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What Can We Do to Make MFC Better?


dcdeb

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So, I have been hearing and reading some things around the 'net -- on Twitter and Facebook and here and there -- and it seems that some people feel that the MIKA Fan Club has become obsolete, or that it's nothing special and that there's no point to it any more. :(

 

What do you think? :dunno:

 

In my opinion, it doesn't cost anything to be a member, so why not join? And there are certainly advantages to belonging -- occasional meet & greets with Mika, tickets and other giveaways... And as with anything in life, you get out of it what you put in. Those of us who have been around a while and contribute -- not monetarily, but contribute our time, our trip and gig reports, our photos, our videos, our translations and subtitles, our breaking news that we stumble upon -- I think we get more out of it than others might. Plus that has helped us develop a camaraderie and friendships that are hard to find elsewhere, especially if you're not able to travel around the globe seeing Mika at all of his appearances.

 

But... I'm willing to concede that there is always room for improvement. The times and technology are always changing. :old:

 

So what more could we do to make MFC more "fan-friendly?" What would you like to see added? What would you like to see taken away?

 

I can't guarantee we'll make all the changes you suggest, but I promise we'll listen, and do our best, as we always try to do.

 

Thanks -- we'll look forward to hearing your thoughts! :thumb_yello:

 

dcdeb and the rest of The Mod Team

 

PS: Please don't tell me we need an app. I know we do, but getting a good one designed is expensive and unless I can convince Mika to cough up the cash :lol3: I don't see how we can afford to pay to have one developed!

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The platform is definitely obsolete, a lot of young people don't even know what a forum is nowadays. But, I don't think you will find the sense of community anywhere else and that could be something, I don't know.. advertised? :aah:

 

I know it's a forum and all, but if the whole platform was more user-friendly it would probably be better. There is a learning curve to it. Like, I still haven't figured out how to embed a video on this new MFC interface. Yikes. 

 

I also think posts just about everyday on the front page would be interesting and draw people in, kind of like a blog or something. 

 

(Plus, I don't think we need an app. It would be very buggy and disappointing unless you have a really high budget)

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I must admit I have thought it would be good to have a sort of instructional thread - "How do I" multiquote/add a pic/embed a video/change my signature etc. - with step by step instructions, just to have all that info in one place.  I know there are instructions on how to do things throughout the forum, but maybe having them in one place would help :dunno:

 

Re the front page, this doesn't seem to lend itself to frequent updates (unlike FB) but I think this may be due to the forum software provider rather than anything that the MFC does.

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My first thought is the design.

Mika's world is colorful; MFC is just two tones of colours.

I think it could nice to put some drawings, maybe some parts of a record booklet...

Then I think there are too many informations in big threads. It would be great to let a website plan, to describe what you can find in each main thread.

For example when I arrived I was unable to find the MFC Subtitling Team...

Great idea this conversation!  :thumb_yello:

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That's complicate.

I'm trying to tell what I felt/understood in the past 3 years, as an external person before, and then as a member. I don't know how or if this could help, as is not only about the site itself, but about the FC in general.

 

I hope not to be misunderstood, but I'm going to be frank.

 

I honestly didn't want to sign up at first. I read on the net about bad behaviours from people from MFC, and that on the site everybody act like friends, and then in person they treat you very badly.

As I continued using MFC as a visitor, I considered joining anyway, because that would have offered me those advantages you said, from M&Gs to tickets; but if it hadn't been free, I would never had signed up.

 

There are many positive aspects of being a member, but there are also many things that don't work as they have to in my opinion.

I find that sometimes there's a big lack of organisation, and it even seems that Mika's staff don't communicate with MFC INTENTIONALLY. Maybe they do so to avoid the unpleasant situations that happen often, but in this way people act on their own, without the FC mediation, and that create chaos and those situations the staff probably don't want.

 

So people thinks MFC is useless and leave it, or at least, they aren't active normally, but when some opportunity show off, they suddenly come back and then disappear again, with a very strange timing (and/or luck).

They do so even with other people. If you give them more possibilities to see Mika, both in a correct or incorrect way, you become a big friend of them; but if you are useless they abandone you.

 

Thanks God I found very nice people too, that always helped me and were here for any questions or problems.

But the bad feelings I had before joining sadly didn't went away; instead I now was SURE about what happened in some events, while with other media only I thought there were just impressions.

 

This athmosphere, where fans are in competition with each other, so if I know Mika would be guess at xxx I won't tell you so I'll have him only for me, or fans that overtake the official fan club, doesn't make you want to join, does it?

 

There are also some things I don't understand.

