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Creating an online community without the community?

Started by Niteblade, September 14, 2006, 01:37:05 PM

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coffeegroup

Makes me laugh that you're dealing with a "dilemma" about deleting members, in a thread about how to get more members and activate them. I'd spend 100% of my time on the latter, and since it really doesn't cost you anything - except for the annoyance of NOT being the one person on the face of God's green Earth that can defy the 80/20 rule - leave that side of the equation alone.

I say leave 'em linger in your database for 5 years if they don't deactivate themselves, or put them into a separate "membership" area called "associate" member which means absolutely nothing--other than it gives you a little peace of mind thinking you have some control over your own forum.

I'm a couple months into our SMF forum at www.jayceeforum.com/smf [nofollow] and it's busier than all get-out with 175 members.  I think we're doing well, but not much to compare to yet.

Boy am I clueless on this stuff still! ;)

metoh

Well sometimes, it takes a lot to make a huge sacrifice to see your membership decrease with removals of inactive accounts

I did a big sweep of the accounts 3 months ago, deleting at least 60 inactive ones

Many members were not happy about this matter, and a few spoke to me about such a bad situation...

But I told them, make 1 post per day; wait and see..

Slowly, the activity of the forum went peak, and members start pouring in.

perplexed

Quote from: coffeegroup on February 01, 2007, 10:58:36 PM
Makes me laugh that you're dealing with a "dilemma" about deleting members, in a thread about how to get more members and activate them. I'd spend 100% of my time on the latter, and since it really doesn't cost you anything - except for the annoyance of NOT being the one person on the face of God's green Earth that can defy the 80/20 rule - leave that side of the equation alone.

hmmm well I have spent a long time trying to 'activate' them but honestly if they have never activated their accounts after a year, or if they have never visited the forum despite the regular update messages about what's happening on the site, or the several warnings about possibly deletion, then I don't see why we should keep them on the memberlist.  I could make up 100 registrations myself right now and it would have the same effect. A bigger number on the member total which means nothing.  So, yes I have spent 100% of my time trying to get them to be active but there comes a point when you can't waste any more time on flogging a dead horse, as I said above.

Our forum is very active, with the people who do post there, there are still over 200 members and heading for 100,000 posts.  So if anyone looked, I think they would think it was active, even without the deleted members who brought nothing to the party.

It is much better to keep your active members active,and encourage them.  They in turn, will talk about your forum, and invite their friends, who are also hopefully interested in message boards.  Sometimes people invite their friends, their relatives etc to new boards to help build membership but you discover that these people just arent that interested in message boards or don't have the time to spend on the internet generally.  There are millions of people on the internet, whether they want to join message boards I'm not sure.  Many join myspace instead, where they can jazz up their space and forward cheesy jokes and pictures around their network of friends, and have fun and no commitment.  Mostly I think people have trouble finding the message boards on the web, maybe they arent indexed well, or the subject is too vague or there are just too many that are similar.  *shrug*

Tanks

Dont forget about Blogs  :o

But yeah i guess the conclusion could be that if you have a small board it could have a small negative impact but if you have a huge board the impact of deleting inactive members is very small. And you feel better when its done and over with  :D

VancouverPokerPlayers

#44
Ive got 21 members in 4 days with little to no advertising yet. Is that good so far?   

Its my first site and first time doing anything like this ,but so  i hope I have made good sections.  Im still waiting for the tech admin. to change some graphics and stuff.  Do they have poker theme layouts?

   hxxp:www.vancouverpokerplayers.com/ [nonactive]

perplexed

Quote from: Knat on February 06, 2007, 02:14:30 PM
Dont forget about Blogs  :o

But yeah i guess the conclusion could be that if you have a small board it could have a small negative impact but if you have a huge board the impact of deleting inactive members is very small. And you feel better when its done and over with  :D

Well that's it.  It would hurt if your site was really small, but less if it was bigger, and the people you are deleting, most of the active members havent a clue who they are anyway.

Quote from: VancouverPokerPlayers on February 07, 2007, 05:48:21 AM
Ive got 21 members in 4 days with little to no advertising yet. Is that good so far?   

