FAO Hobnob

[Alexander Litvinenko]

.....
Can't cut and paste from this pdf - not even sure if this link will work, but basically at a meeting in Sept between the club and STAR, the club agreed that STAR's best policy with regard to abuse on social media sites etc was non-response and zero tolerance.
....

So, effectively, the actions of a small few with an axe to grind are being taken as representing the whole of the community they belong to .....

If Reading FC refused to speak to a supporters' organisation because a small number of them were critical/abusive/insulting etc then that supporters' organisation would rightly be outraged (I hope!).

I see no difference.

Yes, it's inexcusable that STAR board members have been personally abused via social networking (including HNA?), but to generalise and ignore *ALL" social networking because of that strikes me as being a lazy generalisation of the worst kind.

[Green]

Zero tolerance works both ways - can we finally get rid of this section of the forum please

We're looking like right mugs here.

Does make me laugh though - can you imagine if a business were like "Boss, we're getting a bit of stick on twitter - what we should do?" "Close down the account". Not really helping them shed the out of touch reputation they've (rightly or wrongly) garnered.

[Hoop Blah]

- set up a new communication channel with the club, explaining that HNA is the biggest single community of Reading fans and that many feel very differently to what they hear through STAR/RFC's Facebook output
But it's not. It likes to think it is but there are relatively few active and regular posters here (<100) and many of them aren't even Reading fans. There's alos no democratic structure etc - it's a case of whoever shouts loudest or most often gets heard.

I'd not seen this thread before today, but to go back and pick up on the question around numbers, right now, at 12.37 on a Wednesday afternoon with no Reading game in the last 10 days, there are 98 users viewing the forum.

Admitedly 56 of those are guests, but I'd guess that at least 50% of those are Reading fans. Posting doesn't equate to active Dirk (IMO).

Furthermore, there are over 275 users with more than 1,000 posts and knocking on for 6,500 registered users (obviously a lot of those are robot registrations and mulitple usernames) but there is not doubt in my mind that HNA is the largest single community of Reading fans outside matchday attendances.

Feeling bored and demotivated* this morning, I've just run a quick count on the number of posters who've contributed to the Back from the Game thread for Everton.

Excluding a few of the very new members, there were 92 different contributors.

[Green]

Yes but how many viewed it? At least 10 times that number I'd wager.

And that's just one thread.

[Hoop Blah]

Absolutely Green.

I think the idea that Hobnob is just less than 100 active users is nonsense. It might have it's fair share of muppets, and Facebook and Twitter are catching up, but I'm still of the opinion that it's the largest and most active online environment for discussion amongst Reading fans.

[Green]

FAO STAR and thank you hobnob:
http://hobnob.royals.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=115976&p=3494733#p3494720

[Royal Lady]

FAO STAR and thank you hobnob:
http://hobnob.royals.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=115976&p=3494733#p3494720

STAR won't see this, they're giving HNA zero tolerance remember and ignoring us.

It's a pity - because HNA readership and members as a collective would be quite a coup for STAR to have onboard. I'd be very interested to know how many registered members STAR has btw.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Wow, so much effort to try and disprove a throw-away statement from months ago ..... aren't my views on the subject clear and emphatic enough from my post seven above this?

And how you equate page views to "active posters" is a whole different question, too.

[Green]

Wow, so much effort to try and disprove a throw-away statement from months ago ..... aren't my views on the subject clear and emphatic enough from my post seven above this?

And how you equate page views to "active posters" is a whole different question, too.

"Unique visitors" (45k) is that stat that interests me. Even if they're only active once in the month that surely still means this is a valid portal for communication.

Not having a pop at you at all Dirk - just the assertion that HNA is an irrelevance.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

I don't think I ever said it was an irrelevance.

I just don't think that hobnob is as important a channel as many people on it like to think. The number of "active posters" at any one time might not be about 100, but it's certainly in the 100s rather than the 1000s - and if you take out all the AE and GF shenanigans to look at who's active in the forums related to the football team then I reckon it's a couple of hundred maximum.

But I agree that it's indefensible that STAR have decided to avoid a whole community (regardless of its size) due to the actions of a small minority of them.

[Hoop Blah]

Might've been a throw away comment Dirk but personally I think it deserved challenging because it is obviously the perception amongs many that HNA is just a small number of fans being a vocal minority.

Now it may still be a minority amongst the total support but I do think it's the largest online community and probably the most reflective of our supporter base and perhaps the club and STAR need to accept and recognise that.