Why do some country have more rep than others? Are they elected in some way? Is there a reason in this difference?

Why (apart from the yearbook and Mika's birthday) the FC doesn't organise presents (I mean, in big occasions, not always), even if fans suggest it and offers to organise? In refusing, again, people will act on their own, in small or big groups not well organised, and everybody will be pissed off, those who were not aware of the thing and would have loved to participate, the FC, that have to explain it was not an official gift and Mika not expected to thank the fanclub...

Why we don't take action against people who have bad behaviours? Not only online but, I don't know, for example preventing them from entering next event, as they do for football: after being warned you can't play next match. I do know MFC is not the police, but sites normally have rules (I know MFC have them too) and normally if you do not follow them we take action against you.

 

Please note I'm talking about GENERAL FEELINGS after SURFING THE NET 3 years, as I went IN PERSON at only 2 events being a member.

 

Then we can talk about the site's graphic and logic. 

It's difficult to find what you're looking for and not obvious where to go - excluding the research option, that doesnt work all the time (sometimes it tells "no result" when the word I type exist in titles and in threads too).

I have difficulties in writing with my phone, some words magically disappear after typing them and I can't underline/change colour/size etc (but maybe is my phone's fault).

 

Plus I noticed many people have troubles in understanding/writing english, but here we can do nothing (it's only a fact. Many people tell they don't use the site because "it's in english!!!")

 

Finally, maybe someone find twitter, facebook or instagram more simple and faster than MFC.

 

Sorry for writing this at night, that doesn't help my english,  nor in writing clearly.

Edited by Siri
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1 hour ago, silver said:

I must admit I have thought it would be good to have a sort of instructional thread - "How do I" multiquote/add a pic/embed a video/change my signature etc. - with step by step instructions, just to have all that info in one place.  I know there are instructions on how to do things throughout the forum, but maybe having them in one place would help :dunno:

 

Re the front page, this doesn't seem to lend itself to frequent updates (unlike FB) but I think this may be due to the forum software provider rather than anything that the MFC does.

Some instructions might be good. But at the same time, who wants to read a bunch of instructions to use a website? People are impatient, and websites are usually intuitive. 

 

Thats what people these days are used to and seem to like; some sort of newsfeed. There's the activity stream, but that's not quite as eye catching. It's a start to what I'm implying. An older version of MFC, you mods could put posts on the front page. Something like that again I think would be good, so people can see what kind of things they would be getting into without getting into the forum. It doesn't need frequent updates like facebook. 

 

26 minutes ago, Siri said:

 

I honestly didn't want to sign up at first. I read on the net about bad behaviours from people from MFC, and that on the site everybody act like friends, and then in person they treat you very badly.

 

 

Whaaaaat??? Really? That's awful! :shocked:

 

I know that back in the day, there was some online drama. But that's because some people on here who were young just told some blatant lies on the internet.

 

Maybe making more of an effort to be internationally friendly should be a priority, then. It used to be that most Mika fans spoke english, but I think most of them nowadays speak Italian. If we haven't done a good enough job catering to them, then that is a problem.  

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I think Siri explained a lot of things that I have seen too.

 

But, and I’m going to put my marketer hat for a few minutes, there is not much that needs to be done within MFC as a site. Maybe better explain some sections, and there might be a few threads that are totally useless (such as the clubs for instance).

 

what I think MFC needs is a complete awareness campaign: what it is, why it’s there, how it is run (and ultimately, who is behind it). It would even be better (and more effective/legitimate) if Team Mika (or even Mika himself) would participate in a way. 

 

Obviously, we can never control all the bad (and false) stuff you can sometimes see. We are humans, we are greedy and jealous by nature. 

 

But MFC had a very fond place in my heart, I might (in real and online) fabulous people through it, and it makes me sad to see it bashed.

 

Let me know if you need help with anything ;)

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16 minutes ago, cat_loves_mika said:

I know that back in the day, there was some online drama. But that's because some people on here who were young just told some blatant lies on the internet.

 

Maybe making more of an effort to be internationally friendly should be a priority, then. It used to be that most Mika fans spoke english, but I think most of them nowadays speak Italian. If we haven't done a good enough job catering to them, then that is a problem.  

 

Oh well, online dramas never ends! And yes, there is also a sort of competiton between nations...that's no sense to me

 

9 minutes ago, cathouzouf said:

what I think MFC needs is a complete awareness campaign: what it is, why it’s there, how it is run (and ultimately, who is behind it). It would even be better (and more effective/legitimate) if Team Mika (or even Mika himself) would participate in a way. 

