress reliever.

 

Some humble suggestions on some things that may help:

 

1.  The links (obviously).   The links are an issue.  If you can't find the forum there's not going to be a lot of new or even existing users.
      

       But to be more helpful, if the website team needs to be approached, and we Really want to get this going like it was back in the "old" days,

       The message boards need to be One click away.  They need their own button on the header menu, rather than being a sub-menu.

             But yes, just...broken links in general need to be fixed.

 

2.   Backwards Compatibility - for SEO and navigation.   
      I actually like the new url structure much better, but both links need to work for some time until google has it sorted with its AI.

            https://community.fans.flames.nhl.com/    is much better than
            https://fans.flames.nhl.com/community

 

            But the website team could do us a huge favour by putting a fowarding page rule into cloudflare or whatever they are using so that both links work.

 

            BTW, for SEO,    https://forum.calgaryflames.com   really would have been the way, or as close to this as they could get.

 

3.    Less  private threads, more public threads.     

        Think of it this way, our biggest user and promoter is google AI.

        The vast majority of this site right now is set to private threads and can only be viewed when logged in.

        This is creating massive search penalties, the Flames forum barely comes up in a google search and that doesn't work in 2021

        Nearly all threads should be public.   We are missing out on 1000's of searches every day.   I understand that comes with some risk.    

         Be brave, be bold.

 

4.     Keep the data and history.    The archiving and pruning/deletions are also causing massive SEO penalties.

             From a personal perspective, it is of course annoying when I put time and effort into my drivel but I know it's going to get pruned/archived.

            From an SEO perspective, it's suicide to have dead/pruned/private/deleted threads.

 

            The goal is content.  This is how you win.      The Flames fourm has more history and content than any other competitor.
                                           But for some reason, it's been archived/locked/deleted/pruned.
                                   Disk space is cheap in 2021.   The website team should utilize every last bit of content we have.

                                   I would even go as far as to suggest restoring old data.   but that is a bit of work.

 

5.  Configure SEO, get SEO plugins.     

          Clearly hasn't been done, should be done.
     An example, the URL to this post is 
        community.fans.flames.nhl.com/topic/23290-our-community-and-forums/#comment-860600
       A good SEO plugin will incorporate the title of the post, and tags, and will allow the thread to be found in google.

 

 

6.   The logins.     Since the NHL.com integrated authentication with this forum, user registration and login is no longer intuitive.

                        I would suggest improvements but maybe that isn't realistic.
                        Possibly an attainable goal would be to make a public sticky post with instructions to help users get logged in and solve common problems.

 

 

This forum should, by rights, be the largest flames forum anywhere and I do think we have the right people for it.

 

Flames are definitely showing that they specialise in hockey, and not website management, and, ultimately, that's probably for the best.

 

 

If it really came down to it, we could come together, I'd be willing to help, and put a proposal back to the Flames on how to grow the forum.
            Obviously either more control over the site is needed, or more engagement with the team is needed.   
            An action plan could be put forward with proposed benefits in doing so.

         

right, back to real life for a bit.

 

for me. 
 

I think I got on by typing the forum myself in the address bar:

 

fans.flames.nhl.com

 

and it popped up once it was back and running or after I cleared my caches and cookies.

[robrob74]

43 minutes ago, conundrumed said:

Don't give yourself too much credit jj, we all know that you're being contrary and actually love everything that you speak against.

We know that you know Pelletier is a very good prospect and hasn't hit his ceiling, you just don't want to curse it.

So you raise up a different prospect to keep your excitement low key.

I think I started noticing that when I spoke poorly of a player they’d go on a run. When is complain about the team they’d prove me wrong… conundrums, this is fan message board therapy! Kill the superstition, it is a mode to becoming. As Rocky said in Rocky 4, “If I can change, and you can change, and EVERBODY CAN CHANGE!” 
 

I see JJ and Peeps in a different light now. Opposites for a better current result. 

[robrob74]

42 minutes ago, rocketdoctor said:

 

JJ some of what you posted went over my head but I get the gist.

 

Peepz is the guy to talk I think so I will leave it in your obviously far more capable hands!!

 

It would be really good to get this place buzzing again.

It is a really interesting concept. The hope is that the Flames advertising team can utilize some of the discussions as data to use in promoting the team. There’s a lot here. 

[conundrumed]

22 minutes ago, robrob74 said:

I think I started noticing that when I spoke poorly of a player they’d go on a run. When is complain about the team they’d prove me wrong… conundrums, this is fan message board therapy! Kill the superstition, it is a mode to becoming. As Rocky said in Rocky 4, “If I can change, and you can change, and EVERBODY CAN CHANGE!” 
 

I see JJ and Peeps in a different light now. Opposites for a better current result. 

Without question. We have to recognize the Flames are all blue collar. No McDavid, no McKinnon. JG showing he's more valuable than both.  Don't need stars, need solid effort players. Tanking doesn't do Satoshi Nakamoto. See Edmonton.

[travel_dude]

1 hour ago, conundrumed said:

Without question. We have to recognize the Flames are all blue collar. No McDavid, no McKinnon. JG showing he's more valuable than both.  Don't need stars, need solid effort players. Tanking doesn't do Satoshi Nakamoto. See Edmonton.

 

We used to lack bioth stars and attitude.

Now, we have a top player committed to backchecking.

He's not about to block a slapper, but he is sneaky good at getting a stick on the play.

The top line has what, one 5v5 scored on them when they are on the ice?

How many times do you see McDavid or Draisaitl just pounce on loose pucks, not doing much else in the D zone.

[conundrumed]

We're totally getting offtopic. Let's save this one for fixing this board.lol

[travel_dude]

2 hours ago, conundrumed said:

We're totally getting offtopic. Let's save this one for fixing this board.lol

 

Yup, sometimes the conversations are so few and far between, any topic turns into a free-for-all

 

[jjgallow]

1 minute ago, travel_dude said:

 

Yup, sometimes the conversations are so few and far between, any topic turns into a free-for-all

 

 

Wallstedt just fantastic this year, that was the miss of the draft imho

[travel_dude]

1 minute ago, jjgallow said:

 

Wallstedt just fantastic this year, that was the miss of the draft imho

 

😜

[conundrumed]

36 minutes ago, jjgallow said:

 

Wallstedt just fantastic this year, that was the miss of the draft imho

He's no Danny Vladar.lol

What's fun is Detroit could have 4 dmen on ELC's next year. Top pairing Edvinsson-Seider.

Now that's scary. Wallsieve, notsomuch.