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| What Makes a Community?; September 27th, 2008 | |
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| Topic Started: Sep 27 2008, 07:25 PM (135 Views) | |
| Rocky2000 | Sep 27 2008, 07:25 PM Post #1 |
Spectre of iG
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A friend of mine named Tom once told me that a community is as only as good as it's members. Since then, I've tried to make my site the best place to be for a group of people that's mature, and for people who all share the common interest of fly fishing -- I mean, videogames. Revolving around that phrase is what I believe makes a community -- but over the past while, I've notice a decline in acitivity. It's kinda hard to watch. SpartanZypher and I put a LOT of effort into this site. Effort wise, and management as well. I posted an image of the activity graph below; it's something that I think you should all check out, or just look over: (Posts by Unique Members per Month) OH SHIT! It's a GRAPH! It's like MATH, which I HATE! As you can see, we're slowly starting to decline in activity. Overall, our best bump in activity was in the March - April area, where as now, we've done another plummet over the past few weeks. It's something that the mods and I never like to see. We provide this community for a purpose: to bring gamers together and let them express their opinion. All I'm asking is that you do just that. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to visit the site and make a post or two; and the chance of winning a game doesn't hurt either. So this is my personal question of the week. Why don't you post more? Is there something that doesn't attract you to the site? What can we change? Let us know. This is YOUR community. -Rocky PS: What should we do when we hit 100 members? Edited by Rocky2000, Sep 27 2008, 07:47 PM.
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| saucey feet | Sep 28 2008, 02:16 AM Post #2 |
General Bad Example
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My opinion isn't going to help much here. I've never really been a forum person, and the main reason I came here is because Rocky told me when back in the day to check it out. Being the awesome friend that I am (hahaha), I did, and stuck around. I enjoy reading other peoples posts, and I try to reply, but I'm not really the type to create my own topics. If someone else makes one, I read/reply. So in a time like this where there is a major lack of activity, I also do not post simply because I don't like making my own threads/I have nothing to put in one. In my opinion, you have done everything right. You post, give away free stuff, have a few of the most awesome people around as members, and a great forum design. There isn't much more to ask for. I guess it's just a matter of getting known. Once more people join and enjoy, it will lead to more people joining and enjoying, and more and more and more. The question is... how? And I don't know =[ |
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| thornes70 | Sep 28 2008, 05:56 AM Post #3 |
Hooch Tester
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Believe me - I know all too well what you're going through, Rocky... If I knew what to tell you, there'd probably be another gaming site still in existence today!  To be honest - I don't think I like the zeta boards very much. On this site, the buttons on this forum for new posts/read posts is kind of a pain - there's like... what, four or five different ones? There's no 'view new posts' button, and even if you mark all forums as read - it only works for the forum buttons themselves, but doesn't do anything to the actual posts inside the forums. Plus, there's way too much space underneath your post, and it just looks wrong to me... I know it's little things - but with a bzillion gaming forums out there, the little things matter when it comes to getting people to stick around, right? I know there's some things simply out of your control, as it's just the way the zeta boards are. When it comes to the forums themselves, about the only suggestion I'd have is combining a few - there's just too many imo. As for what you guys do, I think you do a great job with the skins, you ponying up for game giveaways is pretty cool since that's out of your own pocket (how you afford that, you got me). It's just a matter of finding the right people to join up, then getting them to get people to join up. Getting people to post? Hold their 360s hostage! LOL When there's 100 people here, I say boot anyone who hasn't posted in a month! 
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| Rocky2000 | Sep 28 2008, 08:10 AM Post #4 |
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Spectre of iG
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Thanks for the feedback fellas. Yeah, they just swtiched the site to Zeta one day... I didn't even ask for the change. Corrupted Loss just sent me a message over XBL, "I like the new site!" and I thought he was talking about the GTA4 skin... Apparently not. As for condensing the forums, I like the idea but it's hard making one place for everything and keeping it organized at the same time.... unless that something that people would like? The mods could pin the more popular topics, and the lesser topics would sink down into the abyss? I like it. |
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| thornes70 | Sep 28 2008, 01:41 PM Post #5 |
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Hooch Tester
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Look at it this way: people come to check out the site and see a whole bunch of forums that are empty or have just a few posts in them - the place looks empty. They see a few forums but packed with posts - the place looks active and full. Also, placement is important: Anything gaming should be at the TOP, not down in the middle somewhere. Stuff concerning the site can all be tossed in one or two forums, keeping it condensed and easily noticed. For example (and this is just me), the Outside the Box and Hardware - that couldn't all be in General Discussion? Hell, I didn't even know all that stuff was down there, because I usually don't scroll down farther than the 360 forums!  If General Discussion was at the top of the forums somewhere, like in Community, I bet it would get used more. Another suggestion would be to have the online or Live gaming night forum somewhere where it's easier to see - also perhaps in community - so that visitors can instantly see what Infinity is all about.I'd also suggest making it mandatory for any mod to make a certain number of posts - PER DAY - to keep up new topics. As you said - it isn't that difficult to post once or twice. Make 'em earn that title!  Seriously though - when people who visit and are members drop in and haven't seen a new post in days, why are they gonna want to stay? It's not about taking the initiative for most people, it's about replying to someone else's post that keeps most coming back. Having Mods and anyone else "working" for the site posting every day only makes it easier for that to happen.These are just suggestions, and I'm not trying to point out a bunch of negatives. You're probably wondering if you should even bother anymore with doing this - but it's just a matter of getting the site where you want it. Do you want 1000s of members who become anonymous, or do you want a smaller group of active peeps that contribute and everyone knows? It's how you sell it, brotha. Edited by thornes70, Sep 28 2008, 01:46 PM.
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| SpartanSinister | Sep 29 2008, 12:36 AM Post #6 |
Specialist
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First off, let's NOT make mods post a certain amount of posts per day. Between school, wrestling, and guitar lessons some days I just don't post. But what I do take the initiative to do is make sure to post a few new topics a week in order to keep people replying to stuff, like in Saucey's case. I agree that you could condense and rearrange the forums a bit more. Like combine "Xbox Live Parties" and "Xbox Live Marketplace" under "Xbox LIVE Discussion" with sub forums, and then have a forum for just general Xbox talk like new games, updates, etc. Same with some of the other forums. Other than that I don't see anything else you could do other than the portal thing I already mentioned to you, which we can't find the code for. 
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