CN Forum vs CN Main Site

[ElChingon]

Who goes to read the CN main site first or who visits the forum first for their cycling news/information/misinformation?

The Forum seems to have established itself and at this point I go to the main site after reading the forum, whether it be a link or a topic title that seems interesting.

I know the CN founders will cringe to know we would rather read our own news or interpreted news to theirs but it is how things are moving on most sites.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Forum first and last .... main site ...dont like it.

 

[The Hitch]

There's a main sight?

 

[daveinzambia]

Still open the main site first for a quick glance to see if anything major has happened then move to the forum to see if anything irrelevant has happened.

 

[knewcleardaze]

I have learned of several breaking news stories from this forum.
Sometimes I do a quick scan of the CN site.

 

[ElChingon]

I have learned of several breaking news stories from this forum.
Sometimes I do a quick scan of the CN site.

There's a main sight?

Still open the main site first for a quick glance to see if anything major has happened then move to the forum to see if anything irrelevant has happened.

I've been pondering this for some time and mainly because most link other more relevant and up to date sites. I think the forum members have beaten CN's main site to the punch so many times its actually rather funny at times when the main sites story reflects what the forum members have written.

My angle with this is the forum members are really news feeding the main site if not prodding them to wake up and post a story. Which should naturally lead to more support of the forum in at the very least improving the software that runs this thing and not re-tweaking the main site which is a waste and keeps being done for no real reason than to keep some programmer on the payroll, maybe he should focus on the forum software for a bit? if not full time.

 

[daveinzambia]

I tend to use the main site more during the season to get a quick feel for what has happened overnight.

Being based in Oz, by the time i have woken up, the race has been run, commented on, dissected, and 300 comments posted. can take a fair amount of time to wade through all of that so will have a quick read of the results then maybe take a look in here.

during the day i will tend to go straight to the forums as anything new happening will appear here first (or on twitter which i also use a lot). I will then only go to the main site during the day if pointed there by twitter.

 

[Quixote]

I voted "forum first" because this is what, December? I access the site on my phone from the CN iPhone app. During the season I check that frequently. But, you're correct in that I frequently see the latest in the forum before the site.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Still open the main site first for a quick glance to see if anything major has happened then move to the forum to see if anything irrelevant has happened.

yeah ill quickly check for any breaking news. and then jump on here.

 

[Maxiton]

The icon on my bookmarks bar goes directly to the main site, rather than to the forum. More than 9 times out of ten, though, I immediately click on the forum link. Every once in a while I'll first open an article link in a new tab. But I usually don't read that tab until after I've read the forum threads that are interesting.

So I agree with ElChingon that forum traffic is driving the site, and that more attention should be paid to the forum software. I'm guessing, though, that the forum software is a generic, pre-packaged thing, and that tweaking very much at all would require new software altogether. If that's the case, it might be worth the investment.

 

[Granville57]

Usually in the morning (7:00am to 8:00am EST) I'll go to the main page first and read a few stories then head straight to the forum. Throughout the day, if I'm checking in, I usually only quickly scan the main site to see if anything significant has come up.

However, if my intent is to continue to follow one or two particular threads that I feel invested in, then I'll jump right into the forum—especially in the later evening hours (EST), like right now. One other point is that if some big story has developed overnight, by the time I get on board the Euro members are already pages deep into the details and it can take some time for me to catch up, in which case I jump from the main page right away.

I've often come across general news stories on the forum before any outside source. The recent events in Korea, and the tsunami in Japan being two examples. It's always easier for the forum to report any story—cycling related or not—because we're not bound by the same standards as the main page. They have to fact check, have sources and generally keep a more professional tone. We get to just blast whatever tidbits rain down from the twitter-sphere and worry about sorting out the details later. So it's no surprise that quite often stories will break on the forum first.

Once I'm in though, I rarely go back to the main site. If some story breaks on the main page that is particularly noteworthy, there can be no doubt that a new thread will soon follow (which will inevitably draw me back to the main story). Luckily, someone always seems to be paying attention.

 

[Martin318is]

Nicely loaded poll there... The closest you can get to saying you go to the site for news first is to say that you go to the main site but that you acknowledge that the forum has more current information "what is really going on"....

I have long ago defaulted to looking at the forum first - truth be told I go to my email first to see what was reported, then go to the mods section to see what the current issues are, then go to the forum itself to see if there are any interesting discussions, then go to the main site for the news - then go back to the forum to see which threads link up tot he main news...

 

[RedheadDane]

Site first. If one of the headlines catch my interest I'll read that (those if more than one), then I'll pretty quickly proceed to the forum.

 

[Havetts]

Forum first.. bookmarked it to the forum, I hardly read the news page. Only if I see something interesting in the twitterfeed .