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Help us shape the new Gymnation

Pseudonym

By Pseudonym
in General chitchat

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Pseudonym Veteran member

Pseudonym

Posted
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Hey guys, you may have seen me dropping the occasional comment about this, but soon we'll be upgrading the forum software. I'm really excited about the new features that come with it, and I'll talk about them in due course, but first I want to discuss Gymnation's position in the NZ fitness scene.

 

Once upon a time, this forum used to be the only place people had for news, gossip, photos, inpiration, motivation, etc, etc, etc. Now we share the social media space with a bunch of other players - some of whom are quite big. The fact is, we can't beat Facebook for gossip and trolling, and we can't beat Instagram for photos. (Instead of tackling them head on, the new Gymnation will make it easier to incorporate their content into ours - but more on that later.)

 

What we can do is play to our strengths - and that is being NZ's most comprehensive, impartial resource on all things gym and fitness, and providing members with access to local experts who can answer their questions.

 

Basically, it comes down to this... the new Gymnation is about expertise.

 

Conveniently, I think we currently have more experts and advanced members on the site than we've ever had before. Certainly proportionate to the newbies, and possibly net total. That's just my gut feeling - discussions on the site feel more advanced now. Point is, the "expertise" message is absolutely true.

 

 

 

So the question is, if we're all about expertise, how do we amplify that? Firstly, how do we make sure people know they're getting expert advice - and make it obvious which advice is expert? Secondly, how do we make it known that Gymnation is the place to come for expert advice?

 

This is what I want you to tell me, but here's a few starters...

 

- Reputation points. Currently hidden in this version of the forum software, it's much more obvious on the new forum.

 

- Resources section. Once we're on the new system, we'll start creating a resources section with articles, tools, etc. These will be cross-referenced so they also show up in the relevant forums.

 

- Q&A format. The new software allows us to create forums in a Q&A format, where the best answers get voted to the top (the downside is it's not a linear discussion like this one)... But what do you think - would this be useful somewhere?

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Anyway, that's enough from me... What do you reckon?

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FellowshipOfTheRon Veteran member

FellowshipOfTheRon

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good work on the continuous improvement pseudo, you haven't slowed down on that point since i began here.

 

identifying experts via kudos could be the way to go. if i were to guess at the moment i'd say you, tomsauce, daz and riccardo currently hold the craziest numbers? would help newbies quickly identify the experts

 

as long as you keep the sort by date function as well as sort by rating, the order is no problem. some people like to read those Q& A threads in linear fashion following the lead up to the eventual best answer and some just want to get right to the point so cater to both audience types

 

you probably need to get someone good with marketting to help get the word out about gymnation, but i agree it's an awesome idea to instead of fight fb/insta, integrate it and become one with the universe.

 

think i asked about it ages ago but would definately like to see a proper training section with progress logging, tracking of progress pics etc. and all those auto-graphs like they have on bodyspace @bb.com. that kind of powerful tool just gives you so much potential , integrate it in to mobile apps that let people log their workouts etc. but really depends how far you want to launch this thing and how much you can feed it

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maccaz Veteran member

maccaz

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you probably need to get someone good with marketting to help get the word out about gymnation, but i agree it's an awesome idea to instead of fight fb/insta, integrate it and become one with the universe.

 

 

 

this is the main point where we are lacking

running competitions is one thing, but no poing sharing them on the fb/ig when there aren't that many followers as it is, someone like donz prob has 5x more followers than the forum does on ig haha

 

need to find a way to get more new readers, at the moment there is like 1 "expert" to every 3 "readers"

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Boosting Member

Boosting

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Good ideas Pseudo, maybe give a title of "validated expert" or whatever you want to call them to those on the site that have proven themselves in the real world (i.e not just internet experts). And possibly give them some incentive to regularly post or answer peoples questions.

That's stupid. How do you quantify 'proving themselves in the real world'?

What about the members who want to remain anonymous especially re. drug discussion?

The level of knowledge of a member answering a question should speak for itself in their posts without some faggy MVM or 'validated expert' tag dont you think?

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Skeletor Senior member

Skeletor

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What constitutes an expert. .. we used to mock bee pollen guy cos he just cut and pasted stuff ... but others do it and they're an expert...

An expert would be somebody with extensive experience or knowledge in a particular area. For example you with your age and experience in bodybuilding could be classed as an expert. [ not saying you're old ] . Also somebody might still be relatively young but still have a good knowledge base in something ie Leeroid. Pretty hard to label somebody an expert though as they may have superior knowledge in one thing but zip in another

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HarryB Veteran member

HarryB

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An expert would be somebody with extensive experience or knowledge in a particular area. For example you with your age and experience in bodybuilding could be classed as an expert. [ not saying you're old ] . Also somebody might still be relatively young but still have a good knowledge base in something ie Leeroid. Pretty hard to label somebody an expert though as they may have superior knowledge in one thing but zip in another

I was just wondering about the process. But truthfully we have this here already. People work out pretty quickly what information is useful to them and what isn't and who has something actually useful to add and why etc etc etc for me I like guys who can explain something to me in plain English. Not cut and paste a bunch of stuff.. tell me I'm too simple to understand their scientific jargon etc etc then show me their hulking 80k running grams and grams of gear physique to validate their process :)

I like leeroid because while he clearly does comprehensive research into what he's doing he applies his process and it shows in his progress. I might not agree with a lot of his protocols and processes but he doesn't try and sell what he's doing as being superior it's just what he does. Plenty of cred in his competitive and gym efforts also.

