I, Brian

It came up in another thread about offering prizes to help being in new members and encourage forum growth.

Okay - while stumbleupon take bloody ages to set up my advertising there, I'll open up to suggestions.

Immediately comes to mind is a monthly free CD giveaway - though not sure on what critiera - post count, or a vote by other members for most consutrctive contribution? Or best post?

Also - if offering free CD's, should I just choose the band and album before hand, or instead make it Amazon vouchers or an album of choice?

Feel free to pitch suggestions.

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Joel007

Not sure if a prize based on certain criteria might encourage more flaming.

r0ckl0bster

amazon vouchers so we can choose
it shouldnt be post count only because i could run up my post count pretty quickly, it should be quality of post too
its easy to go into a thread and say somethin like band rules and thats it.

but i like the cd vouchers idea
maybe not only for amazon, cause if it was a voucher id rather buy vinyl. You could switch it up and tell the person who wins they have X amount to spend. (one cd/album and like like a 3xLP like the boris/SunnO collab) and let them tell you where to order it maybe?

also if its post quality it would encourage less flaming, because who wouldn't want to win free music.

Leonardo

I'm with wil on the vouchers. Amazon has alot of great stuff, but no vinyls. Personally, that's not a big deal for me, but I know there are a lot of vinyl enthusiasts out there, so it's probably worth considering.

And post count would just encourage spamming, so that's an overall bad idea. Quality sounds good, but it also sounds hard to pull off without upsetting people. A vote could work, but it's easy then for the member with the most MSN contacts to win. And after a few months I think the interest from the non-nominated members would just falter. Voting every month is a chore!

Maybe a referral system would work. If you manage to get X people to actually sign up and start posting on this forum, you win a CD, type thing. If we're trying to increase overall post count, what we need is more posters. 10 active posters are gonna run out of opinions to air after a while, even if they are super-active.

r0ckl0bster

i like the referral idea
but that could easily lead to having a bunch of people sign up but not ever post anyway. The better this place becomes as far as keeping conversation moving, and talking about new bands etc. the more likely it will be for people to want to post here. To be frank there is still very little conversation going on in most, if not all of the band threads, and I would say that is the first thing that would need to be addressed before bringing in new posters.

What if we alternated it, one week it is quality of posting the next it's amount of referrals, also I really wouldn't mind voting on a poster of the month or something like that. We could factor in referrals as well as quality of post too, how long does it take to make a vote on poster of the month honestly?

A mod or brian could nominate like 3 or 4 people to vote for, make a poll have it open for the last week of the month, winner gets the prize.

Bucklberry

I don't really think referals is a great idea tbh, as this promotes spam (especially where prizes are concerned), and it doesn't guarantee any more actual posters. Then again, if it's dependent on good referrals it has a chance of working.

Poster of the month seems like a good idea though, maybe there could be a few categories, such as most informative poster/single post, and most amusing poster/post etc.

A poll with associated topic may stir up a little more posting from lurkers too.

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Kingmob

I'm not convinced. Surely people are either the type that use message boards or not. I use quite a few, I'm post a fair bit on them all. Trying to bribe people into being more active seems like the wrong approach somehow. But then again, this place is dead so if you can work a fair system why not.

Refferals is a crap idea though. I could ask a load of people from other boards I post on to come here, but what'd be the point. I allready discuss/argue/joker with them elsewhere.

r0ckl0bster

exactly, i have no desire to bring people from other boards onto here, which is why im pretty against the referrals as well.

but i want free stuff

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Leonardo

If you enjoy discussing with these people on other boards, why not get them in here? It's not like all forums have exactly the same threads and posts. And how is it relevant to forum activity whether or not you already know people from other forums or not? It's not like you'd be the only person referring people here, so you would still meet people you didn't already know. For every member who signs up here, chances are he has a friend or two as well to refer . Word of mouth is the most efficient PR method by far.

And to Bucklberry, of course just getting someone to sign up wouldn't be enough, they'd have to actually post. After so and so many good posts they would count as a good referral. Or else it would be doomed to fail. : O

Kingmob

But most of the boards I use have a focus of some sort, ie, c-zine (diy UK punk independent, lots of very knowledgable people, good for advice etc), Edinburghmetalscene (local music community, metal centered, mainly stupidity and flame wars), UGS (independent scottish music scene board, good for keeping up to date) etc etc where as here there isn't any such focus.

So I have the conversation with people I know from other boards:

K: COme and sign up to a new music forum.
A: Why?
K: To discuss music.
A: I allready do that on _______, and ________.
K: Why not another?
A: WHY another?
K: Good point.

Plus, at the moment, there is no real sales point I can highlight for signing up. Its dead, hardly anyone posts, there isn't any real discussion, or a shared ethos of any sort. Perhaps down the line that'll change and it'll be easier to encourage people to take a look in.

Leonardo

Aye, that's a very good point. I agree that it would be hard to refer people here without lying. :x

r0ckl0bster

very true
its almost impossible to generate conversation here

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I, Brian

Good points overall. Definitely need to offer serious incentives.

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r0ckl0bster

this place is dead

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I, Brian

Not yet.

Still a relatively small forum with small community - will be pushing on expansion at the end of this month.

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