Picking up the pace

[Jason]

Right guys, I'm more or less all moved in now, with only a few boxes here and there, and a whole ton of odd jobs to be putting off, so that means I can offer more of my time up to MG again.

I've spent the past few nights flicking through the results of the past month or two's stats, and the one thing I've noticed is that whilst we're seeing a nice, steady level of activity of somewhere between 15-20 members online every day, for whatever reason, those members aren't extending into posts, which are the lifeblood of any forum.
Now, that's no reflection on you guys - as forum owner and administrator, it's my job to make MG the kind of place that gets you guys enthusiastic and posting, and over the past few months, I've not been doing that, so the fact that activity is down shouldn't be any surprise.

The question I've got for you all is 'what do you want from MG?' - I'm opening that question to everyone here - staff, regulars, and particularly our lurkers, who I'm particularly interested in hearing from with regards to their thoughts and feelings regards moving MG forwards.

As I'm asking you all to throw your thoughts at me, it's only fair that I should do the same, and one change I'd like to propose is changing our 'news' section. It's nearly impossible for us to keep up with gaming news as it happens - sites like Kotaku, RockPaperShotgun, Joystiq, and a hundred others you could name are going to beat us to the punch on that one, and we're very unlikely to become the first place anyone goes for news.
What I'd like to do is change it to an 'articles' section, where instead of allowing you guys to post news you find relevant/entertaining, it would be a place for you guys to fulfil that long-repressed dream you've all had (and we've all had it) of being a games journalist - you'd have more or less complete free reign over what you wrote - be it reviews (as Happysister has posted in the past), hype for games you're looking forward to (see my 'Game X and why you should be excited about it' posts), or nostalgic looks back on games you loved.
Thoughts regards this?

[happysister]

i like the idea of the articles section. it would make finding and keeping track of said stuff easier as they won't be getting lost in the other posts.

as for my own suggestions, i shall have to think on that and get back with you. *ponders*

[Archangel]

Aye, the articles section would be a nice touch. Changing the name of a subforum doesn't inspire masses of posts, though, so the problem will remain, pending further action.

I can't speak for anyone else, but with me personally, there's nothing you can do to make me post more. That's not a reflection on MG at all--I love this place--, it's a reflection on my free time. I don't have any. Certainly not very much of it for playing games, so my ability to come to a discussion board and then discuss those games is... limited.

From what I have noticed of activity from others, though, I think there's just a general lack of discussion. Members are here, and perhaps willing to post and discuss things, there's just not been that much to discuss in pre-existing threads, and they haven't been that motivated to create threads of their own.

[MyNameDidntFit]

DAMMIT. I wrote a nice big post about this, but then I got invited to a game of Space Marine, then I had dinner and few drinks and now the other half is coming over...

... oh. Actually, that sums up what I wrote pretty well: I write when things tickle my fancy because gaming, drinking and women don't give me time to write about things that don't. Will try to further neglect sleep (what sleep?) to rectify lack of posting.



RE: articles section: need to be brief. Dot point time:

Articles section a bitch to find what you want--no organisation.
Better: encourage posting of such things in correct subforum.
Even better: add prefixes/techno-code-doohickeys to filter said things into feed for main page.

Kdone. Shower now. Bye.

[happysister]

Articles section a bitch to find what you want--no organisation.

how does it make it any harder to find than it is now? >_> at least with the subforum, you know everything posted in there will be reviews and the like, so you don't have to search through all the other game talk to figure out what is what.

i do like the idea of adding more prefixes though, seeing how we only have like 3, and those are just for the 3 main systems which may or may not apply to the content of the discussion.

[Konrad]

To risk sounding overly confident, I don't think we're doing much that is "wrong" or "not enough". I think a large factor involved in the lower amount of recent activity can be accredited to a combination of outside factors, for example: lack of time.

We're still a rather small community, so when downtime for a few of our members happens simultaneously, it turns into a huge decrease in activity. I have been having a madly busy time recently, so has Archypants as it would seem and frankly... that's enough to make a noticeable dent in daily posts. In that respect I wouldn't worry much about it being an irreversible trend, things will pick up.

The news section was a good experiment that we had, but I agree that it's time for it to change, or go. Back when we were still debating on whether to even introduce it, one of the largest arguments against was that we don't have the means to compete and succeed against sites like Joystiq or Kotaku. Thus, we decided that rather than have a News section for up-to-date information, it would play the role of an "editorials" section instead, content that would be exclusive to MG by definition.

Obviously, that hasn't worked out the way we planned. Being both short on authors, and an audience, there was probably little motivation for anyone to even try, it takes a truly dedicated person to keep regularly updating a group of twenty people when that same energy could be spent writing a comment on Kotaku and be seen by more people. What's more, this is not taking into account the draw of stardom, an immense factor (albeit not a pretty one) in the decision making process of "where and what I should write".