I'd say that's the useful type of applied stuff that I personally like to see.

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Leeroid Veteran member

Leeroid

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I was just wondering about the process. But truthfully we have this here already. People work out pretty quickly what information is useful to them and what isn't and who has something actually useful to add and why etc etc etc for me I like guys who can explain something to me in plain English. Not cut and paste a bunch of stuff.. tell me I'm too simple to understand their scientific jargon etc etc then show me their hulking 80k running grams and grams of gear physique to validate their process :)

I like leeroid because while he clearly does comprehensive research into what he's doing he applies his process and it shows in his progress. I might not agree with a lot of his protocols and processes but he doesn't try and sell what he's doing as being superior it's just what he does. Plenty of cred in his competitive and gym efforts also.

I'd say that's the useful type of applied stuff that I personally like to see.

Thanks man. Kind words indeed.

I think the new features you propose are cool Pseudo. Looking forward to them.

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BeastBuilder Senior member

BeastBuilder

Posted
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New features sound good Pseudo.

Always amazed at how much work you out into us squabbling lol.

On that note, I don't know if you guys have ever gone on RxMuscle or anything like that but they do a thing called Iron Debate and have video conferences between Palumbo and then two or three other people and discuss various topics.

If you could get some like this going it'd be dope.

Doesn't have to be outsiders, although that would be cool like coaches, nutritionists or trainers from different backgrounds etc, but given recent developments I think people would enjoy even if you got different members to do it too.

Just an idea to increase content and make it enjoyable for everyone. Plus people seem to absorb a lot more if they see and hear someone rather than just reading walls of text.

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Pseudonym Veteran member

Pseudonym

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you probably need to get someone good with marketting to help get the word out about gymnation

Sure do. I just don't have time to post here, and FB, and IG, and develop the new features, and see what other sites are doing that we can adopt, and talk to sponsors, and arrange competitions, and and and... So you're right - I do need someone else. Know anyone?

 

I'm hoping that with the new resources section, this will help promote the site as well. It gives us something extra to shout about every time we add a new tool/article/interview/podcast.

 

think i asked about it ages ago but would definately like to see a proper training section with progress logging, tracking of progress pics etc.

This has been the plan for years. Do you remember our Workout Builder? (Shotgun sponsored it - thanks Chains!) That was always supposed to be the front-runner to something like this. With the new software, adding stuff like this becomes much easier. But now, of course, there's a million apps out there, all doing the same thing - and probably better than us. So it may be more about how we integrate those with the workout journals. Not sure at this stage. We'll look at that further down the track.

 

 

this is the main point where we are lacking

running competitions is one thing, but no poing sharing them on the fb/ig when there aren't that many followers as it is, someone like donz prob has 5x more followers than the forum does on ig haha

True. And again, I'm struggling to grow our FB/IG when I don't have time/content to post. Hopefully we can turn that around. But I think the biggest help would if our members could start talking about us more on their own FB/IG pages. If, once the new site is up and running, everyone tells their followers "Hey look at this", that would be a huge help.

 

 

Good ideas Pseudo, maybe give a title of "validated expert" or whatever you want to call them to those on the site that have proven themselves in the real world (i.e not just internet experts). And possibly give them some incentive to regularly post or answer peoples questions.

We do have the Most Valued Member title which is basically the same thing (and it doesn't require us to validate anything officially). There will be more incentives around the Likes system as well (eg, displaying a leaderboard of members with the most likes in each forum, or similar).

 

 

BeastBuilder, and the others talking about podcasts... Yep, that could absolutely be part of the Resources section.

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Skeletor Senior member

Skeletor

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any chance of adding a feature to be able to choose to what page to skip to when viewing threads on a mobile device?

Yeah this. Every time I flick back to Gymnation and click on a journal or something it takes me to the beginning of the entire thread. Unless I'm logged in and theirs a new post. A skip to end button or something on mobile device would be epic.

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Pseudonym Veteran member

Pseudonym

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Hell yes! Trust me, I feel your pain...

The good news is, all those mobile problems will all be fixed. Page navigation is massively improved, there's a better text editor, and you can actually upload photos without jumping back into desktop mode. In fact, there is no separate desktop mode anymore - it's all the same.

The new software is so much better on mobile it's not funny.

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