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Why does the club ignore OTIB?


Robin101

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1 hour ago, BoneyardTIM said:

This forum is certainly not a cross section of our fan base. This is where the looney’s hang out.

I'd disagree @BoneyardTIM This forum has all ages, sexes, people from around the world and different backgrounds.

That is EXACTLY as cross section of our fanbase, or are you chosing to ignore all those that post on here?

46 minutes ago, Fodbarmyarmy said:

OTIB is not even 1% of our fan base..

Out of interest @FoD Barmy Army Bream could you provide numbers to back this up please?

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I think part of it is fear of critique. On Twitter you’re limited by character limits, Facebook doesn’t have a ‘forum’ setup and Instagram is primarily pictorial.

This forum doesn’t have a character limit and allows for well thought out essay length critiques of the club. There’s no way they’d want to be held accountable in that way by some posters on here who could ask lots of tricky questions.

Also, from an engagement point of view, this is one website. Twitter, Facebook, Insta etc are huge social media brands that cannot be ignored. Letting one independent website slip through the net is more forgivable. 

I think the QnA’s with club officials were good. Sadly it felt like people such as DaveL had to respond to very tricky and nuanced issues regarding decisions that they personally hadn’t made. I remember the taking down of the ‘ULTRAS’ flag getting a bit tasty in discussions on here. 

I’m absolutely sure club officials do read it. It’s a fantastic barometer for understanding our support. It’s a busy forum with a variety of ages and demographics. They just choose not to acknowledge.

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1 hour ago, Robbored said:

The officials at AG certainly used to read otib but whether MA does or not I don’t know.

However every time I’ve heard MA speak he gives off an “ I know more than you do’ and some what arrogant aura which gives me the impression that he doesn’t give two shits about what we fans think. A perfect example of that was a couple of seasons ago when the SC prices went up significantly without any consultation with the Supporters Trust - only when they kicked up a fuss did Ashton change his tune.

Bottom line is that in the eyes of club we’re simply cash cows and your views are insignificant.

 

I am going to back Robbored a bit here. (Who would have thought it).  I have also been present at several of MAs talks especially at Senior Reds. Yes it is a room full of old uns but the wealth of knowledge and memories present in that room is priceless. MA comes across as very condescending, almost in a 'what do you know' attitude. It just gets people's backs up. Many fans have 50 + years of following City, that should not be ignored, we have seen it all many times. Yes, today we are little more  than cash cows, sadly, MA makes that perfectly clear.

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SL was a member for years. But as tends to happen, those with sad lives that have everything revolve around City and are angry because of it, got all worked up and abusive, so he left. When he left I think he cut all ties between this place and the club!

As someone said that is a double edged sword as we are not treated to club propaganda to any great extent and occasionally a club representative pops on to dispel any truth that comes out.

However by and large the forum is made up of feckwits, fantasists, wannabes, never were’s, key board warriors  and alcoholics...many many alcoholics!

Those that fall under the above categories spout eternal about cheap options (200m I think SL has wasted/I mean spent on grounds and club), rows of numbers that add up to ten (such as 352 or 532 or 442 or 433 etc), treat everyone to their meaningless meanderings based on some supposed inside knowledge (there are actually a couple that do have links inside the citadel, who shall remain nameless) and their knowledge of the game (false nine, the number eight roll etc)

However in a strange and macabre way it can be quite entertaining as the one or two who talk some sense try to say something accurate, while those of us who have lost all hope as we have entered here continue to write puns and one liners to get our like counts up!

Now go and start another Podcast we don’t seem to have quite enough of them!

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Robin101 said:

OTIB is a form of social media like any other, so why does the club make such an effort on Facebook/Instagram, but has decided that this busy forum of thousands of Bristol City fans - likely representing a far greater cross-section of fans - is not worth bothering with?

If my business had a forum full of our ‘customers’ talking about our product everyday then I’d sure as hell be trying to engage. 

Raises the question, what is the point of the club being on Facebook/Insta etc at all? They don’t really seem to try and ‘sell’ anything directly like most businesses.

So I assume it’s about ‘building the brand’, ‘building the community’ and that. Which begs the question, given we are the community, why aren’t they here?

Genuine question, why does the club not even try with OTIB? 

I think it's because we're the hardcore in terms of interest and our time investment.. There's not much reason to try. At some point during our lives we've sought out this forum to spend time on, we're heavily invested in Bristol City. It's not like facebook or twitter where you click one button and things pop up like adverts to tell you something is going on. We have to actively come here and spend time reading through content.  

