Idea to boost activity

[Liam]

It doesn't seem worth the risk when it's the sort of change that could semi-permanently deter currently active people from coming here.

I disagree here, I don't think we should be content with forum activity being centralised around monotonous and repetitive posts in 3 or so topics. We've had a good response in this topic and also in the IRC where members, including both older and newer ones, are willing to help boost activity. Closing these topics which as Raven put it suck the activity out of the rest of RR would push members towards creating more topics and more discussion. If active members are being deterred because the why are you xyz threads are closed then that's a damn shame, considering there's other topics to be started, other boards to be explored and (especially with the changes to commenting and content submission) other parts of the site to be tested. I'm not saying it's 100% going to work but I believe it's worth a shot.

[Inferna]

I don't know I'm a little on the fence about this.
You have to remember that some people like posting in those topics, some people see them as safe spaces away from other people or just like to have a rant or whatever. I think if they closed then people would start making topics for any old thing that's happened to them and the board would be flooded with small threads with few replies. Then on the other hand the opposite could happen, people might think "oh I'm not sure if this is thread worthy or not" and end up not posting at all.
if we all just try and make threads that promote healthy discussion without going into debating or whatever it'd be better. Or make different threads like one for pets, fashion, school or whatever. I know its pigeon holing stuff a bit more but I've seen it on other forums and it works, current or relevant topics still get posted about. Even if someone posts about an interesting article they saw somewhere, obviously as long as it meets the rules.
(That was a bit rambly but yeah just my two cents.)

[Turner]

It doesn't seem worth the risk when it's the sort of change that could semi-permanently deter currently active people from coming here.

For a valid measurement you'd need clear indicators of success or failure anyway. What would you expect the test to change, other than a general and vague "the discussion improves"?

I know this is aimed more towards Raven, but my opinion of it has always been that it's a little too much of a catch-all to the point where it deters making individual threads.

We have these "What's making you [feel] _____ right now?" which are basically big nets for emotion. Because you can boil down pretty much every life event into something that either makes you happy or sad there becomes less reason to make a thread about such things and may give people the impression that in doing so they're either creating an unnecessary thread (possibly breaking rules) or being too self-centred by making a thread purely about how they are feeling.

I'm not trying to demonize these threads at all because I don't think they're made with bad intentions or that they are the one single secret source behind the lack of activity but I do think there is a case to be made that RR pretty much exists for these subjects to be created as threads instead of all thrown into one thread, especially now that TV, Movies, Debate, Sports and Books all have their own child boards.

Examples of the types of threads people have made in the past include "I'm having trouble coming out as gay to my parents", "I just got my GCSE results" etc. which would now fit in the "What's making you sad/happy right now" threads respectively. Of course, people can still create those threads regardless, but from what we've seen in comparison to those threads not existing, people do not seem inclined to do so and it can certainly create the impression of a lack of activity when there are only a handful of active threads.

[sylar]

idk i feel we could merge those topics. like "whats making you feel some type of way right now" so theres not as many threads for fb status things as yall put it, just one. people just write how theyre feeling and vent a little. or even a "how was your day" so people can just do the same, vent or get hype about how their day went, ive seen a few forums do this one

id personally like to get the art threads going a little more. remember in pokemon world magazine thered be fakemon competitions? we could do something like that maybe, just have people send in their fakemon designs and have a team of judges pick out their favourites, but so people arent excluded they could do a neopets art gallery sort of deal where they hold on to entries that didnt get featured so they can feature them in next week/months judging. maybe every new round theres a Judges Pick section where the winner gets a prize, one of the competitive battlers/breeders could whip up some sort of shiny or perfect iv or w/e type pokemon to hand out to the winner, the prize changes every week.
itd be based on creativity, not art. so even those who arent big into art could enter, or even ask one of the artists on site to help them with their entry.

or art challenges? such as "this week, draw/sprite a pokemon team that would best suit [character from tv show/game/comic (with link to wikipedia about them so everyone gets a good idea of the character) or even just describe a person with a certain lifestyle]" and everyone draws out the sort of team they think would suit best. that might be fun. even just "draw this pokemon with a colour scheme that reminds you of autumn" or "draw this pokemon with three different genetic mutations/body types" i dunno.

on a forum i visit theres a "show me something recent" or "post a wip" too, we could make those threads, or "critique/say what you like about the drawing above you" so newer artists can get some pointers on what theyre doing right and what to improve on. we could try some art tutorial threads too, like how to do a certain trick in a certain program or how to colour in certain ways. none of this HOW TO DRAW LOL stuff, that never helps anyone.
i think if we had art resources people would be more inclined to enter the aforementioned fakemon thing.

also re: name rater, cant we hire a stand-in rater to just clear up the queue a little? like everyone said, everyone joins for the name rater and it doesnt even work, sort of disappointing to see!