Its my first site and first time doing anything like this ,but so  i hope I have made good sections.  Im still waiting for the tech admin. to change some graphics and stuff.  Do they have poker theme layouts?

   www.vancouverpokerplayers.com/


yeah I think that's pretty good. I suppose it depends on your subject - lots of people play poker and there is a lot of online gaming /poker etc so it could do well

I don't know if anyone has done a poker theme - you could search the theme listing here - but it wouldnt be hard to find a poker-related background and put it on your site with your poker header on the front page

VancouverPokerPlayers

#46
thx perplexed, ive got 23 members now and over 425 posts. Just over 4 days i guess.  People asking to wear shirts/hats for up coming Canadain Poker Tour Events.  Can you make money from sites like mine?  Only one person is my real friend.  All my real friends arent all the time players so I had to start it.      hxxp:www.vancouverpokerplayers.com [nonactive].  Thx josh

*Edit: 24 members now.


pinoy123

#48
ive got almost 2000 members now for 4 months now. before i got 40 registrations a day...

Total Members: 1945
Total Posts: 12630
Total Topics: 3014
Total Categories: 19
Users Online: 62
Most Online: 258 - January 30, 2007, 07:17:24 AM
Online Today: 90


Average registrations per day: 16.29
Average posts per day: 119.54
Average topics per day: 29.73
Total Boards: 137
Latest Member: Samba!!!!
Average online per day: 33.63


how is it?? i disabled guest to see my forum, by the way its a warez site and r18+... its a filipino site i have.

khoking

how effective is blogging on a site? I have googlebot visiting my site but not indexing it yet except the front page. That's because previously I have my site ONLY for members, hence googlebot was not able to access the forum.

I have just opened up my site at www.PentaxWorld.com. I hope googlebot will index the forum threads soon.

Would it be useful if I created a blog and talk about my own site?
Kho King
www.ShaShinKi.com
www.PentaxWorld.com

perplexed

I suppose it depends on the content of your blog, and whether that gets indexed. The more sites that link to your site and the more links generally the more google likes it  

Niteblade

Quote from: pinoy123 on February 08, 2007, 07:32:23 AM
ive got almost 2000 members now for 4 months now. before i got 40 registrations a day...

Total Members: 1945
Total Posts: 12630
Total Topics: 3014
Total Categories: 19
Users Online: 62
Most Online: 258 - January 30, 2007, 07:17:24 AM
Online Today: 90


Average registrations per day: 16.29
Average posts per day: 119.54
Average topics per day: 29.73
Total Boards: 137
Latest Member: Samba!!!!
Average online per day: 33.63


how is it?? i disabled guest to see my forum, by the way its a warez site and r18+... its a filipino site i have.


Ethics aside, warez users are fickle. The moment that you stop featuring new content, all your traffic will be gone.  
affiliate blog

hawkshaw

The site im running wasnt actually mine, it belongs to a friend of mine and me and my friends "borrow" some space to create a forum..

We make money by revenue sharing from google adsense, not so much but enough to cover all expenses from internet bill to giving lucky door prize each month as insentive to members. Im thinking to buy the site's domain and hosting from her cos it looks like its gonna get bright days in the future :p

The secret it, people love gifts.. it's one thing that also keep my members stay around, and more members to come.  

SwapsRulez

Very Nice Article. I'm gonna work hard 1000 times than working currently. Really inspiring article. :)
Project-BB.org : Educational Forum For Engineering, Diploma & Technical Students

The Engineering, Diploma & All technical students lounge for Free Projects, Seminars, Syllabus, Question Papers, College Assignments, Placement Papers, E-Books, Company Information & other technical stuffs.

pauldm

mine is relatively new but have a few people posting (including myself) so there's some stuff going on.  getting a lot of guests but not converting into posting members yet. 

hopefully will start to build up soon!
we all need to escape - http://www.escapework.net/forum [nofollow]

locjan

maybe you should try my trik. i tell my friend to register first so the forum not look like empty house, then i ask people who like to join if they are really interested. after you got few member (better if active) the other will follow
locjan.com - Free Korean Dramas OST shwoomp.com - Art of shwoomp

ApplianceJunk

Great topic and lots of good tips.

Give the people what they want and the people will give you what you want, a community. :)

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