Jeff, please do an interview of some sort

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Are there a lot of 'repeat' posters? those who post information saying one thing in one thread (ie I have a 12 year old daughter) and then give info in another (I have four kids)?

I really don't know how common that is. I am aware that many posters change some details to help disguise their identities. I don't care if it is harmless. Every couple of months it seems I am able to catch someone who has started multiple inflammatory threads. They almost always have radically changed their stories multiple times. I've heard some real doozies of explanations why they were a grandma in one thread and a young mother of two in another.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you thought about opening up DCUM like forums in other areas? We are thinking about relocating to Atlanta and the closest thing we can find is city-data which is much different than DCUM.

Offshoot of this question, how much time does it take to run/mod something like DCUM? I assume thats a major factor in opening up forums for other cities.

We constantly think about opening DCUM's elsewhere. However, my concept is not to open an entirely new site, but to branch off from this one. I am working on another way of organizing forums so that we can have more of them. Then, I will probably create regional forums so, for instance, people from the West coast can have their own forum. Then, if sufficient traffic builds up, we can create, for instance, Los Angeles and San Francisco forums. Then, sub-categorize them as demands calls for it.

It's a lot of time but adding new forums doesn't necessarily mean more time.

Please do. Pretty please. It would be a lot easier to justify not being able to kick my habit if I still had local forums!

I absolutely won't hold you to this, but can you give an estimate of a time-frame? When do you foresee being able to roll this out? Is there anything we can do to help?
love,
a very eager SF-er.

I would guess it could be at least a year. But, what you can do now is start San Francisco-related threads in our current forums where appropriate. For instance, Off-Topic, Politics, etc. Even something like Restaurants might work. If you are sure to reference San Francisco in the subject, local posters will know to ignore it (though they might post asking why you are posting on a DC-centric website). Then, spread the word in San Francisco. The best way to get us to do things is to generate a lot of traffic.

San Francisco is one of my favorite cities and I'd love it to be one of our first, if not the first, city to which to spread.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you thought about opening up DCUM like forums in other areas? We are thinking about relocating to Atlanta and the closest thing we can find is city-data which is much different than DCUM.

Offshoot of this question, how much time does it take to run/mod something like DCUM? I assume thats a major factor in opening up forums for other cities.

We constantly think about opening DCUM's elsewhere. However, my concept is not to open an entirely new site, but to branch off from this one. I am working on another way of organizing forums so that we can have more of them. Then, I will probably create regional forums so, for instance, people from the West coast can have their own forum. Then, if sufficient traffic builds up, we can create, for instance, Los Angeles and San Francisco forums. Then, sub-categorize them as demands calls for it.

It's a lot of time but adding new forums doesn't necessarily mean more time.

Please do. Pretty please. It would be a lot easier to justify not being able to kick my habit if I still had local forums!

I absolutely won't hold you to this, but can you give an estimate of a time-frame? When do you foresee being able to roll this out? Is there anything we can do to help?
love,
a very eager SF-er.

I would guess it could be at least a year. But, what you can do now is start San Francisco-related threads in our current forums where appropriate. For instance, Off-Topic, Politics, etc. Even something like Restaurants might work. If you are sure to reference San Francisco in the subject, local posters will know to ignore it (though they might post asking why you are posting on a DC-centric website). Then, spread the word in San Francisco. The best way to get us to do things is to generate a lot of traffic.

San Francisco is one of my favorite cities and I'd love it to be one of our first, if not the first, city to which to spread.

The other PP, though not, sadly, in SF.

Can you tell what kind of traffic you're getting from other cities / relative amounts of views from other places? And curious if you have any sense if this is from folks finding it on their own or from DC transplants.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

The other PP, though not, sadly, in SF.

Can you tell what kind of traffic you're getting from other cities / relative amounts of views from other places? And curious if you have any sense if this is from folks finding it on their own or from DC transplants.