 

I agree with this

 

11 minutes ago, cathouzouf said:

Obviously, we can never control all the bad (and false) stuff you can sometimes see. We are humans, we are greedy and jealous by nature. 

 

But MFC had a very fond place in my heart, I might (in real and online) fabulous people through it, and it makes me sad to see it bashed.

 

 

That's true. And I met fantastic people thanks to Mika and MFC too. It's sad.

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I think most of the fans only come to the forums during Mika's concerts.
 And the rest of the time they can make do with other social networks.
Those who prefer to have contacts between members stay on forums just for the Mika attitude, without necessarily depending on the current events of the central character.
 There is no harm in either choice.

 

In any case, to surf on several forums, it is the most active one. :thumb_yello:
What I like about it is the freedom to think that we find there as well as the exchange and variety of personalities! :hug:

Edited by Loo
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Thank you Siri for developing these arguments so well.

 

19 hours ago, Siri said:

This athmosphere, where fans are in competition with each other, so if I know Mika would be guess at xxx I won't tell you so I'll have him only for me, or fans that overtake the official fan club, doesn't make you want to join, does it?

 

Unfortunately, this is linked to the status of fans in the wrong sense of the word. Fanatical people will not think of others but of their own pleasure to see their idol. They will prefer that few people are around him so that he can have privileged moments with him and recognize them more than others.
Above all, it is necessary to complain about this kind of behaviour since it is the counterpart of deep emotional suffering.

 

19 hours ago, Siri said:

Why we don't take action against people who have bad behaviours? Not only online but, I don't know, for example preventing them from entering next event, as they do for football: after being warned you can't play next match. I do know MFC is not the police, but sites normally have rules (I know MFC have them too) and normally if you do not follow them we take action against you.

 

The problem is that we would have to be forced to assist these people with bad behaviour, even though they are mostly adults.
Good education is not the work of a forum but of the family and society in general.
In addition, if some people are friends with these people with deviant behavior, they could warn them or invite them in passing override the recommendations of the MFC.

 

19 hours ago, Siri said:

Plus I noticed many people have troubles in understanding/writing english, but here we can do nothing (it's only a fact. Many people tell they don't use the site because "it's in english!!!")

 

I myself have a lot of difficulty with the English language (thanks to the online translators) but we have to think that it is the language of Mika's heart; and since it is a forum for him, it is normal that he should be in that language.
In addition, there are threads in different other languages; we are free to develop them, even if there is a risk of duplicating other posts.

 

Edited by Loo
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18 hours ago, Siri said:

Questo è complicato.

Sto cercando di raccontare ciò che ho sentito / capito negli ultimi 3 anni, come una persona esterna prima e poi come membro. Non so come o se ciò potrebbe essere d'aiuto, in quanto non riguarda solo il sito stesso, ma l'FC in generale.

 

Spero di non essere frainteso, ma sarò sincero.

 

All'inizio non volevo iscrivermi. Ho letto in rete i cattivi comportamenti delle persone di MFC e che sul sito tutti si comportano come amici e poi di persona ti trattano molto male.

Mentre continuavo a usare MFC come visitatore, considerai di dover entrare in ogni caso, perché questo mi avrebbe offerto quei vantaggi che hai detto, da M & Gs ai biglietti; ma se non fosse stato libero, non mi sarei mai iscritto.

 

Ci sono molti aspetti positivi dell'essere un membro, ma ci sono anche molte cose che non funzionano come dovrebbero a mio parere.

Trovo che a volte ci sia una grande mancanza di organizzazione, e sembra persino che lo staff di Mika non comunichi con MFC INTENZIONALMENTE. Forse lo fanno per evitare le spiacevoli situazioni che accadono spesso, ma in questo modo le persone agiscono da sole, senza la mediazione FC, e questo crea caos e situazioni che probabilmente lo staff non vuole.

 

Quindi la gente pensa che MFC sia inutile e lo lasci, o almeno, non sono attivi normalmente, ma quando alcune opportunità si mettono in mostra, improvvisamente tornano indietro e poi scompaiono di nuovo, con un tempismo molto strano (e / o fortuna).

Lo fanno anche con altre persone. Se dai loro più possibilità di vedere Mika, sia in modo corretto che scorretto, diventi un grande amico di loro; ma se sei inutile ti abbandonano.

 

Grazie a Dio ho trovato anche persone molto gentili, che mi hanno sempre aiutato ed erano qui per qualsiasi domanda o problema.