[Shaymin]

i've honestly been thinking about how quiet the forums have been recently and there's not exactly a lot we can really do to get it back up. most of the active members are late teens to early twenties with some older and some younger - though the younger ones come on less and are usually discouraged by the way they sometimes get treated

pokemon just really isn't cool these days amongst the little ones - they're all playing their cod and other things. pokemon goes through phases of being cool and totally uncool (don't you remember being the only kid in high school who liked pokemon) and with facebook groups/tumblr/etc, people are turning to them rather than pokemon websites

i honestly remember being drawn in via the caption contest and the name rater. i have no idea how active those things are at the minute as i don't normally check them out as my usual hangout is random randomness and other places, but i'm sure they could do with some boost in activity

although i do remember the times of 90+ people online, with the spriting board, rp, etc, being super popular and threads would be buried within days if you didn't post in them. the sad thing is, these things just don't attract youngsters anymore. i don't really know why, but different places are attracting kids at the minute - ie, club penguin, and... other places iunno

as for solutions, getting rid of the "what's making you x right now" is a bad idea. they're popular enough and spark conversations within themselves. it's like saying "get rid of the what are you listening to now" topic. these topics are a hot bed of activity and we need to keep them that way

i don't know how many people look at the say hello board - i'm probably too abrasive to greet new people but being nice and helping people out will probably (but not certainly) encourage new members to explore the different places on the forum

perhaps some of the older features should be brought back? i remember pokemon big brother (didn't take much interest in it, but hey i was just boring back then lmao), and there were other things that... i don't remember but i know there were other things.

one way i've been thinking to revamp the spriting board is to complete the rest of the metagame - we haven't got gen five and six, so that could really bring in some activity to that board. if it gets any interest here, i'll post up the topic.

i apologise for how rambly this is

[SaRo|Rapidash]

In defence of "What's making you ____ right now?" threads, I do think they're somewhat useful as a place to vent anger or whatever or to post things that are otherwise not really worthy of a thread.

Like, take Turner's example of "I just got my GCSE results". Is that really needing a thread for it? Maybe having a results thread in general idk, but I do think that where these threads are useful.

Also, I know I like to use the "What's annoying you or bugging you right now?" as a way to kind of... vent anger and possibly spark a conversation but not necessarily looking for one, which starting a thread would obviously be doing.

I think the problem comes when people post big things on their that are obviously going to spark discussion and should of been a thread. I'm pretty sure most of us have done it at some point, and that's where the problem with these threads comes. I know I'd be inclined to post a lot less in RR without them, because most stuff I'd be annoyed / saddened / happied (?) about either isn't relevant enough for a thread or I'd want advice from someone I trust (in the least offensive way possible xD)

Idk, that's just how I feel about it, I don't know if anyone else is like that or not but yeah.

----

Also, on the topic of content, I've been wanting to write some content for quite a while and have been brainstorming ideas on and off for like a month but I really can't think of a column that would actually be useful. One idea I had was like a "Break a pokemon with one minor change" sort of column, but I think it was Rich who pointed out it's very subjective, and tbf I don't think it'd be very interesting to read?

[Kerou 犠牲]

Whilst I don't agree that the premise of the threads should be removed or taken to Forum Games the idea of merging them into one thread is actually a great idea; make it into a "How are you feeling thread?" and allow posters to essentially say small, sentences to get a particular feeling off their chest that they don't feel is enough to warrant its own thread, plus it removes whatever clutter there may seem to be in regards to it.

EDIT: Also, I'd be more than happy to write a thread or whatever in Say Hello which breaks down each board and why it'd be a good opportunity to stick around and get to know us in the forums. If no one's opposed to this then I'll get it done tonight? It'd be different to the rules and tips in a nutshell thread because it'd try to be specific about each board and also what the community itself brings, I'll also edit the opening post with other contributive points if people wish to contribute. I mean, it may not guarantee people staying but it's worth a try, right?