I still consider giving our members the opportunity to write and publish their own articles to be a wonderful idea. I would love this to happen, but I wouldn't expect it to do so on it's own. We first need to ask ourselves "Why should they want to write here?" and not expect the answer to be "Because they can."

As for other means of increasing activity:

I'm a strong supporter of contests, events and activities. There is really nothing stopping us, even me, from doing this at whim other than the rather sizable black hole of ideas in MG's attic. Perhaps making a contest out of "ideas for a contest" would be a solid step forward.

I realise now that I haven't really put forward any solid ideas, but this is what I've got so far.

[happysister]

Perhaps making a contest out of "ideas for a contest" would be a solid step forward.

i like that idea. maybe that can take the place of MOTM this month.

[Hyperion]

In regards to articles, have you considered using the Articles add-on for vBulletin? You can convert the news article to an articles forum and link it to the menu, and also create an Article Submissions forum with special permissions that allows members to submit their own article that only him and an administrator may see (useful for going over the article before submission). For the Article Submissions forum, furthermore, you can have a sticky topic inside with instructions for what you look for in an article and whether the author is allowed to submit it only after a certain amount of days.

As for using this content to help get page views, no idea. I have seen a gaming website called GameSugar receive a healthy amount of comments for its articles, but that has not translated into an active forum community when phpBB was installed, customized, and linked to on the home page.

Maybe submitting guest blogs to related gaming blogs and linking back here in your profile? No idea if that would do any good.

Partnering up with a gaming website? Not sure how that would work or if it would even be remotely applicable to this forum, but I am reminded of one forum owner largely attributing his success to partnerships with two major websites: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79656

[MyNameDidntFit]

how does it make it any harder to find than it is now? >_> at least with the subforum, you know everything posted in there will be reviews and the like, so you don't have to search through all the other game talk to figure out what is what.
Because it puts 360 game reviews in the same section as PC hardware reviews and developer interviews and PS3 games and new releases and... well... everything.

Whereas adding prefixes for "Review"/"Editorial"/etc within each applicable forum means you want 360 reviews you go to the 360 subforum and look for a nice colourful "Review" tag.

[happysister]

Because it puts 360 game reviews in the same section as PC hardware reviews and developer interviews and PS3 games and new releases and... well... everything. Whereas adding prefixes for "Review"/"Editorial"/etc within each applicable forum means you want 360 reviews you go to the 360 subforum and look for a nice colourful "Review" tag.

well you could do it visa versa, too. put 360/PC/etc tags on each article in the article subforum to make it easier to find what you are looking for.

[MyNameDidntFit]

And we could also merge all the forums and use prefixes within that single forum, but it wouldn't be as efficient. To do it the way you suggest would make the relevant subforums obsolete.

[happysister]

i don't really see how, seeing as we don't always write reviews, articles, etc. at least i don't really see them as such.

[Jason]

Koz, whilst the feedback is appreciated, that wasn't really the idea of the thread - we're looking for ideas to help take MG forwards, not to reflect on where things haven't worked out in the past.

As for a sense of community, you do need to bear in mind that unlike your M&B forum, the only thing tying everyone here together is 'gaming'. We don't all play one specific game, and most of us are dotted over three or four different continents with our various timezones being about as far apart from each other as it's possible to get, not to mention the whole 'platform' issue.
MG was never (and still isn't) intended to become a 'big' site. That was never the aim when it first started, and I've not changed that stance in the two years we've been running now. We're a small fish in a damn huge pond, and anyone that thinks otherwise is kidding themselves. However, that's not to say that we shouldn't look to better ourselves where we can, which is the point of this thread, not to drag our heels and mope about the mistakes of the past, but to actually look forwards and say 'let's actually do something about this situation'. It's easy to sit back and point out where things didn't go to plan - it's not quite so easy to actually step up and come up with viable solutions to the problems.

[Kozahk]

Might as well dump that then, you sound mad; so I won't poke the wound trying to justify myself :P
As for suggestions, how about featuring videos made by the community on a little 'hot vid' box on the main page. That way people would be able to see sister's latest LP or whatever first thing. That way it wouldn't get lost in the basement, and might encourage some more views/feedback which would in turn encourage the person to make more content.

Or how about a feedtab thing that tickers through the top 5 recently updated topic, kinda like what you see on the escapist? It would let you see the most recent topics and comments up without having to mash 'refresh' and go through another page.

What about recording some MG TF2 matches and tossing them onto youtube? Maybe we might attract more people, get more posters, and if people here have fun doing it; will encourage some more creative content to be released.

An 'Indie' section under PC gaming might be nice, I got a few local devs who could use an outlet. If we have designers in our midst, maybe it would inspire some great ideas and developments. We could also bring to light some more obscure indie titles, I for one would like to do an article on Overgrowth. Maybe for some of the games with source codes available, we could do competitions with creations made (Overgrowth has a very easy to use dev tools available in the Alpha build I have for example).