You can see stats here:

https://www.quantcast.com/dcurbanmom.com#!cities

Initially, I think most of the traffic came from transplants. Now I believe it is more organic. We have great Google rankings and come up in searches frequently, but we've also received quit a bit of press.

[Anonymous]

Is work related to DCUM your full time job, or do you have other significant employment or self-employment?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Is work related to DCUM your full time job, or do you have other significant employment or self-employment?

As of Jan. 1, DCUM is basically my full time job. I have a few customers for other Internet services projects, but mostly DCUM is it.

[Anonymous]

I've often wondered if dcum has a core of inflammatory posters that drive the snark and the mommy war threads. Or is the snark and inflammation commonly distributed among all the posters?

Like if all the "anonymous" suddenly turned to usernames, would we see the same tired posters time and time again when threads turned ugly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've often wondered if dcum has a core of inflammatory posters that drive the snark and the mommy war threads. Or is the snark and inflammation commonly distributed among all the posters?

Like if all the "anonymous" suddenly turned to usernames, would we see the same tired posters time and time again when threads turned ugly?

That's my theory. I've been on here so long and so regularly, that I start seeing certain styles and proclivities over and over and they cycle over time. I think eventually some of the old trolls get tired and leave and new ones pop up.

I don't think Jeff has the time or interest to analyze the multitudes of threads to confirm that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've often wondered if dcum has a core of inflammatory posters that drive the snark and the mommy war threads. Or is the snark and inflammation commonly distributed among all the posters?

Like if all the "anonymous" suddenly turned to usernames, would we see the same tired posters time and time again when threads turned ugly?

That's my theory. I've been on here so long and so regularly, that I start seeing certain styles and proclivities over and over and they cycle over time. I think eventually some of the old trolls get tired and leave and new ones pop up.

I don't think Jeff has the time or interest to analyze the multitudes of threads to confirm that.

I don't need an analysis of all threads! Just curious of his overall feelings on that issue,

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:I've often wondered if dcum has a core of inflammatory posters that drive the snark and the mommy war threads. Or is the snark and inflammation commonly distributed among all the posters?

Like if all the "anonymous" suddenly turned to usernames, would we see the same tired posters time and time again when threads turned ugly?

We have a group of what I would describe as "regular users" that come to the site very frequently. That number is somewhere in the range of 75,000 I believe. There is a much smaller group, probably less than 100 though I don't really know, who are total obsessives. They will post 50-60 messages a day. I have not been able to identify any member of this group who constantly posts inflammatory messages. If I did, I would have engaged in behavioral modification activities. But, many of them post snarky messages from time to time. Because they post so frequently, they are often the first to post in a thread. The first post often sets the tone for a thread. So, if these posters are in their "snarky period", they can be troublesome.

However, the obsessive group still only accounts for a small portion of the snark. What I've found is that perfectly level-headed, helpful, generally nice posters can have a bad day or be particularly touchy about some topic. There are so many of them, they even though few of there posts are problematic, it still amounts to a lot of posts.

When someone is a constant troublemaker, I make them unwelcome pretty quickly.

[Anonymous]

What about those of us who just hit refresh roughly 10 gazillion times a day? Can you tell who we are?

The first step is to admit you have a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about those of us who just hit refresh roughly 10 gazillion times a day? Can you tell who we are?

The first step is to admit you have a problem.

Heh. I'm one of those people...maybe I'm one of the assholes, too?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:What about those of us who just hit refresh roughly 10 gazillion times a day? Can you tell who we are?

The first step is to admit you have a problem.

I don't pay attention to those who do this. It doesn't create any problems.

[Anonymous]

Jeff do you ever get close to the women you meet through DCUM? Do you and Marie have open relationship. I would like to luv you email me at [e-mail] thanks

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about an AMA?

You can ask me anything. I can't promise to answer everything.

I think you should retitle this thread "I'm Jeff, ask me anything"!