Important Boosting Forum Activity

I was thinking of maybe a fanart thingy. Just a thought TBH. I know we did one already, but why not just make it a thing? That might boost some activity.

 

It worked on me

I think maybe for February we ask users to write either a review, or post about an anime they love in one of the topics! (After all next month is month of lurrrve)!! I think if we can somehow theme competitions as well it may attract others.

Then March we could have a fan art competition (because Spring, and beauty).

Then April for Easter have another scavenger hunt similar to Crazy's Christmas.

Then May have something simple that doesn't take very long as a lot of people will be revising for exams at this point. Maybe a quiz that doesn't take very long to complete? (Or maybe we can do a quiz for another month)?

 

I hate to be the negative nancy of the group, but the main problem we seem to have is the number of consistent posters. When I look down the forum posts I see 7 names. I don't know how to fix that other than growing the site and making it so that commenting on a post is easier for the first time visitor (not necessarily through design, but through things like easily obvious questions), but as it is the key to boosting forum activity isn't to increase people's post counts from 5 to 7 but to increase the number of people on the forum who post regularly.
Hell if you don't mind clutter, you could bring back the introduce yourself section. That invests people with it more often, but comes at the cost of inspiring spam posts. I don't know what we need to get more people to stick, but that might help by making the easy first post, that leads to them browsing new posts which leads to joining clubs etc. I don't know the lurker stats, but that might convert people to sometimes posters more efficiently than the easily buried post.
Basically it feels like to me that we've built a gigantic pile of sticks, but we don't have the fire source, wherever that might be.

 

I've got a little theory, but I have no evidence to back it up. So it's not really a theory, but whatever...

Let's be real here, most of the most active threads made on the site are titled very generally. "The New Release Club's General Discussion" "The official what should watch next thread!" to give some examples. Sure, it may have a lot of activity in the thread, to a newer member it looks like a long list of "Thanks, but I'd rather look at another thread." Nothing has really caught their eye yet, and I don't think newer members want to look through threads to find posts they can respond to.

Newer members might be caught by specific threads that are objective. For example: "Angel Beats is better than Clannad!" whereas newer members who have seen one or the other may feel more inclined to post because they know what they're talking about. Think of it this way, when you go in for a new job, you'll be more confident talking to the other employees if you have experience in that area. Think of this idea like that.

Personally, I think it's because not enough people are wrong here. Controversy creates activity. I remember conversations here on JDO in certain threads where people were debating about the way the Monogatari series is chronologically, debating about how good an anime really is [Kampfer], and although some of them can be described as arguments, it did spawn activity.

The problem though was that these posts were made in "general" threads, which I believe new members don't really look at right away.

I remember when I first showed up, the reason I got so into the site was because wanted to voice my opinions on some of the available topics that I knew about. I remember creating a thread named "More worth watching" in which I listed a bunch of anime I wanted to watch and asked people which was more worth watching. Granted I was still new to forum going at that point, but I did get a lot of responses from people comparing the anime that I selected and telling me which one I should watch next. Some of them even talked with one another about why they thought certain anime were better than others on that list. Nowadays, that sort of stuff is put into a general thread, that again, I think newer members shy away from.

tl;dr: I think newer members are attracted by specific threads aimed at anime they've seen, and shy away from "general" threads.

I mean, I can't really prove that this is the way they behave, but I've been here a pretty long time. Not as long as Shogun or Meta, but I feel like this is one of the major differences between this site and JD.

 

I've been saying this for the last few months or so. But, obviously we can't force people to move to other threads. Unfortunately our active users are posting in more general threads because they can type one long post. For me, I find it easier posting in different threads about different topics which I find easier to keep track of. But, everyone has their own preferences.

 

Yeah, I try to generate discussion in threads about anime I am currently watching. I only seem to get one or two people to respond. I'm surprise because I thought so many people would have seen so many shows and want to discuss them. I acknowledge the fact that there is so much anime out there that they probably watch other shows instead.

Another thing I am considering is making separate posts for video games in the Video Game section, rather than club. The club I will use for organising events. As for discussing games I am happy to post individual threads for each one in the Video Game topic section.

 

well I came to JD due to the fact i was informed of an amv comp at the amv org site, was directed to jd, stayed since. Getting the word out to other forums to let them know we have or will or can hold competitions could add newer members. expand our social pressense as a community forum, let Reddit know, let the world now. ill do more thinking and looking around see what I can see and dig up.

 

We have a tumblr? Somebody better tell Nim!!

 

I'd say look what was working in the past and re-do it here.
The only reason to stay is if you "connect" with others or the user comes out of their shell and started amazing posts that get others involved.

Here is a bold move Remove Skype.
Why remove skype? Those chats are like a another city where everyone now lives and the forums are just a town we visit every now and then. Heck we might even get some users back lol
At least stop with the invites. I notice users being invited after posting here a bit then just staying in skype.

I like skype however it's just a double edge sword for JD.

 

Yeah do we need a good place to hang but remember it will bite back.
Let me post ideas.

Fan Art contest of Kami, Arisu and/or Midori
Design a JD shirt logo - Can be on pencil too and if the winner is on paper I'll re-make in [Ps]
Game Tournament - This can be Playstation, Xbox, online games or a custom JD game
Make a funny anime meme
Share Facts about an anime series - Like refrances of other anime in an anime or something interesting about the VA etc.