Elektron-Users

Woohoo! Just registered. Looking forward to this new experience.

Ah, crap. I came here with the intention of getting some information on kitchen remodeling. Didn't know it was an electronical-whatsit site. Oh well, I may as well finish the post I started...

Yes, it's great that Elektron is moving on this.
As an internet veteran, I've been a part of many forums, and the inevitable closing of one is just part of the life-cycle.

As others have said, it's the people that count; if those people move on to the next forum, all should be well.

One important note for Elektron: a modern, but simple implementation will be best. Make it easy to read, sort, and post. Give us multiple RSS feeds for various sections. Avatars are nice, I guess, and signatures. Call me immature, but I like the "Mario"-themed designations (Chain Chomp, Yoshi, etc.).

Oh, one other thing that I loved in the early days was the "Labs" competitions. We had a bunch of them with a number of contestants, but they seemed to dwindle, as time went on. A little, fun competition, once in a while, sponsored by Elektron would certainly be cool!

@anyone who is testing/running this: will there be some archive section?
seems I'm not the only one being worried that this well of information and knowledge here will be drained

I read somewhere that they would "lock" this forum down to read-only as a means of archiving the great content here.

Big Mistake for 2 reasons:

1. fireboard (the software this forum runs on) is open source and well understood, so it should actually be very easy to write a script or use a db transfer tool to move and massage the content into elektronauts new structure - including all file assets. In fact this is technically trivial. They could even have migrated the users, looks like they have decided not too.

2. the main reason - SEO - ever noticed how a straight Google query (or enter Search engine of choice) returns elektron-users in the first 2 or 3 results? That's the magic that high quality user generated content brings to search - search engines basically Luuurve lively, we'll established forums content. This is well documented in e.g. googles algorithmic changes to meet the rise of UGC.


Reason number 2 actually has a solid business case attached to it from Elektrons point of view and they need to seriously look at this, I mean SERIOUSLY - they are a small business and this kind of SEO asset is worth potentially significant dollars to them.

They need to migrate the content to elektronauts and implement a linking strategy that maps old URL's (indexed by Search Engines) to new URL's in Elektronauts. Again, technically trivial.


There are many documented cases of small companies with large forums "throwing the content away" when they switch forum platform, only to later realise the lost value of that content in SEO terms much later - that used to be kinda acceptable because SEO was a bit of a black art and some businesses actually thought it had no value. ALL THIS HAS CHANGED.

Elektron - if your listening - Don't make the mistake of thinking "we'll save a couple of thousand euro now by not paying a migration guy to move the stuff over" - trust me - wrong move.

Do the right thing - it makes business sense


Quick examples demonstrating SEO value of this forum:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=octatrack+midi+import&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=monomachine+vs+virus&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

being smart about using server side 301 redirects would solve some of the lost seo when moving to a new site. Hopefully they look into it, although with when activity increases on elektranauts and decreases on elektron-users, the google algorithm and time will sort it all out.

301 is only useful if the content actually exists on Elektronauts though right? I'm not technical but my understanding is:

Original URL (indexed) -> [301] content has moved permanently to -> HERE new URL of content

Also by my reckoning this forum has about 8 years maybe of content that contributes to great SEO - I'm not saying it will take another 8 years for the search algorithms to "adjust" but I'd be surprised if Elektronauts sees as high quality results as elektron-users in short to mid term (whatever that may be...) - especially if you remember that many of the "dead threads" might never be resurrected on Elektronauts - old questions and ideas that have been forgotten by the regulars are extremely valuable and relevant to new users and prospective Elektron customers - they will be found by search HERE so I suppose you could just signpost people over to the new forum to try and resurrect old threads - "Hey i wanna know about OT Sample Chains! - Yeah there's a great 12 pages deep thread over on the old forum, read that then come back here if you wanna discuss further..." Erm okay...

HouseCliche wrote:
301 is only useful if the content actually exists on Elektronauts though right? I'm not technical but my understanding is:

yes thats correct. I should have been more clear. I think there's a way to have the content on the new site in a separate archive section, maybe even a way to do this using the pdf versions of threads. or developing some script as someone mentioned already.

Its basically a strategy for transitioning, instead of just having the old site locked off and separate, would be worth elektron looking into if they haven't already.

Also there are a few things that will bias googles algo in addition to activity and cross linking, especially since this site / fireboard install is pretty old.

Hi all,

Time for some Elektronauts/elektron-users info. Monday Sep 9 is the date we've set for going public with Elektronauts. Two weeks later, Sep 23, elektron-users will be "frozen". It will still remain as an info database, but logging in, posting, registering etc, will not be possible.

I know some of you have suggested we should migrate all elektron-users content to Elektronauts. Unfortunately that task is not as easy as it seems. It would take quite some time, and we think those resources are better spent on making Elektronauts as good as possible. Other drawbacks to this strategy would be the splintered feeling that would linger over Elektronauts. Migrating elektron-users would mean that the absolute majority of the posts on Elektronauts would've been made by inactive profiles. We found it better to give Elektronauts its own identity and means of existence. After all, elektron-users will still remain as a great resource.

All the best,

Jon
Elektron

Thanks for the update! I'm definitely looking forward to the new forum.

Likewise. Thanks Jon.