Signing off! My final (long) blog post.

It's been interesting, that's for sure. I chose this community because I expected it to be an interesting process and a difficult community to get involved with. And I was right. I couldn't get a community feeling from it, because the whole site felt so massive and commercial. And it wasn't for lack of trying.

Finally, after the umpteenth failed effort to get involved, I decided to ask members for their opinion. Finally, they opened up to me and I did make some connections. Apparantly the key to getting friends on TV.com was to talk about a shared common interest; the horridness of the site and how the people in charge are ruining the community. This was the common ground, so it seems. I couldn't get people to talk to me for weeks, now my thread is blooming.

I imagine the moderators don't like me very much, because their members are not too happy with the corporate moderation that's going on at TV.com. And they are making themselves heard now.

I asked people if they felt their opinion was appreciated and taken into account by 'management'. I couldn't have gotten a more heartfelt 'NO!' from them. Most of the people who responded stated that since the TV network CBS took over, everything became commercial. The site broke all connections with their sister sites and a lot of people lost online friends because of that. They are still pretty upset with management because of that. The site now became a conglomerate magnet for TV news and gossip, putting no energy into maintaining a strong community.

As proof, I found a thread in which management asked users for their opinion on the site's redesign. People made tons of suggestions and remarks, but no one ever replied to the thread and nothing was changed in the design. Members' opinions are not valued here. They only pretend they matter. As a result, members feel mocked and don't feel like their membership is valued at all.

Moderation needs to change in order for this community to get stronger again. The moderators should take a community building class and learn how to moderate. I've been a moderator myself, and at age 16 I did a better job than the guy who felt the need to be cynical, completely uncalled for. My post was polite and respectful, his answer was not. Luckily, members did not agree with the moderator and chose to ignore his irrelevant comment. The members on this board would be better off self-moderating than to be ruled by these guys from CBS. In my opinion, the community would be a lot stronger.

Aside from bad moderation, the site itself consists of 90% nonsense and 10% useful content. The amount of ads, videos that don't load (especially for people outside the US, this locks them out of the club), it all adds up to slow loading times. People want their information now, not in 30 seconds. Surfing TV.com is a tedious process. Newcomers now have to suffer through an almost non-existant community and slow loading times.

It gets worse. The website has no identity. Take rival website www.tvrage.com for instance. That site has a minimal amount of ads, fast loading times and remarkably it's had some variation of the same minimal design for at least 7 years (that's how long I've been active on the site, so I would know). Its members are loyal to this site and it's strong community. The site's managers are actively involved with the members, they talk with them instead of talking at them (agreggators instead of just a channel). They do this by using polls and actively enganging in conversation on the forums.

The beauty of it all is that TVRage offers the same content, only users get to it ten times faster, without having to go through a maze of distractions and commercial nonsense. Like TV.com, this site also runs on User Generated Content. But when a user submits something, it is also checked by a moderator to see if the information is correct. If the information is incorrect, the submitter gets a personal response from a moderator, rather than an automated SUBMISSION DENIED message. Even when the information is correct, a moderator will personally thank you for the addition. TVRage should teach TV.com how to have a bond with their members and how to make them feel welcome and appreciated.

When a user submits content to TV.com, they get +1 in ranking and aquire the title of Thighmaster. What the heck does a thighmaster have to do with submitting content and why would someone want to strive to that title?!
The ranking system is a gimmick, not a ladder of achievement or status. Most members don't even pay attention to these silly titles. Why would they?

Back in the day, when I was a moderator, we had several subcommunities within the large community. There were, for instance, The Postmasters. The title here says it all, they posted a lot and were respected because of it. These were the people who were most active within the community. They were wise and helpful and everyone knew it. Secondly, there were The Mischiefs, they would sometimes have conversations not suitable for children under the age of 13. And so, they were identified and named themselves. Through conversations with management they were moved to a subforum that would not be visible to users under the age of 13. They could now swear as much as they liked and everyone was happy.

I've been told that TV.com has subcommunities like this and people are happy to be a part of them. However, management does nothing to facilitate these communities or to give them an identity (The Postmaster members were able to aquire a special Postmaster subtitle when they reached 5000 posts). Members love to customize and personalize, a good community provides that option. The social web thrives on it.

So, in conclusion, I would say that this site needs to downsize drastically. Large corporations can have strong communities, look at Apple. Another US tv network, The CW, has a very strong community. Because they focus only on teenagers. Their website, commercials and everything else is specifically designed for that target audience. TV.com could be great, if it weren't so corporate and commercial. It's designed to be a channel, not an aggregator. People don't want to be fed all the possible information, they want to get the information THEY want.

TVRage gives you the option to add all of your favorite shows to your profile. Based on that profile, users get a customized viewing schedule. TV.com refuses to add this feature, because that would mean they're promoting TV shows from other stations. They're not impartial. CBS' interest is priority number one, the user's interests are definitely not. It should be the other way around.

If I were to post a thread on TVRage stating that the site sucks and there is no community, I would surely get an earful from its loyal members. Users on TV.com were all too eager to vent their agreement. This is saying a lot about the strength and success of the TV.com community.

I think that clears things up! And with that, I will end this post. I hope you enjoyed my blogging! :-)