Robots.txt

[disciple]

For all you know, some of the nicest people out there you have yet to meet.

Indeed.

[disciple]

Regarding Yakyak being a backwater pub, surely that's cos no-one can find us! Search indexing moves the pub back to the A road. 0f course yes, if the pub's shit people won't stick around, but it's pointless being a great backwater pub if no-one knows you exist.

I'd far rather have a quiet little country pub with a few of my best mates than a city-centre Weatherspoon's full of chavs any day.

Well look, I dunno, I mean people have been saying "it's not like it used to be" for like 6-7 years now. What do you want to happen here, Yakyak's not likely to ever be like it was during it's inception, EVER, it just isn't. It's the nature of the beast, if you rope some mates in and start a forum it's an entirely different set of circumstances to being a member of an existing forum whose members join and leave over time. it really just isn't the same thing and comparing one to the other for justification of how the forum is shit or how we should make the forum invisible to the rest of the internet is just utterly pointless and does not help things one bit. I really don't know what to say, I mean despite what people may think on here I am actually genuinely trying to make this a better place for all. I try to add signal and content and I'm currently trying to resolve what I see as the main issue why Yakyak's (been) going downhill, and why people (myself included) are increasingly going elsewhere because this forum is ceasing to provide what it was that caused us to join up in the first place. I may well be wrong in my assumptions but at least I actually seem to give a fuck and am actively trying to resolve the problems, even if it's literally a case of banging my head against a brick wall till someone notices.

I dunno, much like you have, I seem to be coming to the conclusion that it's just not worth the bother.

[disciple]

If you're data's right when did Robots.txt get removed originally?

is this a trick question?

July 2007, I'm getting that from your first post in this thread and seeing an associated drop off in the graph.

It was Jan 2008

It was on when I did the switch to phpbb3 and I turned it off again then.

You're not making a very convincing case.

Neither are you mate, given the date on the first post of this thread says otherwise.

[gravy]

<sigh>

No, the robots.txt was back on phpbb2 before I upgraded to phpbb3

The issues we had when I started this thread turned out to be to do with how the mysql server our old hosts were running.

[piku]

... opinion ...

This.

I spend more time on Stack Overflow these days. I flash into YY to scan page 1 of Bleatings, maybe see what's new in the Pictures thread or check out anything with a moderately interesting title (rare) then bugger off. Programming is always open in another tab, but I just refresh that two or three times a day to see if there's anything cool going on, or a problem I can help with.

This... and...

It doesn't feel like we have that many members anyway. There's certainly less than 20 people who regularly post in Bleatings these days. Some months it's a lot less than that.

This.

From my extensive time on this place, the only thing that feels "wrong" is that nobody seems to bother replying to each other any more. We just seem to wait for the other person to shut up so we can have our go. There's a feeling that if you post something, someone else will come along and say "oh no that's a load of crap", or the minute something starts to get interesting someone slaps an image in the post to kill it. This place got a little shitter the day someone started the "put aeroplanes in a thread to mean 'kill it now'" meme - there's a lot more thread pissing than there used to be, and while there did used to be thread pissing in "the good old days" it now feels more malicious as if people are doing it on purpose for their own amusement.

But this place isn't allowed to self destruct or go away until at least 2012, just so I can say I've been here ten years.

[disciple]

<sigh>

No, the robots.txt was back on phpbb2 before I upgraded to phpbb3

The issues we had when I started this thread turned out to be to do with how the mysql server our old hosts were running.

Well you specifically asked when it was originally done. The answer's at the start of this thread.

You're saying come Jan 2008 it was back on allow, but you're unsure exactly when that happened? But at that point you switched it back to block.

Which explains how the big SG peak happened, it probably was being indexed at that point.

There's a huge dip however from July 2007 (first blocking of search indexes) to Dec 2007.

So I'm presuming what happened is that it was set to disallow in July 2007, then with the release of SG someone saw fit to allow search engines to index for the SG publicity coming from Yakyak in Dec 2007, then post SG Jan 2008 (server migration) it got put back to block.

