What can we do to retain and engage members?

[RumblePurr]

Please,no omnis! I've had enough of those omg,wut would you do on a non-vegan desert island?!!!1questions...enough to last a lifetime.
I'll stay if there's an omni invasion,but I won't like it.

 

[FortyTwo]

It may not be bustling with activity, at least not as much as VB, but I do quite like the atmosphere here. Newbies jumping right into the discussion was something I rarely saw at VB. I had an account on there before my vegkid, actually, that ended up getting banned for pretty much that reason.

 

[Cerebellion]

I agree on the no omnis part. Justifying one's life and dietary choices gets a bit tiresome after a while. I'm not saying all omnis do it, but I do get tired of saying "because that's what I decided to ******* do" over and over again. I'm not huge on the emails part. It could be interpreted as spam. Spamming one's email account is not a good way to endear yourself

 

[beancounter]

I think this is getting off topic...

Yes, we all think VV is terrific. That's why we are here.

But what about the people who didn't stick around. What wasn't engaging them?

It's the proverbial $64K question. If we can figure that out, we'll be able to increase the retention rate.

 

[Lord Snot]

There were a lot of suggestions, but few solutions offered.

 

[ledboots]

You could have some nice person assigned to welcome new members and make sure their biggest immediate need gets fulfilled. Everyone comes here for a reason, and the main reason usually comes out in the first couple of posts, so the greeter could try to help with this, and then of course we can just hope the new member likes it here.

 

[Lord Snot]

^ That's a good idea. I joined a forum recently where there were 'Forum Helpers' whose job it was to welcome new members and make sure they were treated nicely. I think they unobtrusively follow newbies for their first few weeks and see how people are treating them, then tell a mod if someone is making them feel unwelcome or being rude to them.

It didn't actually work because some of the long term members ganged up to insult me when I said I was vegan, but it at least gave the illusion that I could post without fear

 

[Nightshade]

For what it's worth, these are reasons that have caused me to leave other forums over the years:

1) overall lack of participation which resulted in diminishing traffic and membership
2) over moderation
3) overt cliquishness
4) a hostile, argumentative environment usually caused by a handful of senior members

I'm not saying that anything of this nature occurs here except, perhaps, lack of participation except in a couple of social threads. I think that members and mods should make a concerted effort to start threads on relevant topics to encourage more discussion. It seems that when someone does start a topic, they generally get immediate responses so it seems to me that people are just waiting for something to talk about.

 

[Blobbenstein]

strange idea: an area just for newbies....like a subforum where only people with less than 30 posts(and mods) could see and post....

probably wouldn't work as there wouldn't be enough newbies, but if there were, then that would make people feel that long term members with 9,000,000 posts, couldn't gang up on them, which maybe a fear for some. The subforum could be called 'seedlings'...

 

[CrazyCatLady]

I like the idea of having a buddy.
I imagine there will be one of two people join this forum...people new to veg*nism, who like myself will have a tonne of questions...and current veg*ns that are new to this forum who may benefit a little personal introduction from their assigned member to talk them through the forum...like where certain things get posted, ask them what they would like to get out of the board and maybe point them in the direction of another member they may benefit talking with xxx

 

[AeryFairy]

For what it's worth, these are reasons that have caused me to leave other forums over the years:

1) overall lack of participation which resulted in diminishing traffic and membership
2) over moderation
3) overt cliquishness
4) a hostile, argumentative environment usually caused by a handful of senior members

I'm not saying that anything of this nature occurs here except, perhaps, lack of participation except in a couple of social threads. I think that members and mods should make a concerted effort to start threads on relevant topics to encourage more discussion. It seems that when someone does start a topic, they generally get immediate responses so it seems to me that people are just waiting for something to talk about.

This is actually one of the tasks assigned to the forum stewards (purple names). They are encouraged to find interesting discussion topics to make threads about in the forums they're in charge of

Usually, when I hear an interesting news story or idea, one of my first thoughts is "I'll post that on VV!"

 

[PiSis]

gonna go out on a and throw this out here:
what if we got rid of the "like" capability?

this feature/function may be keeping some folks away:

* the shy or unsure newbies or not-so-newbies who may stress out about whether or not they are going to get any likes causing them to stress out about posting altogether.