Ma i cattivi sentimenti che avevo prima di unirmi tristemente non se ne andarono; invece ora ero SICURO su quello che è successo in alcuni eventi, mentre con altri media ho pensato che c'erano solo impressioni.

 

Questo ambiente, in cui i fan sono in competizione l'uno con l'altro, quindi se so che Mika sarebbe indovinato xxx non te lo dico, quindi lo avrò solo per me, o per i fan che sorpassano il fan club ufficiale, no vuoi far parte, vero?

 

Ci sono anche alcune cose che non capisco.

Perché alcuni paesi hanno più rappresentanti di altri? Vengono eletti in qualche modo? C'è una ragione in questa differenza?

Perché (a parte l'annuario e il compleanno di Mika) l'FC non organizza regali (voglio dire, in grandi occasioni, non sempre), anche se i fan lo suggeriscono e si offre di organizzarsi? Rifiutando, di nuovo, le persone agiranno da sole, in piccoli o grandi gruppi non ben organizzati, e tutti saranno incazzati, quelli che non erano a conoscenza di ciò e avrebbero amato partecipare, la FC, che deve spiegare non era un regalo ufficiale e Mika non si aspettava di ringraziare il fan club ...

Perché non agiamo contro le persone che hanno comportamenti scorretti? Non solo online ma, non lo so, per esempio impedendo loro di entrare nel prossimo evento, come fanno per il calcio: dopo essere stato avvisato non puoi giocare la prossima partita. So che MFC non è la polizia, ma i siti hanno normalmente delle regole (so che anche MFC ce l'hanno) e normalmente se non le segui prendiamo provvedimenti contro di te.

 

Si prega di notare che sto parlando di FEELINGS GENERALI dopo SURFING THE NET 3 anni, come sono andato IN PERSONA a soli 2 eventi di essere un membro.

 

Quindi possiamo parlare della grafica e della logica del sito. 

È difficile trovare quello che stai cercando e non è ovvio dove andare - escludendo l'opzione di ricerca, che non funziona sempre (a volte dice "nessun risultato" quando la parola I tipo esiste anche nei titoli e nei thread).

Ho difficoltà a scrivere con il mio telefono, alcune parole scompaiono magicamente dopo averle digitate e non riesco a sottolineare / cambiare colore / dimensione ecc (ma forse è colpa del mio telefono).

 

Inoltre ho notato che molte persone hanno problemi a capire / scrivere in inglese, ma qui non possiamo fare nulla (è solo un dato di fatto. Molte persone dicono che non usano il sito perché "è in inglese !!!")

 

Infine, forse qualcuno trova twitter, facebook o instagram più semplice e veloce di MFC.

 

Scusa per averlo scritto di notte, che non aiuta il mio inglese, né per iscritto chiaramente.

I agree with everything you @Siri… I’m quite new, I mean, I’ve been on MFC for more or less a year, even if I’ve been following Mika for several years.
I won’t go into technical problems because I’m not very good at writing in English and in fact I always write in the Italian thread.
MFC gave me occasion to meet wonderful people and to take part to several initiatives and I will always be grateful, however, I’ve noticed that some people show up only to have passes for gigs and/or events and than they disappear, or they even criticise if they don’t win: this is unfair and rude.
From my point of view, the FC would be better organised and managed if one had to pay in order to enter, so that there would be founds for many initiatives and there could be conditions for events for Mika and fans: by this way only those who really follow him would partecipate… as it often happens for many artists.
I hope that this discussion could be productive from many points of view, and I thank a friend of mine for the translation

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23 hours ago, cathouzouf said:

 

what I think MFC needs is a complete awareness campaign: what it is, why it’s there, how it is run (and ultimately, who is behind it). It would even be better (and more effective/legitimate) if Team Mika (or even Mika himself) would participate in a way. 

 

Agreed. Some of this is mentioned on the homepage, but its something that should be really highlighted. (We used to be linked on Mika's website, if I remember correctly. All that internet traffic is gone. We don't show up in the first few results when you google "mika" anymore. What happened?)

 

Maybe more online events or games that make being on the forum more fun and interactive would be a good idea. I don't know if you guys still do anything like that, but I remember activities like that from awhile ago and they were fun. It doesn't have to be a huge thing, but just something to pique interest. 

 

I'm definitely here to help as well. I don't plan on disappearing again. I'll be around. 

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First of all, thank you to everyone who has posted so far! I'm reading and reading. I'll try to reply to some of the comments below. Hope it doesn't get too confusing.

