Orson: How to improve traffic at this site

[Orson]

Since Wong's bj21 free pages have been closed, many possible contributors at their "Outside USA" page who are not GC members do not even know what is going on. Many of them may be not aware of this site. Couple of days ago Grisha already posted here an idea that someone should notify formerly most frequent and valuable contributors at bj21 "Outside USA" about this site. Besides, I remember a while ago some people left bj21 because of trolls and troublemakers. What comes into my mind is Andrew W Scott. Since this site has much tougher policy in this aspect I wonder if he would be interested to post here. Maybe Mr. Parker or someone else should check the archives at bj21 and possibly send private invitations to participate at discussions here (of course, not all posters post with their e-mail adresses, but at least there should be some). I am writing this now because bj21 just removed the free pages from the left frame, but they can be still accessed. Just in case if somebody is interested, here is a link below.

Regards,
Orson

Outside USA

[Don Schlesinger]

Thak you for an excellent suggestion. I'm sure Viktor and Parker will check into this.

Don

[Parker]

Interesting that you should mention that. I had an e-mail correspondence with Andrew Scott a few months ago, when the topic of an "Outside USA" page first surfaced. At that time, he apparently declined to participate, since I did not hear further from him.

However, now that we have actually created the page, I probably should drop him a line and let him know about it. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Orson]

Grisha already mentioned Victor, Francis Salmon and BJTraveler. There are some more who had disapeared since free pages at bj21 are closed, but I am not sure for the reasons of it (I suspect some of them have access to GC, but green Non-USA page is totally dead). Anyway, it is your decision if you want or do not want to invite someone personally.

Buy the way it seems to me that there is a kind of bug with NEW message tags. For example, I see your message as NEW, but Full timer's post above isn't labelled as such. It has happened before, too. I suspect it has something to do with the fact of moderation and therefore delayed appearance of some messages.

Regards,
Orson

[Viktor Nacht]

> Buy the way it seems to me that there is a
> kind of bug with NEW message tags. For
> example, I see your message as NEW, but Full
> timer's post above isn't labelled as such.
> It has happened before, too. I suspect it
> has something to do with the fact of
> moderation and therefore delayed appearance
> of some messages.

This is off-topic, but I am impressed: Finally someone has figured out why this has been happening! Don has been complaining about this for months, but I never touched the cookie code, so the issue was a mystery. Now it's all very clear.

I'll have to think abou this. I'll post to the computing for counters board when I've thought it through. There are issues with messing with someone's posting time during the approval process that I don't know whether they are an ethical problem or not.

Na-Noo Na-Noo,

V

[Andrew W Scott]

Hi. Thanks for the invitation Parker. Yes I am interested in posting here, my problem at the moment is that I have had a really busy year and there has been a lot of development on my own site for our students here in Australia.

However, my own interests will quieten down in the new year and I would be happy to renew old acquaintances and start posting here in the future. I don't care much for Wong's single free page, but it is his site and I totally understand and repect why he has done it.

Our own site is moderated for the public and I really think it is the way to go. Before anyone accuses me (yet again) of trying to generate students/traffic to my business using bj21 or advantageplayer.com or any other forum, that is totally against what I do. 99% of my students come from Australia and quite frankly I prefer them nice and green so they are easier to teach! Students who have spent a lot of time doing their own research can be very difficult to teach.

However, posting on forums can lead to email friendships which can lead to good game swapping, which is more my bag!

AWS

[Parker]

> Hi. Thanks for the invitation Parker. Yes I
> am interested in posting here, my problem at
> the moment is that I have had a really busy
> year and there has been a lot of development
> on my own site for our students here in
> Australia.

Thanks for stopping by. Lack of time to do all the things we'd like to do seems to be one of those problems that transcends international borders, oceans, etc.

> However, my own interests will quieten down
> in the new year and I would be happy to
> renew old acquaintances and start posting
> here in the future. I don't care much for
> Wong's single free page, but it is his site
> and I totally understand and repect why he
> has done it.

> Our own site is moderated for the public and
> I really think it is the way to go. Before
> anyone accuses me (yet again) of trying to
> generate students/traffic to my business
> using bj21 or advantageplayer.com or any
> other forum, that is totally against what I
> do. 99% of my students come from Australia
> and quite frankly I prefer them nice and
> green so they are easier to teach! Students
> who have spent a lot of time doing their own
> research can be very difficult to teach.

Very true. It is always much easier for someone to learn something when they do not have to "unlearn" something else first.

I doubt that many people would be willing to pay airfare to Australia and back to attend a blackjack school when there are so many resources available here in the US.

OTOH, hopefully the creation of this forum will draw more posts and participation from those based "down under."

> However, posting on forums can lead to email
> friendships which can lead to good game
> swapping, which is more my bag!

Indeed = my sentiments exactly.