9 replies to this topic

[Johanna MacLaren]

As a relatively new member, about a month, I am so impressed with the availability of interesting and diverse topics on the forums. I can't help but wonder why so few members seem to use them regularly. Lots of topics and some guilds haven't seen input in over a year. To those who make these resources available and those who do post, a big thank you for this interesting aspect of our site.

[Segolene LeMarnix]

I noticed it, too. Only a few people from each ship post regularly on the forum. We have Newsletter which is inviting writers to come and participate in Writing Challenges, Top Sim Contest and Poll of the Week; Commander Nicholotty is writing very informative Forum Roundups every month and News team post information about New Academy Graduates calling writers to come and greet them to get to know new people. Still very few people regularly visit forum and interact.

What more should be done to get more members to come and use forums?

I proposed to run Quote of the month (I'm wiling to start every month a new thread for posting quotes in every ship's forum and set Poll at the end of the month/start of new one). At the end of the year, or every 6 months we can have a Poll to choose best Quote from those chosen as best of the all ships. It may get few more people to visit forum more regularly. But we have Top Sim Contest which is a showoff for the ships quality and again very few people read them and vote.

No matter what you do or how much content you offer or how well promote, only those who really want will be active.

[T'Mihn Ah'mygahn]

I posted some interesting goodies in the Vulcan forums for discussion, and I like participating in other ship discussions(if they are alright with it. ;-).)

[Johanna MacLaren]

Bless your heart, T'Mihn, no one can say you don't give them support. You try to be everywhere! I'm a little intimdated by the engineers. They're a bit too techy for me, but I try to get around too.

I noticed it, too. Only a few people from each ship post regularly on the forum. We have Newsletter which is inviting writers to come and participate in Writing Challenges, Top Sim Contest and Poll of the Week; Commander Nicholotty is writing very informative Forum Roundups every month and News team post information about New Academy Graduates calling writers to come and greet them to get to know new people. Still very few people regularly visit forum and interact.

What more should be done to get more members to come and use forums?

I proposed to run Quote of the month (I'm wiling to start every month a new thread for posting quotes in every ship's forum and set Poll at the end of the month/start of new one). At the end of the year, or every 6 months we can have a Poll to choose best Quote from those chosen as best of the all ships. It may get few more people to visit forum more regularly. But we have Top Sim Contest which is a showoff for the ships quality and again very few people read them and vote.

No matter what you do or how much content you offer or how well promote, only those who really want will be active.

That's a good idea. I somehow thought that the voting on the sims was for the admin. staff. I didn't realize everyone could. I'll have to start reading them now.

[Johanna MacLaren]

I posted some interesting goodies in the Vulcan forums for discussion, and I like participating in other ship discussions(if they are alright with it. ;-).)

You do a great job supporting the various forums, T'Mihn. You're everywhere. I might peek into the Vulcan forum if you don't think they'd mind. Johanna studied for a number of years on Vulcan.

[KNicholotti]

That's a good idea. I somehow thought that the voting on the sims was for the admin. staff. I didn't realize everyone could. I'll have to start reading them now.

Top Sims voting is open to the entire fleet. The Writing Challenge has a set group of judges, but you can read and comment on the stories there. Obviously the poll of the week is open to everyone as well. Pretty much anything you see on these forums is open to everyone, we just ask you stay on the topic of the thread. And be sure to ask questions if you have them - you have my direct line.

[FltAdml. Wolf]

This week, I'm in the process of moving the site again, to a faster server. However, I'm also at a conference which is why the wiki problem hasn't been solved. (Sorry everyone -- should be able to get it done by Sunday at the latest.)

Anyway, I think that one part of the problem was that the site was kind of degrading on the previous server we moved to, and people were getting frustrated with the loading speed. Hopefully we can entice some people back to the forums once the transition is complete.

But second, it's just about asking people to be involved on your ships, and reminding them of how to be involved. And of course, it's about POSTING -- some folks are really afraid of starting a new thread, but that's what these forums are here for!

Let's continue brainstorming ways that we can entice people to come here on a daily basis?

[Ben Livingston]

That's good news! With the faster load times, maybe we can try jumpstarting forum interest somehow? I've been looking forward to some of the IC duty post threads, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of science going on. As a newcomer, I took that to mean there wasn't much interest. I'll take this as a good opportunity to try starting something myself.

[David Cody]

Oh no. It's not from a lack of interest. The forums are a hub for the entire Fleet crew (since we're usuallly posting on ship). We're in several different time zones so everyone drops in when they have time. But... your OOC list is a good place to drop a friendly reminder here there's a lot of fun stuff to do here on the forums.

[Piqui]

I find that the forums are key. there was a span of several years when I had no idea that forums were part of the starbase.., I just thought that I could go without even using them and then It was the wiki but since then I have been trying to integrate the three: sim-forum-wiki. All three have there place and exchange the informations about each other, at one point i was doing too many "other" forums because of doing this forum it got me going into other forums just to bring back ideas and such that were pivotal in the other forums: I considered myself the starbase spy and was stealing new information for our own use..

This is what I want to develop more: the ic-forum sims (but not at a loss of the email sim) just have Logging and additional non-essential simming posted in the forums -->