 

On 1/23/2018 at 3:32 PM, cat_loves_mika said:

The platform is definitely obsolete, a lot of young people don't even know what a forum is nowadays. But, I don't think you will find the sense of community anywhere else and that could be something, I don't know.. advertised? :aah:

 

I know it's a forum and all, but if the whole platform was more user-friendly it would probably be better. There is a learning curve to it. Like, I still haven't figured out how to embed a video on this new MFC interface. Yikes. 

 

I also think posts just about everyday on the front page would be interesting and draw people in, kind of like a blog or something. 

 

(Plus, I don't think we need an app. It would be very buggy and disappointing unless you have a really high budget)

 

I realize that message boards and forums like this are out of date. :( But this is how we started, and it seems it's the best way for a lot of fans to communicate. It's really hard to have a conversation on Twitter, even if it does allow 280 characters now. But even if someone doesn't like the forum format, we try to be active on Twitter and Facebook and to a lesser degree Instagram, so we are trying to keep up with all the social media platforms, too.

 

I'm surprised to hear you say that it's not user-friendly -- maybe it's because I'm old and have been on message boards and forums for a long time, but it seemed pretty easy for me to figure it out. Maybe not entirely intuitive as you said, but still not too bad. We'll work on that -- maybe come up with a kind of "Quick Start" Guide, with forum basics.

 

I also would like the front page to change more frequently. I think there is a blog module here somewhere, I just need to figure it out and install it.

 

 

On 1/23/2018 at 6:28 PM, Boucarilla said:

My first thought is the design.

Mika's world is colorful; MFC is just two tones of colours.

I think it could nice to put some drawings, maybe some parts of a record booklet...

Then I think there are too many informations in big threads. It would be great to let a website plan, to describe what you can find in each main thread.

For example when I arrived I was unable to find the MFC Subtitling Team...

Great idea this conversation!  :thumb_yello:

 

Well, we chose these colors to match Mika's website, mikasounds.com -- We don't just have two colors, you'll notice on our left and right borders the colors gradually change. I think they used to on mikasounds.com, too, didn't they? Or am I misremembering? In any case, Mika's team asked us to try to match his site, which we did at the time. Perhaps we need to update the look again.

 

I agree about the organization problem. We need to step back and think about how we can better organize things, for sure!

 

On 1/23/2018 at 6:34 PM, Boucarilla said:

And what about the clubs? I never understood what was it? :lmfao:

 

I have turned on the "clubs" option for the site, but have not really done anything with it yet. Once I get a better idea of how it works, I'll let you all know. ;)

 

 

23 hours ago, cathouzouf said:

I think Siri explained a lot of things that I have seen too.

 

But, and I’m going to put my marketer hat for a few minutes, there is not much that needs to be done within MFC as a site. Maybe better explain some sections, and there might be a few threads that are totally useless (such as the clubs for instance).

 

what I think MFC needs is a complete awareness campaign: what it is, why it’s there, how it is run (and ultimately, who is behind it). It would even be better (and more effective/legitimate) if Team Mika (or even Mika himself) would participate in a way. 

 

Obviously, we can never control all the bad (and false) stuff you can sometimes see. We are humans, we are greedy and jealous by nature. 

 

But MFC had a very fond place in my heart, I might (in real and online) fabulous people through it, and it makes me sad to see it bashed.

 

Let me know if you need help with anything ;)

 

Thanks, Cath. We probably will! :)

 

I appreciate your thoughts and agree that we might need to do some image building. As you said, MFC is near and dear to my heart and I certainly don't want people to think badly of it, and will do what I can to make it as good as it can be.

 

As far as Mika and Team Mika participating in MFC, and also about whether MFC is "OFFICIAL" or not, I wanted to just say a few things for the newer members who might not know:

 

First of all, MFC IS the official fan club. For anyone who hasn't noticed, there is a link to Mika Fan Club on mikasounds.com. It's in the bottom right corner of every page on that site, so I think it's pretty clear that Mika and his team acknowledge MFC as THE fan club. I know a lot of people think fan clubs are useless and old-fashioned these days, but that's what MFC is, even if it isn't a fan club in the traditional sense of the word.

 

As for Mika's involvement with the MFC -- well, he pays for hosting this site and he owns the domain mikafanclub.com. His name is on the credit card that's used to pay the bills. :yes:

 

I work closely with Mika's management team, speaking with them at least once a week. They provide us with most of the prizes that we use for our giveaways. They also help arrange ticket giveaways for concerts and shows where Mika is appearing. They also run Mika's Facebook page and give tickets away there, but we are the only fan site that they work with. They will also arrange meet & greets with Mika occasionally if the time and place allow.

