[theblackwatch]

In December we carried out a user survey and some of those of you who asked for a response should have already received one. If you haven't had one yet you will get one soon; we haven't forgotten about you!

A number of respondents asked to know what the results were; so here are some of the results for selected questions. The results were extremely positive and we identified certain areas for improvement based on the multiple choice and ''free text'' questions.

Overall, 97% of replies said that RailUK Forums is a brand they trust and are happy to be seen using and 96% said that the branding and logos used were appropriate and present a positive image. Quality of our styles was rated ''good'' and ''fair'' by most, with only 2% ranked as ''poor.'' Many people did not know that they could change the styles, so this is something for us to work on in the future. Unsurprisingly, most people use the default style, and some other styles only have a handful of users each.

11% said that the range of topics covered by each forum was too wide and some other comments were made about specific forums. As a result, a few weeks ago we did make some changes to the forums and this is constantly under review.

With regards to forum moderation, almost three quarters said our time taken to respond to an incident was above average and 22% said it was average. Three quarters said the forum staff were proactive in preventing incidents from escalating, but 8% said that we were ''below average'' so there is small room for improvement in this area. 70% thought that the level of fairness and consistency was above average and 19% thought it was average, but 11% still thought we were below average. In addition 9% thought the level of communication was below average, so we hope that the trial of our auto-PM system when posts are deleted will assist in this area.

Those who responded to the advertising questions overall thought we had just the right number of adverts (5 times as many said we had the right number or that we could have more against those who said we had too many). Lots of you also said we should better use our advertising space to display non-commercial adverts to other areas of the forum, and whilst we have been doing this to a limited extent this will be rolled out further over the next few months, on a trial basis.

Now is probably a suitable time to mention that it is exactly two years since we made a number of significant changes to the forum. We decided the forum needed a bit of a change of direction, and not encourage childish postings which, at the time, were quite high. As a consequence, the decision was taken to close what was the 'chat' section of the website and this took place on February 6th 2009. Obviously, this did upset a small minority of members, one of whom said that if we removed that forum, we would have less posts and members, a view we did not share and which proved to be wildly inaccurate as since then the forum has gone from strength to strength.

So how do things compare to two years ago? We now have over 5,600 more members than we did at the start of February 2009, 1,744 of whom have been active in the past 30 days. Looking at the number of members who actually logged in, we have more than doubled the number of members logging in per day - 260 on 4th February 2009 and 710 on the same date two years later. The number of new posts per day has increased by almost 50% compared with 2 years ago.

The success of the forum has meant that the advertising revenue presently covers the running costs, and last year, we were able to make a donation to the Railway Children charity. We also had some badges produced which were provided free of charge to members who requested one (we still have a few left - if anyone wants one, please PM Mojo, first come first served!). We have some plans and ideas for this year, which will hopefully be revealed in the next few months.

Thanks to everyone for your continued support and input, without the members there would be no forum - we look forward to your support over the next two years.

[Dai.]

About the forum styles, they are really nice pictures, but is there a chance they could rotate or change? or have credited images from users? as some of the photos taken by people are really awesome.

[Mojo]

We won't change the pictures for changes sake, it would only be implemented as part of an overall forum change which is a long way off yet. You can change the styles yourself using the drop down menu at the bottom of the page or in your User CP. Most of the pictures in the styles have been submitted by users (see previous posts in Admin Announcements forum), but it is very hard to find a picture that meets the requirements, as pictures have to be long and thin, and the front of the train ideally needs to be on the left.

[mbonwick]

Pleasing to see that the forum pays its way - many don't!