If you want fan content, you can use the official "in crowd" fans. They're the ones that create their own content and get access to people from the club. If you want to market then hit the biggest audience possible, everyone (ish) has a facebook or twitter, not everyone goes to a fan forum. If you want an actual dialog with the fans who spend money you talk to season ticket holders or the richer fans who are part of various clubs and schemes the club has set up over the years.

"We" don't financially contribute to the club through this format so there's no real reason to give us attention through this format. We do through other means so it's best (from the clubs view) to target us through those IMO.

So in short, you're not sure who you're targeting or the best way to do it, and we already are invested so there's not much benefit to doing so IMO.

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1 hour ago, Bar BS3 said:

If the club took advice from otib, we'd change our manager 12 times a season, let people into matches for free and give them an 80% discount on the club shirt, once the design was eventually agreed upon being acceptable. 

We'd have a wage bill the size of Real Madrid's and the stadium would be a mix of 1970's terracing, terracing but with some executive boxes because it would be crazy of us not to keep with the times. 

We'd give everyone free travel to away games (covid permitting) and demand unlimited ticket allocations, whilst severely limiting away fans at AG for fear that they'd out sing us. 

We'd allow standing at matches, but nobody would be allowed to obstruct anyone's view. 

Pryos would be allowed, providing they are smoke free and harmless. 

All games would kick off at 3pm on a Saturday, so that people could then moan about not having any midweek games. 

They'd want people's opinions of all new transfers, so we never sign the likes of Matt Smith, Aaron Wilbraham etc again, because their stats weren't up to scratch on championship manager. 

The list goes on and on... 

Can you imagine how many managers we would have been through in the last 5 years?

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1 hour ago, Phileas Fogg said:

I’m absolutely sure club officials do read it. It’s a fantastic barometer for understanding our support. It’s a busy forum with a variety of ages and demographics. They just choose not to acknowledge.

I suspect most of us are on the clubs 'ignore' button by now ?

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2 hours ago, Robin101 said:

OTIB is a form of social media like any other, so why does the club make such an effort on Facebook/Instagram, but has decided that this busy forum of thousands of Bristol City fans - likely representing a far greater cross-section of fans - is not worth bothering with?

If my business had a forum full of our ‘customers’ talking about our product everyday then I’d sure as hell be trying to engage. 

Raises the question, what is the point of the club being on Facebook/Insta etc at all? They don’t really seem to try and ‘sell’ anything directly like most businesses.

So I assume it’s about ‘building the brand’, ‘building the community’ and that. Which begs the question, given we are the community, why aren’t they here?

Genuine question, why does the club not even try with OTIB? 

I'll have a stab at this: Hyperbole.

Let's start with your post, '... thousands of Bristol City fans'.
How much of an exaggeration is that?

'... trying to engage'
There are some good posters and commenters on this forum but just how much are they outnumbered by, I'll be polite, people looking to pick a bun fight?
It just would not be possible to get a sensible conversation going.

I can't possibly comment on the other social media, I just don't really play in that shit pit because I've got OTIB to play in.

'building a brand'
Just what do you think supporting a football team is?
'building a brand' is just articulation of being a fan, a supporter, etc. and feeds into marketing.
It is not new other than it has been given a name.

'building a community'
The community exists from the mere fact that City exists.
When you were a kid, did you want your parents trying to engage with your mates, or in fact, did your parents want to engage with your mates?
Communities share a common sense of belonging, views etc. and they aren't necessarily shared with people outside the community.
About the only thing I think the 'OTIB community', the general football fan base and BCFC owners/players/managers/etc have in common is: BCFC. Any other commonality is likely to be either tenuous or very thin. OTIB is just a tad too radical for some.

Some other posters have summarised the people who frequent OTIB, some of it fair and some of it unfair. It is the nature of this board.

If there was a club rep on these boards they'd be inundated by the trivial, the unpleasant and no real 'communication' would take place.

If people want to engage with the club, I suspect they need to be joining the 'Bristol City Supporters Club and Trust'.
But on doing that, they lose their anonymity and I suspect that their 'forthright views' would evaporate like a fart in the wind, or not last long in that community of BCFC fans.
 

 

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2 hours ago, Robin101 said:

Ha, I’m serious! What is it about the audience/content whatever of Facebook and Twitter that means it’s a vital channel of comms for the club, but OTIB isn’t?

We're already hooked to BCFC, the contributors to OTIB are the more ardent supporters, as such, we already see all the other social media coverage. By using Facebook, Twitter ETC, they are appealing to a wider, younger  less informed audience. That's where they want to promote sales and the club as a whole. 