It's certainly more than a couple of hundred too. I've kept an interested eye on the number of users whenever I visit the index page and it's very very rarely under 100.

Over 800 registered users have logged in this week! That's a telling stat.

[Wimb]

Might've been a throw away comment Dirk but personally I think it deserved challenging because it is obviously the perception amongs many that HNA is just a small number of fans being a vocal minority.

Now it may still be a minority amongst the total support but I do think it's the largest online community and probably the most reflective of our supporter base and perhaps the club and STAR need to accept and recognise that.

It's certainly more than a couple of hundred too. I've kept an interested eye on the number of users whenever I visit the index page and it's very very rarely under 100.

Over 800 registered users have logged in this week! That's a telling stat.

But then you're admitting that if all you get is 800 users and barely 20-30 if that complain on an issue you're still looking at a vocal minority of a minority.

If you were running the club and out of say 30,000 supporters you had 0.1% of them complaining about an issue on an internet forum would you be taking that particularly seriously?

It's a lot easier to take notice of those supporters who have given up time and money to join STAR or to those fans outside of STAR who have sent an email/popped into the club personally to raise an issue rather than giving too much thought to a portal where a large chunk of posts are written by WUM's, another chunk aren't fans/don't go to games and plenty of other posts are written in the heat of the moment and don't really worry fans short or long term.

If HNA is as influential and representative as some claim then it should be fairly easy to cobble together enough HNA? members to join STAR and push it in the direction you want it, away from the 'OAP/Coach Birgade'. If you think £10 is too steep and a waste of cash, well join up get yourself on to the board and propose lowering/abolishing the fee. You've got to put some effort into something if you want to get anything meaningful out of it and regardless of how many users may log in to this forum, writing a post on a forum takes minimal effort or conviction.

Again I'm not saying that some posters here don't have that motivation and credit to the likes of RL for at least trying, but until HNA? shows that there's an active group of nobbers that are prepared to get together and give up time and effort to raise issues and go down the right channels, I've got next to no sympathy for those whining that hobnob is being ignored.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Hna? Was the start of the car park space. And used to do end of season parties, copied by star/the club.

Also had section in the EP, read by lots each week.

[Wimb]

Hna? Was the start of the car park space. And used to do end of season parties, copied by star/the club.

Also had section in the EP, read by lots each week.

Well that's almost making my point isn't it?

HNA? has shown that if there's a cause that really means a lot to Reading fans then it grows beyond the forum and things get done. If there really was a widespread belief that STAR was doing a poor job and people wanted to make a change then these grumblings would grow, people would get away from their keyboard, get involved with STAR and help make changes.

The fact that HNA? can get hundreds to a parking space but hasn't bothered to get a 'pro HNA?' member on the STAR board shows that either it's really not that important to the majority of its members or that the majority are pretty happy with STAR.

With the growth in social media the influence of HobNob is shrinking more and more, as this is no longer your only place to gauge opinion from Reading fans.

The club has Twitter and Facebook feeds where it gets far more direct feedback and also has a legitimate, democractic 'real world' forum in the shape of STAR. When you factor in mainstream media sites like Get Reading, ESPN etc and add other growing sites like the RR and TTE, there's never been a wider variety of places to voice your opinion or read that of others.

Like I said in my last post, if people truly believe that this is the best place for fans' opinions to be collated then represented to the club, then somebody/somebodies need to get together and actually try and make changes because the longer you leave it, the less STAR and the Football Club are going to bother.

[Hoop Blah]

The point was more to highlight the shortcomings of both RFC and STAR in recognising the relevance of HNA opinion.

I've no desire to change STAR or RFCs opinion or address their organistations failings. I will point out how flawed they are though if I can be bothered.

Personally, if I have an issue with the club that effects me directly I call them up and speak to the likes of dappy-boll*cks Boyd Butler or the hopeless whinging Geordie Craig Mortimer. Sometimes that's had an effect, sometimes not, but any organisation with a strong and long lasting relationship with their 'customer base' should be open to dialogue with those stakeholders. If they don't then that's their problem.

I agree social media is changing the landscape a bit but HNA is still the only place I've seen for realitively informed and interesting debate around RFC.

[Green]

Might've been a throw away comment Dirk but personally I think it deserved challenging because it is obviously the perception amongs many that HNA is just a small number of fans being a vocal minority.

Now it may still be a minority amongst the total support but I do think it's the largest online community and probably the most reflective of our supporter base and perhaps the club and STAR need to accept and recognise that.

It's certainly more than a couple of hundred too. I've kept an interested eye on the number of users whenever I visit the index page and it's very very rarely under 100.

