Welcome! Please grab a cup of coffee, and one of those delicious donuts most kindly donated by R2.
As you can guess from the title, this is yet another attempt at solving the AG activity problem. This problem has been ever present since late 2010. Many reasons as to the cause have been presented, ranging from a much delayed release of AG3, to lacking of a community manager, or the end of the flash gaming era.
I do have a couple of ideas concerning activity and how to increase it. Whether these are the keys to solving the issues at hand or not is unbeknownst to me, but I most certainly feel it is definitely worth the effort.
I'm not going into details - yet. Firstly, I'm going to need a few volunteers. More the better, but not more then 20 (20, yeah right...) Don't volunteer then become inactive that would not be beneficial to anything.
Yes. I remember you well. I wasn't very active then. I was never very active. But we talked a little once I think. Anyway guys, fst6 was once a great pillar of this community. Give him some respect.
What? Pshhhhhhhhhhhh fst was nothing but a clever, humorous, dinosaur drawing little scamp. Pay him no mind.
But really the forums here are the same as they have been, everyone whines and moans that there is no activity, but what sort of community are we? Anyone coming here is going to be like "well this place is dead" and leave before they even join.
We are doing far more than whining and moaning, also complaining too.
I kid..we actually have been trying to find ways to increase activity..instead of just laying on our sides and crying about how activity won't pick up.
I'm going to ignore the little baby banter you guys are having because that's what you're supposed to do when you see **** in the street, walk around it. Not step in it and smear it all over your friend.
I had thought of this a couple weeks back... Perhaps we could ask for monthly or fortnightly reports from the administrators on how the community activity is going. This could be beneficial, mostly for those of us who are active in the project. How does this sound?
Uhm. No. There would be no point. What would it be about? "July 21-27 15 threads were made -blah -blah blah -etc This is a 15% increase from the previous week"
I envision a three day retreat, where we all engage in team building exercises and over drinks discuss shareholder options, stock futures, and 401(k)s.
I kid..we actually have been trying to find ways to increase activity..instead of just laying on our sides and crying about how activity won't pick up.
While you know, *****ing about how we don't have enough activity. If I was new here and saw the lack of activity and people complaining I would leave too. Honestly, the best we can do is just be active and not complain.
Uhm. No. There would be no point. What would it be about?
What Moon said. I was going to say the exact same thing.
The Forums are slow because most of the regulars are a part of the AG Illuminati.
What?! What is this Ag Illuminati you speak of?! No comprendo!
I don't know what that means...though I am probably part of it.
Shut up! *slaps daleks*
I had thought of this a couple weeks back... Perhaps we could ask for monthly or fortnightly reports from the administrators on how the community activity is going. This could be beneficial, mostly for those of us who are active in the project. How does this sound?
I like this idea. Though it will be useless without a cause to the fluctuation of activity. Like I've said in the past, the mods don't want issues now they want solutions. AG is kinda in a rut and the mods are working to bring new things into the site, they need to find solutions. If we give them an issue it will just swim in with the rest of the sea of issues.
I'm going to ignore the little baby banter you guys are having because that's what you're supposed to do when you see **** in the street, walk around it.
This is one of my pet peeves: somebody saying they're ignoring something, thereby not ignoring it. Didn't this also used to be one of the featured "do not commit" behaviours of AG forums when somebody was spamming or flaming?
"I see you guys talking about stuff but I'm choosing not to reply DIRECTLY to it because then everything that happened about 20 pages ago will happen all over again and I wouldn't really like to be a part of that"
Is that better for you?
Also GRAHAM WHADDUP it's been a while. We should CT some time.
Mino, could you please elaborate why you think it would be a good thing? Just give me a few more details and such I guess.
Mino, could you please elaborate why you think it would be a good thing? Just give me a few more details and such I guess.
It would be good because we have a relevant issue found. No cause that can be solved is found however. Its progress none the less. Currently we can't do something amazing like take a entire summer camp of kids and promote AG community activity so they make accounts. So anything small is worth something.