Which would explain the lowest low at that point, swiftly followed by the highest high.

[OX mkII]

Can't think of any message board that's still "like it used to be", the internet has evolved and so has peoples habits and attitude to other users and potential pitfalls, were more wary and less innocent, the shineyness has worn off over time and it's all become mainstream.

[disciple]

... opinion ...

This.

I spend more time on Stack Overflow these days. I flash into YY to scan page 1 of Bleatings, maybe see what's new in the Pictures thread or check out anything with a moderately interesting title (rare) then bugger off. Programming is always open in another tab, but I just refresh that two or three times a day to see if there's anything cool going on, or a problem I can help with.

This... and...

It doesn't feel like we have that many members anyway. There's certainly less than 20 people who regularly post in Bleatings these days. Some months it's a lot less than that.

This.

From my extensive time on this place, the only thing that feels "wrong" is that nobody seems to bother replying to each other any more. We just seem to wait for the other person to shut up so we can have our go.

Yeah that's my perception too, and what's more I've caught myself doing it, I did make an effort the other month to just reply to threads, as in actually reply to what someone said rather than ignoring what was said before and posting my inane banter.

Interestingly the same thing happens at work on a much smaller scale, we have an IRC forum at work with about 6 people, all that seems to happen is that people post links but never actually look at the links that other people have posted. It's bizarre, it's like we all want to be listened to but no-one actually wants to listen!

the irony in it all is that if you actually listen to what people say, people then start to listen to you. Mad shit. Obviously that one hasn't quite sunk in yet in my case. =)

[gravy]

<sigh>

No, the robots.txt was back on phpbb2 before I upgraded to phpbb3

The issues we had when I started this thread turned out to be to do with how the mysql server our old hosts were running.

Well you specifically asked when it was originally done. The answer's at the start of this thread.

You're saying come Jan 2008 it was back on allow, but you're unsure exactly when that happened? But at that point you switched it back to block.

Which explains how the big SG peak happened, it probably was being indexed at that point.

There's a huge dip however from July 2007 (first blocking of search indexes) to Dec 2007.

So I'm presuming what happened is that it was set to disallow in July 2007, then with the release of SG someone saw fit to allow search engines to index for the SG publicity coming from Yakyak in Dec 2007, then post SG Jan 2008 (server migration) it got put back to block.

Which would explain the lowest low at that point, swiftly followed by the highest high.

I remember there were some news stories that linked to things said on this forum around the time of SG, I'm pretty sure that's what bought in new people.

There's been no major upswing in new accounts during the time robots.txt was on

And remember YY is findable on google right now. Even though we're disallowing searches now google has a shed load of articles from here still indexed from when it was allowed. Even so the new registrations are still declining.

I'm not convinced and am not going to change it. If you do think it's really important then sort out a new host. I won't do a thing to stop you doing that and have no problem with it going elsewhere

[disciple]

Robots.txt aside I do think it's probably a good idea to keep your business server + yakyak separate, especially in light of recent DDoS.

I'm happy to do the work, though phpbb is not something I've done before. I'd need the buy in from all current admins/mods before I started even looking at it, I have no idea if I have this. Who would be a good point of contact?

[gravy]

Muttley, Rik and Jed

[Dio]

So I'm presuming what happened is that it was set to disallow in July 2007, then with the release of SG someone saw fit to allow search engines to index for the SG publicity coming from Yakyak in Dec 2007, then post SG Jan 2008 (server migration) it got put back to block.

A lot of the games sites linked to Yak's illustration of OXM Dan's incompetence, though. That's far more likely to be the reason for the big spike at SG time.

[disciple]

Yus it's all hypothetical assumption based on a wavy line.

a graph of join ups isn't great but it's the best I could scrape without sucking Yakyak dry to graph all posts over time. But still 100 signups in a single month is pretty significant, Google or not it's interesting seeing one positive aspect of getting a 2/10 score, good publicity fer sure. =)

[Baggypants]

[Gorecki]

If there is to be a nominated 'Glory Days of Yakyak' then surely the days of the magic treadmill has to be it.