Over 800 registered users have logged in this week! That's a telling stat.

But then you're admitting that if all you get is 800 users and barely 20-30 if that complain on an issue you're still looking at a vocal minority of a minority.

OK think this got lost so I'm going to write it in big letters.

This site has 45,000 unique visitors per month

[Wimb]

Might've been a throw away comment Dirk but personally I think it deserved challenging because it is obviously the perception amongs many that HNA is just a small number of fans being a vocal minority.

Now it may still be a minority amongst the total support but I do think it's the largest online community and probably the most reflective of our supporter base and perhaps the club and STAR need to accept and recognise that.

It's certainly more than a couple of hundred too. I've kept an interested eye on the number of users whenever I visit the index page and it's very very rarely under 100.

Over 800 registered users have logged in this week! That's a telling stat.

But then you're admitting that if all you get is 800 users and barely 20-30 if that complain on an issue you're still looking at a vocal minority of a minority.

OK think this got lost so I'm going to write it in big letters.

This site has 45,000 unique visitors per month

Yeah but what does that have to do with how much influence the POSTERS of HobNob have?

If anything the silence of 44,200 unique visitors shows that they can't give 2 big ones about most of the topics here or else they'd join and comment.

[Wimb]

The point was more to highlight the shortcomings of both RFC and STAR in recognising the relevance of HNA opinion.

I've no desire to change STAR or RFCs opinion or address their organistations failings. I will point out how flawed they are though if I can be bothered.

Personally, if I have an issue with the club that effects me directly I call them up and speak to the likes of dappy-boll*cks Boyd Butler or the hopeless whinging Geordie Craig Mortimer. Sometimes that's had an effect, sometimes not, but any organisation with a strong and long lasting relationship with their 'customer base' should be open to dialogue with those stakeholders. If they don't then that's their problem.

I agree social media is changing the landscape a bit but HNA is still the only place I've seen for realitively informed and interesting debate around RFC.

A quick look at the team board right now probably blows that informed and interesting debate argument out of the water

Also all bias aside, I'd like to think we've had a few decent rational articles and discussions up on The Tilehurst End and have grown a lot even in 18 months, while other boards like The Royals Rendezvous are working hard and slowly growing, but yeah HobNob is still the biggest non-official source of Reading debate online today and has a long history behind it as well.

I agree that there's some good debate, but again my point is how many unique users actually contribute to those debates? It's pretty much the same faces in every thread, posters like ourselves, Snowball, Floyd, RL, Ian Royal, Winch, Royal Blue, 2WW, Handbags, LoyalRoyalFan, Libertine, Simon's Church and probably a couple of dozen others that I've forgotten off the top of my head but my point is it's not like there's hundreds of different posters contributing to informed discussion and sharing rational explained viewpoints.

Could HobNob be a great place to gauge opinions and spread awareness? Yes, but the cliques, squabbles, windup merchants and lack of actual faces behind posters means that the effort needed to go through to sift the good from the cr@p is probably on the side of too much hassle right now for STAR or Reading.

Ultimately, as you've admitted you do yourself, if you've really got a beef you'd actually take the time to complain to the club or STAR directly.

[Hoop Blah]

But the main point being put forward here is that IF the board at STAR want their organisation to meet it's stated objectives, including "encourage the Club to take proper account of the interests of its supporters and the community it serves" then it's failing if it doesn't engage with the largest body of fans outside of match day attendances.

Also, you've just repeated the same mistake as Dirk, that the board is limited to a handful of individuals who both to contribute. It isn't. There were around a 100 contributors to one thread alone, and many many more that would be reading it.

If the club, or more specifically STAR, ignore this forum as their best way of reaching out to the wider fan base then they are, at best, missing a trick, and at worst neglecting their duty as elected representatives of an organisation who set out their objectives to represent the fans of the football club.

[Green]

But the main point being put forward here is that IF the board at STAR want their organisation to meet it's stated objectives, including "encourage the Club to take proper account of the interests of its supporters and the community it serves" then it's failing if it doesn't engage with the largest body of fans outside of match day attendances.

Also, you've just repeated the same mistake as Dirk, that the board is limited to a handful of individuals who both to contribute. It isn't. There were around a 100 contributors to one thread alone, and many many more that would be reading it.

If the club, or more specifically STAR, ignore this forum as their best way of reaching out to the wider fan base then they are, at best, missing a trick, and at worst neglecting their duty as elected representatives of an organisation who set out their objectives to represent the fans of the football club.

Good post