This action however is null and void because we have an solution but no real cause to the issue that can be solved. Like I said, If we give them an issue it will just swim in with the rest of the sea of issues.
xeano idea is simple: Lets say we take Ferret, make him come up with a general calculation for the forum activity. These calculations (per forum lets say) will find a root cause to the issue. For instance:
There are 15 forums on Armor Games. Each forum host a subject. We find the forums that lack in activity, where we have to come up with an estimate, then observe the subjects being made in these forums to see what is wrong, then fix spread AGCAI's Intiative in the areas that are relevant for the moment being.
The only thing we can do however is make more interesting posts, but the root cause of the issue itself roots from the fact that people prefer sites such as Addicting Games or Newgrounds. AG3 would have put a new look for AG that would have attracted some people. But not changing the site for 5 years and it running into constant glitches (in the past), spam (which was common in the past) and lack of unintuitive ideas to attract users (in the past again) and maintaining users is luck in itself.
User account activity seems to be fine. Users are active but not going to the forums. And the forum posts that are being made are not working out so well. WERP seems to be the haven for conspiracy theories, the popular media is just as good as the media being put out, games is fine thanks to the eighth generation gaming consoles being released, and the Tavern is just random. We have issues. Calculation will help.
With all of this, lets just do a BETA test to see if calculations work? It doesn't hurt and its effort being put into the site.
I don't exactly know the day to day workload of the admins and such, but the community activity is a concern of their (I hope) but I don't think it ranges very high on their to do list.
I COULD BE WRONG. I probably am, But still. This is a great community, yes. But considering the most active admin status I have seen is Ferret and for a time, Corymn or whatever, I don't think we are suuuuuper important to the admins. That is why we have mods.To keep us from throwing pitchforks at the admins with all of these issues. I KNOW of the other admins, but they all fix the tech parts of the site, not the community.
Yes not changing the site for 5 years could be a set back of attacting new users. But that's why AG3 beta existed. It's still in action, I think. But moving rather slow. It is a big change in the whole AG2 scene, of course. But it sort of died off, you know? Meh, this is not what is important right now.
I think a big issue of activity is just that there is so much in the community. People like to be a part of something new. I think that if/when AG3 comes out, brand new forums would make activity skyrocket.
Calculation of each section won't matter if the entire AGCAI or whatever official thing this is supposed to be isn't even made up of members in each area. If you wanted to spread out people in each section that wasn't doing well, you would need people who have knowledge in that area. Why do you think the AMW is doing so poorly? No one here currently does poetry or writing or art or music. Why would they visit that section if it doesn't interest them or if they knew nothing about it? The issue still lies in RECRUITING people to the forums from the newbie section. If we had the AGCAI kids doing this and trying to point them out in each section they might belong in, then you would see more activity from new kids. Everyone that is here in the current community has been here a while, and nothing huge is happening for any of the sections. Of course the WEPR and Gaming subforum are getting the most action, because thing are HAPPENING in those topics. Zimmerman trial, new games or consoles coming out, etc. But the other sections have a more difficult time because nothing new is happening. It doesn't just have to be a well thought out post to attract attention.
It's like hearing a new song. It's new, so you listen to it more because maybe you don't know all the lyrics yet. But when you've been listening to the same song over and over again on repeat for the past week, it gets old and you find a new song. It doesn't mean that the song wasn't good, it just means that it's worn out its worth.
No one here currently does poetry or writing or art or music
>_> Ahem
Of course the WEPR and Gaming subforum are getting the most action, because thing are HAPPENING in those topics. Zimmerman trial, new games or consoles coming out, etc. But the other sections have a more difficult time because nothing new is happening.
Or, we have Forum Games..which is thriving. Partly due to its "quick fix" for posts..and partly due to its quirky games.
I think Strop's point was that it's redundant to post that you're ignoring something, because by failing to mention it in a post, it should be obvious that you're ignoring it.
No one here currently does poetry or writing or art or music.
Dear Diary: Today I learned that the reason no one has commented on my poetry thread in a few months is because apparently I no longer exist. Other than that, great day.