Besides, they don't interact on those sites, they just advertise or provoke debate amongst contributors. I'm sure they look at the replies on those sites to gauge a reaction to what's happening and generally ignore the OTIB site, as it represents the fanbase more likely to give them a bit of gyp. 

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12 minutes ago, bcfcfinker said:

I'll have a stab at this: Hyperbole.

Let's start with your post, '... thousands of Bristol City fans'.
How much of an exaggeration is that?

'... trying to engage'
There are some good posters and commenters on this forum but just how much are they outnumbered by, I'll be polite, people looking to pick a bun fight?
It just would not be possible to get a sensible conversation going.

I can't possibly comment on the other social media, I just don't really play in that shit pit because I've got OTIB to play in.

'building a brand'
Just what do you think supporting a football team is?
'building a brand' is just articulation of being a fan, a supporter, etc. and feeds into marketing.
It is not new other than it has been given a name.

'building a community'
The community exists from the mere fact that City exists.
When you were a kid, did you want your parents trying to engage with your mates, or in fact, did your parents want to engage with your mates?
Communities share a common sense of belonging, views etc. and they aren't necessarily shared with people outside the community.
About the only thing I think the 'OTIB community', the general football fan base and BCFC owners/players/managers/etc have in common is: BCFC. Any other commonality is likely to be either tenuous or very thin. OTIB is just a tad too radical for some.

Some other posters have summarised the people who frequent OTIB, some of it fair and some of it unfair. It is the nature of this board.

If there was a club rep on these boards they'd be inundated by the trivial, the unpleasant and no real 'communication' would take place.

If people want to engage with the club, I suspect they need to be joining the 'Bristol City Supporters Club and Trust'.
But on doing that, they lose their anonymity and I suspect that their 'forthright views' would evaporate like a fart in the wind, or not last long in that community of BCFC fans.
 

 

You make some fair points but I suspect that there are at least 1,000 posters on OTIB!

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2 minutes ago, Rich said:

We're already hooked to BCFC, the contributors to OTIB are the more ardent supporters, as such, we already see all the other social media coverage. By using Facebook, Twitter ETC, they are appealing to a wider, younger  less informed audience. That's where they want to promote sales and the club as a whole. 

Besides, they don't interact on those sites, they just advertise or provoke debate amongst contributors. I'm sure they look at the replies on those sites to gauge a reaction to what's happening and generally ignore the OTIB site, as it represents the fanbase more likely to give them a bit of gyp. 

So in summary what I’m getting from this thread is that everyone on OTIB is a grumpy, old and potentially crazed alcoholic fan who will continue to hand over money no matter what and, a bit like your aged uncle, is better off politely pretending they didn’t exist.

Whereas the other sites are the suckers who haven’t yet signed their life away to BCFC. But they want them to.

Probably just about answered my question then.

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Things have certainly changed. Remember one evening SL put a :sub:or similar on here on a thread anticipating whether Murray was about to re-sign from Reading, to let us know it was indeed happening.

I was present at an OTIB forum meet in Ashton Park, when SL and Maggie turned up, chatted with us all, and SL even joined in a game of football and posed for the after match group photo.

Not sure SL is so keen on mixing with the fans these days or being seen as 'one of us', albeit obviously from a uniquely lofty position. Noticeably the regular Q&A's under the Dolman and the Open Days - both of which I regularly attended and enjoyed - seem to be a thing of the past.

It also seems the new Directors Box was designed to be very much up in the Gods (surrounded by either empty seats or children) and very much isolated away from the atmosphere, and perhaps criticism, of ordinary fans.

Shame really because I'm sure most fans take to SL when they meet him. I imagine the vast majority are also very polite and appreciative. Taking on board the occasional criticism and giving his response to keep fans informed, where possible, should ideally be part and parcel of his position imo.

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1 minute ago, Robin101 said:

So in summary what I’m getting from this thread is that everyone on OTIB is a grumpy, old and potentially crazed alcoholic fan who will continue to hand over money no matter what and, a bit like your aged uncle, is better off politely pretending they didn’t exist.

Whereas the other sites are the suckers who haven’t yet signed their life away to BCFC. But they want them to.

Probably just about answered my question then.

By Jove he's got it!

We are a commodity that can be ignored.

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1 hour ago, Phileas Fogg said:

I think part of it is fear of critique. On Twitter you’re limited by character limits, Facebook doesn’t have a ‘forum’ setup and Instagram is primarily pictorial.

This forum doesn’t have a character limit and allows for well thought out essay length critiques of the club. There’s no way they’d want to be held accountable in that way by some posters on here who could ask lots of tricky questions.

