How to make people more active on the forum

[Bob]

First I would just say that it is important we as officers lead by good example. The work we do here on the forum is just as important as what we do in-game, so we should all try to contribute to an active forum culture.

I know that I myself often have been posting out in the public WoW section, to make it visible for the whole dMw-WoW-community, but I have a suspicion that many doesn't get what is posted in that section. I don't say we should stop posting there, not at all, but try to do both a bit, remember to use our own off-topic section etc, try to post there sometimes and in here other times.


But - to what my real idea was:
On a private bittorrent tracker a friend of mine is using they have regular competitions in the forum. At that site, they have have questions related to TV series (images, small video clips - try to find which show etc), and they reward he who answers correctly with upload-credit.

What if we were able to make something similar here? We have some kind of regular competition, and we reward the winner with something - and just mention it in GMotD, that should be a good incentive for people to visit the forum.

One example for a competition I can come up with straight away, is a "guess-where-this-screenshot-is-taken" competition: you take a screenshot somewhere, first without your interface showing, and than with it. The first image could be posted in a thread, and the competition could be to guess where the picture was taken (what it says in the map title).

For rewards, I don't really have any obvious good suggestions, but how about money? We could for instance reward the winner with 10g (or something - just a symbolic thing), and than perhaps the best after say 5 competitions get another 10...
If we limit it to one competition a week, I guess it wouldn't really hurt the guild bank, as it wouldn't make out more than 50g a month. And that is well invested money, if it could boost the forum activity.

Some rules would have to be made, such as only one suggestion per member each 24hours etc, to avoid the same people just spamming the thread. And if anybody have any other ideas for competitions (some quiz perhaps), and other good rewards, it could turn out a bit fun as well.


This was just a idea that popped up in my head the other day, haven't thought too much about it, but I thought I should share it before I forget it.
Those polls we make from time to time, to see who actually reads the forums aren't really helping, so I think it's time to try something new.

[Gorion]

an other way is to stop using the signup site and use the forum instead for it, but that would make it abit complicated.. since we have a functioning system
 
perhaps some sort of table can be done onthe forums to write down attendees for raids?

[TeaLeaf]

Not sure it would be more complicated Gorion?  I simple vote withe h poll set up so that you can see who signed up?

TL.

[Gorion]

hmm, good idea

[Bob]

So, what about the competition idea? I spent a bit time putting it down, so I would appreciate at least one comment on it... Doesn't matter if you say it sucks or isn't doable - but some feedback would be nice...


As for using the forum for sign-ups: I believe that was briefly discussed earlier, and we agreed to try it, just didn't happen. But I would guess that is a good thing as well

[Gorion]

it is a good and nice idea,  but imo we shouldnt have the need to compensate for visiting/posting/participating in the forums since its part of their duties, if they are a part of the guild, then like it or not theyre also a part of this community
 
40g per month is an affordable amount, but do we really want to "bribe" members into doing their duties?

[Bob]

40g per month is an affordable amount, but do we really want to "bribe" members into doing their duties?

I totally agree - we should not have to bribe people into doing what they should be doing in the first place. But the way I see it now, we are in a kind of vicious circle: nothing much is really happening in the forum, so people don't bother visiting it, and when nobody visits it nobody posts there, and so it continues. It could be a test project for a couple of months, and than if we see the general forum activity increases, we can put it aside.

But let's see how things work out with he forum sign-up first, that might do the trick on its own.
Heck, I might even try some test rounds with the competition just for fun (but without rewards than ofc, I don't have that much money :narnar:).

[Gorion]

kk, will be starting the forum signups for next weeks raids + (the one for sunday/tuesday are on the signup site already)

[Bastet]

Ppl that dont want to read the forums wont do so even if they have to visit to sign up. Bobs idea might be good, depending on how its run, MOTD might work.

[Gorion]

how about a certain postcount that is needed before theyre allowed to raid? say 50+ non spam for old members and say 15+ for initiates, that will increase by 5 per month?

[Bastet]

Heh, youll get more posts all over, but you want to promote quality, over quanity, i recon if officers start putting up some posts so that there is something new to see each day the rest will follow

[Bastet]

Btw, if you seen the announcement post saying its been a year since whitey started turning things arround with our help, you could make a smiliar one for it beeing almost half a year ago there wasnt gonne be any sog anymore and that G took over. that ought to spark some intrest at least.

[Bob]

how about a certain postcount that is needed before theyre allowed to raid? say 50+ non spam for old members and say 15+ for initiates, that will increase by 5 per month?

That will create quite much unnecessary work for us. First, you'll have to do that extra checking for us when approving for raids, and it'll probably also as Bastet said lead to some rubbish postings.

I think to get somewhere with this, we must try to be smart instead of just threatening with something.

Another thing I've thought briefly at some times: at the WoW-Europe site, there is (or at least was, haven't really checked for some time) a thing called "The Warcraft Weekly", where some guy who follows the community and other sites gives a summarized update of what has happened during the last week.

What if we made something similar for SOG, like "The SOG Weekly report" or something? It could be a regular thread where we summarize things such as how last weeks raid went (who participated, which bosses downed, what dropped and who got it, what problems etc), what the officers have been discussing the last week (could also give an opportunity for a more open dialog between officers and members, where members can comment on what we do on a regular basis), which new members have been accepted into the guild (and left), if there has been anything special happening in the dMw community for the last week etc.

I believe there is more than enough information to get hold of to make a fairly interesting post.

[Gorion]

hmm, teni would be ideal for that part bob

[Bob]

hmm, teni would be ideal for that part bob

Not really, as he doesn't have a clue what is going inside the officers section. I didn't think of making a simple "copy" of the "wow weekly", but our very own version including stuff about what we do, our work (both as a guild and from inside the officer's area) and so on. And neither does Teni brows the rest of the dMw forum that much, so he wouldn't be able to tell what's the "hot news" out there.

Who writes it isn't of much importance - I wouldn't mind giving it a try myself. What matters, is that it ends as an interesting piece to read, a high-quality kind of "news bulletin" for what's going on.