Maybe another way to look at your unhappiness with the site is like this:

Is DC a community for you -- that you are an active helping volunteer member of?  If so, then start contributing something to the site -- you want more reviews? so do I -- get off your butt and go write one to share with the rest of us.

Or is DC a company that you are planning on "hiring" to provide you with a service?  If you are viewing us as that, it's clear we are letting you down and we aren't performing as you desire.  With so many people we can't please everyone -- it seems like the thing for you to do is not pay us and look for a different company to hire for your needs.

Either way, I'd still be interested in hearing your ideas about ways to improve the site from your perspective -- but maybe in a more constructive way.

[unnecessary]

cranioscopical, you are right in saying that this is not my intention,

Even thou my arguments may be cliched over time, they stand true throughout. Sometimes I have a feeling that inner circles of this forum is in constant self-denial over the lack of popularity and real participation, claiming "lack of commercial practices", despite efforts to the contrary sometimes -- I've seen:

1. Seniors members on the this forum posting good reviews about apps here on other more well-known sites (self-promotions)
2. Proactive publicity pushes (particularly during events)
3. Good implementations of SEO practices
4. PAD subscriptions to numerous sites

My point is clear:
Stop saying that publicity is not important or DC does not work like a company, there's a lot of time spent on it already that I can see. One of the real questions is why are we still getting this kind of humiliating traffic/participation stats after all these years?


I have very constructive opinions, but not available until you acknowledge the problems, dudes.

sorry, maybe I'm dim, but I'm still not getting it - just what is the issue here?

Lack of systematic, organized innovation will be the doom of this site... (don't say NANY, NANY is currently a publicity event, not innovation).

One of my ideas is that we need to find a way to encourage people here to work together on big group projects and promote to the public together using the resources we have, like from daily donations and fundraisers.


The current model is that we have everyone developing their own app without much serious support from anyone, and then releasing all the apps together during an event like NANY under the umbrella (or brand?) of DonationCoder.

How did it work out?

After a year of solicitation, preparation and much time and money spent on this "major" event, it enjoyed 3 days of lackluster public attention and then just disappeared from radar... gone.. end of story. Few people outside here know it happened.


Regardless of my idea or the validity of my arguments, something is obviously not right here.

How about you take the initiative and lead DoCo in the direction you want it to to conform to be more like your image of it?

Let's face it it's mouser's citadel here. You don't lead, I don't, and nobody else does. Back in 2006/2007 when DC was still in its infancy there were a whole lot of discussion on new things that should be added to the site and a bunch of those new ideas in fact got done through collaboration, like the blogging features, help desk, search, among other things. Seems every bit of development is intended to make minor improvements to things that were already there since 3-4 years ago.

You joined the site too late to know the history, but that's alright.

Now except for spotty short-lived pseudo-excitements here every once in a while, it's mostly dead water over here, such pity isn't it?
It's so fortunate that we have all these senior members who come here every day even every hour to add content to the forum, but that alone doesn't make a pool flowing does it?

Anyways, let's see how well the fund-raiser is received. None of us is guaranteed to be right. Who knows, let's see.

Most of the entries in the reviews section are way outdated, except for the first entry which was posted in 2006, the rest were all posted in or before 2007! What happened in the last 4 years in this section?

This is a community driven site, and everything is provided by unpaid volunteer members of this community. If you, a member of this community, is going to complain, you should be prepared to also be part of that solution.

Therefore, I propose you volunteer to write a major shoot-out review, instead of just complaining that someone else hasn't volunteered to do one in quite awhile.

When you are finished, you can then volunteer to contact all your big name A-list blogger friends and see if you can get them interested enough in it to write about it. Don't have any A-list blogger friends? Well, I guess you'll have to figure out how to make some.

Then you can volunteer to hit the major social networks and post about it, reaching out to the masses on Digg, Mixx, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, StumbleUpon, etc.

Then you can contact all the developers of the apps you reviewed and ask them if they would be interested in giving discounts to DC members, and maybe donate a few copies for a giveaway drawing.

