Forums → The Tavern → Operation: Increase Forum Interest
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I probably could have come up with a more clever name had I put more effort into thinking about it, but this one seems to get the point across just fine.
The purpose of this operation, as its name suggests, is to increase forum interest throughout the entire site. Site activity is not a problem with this newer generation of users, forum interest is. Only a handful of users who joined in 2012 have over 300 forum posts; which, if you're active enough, really should not take more than a month or so to achieve. The problem here is, these users are active, but the 2012 generation of users in general is far more interested in messaging others than they are posting in the forums.
Well, that can be changed. Most of you are somehow in contact with users who are active on the rest of the site but have no interest in the forums. What I want you all to do is, when you're having a nice little conversation with them, tell those users about how great the community is and somehow make them interested in wanting to post here. Don't go to random people's pages and start preaching to them about forum greatness, but if you happen to be talking to a user who is active here but seems intimidated by the community somehow, let them know what they're missing.
Now, what I really don't want to see is a plethora of pessimistic comments like "Oh, this won't work" or "Don't waste your time", because frankly that bores the hell out of all of us and it doesn't help anybody. This idea of mine may not work, but I ask that everyone who can at least try it for the betterment of the community.
- 91 Replies
Yes there have been a lot more forum posts being posted in French, at least, I think its French.
There has been use of French on the forums, but other languages are also involved, such as German, Portugese, and others.
But at times like these we cant be picky.
Some have suggested that AG should have a translation feature. Until then, users who don't primarily use English should be reminded to use a translator such as Google Translate. rather than post in their own language (which most people won't understand).
I don't think contests would create outside forum interest, but it should add more interest from the inside.[/quote]
RE: Seasonal Armatar Contest.
If you want to create contests to attracks people to the forums, you would need to have some sort of advertisement for them in order to create awareness and I don't see AG-HQ making them or allowing users to make them and host them somewhere... and add-spamming of profiles shouldn't even need to be discussed, right?
Maybe create a sort of newsletter in the same way they did with the Beta testing and then add some of these contests to that and create a larger audience? =)
To answer the last page, contests would be a great way to increase forum interest, but apparently most AG users these days can't even manage the longest-running contests, so contests for the most part have basically gone down the toilet due to incompetent management.
When that problem gets solved, if it ever does, maybe the contest idea will have a reason to release itself from hiatus, but for now it's just not likely to happen.
If you want to create contests to attracks people to the forums, you would need to have some sort of advertisement for them in order to create awareness and I don't see AG-HQ making them or allowing users to make them and host them somewhere...
Maybe create a sort of newsletter in the same way they did with the Beta testing and then add some of these contests to that and create a larger audience?
If the admins aren't willing to create an advertisement to increase forum awareness, it's unlikely that they'd be willing to create and send a newsletter to thousands of people who probably won't read it anyway. Users would have to create the newsletter, but that would require a lot of emails, and acquiring them would require even more work than just telling users individually how great the community is.
We did the AG user written newsletter once, churned out one issue but that was that. It was pretty hard to coordinate to say the least. I wouldn't mind doing one as soon as finals are over though. If idea gets further than just being moored that is.
apparently most AG users these days can't even manage the longest-running contests, so contests for the most part have basically gone down the toilet due to incompetent management.
Maybe we just don't have the right people running the contests. If we had more competent contest managers, it wouldn't be so hard to increase basic contest interest! =)
We did the AG user written newsletter once, churned out one issue but that was that. It was pretty hard to coordinate to say the least. I wouldn't mind doing one as soon as finals are over though. If idea gets further than just being moored that is.
I could do it. It's not like I'm doing anything important now anyways.
We did the AG user written newsletter once, churned out one issue but that was that.
If I might ask, how did you acquire all those emails?
If we had more competent contest managers, it wouldn't be so hard to increase basic contest interest!
Something really has to be done about certain contests. There's no excuse to just let a contest die, unless it's the users who aren't showing interest; and even then, that should not happen just because one person can't follow through and nobody else decides to do anything about it.
Something really has to be done about certain contests. There's no excuse to just let a contest die, unless it's the users who aren't showing interest; and even then, that should not happen just because one person can't follow through and nobody else decides to do anything about it.
I know it's not intended for me to take this one on personally, but I have to say that I like running the 4 contests in the PM forum, if it were not for the lack of activity going on right now... =/
Agreed, I AM behind on updating 2 of them ('OvC' and 'BotB' and I am working on the other 2 ('MBWC' and 'CRBWC', but it's still something I think has enough value for the community.
There are more than enough users that want to participate in voting contests and the fact that Asherlee stickied them to get more noticable showed that the mods were happy with them too (I think...), but we simply need a way to get awareness on them, which could be done via a newsletter.
And next to that I have to step up/speed up on updating the first 2 and get the other 2 finished for launched already of course... but we'll get there! =P
[/personal input]
I know it's not intended for me to take this one on personally, but I have to say that I like running the 4 contests in the PM forum, if it were not for the lack of activity going on right now...
I was actually referring to the contests of the AMW, specifically the poetry contest, with user-generated media that requires judging on a fairly frequent scale. Voting-based contests aren't creating any problems at this time.
Hpw about re-naming it 'Community Forum' and sliding it down to the left instead of the right.
If I might ask, how did you acquire all those emails?
As in, it was a Community done newsletter of what had happened on the Forums and to the site for the month. Then we made a thread about it.
Ultimately I believe it comes down to overall activity. Activity will indubitably lead to more activity. The thing is, how do we get that essential activity to spark the forums' exponential chain of awesomeness? Of course, the most common solution is to have the current regulars post more. Um, yeah, so how do we go about having that happen? Can we? I mean, some people are delivering their best effort to get the forums running a bit faster. I'll post quite a bit if I see the forums are slower (like right now), and I'll browse and observe while the forums are in high uptime. We just don't have enough regulars that are interested enough to post wen the forums are dead. If the regular regular (Sorry :P) comes to the forums and browses for 5 minutes or so and sees no change, he/she will probably leave. AmIRight?
The possible solution to this problem is to either get more regulars posting (Yeah, right), or create more and more threads. If more threads are created concerning different subjects, a larger audience can be captivated, thus creating an active, but disorganized forum, as it would be full of threads containing only 1-2 posts. Here's a negative of that: people get discouraged when their threads fail. You can't argue that, and if you try, your argument is invalid. If people become discouraged they stop making new threads, which ultimately ruin the cause.
I have lots of good ideas for threads all the time. I just used marketing techniques to determine when they should be created. I'm going by the ol' business rule, "Strike while the iron is hot." Millions of Superhero RPGs in the Forum Games forum? Make a Superhero Trivia thread in The Tavern! Tons of people asking for help in Programming and getting no answers? Make a guide! Tons of people asking the same questions in S&S? Make a thread dealing with those questions! Oh, and make your poss interesting so people pay attention.
Another moderately successful thread format I've encountered over the years were surveying threads. They're quick and take almost no effort to participate in. They just don't seem to last very long if the topic isn't changed, however, and if the topic isn't interesting to a large enough audience, you can kiss your survey thread gone. Among these threads include MrDayCee's musical competitions, this or that threads, whats your favorite threads, and general threads that ask a different question every few weeks.
Anyway, this topic is still extremely out in the air right now. I need to look at some more stuff before I make anymore input.
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