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MYOB Community Forum - September summary

MikeG1's avatar
MikeG1
Admin
3 months ago

Hello community!

September has seen some changes in results for the forum. 
There are positives to be taken and there are also signs of areas to improve.

There was a big reduction in pages/posts viewed in the forum last month. 22% lower than the previous month.
BUT what is interesting is that there was only a 2% reduction in the number of posts made AND pages viewed per visit is still increasing.


The number of replies per post also reduced last month which is a good indication that our community members and our moderators are able to provide answers with less replies (ideally 1 reply)



Mike_James and gavin12345 continue to be our most engaged community members based on the number of replies they have made to others here on the forum.
But in other areas like the number of visits to the forum, number of likes given and the number of posts viewed, there are some newcomers.
Thank you to LisaMPW , jballiono , jlpatch , astonkoedyk and JWorkright for your time on the forum in September.
If you have any feedback on the forum or your experience using it, please feel free to add a comment here or send a private message to either me or AmandaCL 

Our moderators kept busy last month as well. Together they viewed more than 5,000 posts and made more than 500 replies.

Thank you everyone for being part of the community!
Tell your friends - lets make this community bigger and better than ever. 

Cheers, Mike

Published 3 months ago
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  • AdminKirsty's avatar
    AdminKirsty
    Experienced User
    3 months ago

    Do these numbers take into account the appalling amount of forum spam that gets missed by your filters?

    • MikeG1's avatar
      MikeG1
      Admin
      3 months ago

      Hi Kirsty, you're right in calling this out. I should have included a mention of the spam in my update.
      This has been particularly bad the last 4-6 weeks, and the content of the spam is even worse than the volume itself.

      Fixing this has proven difficult so far, we are playing cat and mouse with the spammers, blocking frequently used words and IP addresses, but this can be a tough gave that may ultimately just end up being who gives up first. 
      I am pleased to say that from the 4th Oct to the 10th Oct there have been no new spam messages posted to the forum, but they are still trying.

      There are some things that could be done about it, here are my plans and decisions so far.
      I could change our community so that no one is able to publish a new comment or reply without moderator approval.
      In the 18 years our forum has been here, this has never been the case, I am hesitant to make this change at the moment due to the impact this would have on our current active members.

      What I will definitely be doing in the near future, is a rebuild of the roles, ranks and badges in the community.
      By doing this, I believe I will be able to apply restrictions to new members (eg the first x number of posts made by a new member require moderation OR the first x number of days posts will require moderation for a new member)

      A little more context around blocking key words too
      Some of the words being used by spammers have been easy to block as they might relate to countries or products outside of our forum. But one example that is difficult to consider blocking is the word 'termination' as it relates to payroll.

      I hope this sheds some light on what is being done about the spam in the forum - if you have any questions or advice, please feel free to send me a private message

      • AdminKirsty's avatar
        AdminKirsty
        Experienced User
        3 months ago

        Attempted to send DM, as suggested, but it may have been caught in those filters?  ;-)

        It just wouldn't post!