It's all so quiet?

That’s probably because this is the place for HONEST and ADULT discussion. In other words, the poeple who contribute on here do actually know something about the subjects they speak of or have genuine oinions that hold credibility because they use their real names, unlike the idiots and children that appear under false-names on that other forum, many of whom use the false name to give the impression of tons of experience whilst never actually having been involved at all. I prefer it here.

It’s quality not quantity James ;-)

I gave up on DS about 5-6 months ago – although I did have a look recently and it was still just the same circular arguments going around and around. As someone else described it the basis of most discussion on there is along the lines of: “It’s Rubbish Because I Say So. Fact.”

In fact it’s the perfect example of this:

Also I wrote this back in 2009 – Radio Forums – and nearly four years later I believe it’s still quite valid.

I love that theory!

James – what’s interesting is that all posts here get a sensible amount of discussion. If you’ve any ideas how to increase the number of initial posts, I’d love to hear them.

But, really, you might want to give that Digital Spy grudge a bit of a rest. ;)

I think part of the problem with Media UK is that it doesn’t seem to have the same kind of features that a typical discussion board would have. It seems to me that everytime we’ve had a forum “upgrade” it has resulted in the board become more clunky for users. I remember the original PHPBB forum we had when Real Names was introduced, kept a lot of functionality and options similar to what we had in the Old-School Media UK.

The current version of the forum does contain some good features such as linking from/to the directory, ability to log in from various accounts, plus post previews. However, it is lacking in features supported by vBulletin/IP Board forums such as private messaging, cookie based new post alerts etc… even jumping from radio to television discussion areas doesn’t seem possible in one click.

I’ve been on Media UK since I was a school kid, so I don’t want to come across too critical, but I have to say that if the underlying forum features were similar to other discussion boards, I would visit more often than I do already, and maybe others feel that way?

There are a record number of radio stations on air – ILR/Community/DAB/Internet so there should be plenty to talk about.

The other thing I should add, is that with many well informed people using this forum, often when someone replies to a post, there is very little left for anyone else to add!

Ash: very happy to sort out additional features. The “cookie-based new post alerts” is a feature I’d like to code (and have asked questions about recently), and I hope to have that up shortly. Private messaging should be fairly simple if anyone really wants it?

Yes – I have not found a forum search function yet – doesn’t mean it isn’t there, I just haven’t found it if it is there!

There isn’t one. What would you expect it to do? (Serious question!)

Similar to the one one any standard VBulletin or Ikonboard forum I guess. I used it on the old Media UK regularly to look up old stuff.

I’ve just noticed a serious drop off, even since the switch to real names around ten years ago. Two years ago discussions took place about pulling the forum entirely. Ten years ago, discussion on commercial, BBC, student, community and hospital radio was quite buoyant. I remember we even had individual threads for individual stations! For sure, there’s far less people in radio now compared to ten years ago.

What about having “discretion-assured” “verified” incognito identities? So, for example, characters like Joey Deacon or Smart Programmer could offer their 2p like they do on Facebook, and still protect their identity. I just get the impression because of the identity issues, people are afraid of coming forward and telling us what they think.

Paul – love the diagram!

I apologise that I’ve somehow turned into James Fleet again, by the way…