Incentives to post

Uhm, saying we need more interesting threads isn't exactly a plan, and yes I agree there is NO lack of posters on this site at all, which is why I made this suggestion. So many of those people hardly post at all, and we need to give them a reason to.

 

Oh believe me, if anyone really wanted to they can easily get their posts up through useless posts that are only borderline spam.

More posts does NOT equal a better forum.

 

In a way it does. Take a look at the Other games section. I want it to be more active, so I post in nearly all of the threads I am knowledgeable in to try and initiate conversation. Well if no one posts, I can't go back and talk to myself, therefore any post, even borderline spam, keeps the conversation rolling.

I know it sounds dumb, but in sections with one or two posts a day, a few people posting borderline spam to get the sections active wouldn't hurt.

 

If you feel that there is a lack of posting going on, perhaps you should look at running some community-based initiatives similar to the games night which will get people involved. Adding rewards will have the effects that Govind and others spoke about - spamming. Regardless of whether or not the staff catch the spammers, threads will still get spammed.

 

I don't know how you can be so sure, the threads and whatnot that are being posted aren't too different than what they were a couple of years ago and there were definitely more posts then.

X339, I think you're on the right track working on new incentives to post, but nothing you've suggested really seems viable or stands out to me. I mean, I don't agree with unlocks because I don't think some members should be restricted just because they don't post enough. Some of them may not have the time or anything. A little level for postcount wouldn't be that bad, but I don't feel that'll improve things.

 

This makes sense, but then again having a shiny logo that says "Grand Master" would be more captivating than seeing the mundane text "Grand Master." This should be applied to all ranks alike. I'm positive this has been brought up several times in the past, but it couldn't hurt to implement it now rather than never.

 

I know a thing or two about the community development team.

There is a lot going on in that aspect, but we need to work on other things as well, and I feel that having these rewards available to people will make them want to post more.

People won't be able to spam because we have spam rules in place to prevent that. Plus they aren't awards that are going to get people going like "omgomgomg I need this I must spam to get it now!", it's just going to be a nice little push in that direction. Also it won't really be restricting anyone, because if they don't want to get active and such then I doubt they're really going to care if someone has access to a skin that they don't. That's like saying other users are excluded from donating perks and that's unfair.

A forum is nothing with out posts, and that is something we've been lacking on Sythe lately. We need to do something that's going to get people posting again.

 

I think suggestion 2 is a great idea. It will encourage more forum participation outside of the market.

I am sure having more rewards for greater number of post counts will serve as an incentive to post on other forums.

 

The best way to get people to post more, in my opinion, is to somehow connect post count to a visual display of accomplishment. For example, perhaps @5000 posts, one might get a "Community" rank.

However,

Though I feel as if this would be the best way to motivate people, I think that post count should not affect the amount of trust in a user anymore than it already does.

 

That's exactly what I thought as well, which inspired the first thought.

Unfortunately trust is in the eye of the beholder, so that's not something we can determine as simply a yes or no.

 

I think a general community rank would be too broad and could imply a lot of different things. I wouldn't mind having some sort of "Active participant rank" or "active poster" based on join date and average posts per day. The rank would be removed naturally once the user ceases being active.

What another user suggested with different colors for the "Grand master", etc is a possibility. However, I'm sure it'd be hard to get consensus on colors and the idea would grow old relatively fast.

Brandan has a valid point. I don't see an activity bar or any of the ideas you, x339, suggested happening. Try to think more as to how we can modifiy the current system without adding in more plugins.

 

I didn't suggest a rank anywhere o.0 A rank is pointless, and has almost nothing to do with what I said. I think we should be adding things like a level bar and unlocks.

Why is adding plugins a problem? The only thing we would really need a plugin for would be the activity bar, as the other things can be done with simple usergroup changes. And even so, adding plugins shouldn't be something we frown upon, because if they'll help the site then they should be embraced. Yes they may take some tweaking, but Govind and Matthew are our tech admins, and I am sure they would be willing to do something that would help the site.

We can't just keep working within the systems we have, because then we aren't going to accomplish anything. We'll just keep going in circles, and nothing new and innovative will be happening. We can already see this by going in to the suggestions section, everything is about adding new sections, removing old section, changing the rules, or just anything that would involve slightly modifying what we already have. That's not working at all, so we need to be open to try new things, because that's how you become successful. You have to take risks and be willing to try things out before you make judgement.

 

That has more to do with the site's demographic and layout. Almost anyone who joins this site will have joined for something runescape related. Because let's face it, a prospective user is almost bombarded with runescape related things upon entering.

And as much as I'd like the music section to be thriving in posts, I wouldn't want bullshit in there either.

 

and we're trying to change that.

 

I know.

 

We actually had much, much stricter rules back when we last tried this.

The end result was, again, people registering and then spamming and making useless posts to reach the requirement. It gives the staff more to do, sure, but this site doesn't exist to give our staff things to do. It will clutter the forum and make the site look bad in the long run.

 

I dont believe it will give the staff more to do. people might think at first that they have to spam for these ranks but even spammers grow tired of it pretty fast. i joined and thought post count ment trust so i spammed my way up. then i realized the truth and rarely post inless i have legit insight to the topic. it might create mass spam for a little bit of time but then everything will even out just like it is now.

it might be something that gives more appeal to the site, i dont believe it will hurt things in the long run. i do how ever see where you are coming from. Im in the middle on this one. there are too many pros and cons to something like this.

 

You're wrong. I've been there; that was the result we had each time we tried. Besides, even if a few individual members give up down the road, many new people join each day.

 

I agreed with many of the members that wanted to see the post rewards implemented. However, after reading Govind's rebuttal, I'm leaning more towards his (I think?) side. I can see many new members joining, and with the new incentive in place, it will be a complete mess. We would be flooded with new members wanting to achieve these rewards. Essentially, it would be a never ending cycle of spam. That's how I understood it.

 

Yup, that's exactly what will happen.

Anyway, post count restrictions and rewards are on the DNS list. Closing.