If you run into any problems that you think the community can provide assistance with, make a post and ask for some help. (I'll be willing to help by contacting some of the bloggers I know, once you have finished your big review, I'll also vote it up on both Mixx and Digg, and give you a post or like on friendfeed, a tweet or retweet on twitter, and a thumbs up on StumbleUpon)

When you are finished with all that, you can work on your next complaint.

See, this is what people in this community do when they think something should be done...we shut up, roll up our sleeves and do it, instead of complaining that someone else won't volunteer to do it for us.

And an annual fundraiser is justified, as long as there are bills that need to be paid. To say we shouldn't have one is saying we should shut down the site and go away, because if we don't pay the bills, the hosting company will pull the plug on us and that is exactly what will happen to this site....it will go away. Is that what you want?

Hehehe I'm here merely to point out the problems, look at all the responses I got here -- all pointing finger directly at me, and it's never even about me, it's about problems.

So app you made me feel very bad about myself under this username... alright I'm defeated... so what? It doesn't fix any problems I mentioned.

Ouch you guys really have no idea... 'nuff said. best of luck. cheers. 

Hehehe I'm here merely to point out the problems, look at all the responses I got here -- all pointing finger directly at me, and it's never even about me, it's about problems.

So app you made me feel very bad about myself under this username... alright I'm defeated... so what? It doesn't fix any problems I mentioned.

Ouch you guys really have no idea... 'nuff said. best of luck. cheers.  

Not pointing the finger at you... they're instead asking you to clarify your responses.  And of all the people asking that you clarify responses (to something other than just reviews, which seems to be the only sticking point, and one easily overcome if you write some if you're that passionate about it) you don't answer.  The fact that your responses are picked and chosen seems disingenuous to me at least.  No one's pointing a finger as you say... I explicitly said that in my last post.  But got no response to the questions raised.

I think app put it best:

This is a community driven site, and everything is provided by unpaid volunteer members of this community. If you, a member of this community, is going to complain, you should be prepared to also be part of that solution.

Therefore, I propose you volunteer to write a major shoot-out review, instead of just complaining that someone else hasn't volunteered to do one in quite awhile.

When you are finished, you can then volunteer to contact all your big name A-list blogger friends and see if you can get them interested enough in it to write about it. Don't have any A-list blogger friends? Well, I guess you'll have to figure out how to make some.

Then you can volunteer to hit the major social networks and post about it, reaching out to the masses on Digg, Mixx, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, StumbleUpon, etc.

Then you can contact all the developers of the apps you reviewed and ask them if they would be interested in giving discounts to DC members, and maybe donate a few copies for a giveaway drawing.

If you run into any problems that you think the community can provide assistance with, make a post and ask for some help. (I'll be willing to help by contacting some of the bloggers I know, once you have finished your big review, I'll also vote it up on both Mixx and Digg, and give you a post or like on friendfeed, a tweet or retweet on twitter, and a thumbs up on StumbleUpon)

When you are finished with all that, you can work on your next complaint.

See, this is what people in this community do when they think something should be done...we shut up, roll up our sleeves and do it, instead of complaining that someone else won't volunteer to do it for us.

And an annual fundraiser is justified, as long as there are bills that need to be paid. To say we shouldn't have one is saying we should shut down the site and go away, because if we don't pay the bills, the hosting company will pull the plug on us and that is exactly what will happen to this site....it will go away. Is that what you want?

That was a succinct explanation of all of the things laid at your door to respond to in one central post.  Mouser can't do it alone.  And he does encourage people outside of the 'senior member circle' to contribute in whatever ways they can- I know from personal experience.  So are you ready to pick up your own gauntlet?  Or just slink away after a piffy 'cheers'?  Or maybe not to slink away- maybe to contribute under another name.  But your contributions under *that* name won't help to shore up your arguments; they'll go towards the reputation of *that* name while this is left to be 'blast[ed] to oblivion by a single button'.

Thoughts?

