A question for OOT regarding longtime posters

[onthebutton]

As far as this thread goes, I only know two things for sure:

I'm drunk right now.

And OOT could use more Shajen.

[Isura]

I use to love OOT like many others, but BB4L is just so hilarious these days, and EDF has deeper discussions. I think the problem is that OOT has lost it's identity. Before, you could be thinking of something random and then say to yourself "oh, that will make an OOT thread".

[disjunction]

EDITED BY NT: last warning, i told you guys not to make this a thread about the * system. it can be discussed, but not right now.

[firstyearclay]

[ QUOTE ]
Your use of penicillin makes the bacteria drug resistant. The offtopic forums are in a perpetual living-death by micromanagement.

[/ QUOTE ]

wow. Now that is hardcore.

fyc

[suzzer99]

I think it's more a factor of most of the interesting things have already been done - than some kind of implicit conspiracy against new posters. Although I agree that sometimes good posts by people with tiny post counts can get ignored. This is one area I think could possibly be improved--if mods or long time posters were to take a more active role in shepherding, championing, or otherwise bringing attention to overlooked quality posts/threads.

[Blarg]

Agree that after you've been here a while, you've seen almost everything and sooner or later responded to something like it, so new posts and posters don't get the credit or attention from the old stalwarts that they might deserve sometimes. This takes some of the life out of threads that we used to count on being able to find.

[TheRover]

hey JOA post more plz.

signed, your #7 or #8th ranked groupie

and stop banning istewart.

[onthebutton]

I don't know about any of this, really. Trying to fix forum problems by encouraging people that have left or been driven away for one reason or another seems unproductive and unlikely to succeed.

The people outlined in these lists have moved on for whatever reason, or expanded their participation in other forums at the expense of OOT. Instead of encouraging those that now participate in other forums to come back to the same OOT they left for whatever reason, changing the forum in order to make it better which would entice them to come back would seem to have a better chance of success. If you want to get these people back, I think you have to examine what made them go away---was it dissatisfaction with OOT? Advent of a new, more interesting forum? Some combination of the two? The latter seems most likely to me.

Whatever it is, I think it's getting worse. This place is a LOT different than it was 6 months ago, and the change is NOT for the better. I know that NT! is trying to improve the quality by tightening up the posting standards, but it doesn't seem to me like this strategy is working. In fact, it may be making it worse. Good posters have left, and newer posters are intimidated out of posting, or *ed and banhammered before they can become good posters. Just doesn't seem like the way to solve the problem, and the proof seems to be in the pudding, as they say.

[RayPowers]

I love tuq, although I know many disgree. Alobar has been great in the past but seems to have lost his heart. I like Dids and I miss bison posting with any frequency. I also miss El Diablo pre mod days.

Now, to slightly sidetrack:

For me, work is so busy right now, I don't have time to write involved trip reports with pictures or such, and there is somewhat of a feeling of "if it's not going to be great, why bother posting it?" I know how people have mentioned that the greatest threads probably didn't start that way, but for every "bad thread turned great" there's a thousand bad threads that died or so so threads that just never became anything, and I for one hate to put effort into a post only to see it fall off the front page and languish and die with 8 responses.

I also feel like a lot of my posts could be bloggish. I tend to try post from a situation of "this may sound bloggish, but I'm trying to bring up a topic for conversation here." I'm pretty good at those posts. Most of them die. To me, this signals that OOT isn't really interested in those kinds of discussions, so I start posting more in BBV4L or The Lounge.

The very rules that are laid down by the mods are the rules that make some people loathe to make what could be construed as good posts. The funny part is that the people who bother to read the rules are more likely to be good posters, so instead you end up with page after page of idiot posts who didn't follow the rules, and people who did read the rules and are withholding making stupid threads wondering what the hell is going on with the modship.

Pardon the rambling, exiting soapbox now...

Ray

[El Diablo]

NT,

I think most people mentioned in this thread are aware that they make good posts.

I think your intent would be better served by soliciting a list of something like "Posters most people aren't familiar with that make solid posts."

The volume of participation from people who have been around a long time is always going to decline over time for obvious reasons. This is replaced with new members, who often discuss stuff very similar to what has been discussed before. And the cycle continues.

But as 2+2 grows, OOT has gone from a single catch-all forum to one with major (Sporting Events, Politics, BBV, BBV4L, POG, etc...) and minor (Lounge, EDF, Golf, Video Games, etc...) chunks of content moved elsewhere. So it is a catch-all for a much smaller set of overflow topics. Which means to keep OOT as active/vibrant as before (though it's obviously going to be different in nature), you probably need more new members contributing than has been needed previously. Which leads to this thread.

So, anyway, I think you have the right idea here, NT, but I think your focus should be more on encouraging and recognizing the posters who most people aren't familar with yet:

Here are a couple, from a quick scan of recent posts:

mbillie1
hanster

There are many more. I think getting newer posters to get more involved will improve things more than hoping for older posters to post more often.