[Shaymin]

feelings... aren't rly a game? and taking those topics and shoving them in forum games would again reduce the activity in random randomness?? i dont rly see what the point in moving them is when they are pretty much fine where they are?

[Turner]

pokemon just really isn't cool these days amongst the little ones - they're all playing their cod and other things. pokemon goes through phases of being cool and totally uncool (don't you remember being the only kid in high school who liked pokemon) and with facebook groups/tumblr/etc, people are turning to them rather than pokemon websites

Considering the kids playing CoD nowadays were born after R/B's release, I wouldn't blame those games for a lack of activity. Pokemon is still massively popular with numerous agegroups, it's still one of the biggest selling franchises of all time.

What you're mentioning above regarding tumblr is correct, but it's not because tumblr is arbitrarily being chosen for no reason. It's because tumblr has content; everything about tumblr is content. In the past, internet speeds were not fast enough to be endlessly scrolling through media posts or watching 1080p videogame trailers and LPs on YouTube - When D/P put Pokemon online, it was a huge game changer but was still difficult to arrange a match with friends. In those days, people sought out forums for discussion but now we live in a (internet) world of content everywhere. People would be crippled to discuss anything without having some sort of content as a trigger for discussion - that's where sites like Facebook and tumblr do so well for getting hits - you have a wall/dash and content is just cascading down it constantly and people find things from an large assortment to comment on - that's where the magic happens and that's why I personally think a more open content driven approach is better. Thinking in black and white terms of 'discussion forum' and 'News site' is old hat now and this kind of approach to a Pokemon fansite makes no sense to young Pokemon fans (of which there are many) who didn't grow up in the same internet landscape as we did.

[Kpyna]

music isn't a game either, but that's in forum games. i don't really care how it gets classed or moved around. if people want to post in those threads, it's not like its much extra trouble to click on forum games as opposed to random randomness. i don't have much input on the whole content thing, seeing as i haven't bought a pokemon game since i started high school. however, i do miss stuff like PokeMole. now, that generated discussion.

[Sappy]

We had an idea in IRC.

To make nicknames be rated quickly we could enable users rating nicknames. Obviously there would have to be a moderator, but instead of writing out the whole name rater thing (Which I believe is the difficult part) they approve it.

Say I suggest "YOLO" for Yanma, but the person who rates it doesn't know it's me who submitted this.

Say Alex randomly ended up with it and then says "no, just nolo". Note: Alex doesn't know it's me who submitted it.

Then a moderator just has to approve. To keep up with tradition it just appears with "Name rater says: no, just nolo" to keep it anonymous.

It would probably make names rated a lot faster. While it may take a lot of initial work setting up, but it would take a load off of the name rater's back. Also include what every user's secretly wanted to do. The moderator would just enforce the tradition and make sure no-one goes "ew ur name sux" all the time.

[Lord Raven]

I know this is aimed more towards Raven, but my opinion of it has always been that it's a little too much of a catch-all to the point where it deters making individual threads.

We have these "What's making you [feel] _____ right now?" which are basically big nets for emotion. Because you can boil down pretty much every life event into something that either makes you happy or sad there becomes less reason to make a thread about such things and may give people the impression that in doing so they're either creating an unnecessary thread (possibly breaking rules) or being too self-centred by making a thread purely about how they are feeling.

I'm not trying to demonize these threads at all because I don't think they're made with bad intentions or that they are the one single secret source behind the lack of activity but I do think there is a case to be made that RR pretty much exists for these subjects to be created as threads instead of all thrown into one thread, especially now that TV, Movies, Debate, Sports and Books all have their own child boards.

Examples of the types of threads people have made in the past include "I'm having trouble coming out as gay to my parents", "I just got my GCSE results" etc. which would now fit in the "What's making you sad/happy right now" threads respectively. Of course, people can still create those threads regardless, but from what we've seen in comparison to those threads not existing, people do not seem inclined to do so and it can certainly create the impression of a lack of activity when there are only a handful of active threads.

Said it better than I ever could.

feelings... aren't rly a game? and taking those topics and shoving them in forum games would again reduce the activity in random randomness?? i dont rly see what the point in moving them is when they are pretty much fine where they are?

Neither is "What are you listening to?" but it's in there anyway.  Forum Games is generally a spam-lite type of forum, filled with posts that could be posted in massively on a very regular interval.  That's my interpretation of it.

