Dumbing Down the FFN

Does the FFN understand what is happening to the FFN site?

Without "reinventing the wheel here", one of the seasoned FFN members posted the following:

"The discussions on the events in Japan are buried. There were some great discussions on Building Construction and many on tactics and equipment but they are 10's of pages back.

Between FFN CONSTANTLY adding *news* posts and the assorted games, caption-this and meaningless posts, anything good just gets quickly buried. I guess it could be compared to a tsunami of that crap just rolls in every day and buries the good stuff.

On the other hand, there's way more things to take serious than the slow and inevitable decline of FFN into a facebook clone. Probably only a matter of time before there's pillow fights, mafia wars and farms here on FFN."

What is causing the decline of some of the brightest minds participating on the FFN? Possibly, as the FFN staff redesign and change the format, you can see from the below example that the FFN is really trying to keep the topics varied and interesting. One key thing that you can see below is that once upon a time, there were more than just five forum choices. Is less really better?

Personally, I don't think having five choices is a good thing. As mentioned above, information and articles for important issues such as the Japan earthquake and nuclear threat are buried.

Perhaps it's time to change the categories to enable informative posts to not get buried. Out of sight equals out of mind... Perhaps a separate window component for the games might be a good solution. Regardless, having more than five choices prevents the minimal five choices from taking up what little room the FFN provides for intelligent forum posts.

The existing format consistently has two of the five spots, sometimes more taking up the minimum (5) forum posts that are displayed. What is even more scary is that there are 22,220 replies for a forum post on Word Association and 1,018 replies to another word game. What are our priorities?

Am I alone here? I don't think so... This profession is just that, a profession. I challenge others to raise the bar and support posts that have minimal comments. Use this site to learn more than play. Your life and others could depend on it.

or,

I could be missing the obvious fact that this site is moving more toward the social side. Silly me for thinking that the FFN statement on the bottom of the page means what it says...

This site is intended for use by current and former fire, rescue & EMS professionals.

CBz

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by lutan1 on March 31, 2011 at 1:07am

I was actively and heavily involved in numerou discussions on Firehouse, however it started to change as the membership increased.

They tried a subscription servie which I did for a couple of years, but it seemed (IMHO) to develop a "them" and "us" mentality.

I built up a great friendship with key people, including extricaiton guru Ron Moore (who in turn sent me a free copy of his 2nd editoin Vehicle Extricaiton book as a sign of appreciation- thanks Ron!)

After a while though, I stopped participating. I was getting bored with the fighting. I was getting bored with off topic discussions that were dominating everything.

I'm finding myself in the same situation now with FFN and am finding my frequency to log in to get updates is getting longer and longer.....

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on March 31, 2011 at 9:32pm

Can't we just bring back the "orbs", "tinctures", and "reiki" discussion? Those were FUN!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on March 31, 2011 at 9:39pm

Hey I forgot all about the "orbs" and "reiki", those WERE fun!
Not to be forgotten, the infamous Underwear Salesman.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on April 1, 2011 at 7:03am

Hello FFN? This email is from one of the more prolific FFN authors from Australia. It will be very sad to see what was once a very viable website continue in the direction that it is going.

The "Dumbing Down of FFN" is having consequences, which again will be a loss.

You have the opportunity to help make this go away by expanding the existing (5) active Forum Posts back to (10). While there is never a guarantee that it won't be overrun by FFJR posts or as Lutan coined, "Off-Topic" discussions, you will at least give folks more of an option to selection posts to respond back to. Current gaming posts dominate two of the five slots available. Your FFN Firehouse posts dominate the other three unless someone clicks the keyboard to find other member generated posts that deal with... firefighting.

Please save the FFN from "Dumbing Down"... To make this symbolic change will show the membership that you are willing to do what it takes to take care of the learning / sharing side, and not focusing on just the social side.

I don't think I am along with this point of view and you can validate what I've been posting by simply reading what others are saying.

We all look forward to seeing the new forthcoming changes that you have alluded too but in the meantime, please consider adding an additional number of active forum posts to enable more selection. Hopefully, it's just a couple of programming clicks on the key board. I don't feel too mad suggesting that you to do some quick down and dirty programming considering the current FFN website requires multiple clicks to select other links to see what the latest forums were.

And Lutan, be patient, don't stop contributing your unique and often times as you say, "Spot On" analysis of various subjects discussed on the FFN forum posts. I really enjoy reading how you aussies think and deal with things. It's much simpler and direct, which I fully appreciate. I only hope the FFN folks appreciate my candor. The FFN site has been a very valuable networking tool and a great source for advice and training. We need to protect the FFN's relevance and validity.

Aloha!

CBz

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on April 1, 2011 at 1:23pm

Perhaps reviving some old threads will spur different conversations

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on April 1, 2011 at 8:14pm

Perhaps reviving some old threads will spur different conversations...

Personally, I am hoping for original content. Things that make one think, "why didn't we think of that?"...

There are some young fresh minds that don't mind thinking outside of the box. I challenge folks to think for themselves, not rely on the past.

But more importantly, I challenge the FFN membership to take the time to post replies on any thread they see with minimal response. Someone took the time to put something together. Why not be courteous and say thanks for the attempt or how about trying this...

Anyone who's been involved with the FFN and satisfies the admission requirements (be a firefighter) should know the concept, it's called working together as a team!

Or then again, there are other interpretations of what teamwork is all about... It's all a matter of one's perspective.

CBz

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on April 2, 2011 at 12:14am

Personally, I am hoping for original content. Things that make one think, "why didn't we think of that?"...

There are some young fresh minds that don't mind thinking outside of the box. I challenge folks to think for themselves, not rely on the past.

BZ,

I will agree with that, however, considering things of late, we haven't been seeing really any more original content. Those that did sprout didn't last and were quickly buried under news updates and word game type of threads.

That is why I started back and worked my way forward to a point reviving some older threads and hopefully burying such games and the easy content threads like helmet color etc.