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Is DonationCoder too exposed of a brand?

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40hz:
Is this natural forum behaviour
-nudone (February 25, 2011, 05:55 AM)
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From my experience on 'big' forums, what usually seems to happen is that something like 80-90% of the visitors remain permanent anonymous lurkers. Maybe 10% come out in the open and actually register. But most of those continue to pretty much remain in lurking mode.

Of the registrants, there's usually less than a hundred or so who are 'active' on a fairly regular basis. Out of that group you usually find a cadre of about 20-25 'regulars' who discovered a community they liked to engage with on a very frequent basis.

But getting a 'bigger' groupsize does not seem to automatically get you a larger number of registrants either. From my own non-scientific observations, most people who register seem to do so very early on. Usually within their first few visits. If they don't sign up then, they hardly ever do so later.

You see something similar when people choose to be friends. They either hit it off fairly quickly and bond, or they remain acquaintances. Very few friendships gradually develop over an extended time period. There seems to be a window when someone is open to 'friending' or becoming a member. (When somebody "Pops the Question" as the saying goes.) If you miss that window of opportunity, all's not lost. But the likelihood of it happening diminishes.

regarding size:

There's been some studies done on group size, and it seems that humans prefer to keep conversations restricted to a group of eight or less. If the group gets bigger than that, it often spontaneously subdivides into smaller groups to continue the conversation. When a thread splits gradually into two different discussions (or has several people go "off topic") it's usually a good indication too many voices have joined in on the conversation.

Forums take care of part of that by having multiple discussions running at the same time. Which makes sense. If 1,000 people were trying to actively participate in a discussion at the same time, nobody could ever hope to be heard. F2F organizations handle it by referring things to a committee when some issue threatens to bog the entire meeting down.

So again, number of people doesn't seem to be beneficial in and of itself.

Just my tuppence. :)

wraith808:
I think lotusrootstarch may be on to something; regarding the forum. I'd never thought about it before but it does seem to be that we are all now long time members with only a few new members each year - seems like less than half-a-dozen new members a year (I've no facts to support this claim, it's just what it feels like).

Is this natural forum behaviour; just a few recruits a year? If so, then everything is "normal". If not, then it looks like DC has become a bit of a private members club. (Although, seeing the number of non registered members lurking about at any one time, it seems clear there are plenty of people that find the forum useful.)
-nudone (February 25, 2011, 05:55 AM)
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It seems to be from my experience.  It's a forum that supports developers, not a brand in terms of a product, IMO.  Mouser works on features for the forum as needed, but what do you need other than that?  What features are missing to make this a good forum?

mouser:
This is one of these occasional threads that i find so hard to comment on, not because there isn't some interesting thing being talked about but because the original post has little or nothing to do with what we're talking about -- and in this case it's worse since the original post is so confusing.. it just feels like making the situation worse to try to have a substantial discussion on a thread that at least looks like its about something else.

I guess this is my plea -- let's try to start new threads with clear purpose and focus when we have something that we want to have a useful discussion about.  It makes it more easy to locate and focus these discussions.

Otherwise the nonsequiturs in a thread like this are mind-killers.

superboyac:
Otherwise the nonsequiturs in a thread like this are mind-killers.
-mouser (February 25, 2011, 09:25 AM)
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So true.

And 40hz post above!  Loving it!  I feel like 40hz needs a special section for just the wisdom articles.  That's two great posts in two days!

40hz:
It may be my imagination but as someone who took part in the forums here from near the beginning I have been unable to be as involved over the last couple of years because of work. When I do visit now (still probably briefly every day even when I don't post anything) I see names I don't really recognise appearing. It may be anecdotal but I get the feeling that there is a core of us long time member but there is a growth in new members (albeit much slower than the early days) and a passing group of transient members who either only drop in from time to time or drift away.

None of this comes as a surprise to me as it is what happens in 'real' life as well as in the 'virtual' world.

-Carol Haynes (February 25, 2011, 06:40 AM)
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I think what type of member somebody becomes is very dependent on first impressions and how warmly they were greeted the first time they participated. In my case, I came here looking for a piece of software I had read a recommendation for. On a lark, I took a look at the forum link (something I rarely do most places) started reading, and got intrigued. I went back a few times over the next week, became very impressed with the calibre of the discussions, took a deep breath, registered, and asked a question of my own. And I was completely blown away by the warmth and usefullness of the responses I got back. I made a contribution the same day.

Im still here 3500+ posts - and may heaven help you all. ;D

So here's a question: if the other members are what keeps us here, what is it that brings us here originally?  How do you effectively get people to take a chance and start participating? In my case, it was nothing DC directly did. Sure, looking for ProcessTamer brought me here. But I don't really know why I went over to the forum.

Maybe some less braindead members than me can recall what first made them get involved and see if there's some common thing which works that we're missing. Maybe we could enhance or work something with that?
 :)

-///--

@mouser- I think I'm guilty of mentally confusing (or concatenating) this discussion with the other thread where we're discussing the fundraiser.  Both seem to have bearing on a larger unspoken question, but you're right. It is getting a little schizophrenic. Maybe we should reframe the original question in a new thread and shut this one down?

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