A music section under off topic too would be nice. Some people I know are into the dubstep remixes, many of whom use game soundtracks spliced with movies, artists and their own original content. Again, the presence of creative influences may inspire existing members to try something they haven't done before; thus more interesting content will arise.

As for competitions, how about awarding people for their actual contributions to the site as opposed to just kinda existing. Maybe award someone for writing a really well done article, or for the time and effort someone puts in to make a decent movie or musical piece or whatnot. The MotM was an interesting idea, but it did kinda feel arbitrary after a while. So maybe people could nominate and vote for specific articles or pieces every few months to be rewarded. The article/piece in question could have a space for it in the index for the time it is winner as the 'Top Article'.

Along those lines, how about 'Kudos', where a reader who is impressed by an article could hit a 'kudos' button that works kinda like a thumbs up. Perhaps we could have a section for 'recommended articles' sorted in that manner; in that way good articles would not get lost over time and would provide some more reassuring feedback for the writer.

Aside form that, the only other suggestion for the forum would be maybe adding a little colour. I feel like I'm living in a Vault here!

[Jason]

I wouldn't say I was mad, more that it just wasn't quite what I was looking for from this thread in particular. If you wanted to create another thread with those concerns, I'd be only too happy to discuss them with you. :)

As for your suggestions - one thing I'm always loathe to do is to create subsections that will only see a day or two's use then will quickly fall away, unloved. Off-topic at the moment doesn't really see more than a handful of posts a week, and there's not really a great amount of musical discussion beyond the 'what are you listening to' thread, so a dedicated music subsection might be surplus to requirements.
I do like the idea of an 'Indie' section under PC gaming, and if we saw a little more content geared that way, I'd certainly consider that.

Regards the colour and kudos thing, both of those things might well be addressed in something I'm working on at the moment.

As for the 'top article' and 'top video' thing, they're both good ideas, but once again, they're going to be reliant on level of content in order to become more than arbitrary bells and whistles - at the moment, we see roughly 2-3 articles a month from non-staff members, and as you pointed out earlier, the youtube thing never really got off the ground, so obviously there doesn't seem to be too much pushing for that at the moment.

I'm not ruling out any of those suggestions, mind. It's more a case of not wanting to implement things before we're ready for them, as I don't know about you, but there's nothing I hate seeing more than empty forums and sections that haven't been posted in for months and months.

[Konrad]

Re: Videos

At some point in time plans were being made regarding community made videos. There were several great ideas, and had they come to fruition we would certainly make them a highlight. As far as I had known, that never really happened. Apparently I'm wrong, and I'd like to be pointed to the subject of my mistake. :p

Re: Indie games.

The general rule of thumb is that forums are created on a need basis. For example, we used to have a forum for each modern console and a "retro" section if I'm not wrong. It turned out however that we diluted "console" talk too much, leaving each forum rather empty. Dividing forums into "genres" would have the same effect.

For now, the odd thread about an Indie game should go either in General Gaming, or the platform specific forum. If they start dominating, that's when we'll give them their own spot.

Same thing applies to a Music forum. Making a section of the forum to hold music related conversation doesn't make much sense when there is no music related conversation.
Not having a section for music doesn't mean people can't talk about it if they feel inclined. When people's dubstep remixes start popping up, then we'll make a forum to hold them.

Re: Contests

All contest ideas are really welcome. I've been on-and-off trying to think of something to replace MotM. Voting on and rewarding articles might be a good plan, assuming participation, which is always the hardest part.

Edit: Oops redundant post is redundant.

[Kozahk]

Well if there is incentive, then participation should (theoretically) follow. I have been out of country the past few months, got exams now, then a nice stretch of holidays where I can finally make some content. I need to import in a few components, download some softowares and I can start doing stuff. I can actually do LP's and PC game review atm, seeing how I just came into possession of FRAPS, Sony studio something or other and TVC. I was thinking Amnesia, seeing how halloween just past. I leave country again later 2012, but I should be right making stuff.

[Konrad]

I worry it's not that as simple as "incentive".

You also need to balance giving people plenty of time and a good pool of entries with loss of interest. You need to balance accessibility without getting trivial and uninteresting. MotM while being fun and easy, failed to strike that balance and became trivial.

[Kozahk]

Well, by incentive I also mean a bit more than just material. Maybe we should get people who are willing to do that sorta thing together, create and release content around the same time-frame. Idea is that when people see others doing it, they might decide to give it a shot too. I know sister and I would do LP's just for shits and giggles, not because we have a material reason to do it.

[happysister]

since you guys mentioned youtube, i just wanna throw in here that back when we were discussing the youtube thing, i did offer to create the MG youtube channel since Jason wasn't sure how. and my offer still stands. if people are still interested, i can make and run it if no one else can/wants to. yeah. kthxbai.