Now of course your argument only applies to "What is making you happy/sad right now?" type threads.  What about "What are you doing right now?"  "What's confusing you right now?"  These threads tend to have a huge overlap, and the risk of making them merged and incredibly general means that the thread gets too broad.  Ultimately, threads that are too broad are one of the issues that is sort of coming up.

perhaps some of the older features should be brought back? i remember pokemon big brother (didn't take much interest in it, but hey i was just boring back then lmao), and there were other things that... i don't remember but i know there were other things.

There was quiz night on Sundays.  A 2-3 person committee to get this going and thinking up obscure quiz questions and rules are good.  Changing things up weekly is not a bad idea either.

if we all just try and make threads that promote healthy discussion without going into debating or whatever it'd be better.

And I love this idea.  I'm going to make a separate thread about it.

I really like the way this thread is going; healthy and active discussion, good ideas, and people not being afraid to voice out their opinions.  I can understand why you'd want to keep those threads I keep mentioning in Random Randomness, but I don't like them because I feel a lot of threads that you can make ultimately end up with posts in there.  Things are more likely to be drowned out that way, and not only that but that thread gets so cluttered it's hard to actually talk to people there.  I'd almost encourage people post in those threads less and make more threads about what they'd post about.  It almost gives the illusion of greater activity, and I know when I'm perusing forums if I only see 3-4 threads at the top and the next highest one hasn't had a new post in a week I end up getting the impression the thread is inactive.

There are a couple things I have in mind;
locking them for a week and seeing if activity shifts towards new threads as opposed to new posts possibly?  This is really risky though, and I understand exactly what Joeno is getting at with this.
Moving them to forum games - that just gives a new outlet for the issue I'm getting at and isn't a real solution.
Possibly a board called the "Ranting Zone", where there'd be no post count but someone can make their own thread and basically vent (in a civilized way - no cursing things out of course, no airing dirty forum laundry in public, etc; the latter has not been an issue since late 2009/2010 though).  It gives people a way to talk about their lives, but it promotes activity of some sort and it clears up Random Randomness.

Also while I'm here, on the idea of the "illusion of activity."  Could it be possible we separate boards by generation?  We'd have one board for Generations I and II, then another for Generation III, one for Generation IV and V, then the last would be General VI.  Since the new games are coming out, we could have a separate board for that.  Something like that.  I'll look up numbers and see if it's more viable to have a Generation I-III board, General IV-V board, General VI, and then a board for spinoffs (Orre series), then have Mystery Dungeon be its own separate thing because Mystery Dungeon is a huge series all on its own.  Just spitballing, I'd love to get some refinement in organization.  Many of these boards aren't very active and having more-encompassing boards seems like a good idea to me just because an outlet for more threads seems to seem more active, and the illusion of activity could ultimately bring more people in and have them think "oh it's an active forum."

I also think Sports could be a subforum of Entertainment and not Random Randomness but I'm not sure.  I think a lot of those Sports discussions focus on media to begin with.

I hope someone asks me to clarify what I mean because it makes sense in my head, but I kinda rambled off.



Also I talked about those threads where someone basically has a biweekly column or a group of writers has a set thing to write every so often.  I'll actually make a separate thread outlining my ideas for that, and then see who's willing to take what on, or what is already out there that we can start the list off with.

[Joeno]

While it may take a lot of initial work setting up

Way too much, we're talking complete rewrite here. See the earlier point about me just not having time for that - this would take me weeks at my currently available site time, and I don't think I could get the support for it from the other people involved with the feature

[Spriter]

I may not have much part in this as it is, but I am willing to help out with more Competitive aspects of the site, mainly Team Building of course.

I'd also be up for running a couple of tournaments (and I'm sure others would), including Random Battles / Ubers / RU, but we'll have to see who takes interest in it.

More importantly, keeping the current league up and running will be beneficial to activity.

[Joeno]

So in the interest of doing something with Those Topics, as there's the feeling something needs to be done, but I don't feel removing them entirely is the right course. So...

The three line "How ya doing" topic

Feeling happy? Sad? Annoyed? Need to get something off your chest?

If it's something small that you just want to share, no need for a discussion, no need for (many) further replies, go ahead and post it here.

Three sentences or less though. If you can't summarize it in three sentences or less, you probably want to create a topic instead. At that point, there's probably something worth talking about in a proper topic. Don't worry - we have more than enough space left for the forums that it won't get in the way.

If you want to reply with more than a few words, that's also the point to make a topic about it. We can split posts off this topic if we have to.