Also, from an engagement point of view, this is one website. Twitter, Facebook, Insta etc are huge social media brands that cannot be ignored. Letting one independent website slip through the net is more forgivable. 

I think the QnA’s with club officials were good. Sadly it felt like people such as DaveL had to respond to very tricky and nuanced issues regarding decisions that they personally hadn’t made. I remember the taking down of the ‘ULTRAS’ flag getting a bit tasty in discussions on here. 

I’m absolutely sure club officials do read it. It’s a fantastic barometer for understanding our support. It’s a busy forum with a variety of ages and demographics. They just choose not to acknowledge.

Agreed. There are some brilliant posters on this forum who probably would intimidate the likes of JL and MA. You only have to listen to MA squirming when Twentyman goes at him on the radio to hear that the guy cowers under the pressure of somebody with genuine knowledge of the football club and somebody who can properly debate. 
They’re  are many posters on here who I believe could make things very uncomfortable for Ashton let alone Jon Lansdown who genuinely is clueless and hasn’t got the polished facade of Ashton. As you said they choose not to put themselves in that position - cowards the pair of them.

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There are a few people on here who spout absolute shite but that's a reflection not just of City fans but of society as a whole.  There is never agreement about anything so it's as good a reflection of the views of city fans than any.  Social media is full of people who can't say anything of value.  OTIB wins by a mile

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  • SC&T Board Members

For information, the last time I got an update on the figures (last summer), this forum had 17,000+ registered users, 5,500 of whom had posted 10 times or more.

'Users' excludes those fans who are not registered and merely read the forum.

 

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3 hours ago, steviestevieneville said:

They put news out on social media but the club doesn’t respond to tweets or Facebook messages 

Most, if not all clubs do the same. They appreciate that social platforms are today’s normal and use them to reveal various going’s on at the club.

Even clubs with relatively low numbers of supporters will still have many thousands of fans with a wide range of opinions and cognitive abilities. It’s impractical to engage with fans on social media. 

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In response to the original question in post 1

The club do not ignore this forum, there are many times where they have listened to posts on here, but of course will not directly respond to them

Those saying managers would have been sacked, that is a silly comment to make that is not what the club should be reacting to

It's problems around matchday experience, ticketing etc etc, and on multiple occasion the club has reacted

If the club were not bothered about OTIB you would have to ask why so many Bristol Sport employees either lurk around the shadows reading posts or logging on and reacting as a fan when it is clearly a club employee.

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14 minutes ago, Blagdon red said:

For information, the last time I got an update on the figures (last summer), this forum had 17,000+ registered users, 5,500 of whom had posted 10 times or more.

'Users' excludes those fans who are not registered and merely read the forum.

 

Thanks Blagdon red. 

Do Union Berlin engage with their alcoholic fans forum do you know? ?

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36 minutes ago, Nogbad the Bad said:

Things have certainly changed. Remember one evening SL put a :sub:or similar on here on a thread anticipating whether Murray was about to re-sign from Reading, to let us know it was indeed happening.

I was present at an OTIB forum meet in Ashton Park, when SL and Maggie turned up, chatted with us all, and SL even joined in a game of football and posed for the after match group photo.

Not sure SL is so keen on mixing with the fans these days or being seen as 'one of us', albeit obviously from a uniquely lofty position. Noticeably the regular Q&A's under the Dolman and the Open Days - both of which I regularly attended and enjoyed - seem to be a thing of the past.

It also seems the new Directors Box was designed to be very much up in the Gods (surrounded by either empty seats or children) and very much isolated away from the atmosphere, and perhaps criticism, of ordinary fans.

Shame really because I'm sure most fans take to SL when they meet him. I imagine the vast majority are also very polite and appreciative. Taking on board the occasional criticism and giving his response to keep fans informed, where possible, should ideally be part and parcel of his position imo.

I've also enjoyed meetings with SL and Maggie back in the day. The last was during 2014/15 promotion season - which was the last time I recall there being a Q&A at an away match - Crewe - I may have missed later events. (It may be the event @BTRFTG is recalling - the questions weren't of the highest quality! Drink had been taken by the vast majority of the attendees)

The handful of folk I know personally who post on here are argumentative but well informed, and in their everyday lives highly successful and respected, like most of the people I know who follow City. It's a great forum, the best football forum I've seen with some excellent contributors.

 

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3 hours ago, BoneyardTIM said:

This forum is certainly not a cross section of our fan base. This is where the looney’s hang out.

aaaand for the second post this week again OTIB is singled out as the one place that anyone has an opinion.  Have you ever seen some of the replies on the official twitter account?   But nah once again its ALL OTIBS FAULT.

 

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