if you ran gupshup you would....

Hangout GupShup Cafe
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do what?

..lets hear it, ..e.g. new forums, features, rules, events, team structure, no team, elected mods, …what do you think would make this a better site and why. what would you do.

put on your thinking caps, hats, paggars, gutras, toupees, dupattas..and go for it

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would…

**i’ll make it more CIVIL, BAN all those who are disruptive, disrespectful and abusive, NOT allow MULTIS, NOT allow trolls and last but NOT the least get rid of the useless forums.

i’ll be Gup Shup’s born again Hitler! :smiley: :cb:**

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would…

I guess you are looking to increase the traffic. If you are looking for more traffic , you need to market your service. I know , I know you will say market the GS forums ? Nobody markets their forums.
Yes they don’t if it is a sweat shop operation they do not have funds.
If their forum have universal appeal they do not have to people find them.
But since you are targeting a particular segment – Pakistani Community and anybody who is interested to engage with them. Advertise these forums in Desi Newspapers, Desi Radio , Desi TV with an add like this :
Looking for some desi mirch masala ? Click on gupshup.com and engage in discussions with people who share your opinions, culture , politics , religion and passions.
Try in Chicago , New Jersey , Houston , LA , San Francisco and see what happens.
You do not have to have a big budget and big ads. The advertising in those desi news papers, desi radio stations and desi TV shows based in US is cheap , very cheap.
More forums and etc you can have once you have lot of traffic. Sky is the limit when it comes to forums by subjects or topics or interests.
I might not be making sense to you but if I was running this show this is what I would do to increase the traffic even if I had to sell my wife’s jewelry. :bummer:
No , I ain’t interested to run this show. :snooty:

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would....

close it down and let people do something constructive instead? Playing farmville, for example. :P

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would....

These days it's all about vlogs and youtube, online collaboration trading. You need to put a bit of context in the real life of the surfer with his internet time ... In the past virtual reality was just that ... these days it is becoming part of normal life or integrating with it ... the facebook users for example..

I have a need to go online and find sound bites and graphics for my presentations and I have become a member with username and password with my own account to do things with ... I use ebay, and do other things also ...

I might start initially to let people link to GS and also allow GS to link to their sites I believe a bit of cross pollination is worthwhile ... I would allow commercial activity to springboard both sites - so to have pay per view arrangements with bloggers who sell things ... there are plenty of people who come to GS who also have their own facebook accounts and/or websites who do online trading ... GS can offer them traffic and in turn potentially get some revenue for it and in turn they can offer GS traffic as well, by integrating GS forums on their website. So GS becomes an infrastructure for discussions related to the active part of people's lives on their internet time ... GS can be used to discuss finer details in a trade situation outside the site, it can also be used to arrange/plan a meeting or have online meetings ... either virtually as a conferencing tool (with it's own paid section) or some of the voting forums can be used to actually provide REAL lobbying and support for certain causes ... GS should be used to provide other options for paying zakat to the poor ... it is a hub with a population so that is useful in itself ...

And have games on it like kakaballi suggested

So I would try to in principle bring it into the internet lives of people ... people are less fascinated with virtual reality these days they have overcome the novelty of being able to discuss things with pure strangers ... it needs to go further now ... I would also start up a real marriage service on GS there are so many people who are seeking marriage so I think we don't have to stop with advice ...

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would…

yeh konsay forum hain?:hoonh:

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would…

bahot se haiN…naam ginvaauuN kia? :smiley:

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would....

I agree with Mirch Bhai!

I'd focus on **MARKETING **too. The forum is so useful if used properly.

Reason#1:
What I mean by this? e.g. half the crowd on GS said they came to GS when they bumped into the wedding forum. That is a classy forum to start with - No where would you find almost a million+ pictures of real brides up to dated & what not. As an example, that forum can serve the best place for brides to be & those who are providing services. Bumping across GS isnt really the best option. Likewise, all the other forums.... e.g. Life1 - although sometimes a dramatized version but in the longer run if so many people vent out specially like those who are victims of domestic violence etc. we could probably talk them out of depression & give better advises. Same way, this goes for every sub-forum & how useful it maybe for the longer run.

Reason#2:
We never really present our culture & country in a good way. If people other than Pakistanis join the forum too, they can get to know many of us & our culture/religion/thoughts & it can be shown that we arent an extremist terrorist lot.

I'm not sure if there is a *COLLECTIVE CHAT FORUM **as well, but maybe something like MIRC or group chats be made available. People could plan get togethers, plan events, plan protests, plan election campaigns ... *(I am not keen on making GS political in any way but these are just examples on how it can be used constructively as well)

**MODERATION BE DEMOCRATIC! **Lets make the members vote for people & those people then volunteer to take it up. Many many enthusiastic posters left the forum due to issues with moderation. If we could make a voting section, it may invite some traffic back who left because of such reasons. Issues should be sorted out instead of escapism.

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would…

No moderation, the forums will bleed red :chai:

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would…

Lets see my original ideas you implemented:

  1. Public polls.
  2. Informing people via PM their posts or threads have been moved.
  3. I know I am missing a third but its been years.

Want some more “original” :rolleyes: ideas?

  1. Lessen the forums. If the forum did not have more than 10 posts in a month. Kill it.
  2. Moderators should not have multinicks they can post with and at the same time edit their threads. This has been practice since Xtreme and Mursalin were mods and you guys do it actively in other forums. It is unethical and allows no form of accoutability.
  3. All multinicks banned. Period.
  4. Ban the people I don’t like :smiley:
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Re: if you ran gupshup you would…

make people log onto the chat.. iam always the only one hanging out in there :cb:

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would....

Make the forum pink, with tiny bubbles floating all over! There are a few sections that can be closed down, let women have a 'womens common room' and guys their own..

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would....

free k ideas mangh raha hai X2, koi na daina :)

PS: First thing first, I'd reduce number of forums. We have one too many.

PS2: I'd introduce the concept of revolving mod in addition to permanent mods. Whoever wish to be mod of some forum, they can be for a week....or two..

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would…

Paid advertisement for a free forum is a bad idea.

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would....

Reduce the forum........... and for gods sake........ do something about the mods.....
like.......have them accountable and selected on their ability to not involve themselves......instead of post count...

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would....

I would suggest adding new features to the site. You have been sticking to the VB forum script only that limits the functionality of the site e.g. the blog feature on this site can hardly be called a blog. Blogs are hidden deep inside user profile pages and cannot be found easily.
There is no way to find new blog posts from all members.

And one thing I don't understand is why you still keep the main domain paklinks.com empty? Why not add a CMS based page there that lists news and qualifying blog posts on it? You should see news portals like Dawn.com and tribune.com.pk as examples. With so many volunteers willing to work for free, maintaining a site like that should not be a problem for you :)

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would....

.

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would....

It will be more beneficial if you can present your arguments against my ideas so that I could learn a thing or two.

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would…

I’d charge $5 a month for membership. That should keep the trolls away :chai:.

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Re: if you ran gupshup you would....

There is no return on investment.