 

Mika has tweeted to MFC and about MFC a number of times over the years, even if he doesn't do it every day. He is currently following MFC on Instagram. When I've spoken to him directly about the fan club, he's told me that he thinks it's very important and he appreciates everything that we do here for him. Believe me, I wish he would be more public about his support of the MFC, but obviously he can't ignore all his other fans -- many of them don't belong to MFC, so he can't only pay attention to us. :dunno:

 

Anyhow, just wanted you all to know what the MIKA <-----> MFC connection is. I know some people don't think he really cares about MFC, but I think it's pretty clear that he does.

 

Siri, I'll reply to all your comments separately, because there are some really serious issues there that we all should talk about. Thanks for your patience!

 

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I will say, forums aren't completely dead. People still live and breathe on reddit, but there's nothing to it. It's just an easy and simple site to use. But with the simplicity, you don't get the fun stuff like picture and videos in your posts. Or emoticons. Those are very important. :fisch: I think that the guiding through forums like on this website has always been a little daunting for people who have never used it before, it definitely was for me when I first joined. I think any type of social media people sign up for today is intuitive and not having to learn how to use a website is more appealing, that's why you probably don't see many returning newbies (if that is in fact, the case). People like what familiarity and will stick with what they know. 

 

Ah, okay. I didn't see the MFC link down there. My bad. :baghead: 

 

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I think that the site as it is structured is actually complicated.  i read this post this night but   I have had problem to  find it again !  We are no longer used to the forum It is clear that as an archive it is priceless and must be maintained.

MFC  should  promote Mika and his art, keep in touch  fans and management, organize meetings, facilitate members in purchasing tickets. It's true it does, for example there were contests but probably because of the difficulties of access to the site a small group had benefits. . However, with a little effort it is not impossible to understand the site and follow our Mika.

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8 hours ago, dcdeb said:

First of all, thank you to everyone who has posted so far! I'm reading and reading. I'll try to reply to some of the comments below. Hope it doesn't get too confusing.

 

 

I realize that message boards and forums like this are out of date. :( But this is how we started, and it seems it's the best way for a lot of fans to communicate. It's really hard to have a conversation on Twitter, even if it does allow 280 characters now. But even if someone doesn't like the forum format, we try to be active on Twitter and Facebook and to a lesser degree Instagram, so we are trying to keep up with all the social media platforms, too.

 

I'm surprised to hear you say that it's not user-friendly -- maybe it's because I'm old and have been on message boards and forums for a long time, but it seemed pretty easy for me to figure it out. Maybe not entirely intuitive as you said, but still not too bad. We'll work on that -- maybe come up with a kind of "Quick Start" Guide, with forum basics.

 

I also would like the front page to change more frequently. I think there is a blog module here somewhere, I just need to figure it out and install it.

 

 

 

Well, we chose these colors to match Mika's website, mikasounds.com -- We don't just have two colors, you'll notice on our left and right borders the colors gradually change. I think they used to on mikasounds.com, too, didn't they? Or am I misremembering? In any case, Mika's team asked us to try to match his site, which we did at the time. Perhaps we need to update the look again.

 

I agree about the organization problem. We need to step back and think about how we can better organize things, for sure!

 

 

I have turned on the "clubs" option for the site, but have not really done anything with it yet. Once I get a better idea of how it works, I'll let you all know. ;)

 

 

 

Thanks, Cath. We probably will! :)

 

I appreciate your thoughts and agree that we might need to do some image building. As you said, MFC is near and dear to my heart and I certainly don't want people to think badly of it, and will do what I can to make it as good as it can be.

 

As far as Mika and Team Mika participating in MFC, and also about whether MFC is "OFFICIAL" or not, I wanted to just say a few things for the newer members who might not know:

 

First of all, MFC IS the official fan club. For anyone who hasn't noticed, there is a link to Mika Fan Club on mikasounds.com. It's in the bottom right corner of every page on that site, so I think it's pretty clear that Mika and his team acknowledge MFC as THE fan club. I know a lot of people think fan clubs are useless and old-fashioned these days, but that's what MFC is, even if it isn't a fan club in the traditional sense of the word.

 

As for Mika's involvement with the MFC -- well, he pays for hosting this site and he owns the domain mikafanclub.com. His name is on the credit card that's used to pay the bills. :yes:

 

I work closely with Mika's management team, speaking with them at least once a week. They provide us with most of the prizes that we use for our giveaways. They also help arrange ticket giveaways for concerts and shows where Mika is appearing. They also run Mika's Facebook page and give tickets away there, but we are the only fan site that they work with. They will also arrange meet & greets with Mika occasionally if the time and place allow.

