11-19-2020, 07:49 PM
I think consistency in posting is a bit of a problem in growing the forums.
The monthly term and human nature to procrastinate or get sidetracked lead to the forums being somewhat neglected early in the month - then as the deadline approaches there's a flurry of activity as everyone tries to reach their posting limit. There's such a flurry of activity that people can't find all the new topics to post in as other topics get pushed down the listing.
The best way to grow a website is to get people to visit regularly. It's less efficient if people are only very active 1 week out of the month. New users will get bored and find something else to do, before they can can ever earn (and enjoy) their vps.This also means that administration has a large workload at the end of the month, with hundreds of posts to moderate in a short period of time.
I wonder if it wouldn't be better to set a weekly term for posting - say 4 posts minimum per week, and 4 consecutive weeks/20post minimum to qualify for vps. So some weeks more than 4 would be necessary, and if one could post in advance one week to have more time to do other things the next week. This system would involve a bit more work for administration, but the workload would be spread out over the entire month rather than all at once. And I would wager that new users would more likely to become regular visitors if there was regular new content on the site. Perhaps with the relative abundance of sponsored vps, one (or more) could be used for another moderator(s) to assist with the higher workload of weekly management?
I don't necessarily suggest we implement this system, but I do suggest that regular posting would increase the userbase in the long term, and I also suggest it's an idea worth consideration.
The monthly term and human nature to procrastinate or get sidetracked lead to the forums being somewhat neglected early in the month - then as the deadline approaches there's a flurry of activity as everyone tries to reach their posting limit. There's such a flurry of activity that people can't find all the new topics to post in as other topics get pushed down the listing.
The best way to grow a website is to get people to visit regularly. It's less efficient if people are only very active 1 week out of the month. New users will get bored and find something else to do, before they can can ever earn (and enjoy) their vps.This also means that administration has a large workload at the end of the month, with hundreds of posts to moderate in a short period of time.
I wonder if it wouldn't be better to set a weekly term for posting - say 4 posts minimum per week, and 4 consecutive weeks/20post minimum to qualify for vps. So some weeks more than 4 would be necessary, and if one could post in advance one week to have more time to do other things the next week. This system would involve a bit more work for administration, but the workload would be spread out over the entire month rather than all at once. And I would wager that new users would more likely to become regular visitors if there was regular new content on the site. Perhaps with the relative abundance of sponsored vps, one (or more) could be used for another moderator(s) to assist with the higher workload of weekly management?
I don't necessarily suggest we implement this system, but I do suggest that regular posting would increase the userbase in the long term, and I also suggest it's an idea worth consideration.