Community Suggestions

[Dusty]

This is in response to a growing trend of people registering, maybe posting an intro thread, then leaving. Now I understand that this is a normal occurance on almost any community site, but my concern is the rather lopsided ratio of solid members who join to the one time posters. So I have the following suggestions for trying to get the ratio back to a normal level.

1.Friendly Email Reminder-
I'm guilty of forgetting to register on the site, so what I'm thinking is if a person registers but doesn't post after like a week the website automatically sends them a friendly email reminder that they had joined the forums.

2. Featured Galleries-

First, I would clean out the galleries of the people who haven't posted on the forums or made any real contact with the boards. (That Star Trek Series for one. If it was discussed on the forums I don't think it would be strange but it seems like blatant advertisement.) Then I would make so instead of getting 3 pictures from the same gallery and 1 from another you would instead see 4 different COVER pictures from 4 different galleries so every one gets a fair share of the front page instead of the largest galleries crowding out the smaller ones.

Second, I would institute a rating system if we don't already have one and each week the gallery with the highest over all ratings is featured in a special section of the front page.

3. Community events-
The XAP and Comic are great ideas but are also very long term goals. Smaller events like art/writing contests and Staff Member Q&A sessions would be a good way to make more people involved and get them to stay. I have a couple of suggestions in this department:

A. Contests- Prizes don't nessicarily need to be tangible. Things like special attention on the front page, special icons similar to the post rank images for winners, maybe even an art prize would be great. Also contests don't need to be for just artists or writers. Trivia contests on everything from Sci-Fi series to random trivia could be done using IRC. Game tournaments if we get enough players are another suggestion.

B. Staff Q&A. All throughout the week members can post questions on special board that will be answered by a join staff post on friday.

C. Birthday thread for each month. Pretty much self explained but makes the place seem more personable

D. Daily/weekly poll question. If you've been on the internet you've seen these. Just polls like "Your favorite FTL tech" or "Your favorite Sci-Fi Captain".

[SliceOfDog]

Very nice suggestions Dusty! An art conest has already been discussed by staff, but never got anywhere. I think if we had simple prizes like (As you say) front page mention or even special Awards (Like the Frequent Poster and Most Popular ones that are floating about) that would be an incentive.

These are all great suggestions, and some could be done now. Only problem is, with a few (Like the weekly polls) would require more staff to be done fluidly. I can't really spend much more time working on here, especially with my exams coming up, and Daryn already does a hell of a lot, I don't think he'd have enough time to sort that out.
Certainly though at the very least these are things to bear in mind for later.

[Daryn]

These are great suggestions guys and we will try to do as much as we can. Most of these are things that aren't that technical, but very helpful. Having weekly Polls was something that I really wanted to do, but turned out to be more than I could manage to juggle with what I do already.

[Dusty]

These are great suggestions guys and we will try to do as much as we can. Most of these are things that aren't that technical, but very helpful. Having weekly Polls was something that I really wanted to do, but turned out to be more than I could manage to juggle with what I do already.

Is it a software issue to add the poll? If not could I suggest putting it up to the community to make the polls then all someone would need to do is come along and make it?

[Slate]

A long time ago, I did suggest having something of a weekly featured submission on the front page. Needless to say, I'm in favor of this.

Just as well, I have no qualms with your other suggestions ^,=,^

Though the one about the email does sound pretty good to me, as I know a few members have said that they registered but forgot they did =P

[Dusty]

Though the one about the email does sound pretty good to me, as I know a few members have said that they registered but forgot they did =P

Yeah honestly thats probably the biggest problem. I'm guilty of doing it xD

[Daryn]

Yeah honestly thats probably the biggest problem. I'm guilty of doing it xD

I think this will be easy enough to implement. I have to agree that it'd probably solve the issue of forgetting you registered quite nicely.

[Dusty]

I think this will be easy enough to implement. I have to agree that it'd probably solve the issue of forgetting you registered quite nicely.

Ja. That combined with the other goodies gives people a reason to stay and something to strive for. Artists, writers, and others will be attracted by the fact thier trade could net them something intresting while the trivia contests, arcade game tournaments, and other fair gives those not of those talents a chance to win cool stuff.

Right now I think the first step towards SciFiFur's growth as a community is getting a slightly larger member base. After that some of the bigger things can be introduced.


PS: I just had an idea! If the comic makes it into a semi-regular production then a good prize for a contest would be the introduction of thier character into the RP wether for a set time (like a guest star) or as a new crew member!

[Daryn]

1.Friendly Email Reminder-
I'm guilty of forgetting to register on the site, so what I'm thinking is if a person registers but doesn't post after like a week the website automatically sends them a friendly email reminder that they had joined the forums.

I've just implemented this suggestion. Let's see if it helps out. Oh, and thanks, these were all really great ideas.