 

Mika has tweeted to MFC and about MFC a number of times over the years, even if he doesn't do it every day. He is currently following MFC on Instagram. When I've spoken to him directly about the fan club, he's told me that he thinks it's very important and he appreciates everything that we do here for him. Believe me, I wish he would be more public about his support of the MFC, but obviously he can't ignore all his other fans -- many of them don't belong to MFC, so he can't only pay attention to us. :dunno:

 

Anyhow, just wanted you all to know what the MIKA <-----> MFC connection is. I know some people don't think he really cares about MFC, but I think it's pretty clear that he does.

 

Siri, I'll reply to all your comments separately, because there are some really serious issues there that we all should talk about. Thanks for your patience!

 

 

Wow! It's great to remember this! Thank you... It's clear that a few new memebers know the real link between Mika and the MFC. As for me, I discovered it after being registered...

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9 hours ago, cat_loves_mika said:

(We used to be linked on Mika's website, if I remember correctly. All that internet traffic is gone. We don't show up in the first few results when you google "mika" anymore. What happened?)

 

That's another "problem". I do know MFC is linked on mikasounds.com, but there are thousands of sites, fb/tw/ig pages Mika related. And that doesn't help. 
For example, I first used Mikawebsite.com before MFC, because is the first one I found and it's simple to understand. There's a bar on the top of the screen that help a lot for the site's organisation and to find what you're looking for (I don't know if I'm allowed to post a screen, so I won't do that).

There's Mikamusic.it that is the official italian site (run by Mika's italian staff if I'm not wrong) but it hadn't been updated since 2013!
There's too many non-official pages on socials, where is easier to find information hour per hour and all sort of stuff.
New fans get confused by this amount of sites and do not know what to do! "May I follow MFC on twitter? May I register? But in this x fb page I have more info/I understand it better/etc"

So I agree with @cat_loves_mika and @cathouzouf, maybe make clearer that MFC is the only official group in some way, explain who we are, what we do, organise more events/games (not necessarily with prizes, I had fun in entering some competitions just because, not for winning). Making the forum more fun, interactive and intuitive, because ppl don't want to read guidelines nowadays.

In addition, I know we're not on a social, but we're going through the imageification (? I just invented this word, I'm sure) of all the medias, and here on MFC images have no clear organisation and are not easy to find (many of them have also been lost in the last site's update)

 

9 hours ago, dcdeb said:

Siri, I'll reply to all your comments separately, because there are some really serious issues there that we all should talk about. Thanks for your patience!

 

Do I have to worry about my permanence here for what I said? :sweatdrop: 
According to the number of reaction to my post, I suppose I'm not the only one that felt all those things, thank you, this make me feel better! I'm not a mad who invent things in his head :insane::lmfao:

Edited by Siri
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9 hours ago, Boucarilla said:

I'm surprised to hear you say that it's not user-friendly -- maybe it's because I'm old and have been on message boards and forums for a long time, but it seemed pretty easy for me to figure it out. Maybe not entirely intuitive as you said, but still not too bad. We'll work on that -- maybe come up with a kind of "Quick Start" Guide, with forum basics.

 

Websites these days don't need Guides and explanations, those companies have a team of employees who do nothing but make the site more intuitive, so anyone can understand and use it the first time they visit. It's a good point, actually it happens to me as well that I can't find threads anymore and I have to search a bit - although I know the forum layout very well. Maybe we have too many sub-forums... I know I wanted to work out a few changes at least on the MFC section of the forum already a year ago, but as so often, real life got in the way. :aah: I think I should get started on that asap.

Also I get confused if I see a whole screen of pinned threads, then I have to scroll down for the new threads with current discussions. For those not used to forums it might not be obvious that these are pinned, so they think the new thread has disappeared, because they don't scroll further down.

 

I think the software might offer some solutions, some might lie in the subforum-layout, in any case I'm sure we can improve this, with some time invested. Maybe it'd make sense to do a survey in advance, to see how those who have problems use the site... from their mobile, tablet or desktop/notebook, where on the site are they looking for news, etc.? I wouldn't be surprised if many MFCers mostly use their mobile these days to check the site...

 

Btw, the background gradient colours don't show in the mobile version. But too many colours tend to be distracting, so I'm not sure about changing them / adding more. Maybe we could consider adding a colourful image/background in the header, as we used to have before the software change (well, it wasn't colourful then either, but at least it added some sort of design element).