* the most popular one who probably doesn't give a crap about the likes and just wants to post away and not stand out and bring attention to himself with the most likes.

these are just the two extreme opposite ends of the spectrum and there may be a lot more in between who just don't like the likes for various other reasons.

this seems to be a Facebook offshoot and we posted so much and for so long on the other board without it, so why not lose the likes and just keep the trophies rewards for the other stuff like the number of posts, etc.?

 

[Lord Snot]

The like feature is one of the best on the forum in my opinion. It gets rid of most of those posts where people quote something and say "I agree" or "This." and don't actually add anything constructive to the discussion.

Plus you get a notification when someone likes you, so it encourages people to re-visit threads and perhaps add more.

 

[PTree15]

...
The thing these soapbox vegans forget is...there is always someone doing more than yourself.
When I was told that I was bad bad veg*n for still buying from parent companies that either profit from animal research or damage the Earth (etc) I sooo wanted to ask back how they lived...where did they get their gas/electric...did they own plastic items or wooden furnature...etcetc. I mean we can only do so much.
Unless you grow your own food and cotton to make clothes or whetever you cant be the Holy Saint of Vegans!

This!
I don't really have any useful suggestions about how to get more people here, but I am so glad this place is here! Thank you, Inidan Summer, for creating/running it. I like nice, too
I am not sure how the google thing works, as far as getting high up on the search list, but I know that when I decided to go vegan (after being vegetarian for several years) that I needed more info and I basically started using search words such as vegan, recipes, cheeseless, etc. I ended up at VB. Is the search list hierarchy related to activity on a site?

ETA: Lol, I just read LS's "This" and "I agree" post. Sorry for using "This!"

 

[Dedalus]

gonna go out on a and throw this out here:
what if we got rid of the "like" capability?

this feature/function may be keeping some folks away:

* the shy or unsure newbies or not-so-newbies who may stress out about whether or not they are going to get any likes causing them to stress out about posting altogether.

* the most popular one who probably doesn't give a crap about the likes and just wants to post away and not stand out and bring attention to himself with the most likes.

these are just the two extreme opposite ends of the spectrum and there may be a lot more in between who just don't like the likes for various other reasons.

this seems to be a Facebook offshoot and we posted so much and for so long on the other board without it, so why not lose the likes and just keep the trophies rewards for the other stuff like the number of posts, etc.?

Just to be devil's advocate...on the flip side - the 'like' feature is nice in that people don't have to comment or quote your post in order to convey to you that they read it. Sometimes on VB I felt like I was posting into oblivion - or maybe I'm just a thread killer?

 

[Lord Snot]

*tumbleweed*

Just kidding Dedalus. LIKE.

 

[Dedalus]

3) overt cliquishness
4) a hostile, argumentative environment usually caused by a handful of senior members

I have to agree with this...there seemed to be a concerted effort by some to out-snark one another. The verbal / written smackdowns were all over the place. VB reeked of negativity.

VV on the other hand, to this point in time sports a positive, friendly atmosphere. Let's make sure we don't lose that.

 

[Dedalus]

*tumbleweed*

Just kidding Dedalus. LIKE.

BAM! I set that one up nice, eh?

 

[beancounter]

gonna go out on a and throw this out here:
what if we got rid of the "like" capability?

On this site though, the total like count is hidden on the users profile page, not "out in the open" within a thread

 

[Lord Snot]

To keep on topic - why was VB so negative and how can we avoid going the same way?

Why did it feel so cliquey, and how can we avoid that?

If we have a criticism I think we should explore why it happened, to help VV move forward instead of this becoming an anti-VB thread

This!
I don't really have any useful suggestions about how to get more people here, but I am so glad this place is here! Thank you, Inidan Summer, for creating/running it. I like nice, too
I am not sure how the google thing works, as far as getting high up on the search list, but I know that when I decided to go vegan (after being vegetarian for several years) that I needed more info and I basically started using search words such as vegan, recipes, cheeseless, etc. I ended up at VB. Is the search list hierarchy related to activity on a site?

ETA: Lol, I just read LS's "This" and "I agree" post. Sorry for using "This!"

Ha don't apologise. There's nothing wrong with it, but on this forum people generally "This!" and then go on to add more, like you did, instead of just typing the one word which clutters up threads.