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This thread is just about discussing ideas for promoting and growing the community to attract new members. Once we leave beta I should absolutely adore to see rapid growth.
I wonder how we're going to reach SBs untapped userbase (that fits into the free speech culture we want to create here). I mean, a thread on SB will run afoul of AOOB, right? So we only contact people we know personally as a good fit via PM? Doesn't sound like a very efficient growth vehicle.
Our initial goal should be to siphon off posters from Space Battles.
We can probably double our current registration within a few days of going public. SB has not been run properly in the past five years and has steadily gotten more authoritarian after 2016. Initial strategy should be for members of both forums to use their signatures to link here. Those of us who are writers should advertise their writing. I expect we can seize a sizable chunk of SB's user base within the first year, primarily due to our greater freedom of speech and the ability for people to engage with each other without it feeling like you're walking on eggshells.
Longterm is a bit more difficult to get right, but not that hard to implement.
Basically, that is people decentralize. The layout of the forum is already pre-set to do that now. In essence, people on forums generally stick to one or two sub-forums. They rarely visit all of them. They certainly aren't intensely engaged with all of them. Rather, people who like fan fics tend to stick to CrW. People who enjoy politics stick to politics. People who enjoy military discussions stick to military discussions. There will be overlap, as some people might enjoy creative writing and military discussions. Or debating fictional series fighting with politics.
The goal should be to encourage mods for specific forums, mods who are happy to engage with those forums on a regular basis. Both as a means of flying the flag for the Staff and as a means of gaining trust within the growing community. Admins may of course do the same and should hopefully be seen engaging in at least a handful of the forums.
Sietch should feel like a handful of villages or towns that forms a sort of board identity. Were it possible, I would encourage individual banners for every subforum, though one that obviously falls under the Sietch forum theme. People should feel as though their mods and admins have SOME sort of say in how their own piece of Sietch runs, but while still retaining the bones of the site doctrine that has already been laid out.
This is all very easy to do and most people do it organically, but it is easy to lose sight of it.
Nope, just put it in your signatures with a hotlink. I think our initial growth will need to come from word of mouth invites sent to open individuals who want this sort of thing and aren't getting it from their current provider. The second largest draw and part of our staying power will be tied up with our writers, who will need to work hard to capture attention and keep it. We'll also need to keep low entry barriers into wide-area threads such as politics and sci-fi debates, so people aren't dissuaded by trying to figure out our rules and preferences. You get more shit threads, but you also get more excitement and interactions. In fact, most of the attention in debates comes from debating unimportant nitpicks, which actually annoy more experienced debaters, because we've already been there and done that. It is however, vital to new posters, who just want to have fun.
Our initial goal should be to just get the word out, repel invasions, and prevent slander of our name. I think our biggest capture of foreign boards socially connected to us, will be when Brexit occurs. That will draw in a lot of people with different ideas and opinions. After that, our next biggest capture will be in 2020 and may even dwarf the Brexit take, simply by the gravitas of those elections.
Well I can say that planefag/fap_angel knows a new forum made by conservative and centrist ex-mods from SB has been set up, though does not have a link or the name yet.
He has indicated that he would like to host a lot of his content, including possibly relaunching his quests here when we go public. He can bring in some of the SB/SV CrW crowd, and usually post his links to Twitter, so he could help draw people in there. He does Twitch Let's Plays as well.
Parts of his IRC fic community would also likely move over here, too.
He has indicated that he would like to host a lot of his content, including possibly relaunching his quests here when we go public. He can bring in some of the SB/SV CrW crowd, and usually post his links to Twitter, so he could help draw people in there. He does Twitch Let's Plays as well.
Parts of his IRC fic community would also likely move over here, too.