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It doesn't seem that they put too much thought or effort into merchandising in the first place, there aren't that many items in the store. And the items are pretty standard, I don't know if it attracts much business for this kind of thing to be worth it. 

 

Edit: I swear I posted this in that official fanclub card thread but I guess it works here just fine :lmfao:

Edited by cat_loves_mika
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First of all, I think the most important thing is that MFC remains free. Mika's fandom is composed for the most part by very young people who can't afford a quota and this would mean excluding them from initiatives and events.
So I think it's important to make everyone part of the fan club, even the last one, make sure everyone can feel important in the same way, because the goal of each of us is to follow a passion with the greatest possible serenity, without competitions.
To improve, however, we must cooperate, if one asks for information, who has it (unless it is confidential news), must give it, should not be silent because of jealousy or because that person isn't pretty.
In addition, the graphics, we should give a new appearance by changing the colors and putting in order. I state that it isn't difficult for me to browse the forum, but there are also people who are not familiar with the technology, so it should be simplified a bit.
Finally, we must publicize. I see in social media that in the tags of the event of other singers, not only the singers are tagged, but also the fan club. However, we always go unnoticed, as if we didn't exist.
But all this process of improvement, in my opinion, will never be possible unless we first improve the way we relate to other members of the fan club.

Ps. I'm sorry for my English, but I've just finished a French exam and I'm a bit confused.

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OK, back finally. Sorry for the delay, life is complicated. :sad: Anyhow, Siri, we would never ban you for expressing your opinion -- the only people who have ever been banned here are those who have been verbally abusive to other fans or who have repeatedly ignored our guidelines. No one's been banned for simply having a discussion! :) So to reply to some of Siri's points -- and I'm not singling Siri out, because I know MANY other fans have the same concerns and questions about the MFC:

 

On 1/23/2018 at 7:41 PM, Siri said:

There are many positive aspects of being a member, but there are also many things that don't work as they have to in my opinion.

I find that sometimes there's a big lack of organisation, and it even seems that Mika's staff don't communicate with MFC INTENTIONALLY. Maybe they do so to avoid the unpleasant situations that happen often, but in this way people act on their own, without the FC mediation, and that create chaos and those situations the staff probably don't want.

So people thinks MFC is useless and leave it, or at least, they aren't active normally, but when some opportunity show off, they suddenly come back and then disappear again, with a very strange timing (and/or luck).

 

It's a good observation that sometimes Mika's team doesn't communicate with us. That is partly true. As I have learned, sometimes there are legal restrictions that keep them from giving us information. Often, that information leaks out earlier than it should and it makes MFC look stupid, but we can't control that. As the official fan club, we are required to do what Mika's team tells us to do, so that is a frustration for us as well as for the fans.

 

Now, as for the behavior of fans outside the forum, you have to understand that we are not the boss or mother of every fan, so we can't order them to behave a certain way. We are not responsible for how you behave in the Real World. I think it's natural in every fandom that you will have some people who will want to help others, and other fans who are just "in it for themselves" and will be very cutthroat about getting things for themselves and their friends only. :dunno: I like to think that the people who behave in this selfish, negative way are not representative of MFC in general. They may say they are MFCers, but are they really? Anyone can say that. I believe, in general, most members of MFC -- the ones who have been here a while and who participate actively -- are helpers and try to do positive things for other fans, whether it's translating, providing subtitles to videos, posting information, sharing photos and videos and reports... that sort of thing.

 

We've talked about this before. What sort of action should we take against these people? First of all,  we aren't police, and we aren't the law. We have no real authority over anyone's actions beyond this forum. Also, so many times in these situations, we have no proof of what happened. When we ask people to tell us who said or did something horrible, many won't give names. But even when they do, if we weren't at the place when the bad thing happened, or if we were not part of the bad conversation, we don't really know the truth. If someone clearly violates our guidelines, then we can ban them from the forum. If someone is verbally abusive to MFC fans on Twitter, we can block them on Twitter. If we discover that someone has behaved unethically or in a negative way in real life, we can be sure that they aren't included in any MFC activities, but we can't prevent them from buying a ticket to a Mika concert or from attending a public event. :dunno:

 

I can't explain  about why there are more mods for some countries than others. I would guess it's because there are more active fans in one country than another. Another factor could be that the reps selected have limited time so they share responsibilities. Maybe silver, our World Rep organizer, will explain further.

 

The common thread in the comments here seems to be that the site needs to be better organized and better publicized. We'll be working on that as soon as we can. Thank you all SO much for your input! And let's all keep talking! And please do NOT be afraid to share your thoughts -- honestly, we will not blacklist you!  :thumb_yello:

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