Ouch you guys really have no idea... 'nuff said. best of luck. cheers.

Which is both true and precisely the point everyone has been trying to make. We have no idea what is actually on your mind...because you won't just say it. You've made your stand, and drawn a crowd, but only fain at substantive "solutions".

If you truly have an idea, simply say "...and here's my idea [insert idea]". Playing this AA style first-you-must-admit-there's-a-problem game isn't really helping anyone ... Now is it?

Lotus, the thing is -- most of the shortcomings of the site that you have pointed out are indeed things that DC *should* continue to work to try to improve and do better at.

An improvement of the review area, better organization of the site in general.. Yes, definitely.  More big apps released more frequently by more people? Yes! Less insular and more people participating, yes.  More attention to the site by the outside world, yes.  More attention for our events, yes.  More focus on championing the idea of donationware? yes.

And it seems like your main point recently is, something is not right that these things aren't happening fast enough -- and then critically you make the leap to say that because we aren't achieving "success" fast enough we should be ashamed to have a fundraiser and ask for people's help in keeping the site going.

You see where you lose me is -- if you want the site to get better, and do better, and get more participation, etc. -- and you realize that there are many people working hard here, wouldn't the right response be the opposite?  Shouldn't you be working hard to contribute to improve the site, and encourage more people to donate more frequently so that the concept of the site can succeed?

There are so many things we can do better here, and should work on.  But we also try to be a force for positive change and improvement -- and we try to support each other constructively.

That's why your posts are so jarring -- instead of looking at all of the good things we do and celebrating them and trying to help us figure out how to do better, you seem intent on making us feel bad for the things we haven't yet accomplished and insisting that we not ask for help until we achieve some higher level of "success".  

We'll have our ups and downs, as we always have.  We are in this for the long haul.  But we're going to continue to ask for people's support without shame -- both in terms of financial contributions and in terms of volunteering time and helping us spread the word.

An improvement of the review area, better organization of the site in general.. Yes, definitely.  More big apps released more frequently by more people? Yes! Less insular and more people participating, yes.  More attention to the site by the outside world, yes.  More attention for our events, yes.  More focus on championing the idea of donationware? yes.

A resounding YES!

And it seems like your main point recently is, something is not right that these things aren't happening fast enough -- and then critically you make the leap to say that because we aren't achieving "success" fast enough we should be ashamed to have a fundraiser and ask for people's help in keeping the site going.

NO! My main point is all these that are long due, and are not happening, in any meaningful manner, at all!

Being an NANY contributor myself (owns multiple mugs, photos available on demand), now I look at the more recent NANY 10/11 -- they are the single most anticipated event, or should I just say the single event period, each year, and despite all the hard work we just ruin it.

Please, acknowledge that NANY's been going down every year and last year's NANY 2011 is the most anti-climatic event ever hosted on DC, despite the amazing work done by Perry Mowbray and the coders... and roflmao we've been sending out mugs and shirts since Day 1, that's not gonna change either. Early last year I posted very constructive comments on the site about changes to the way we do events, well, to hell with that I guess.

Mouser I mean is there a tiny teeny possibility that you have lost your good old touch on DC (bogged down with maintenance maybe?) and how about organizing something serious group projects involving creative minds here doing things new ways? We have worked together previously to great effects and I'm willing to contribute.

Here we are not just sticking to one idea (NANY) for four years until it becomes untenable, we are obviously sticking to a lot of stuff.

There are so many things we can do better here, and should work on.  But we also try to be a force for positive change and improvement -- and we try to support each other constructively.

IMHO the first constructive step is to realize+ack the problems, without it, how constructive can we get any further? I have not personally attacked anyone so far, I choose to focus on the matters.

That's why your posts are so jarring -- instead of looking at all of the good things we do and celebrating them and trying to help us figure out how to do better, you seem intent on making us feel bad for the things we haven't yet accomplished and insisting that we not ask for help until we achieve some higher level of "success".

Mouser I think you've got enough people here looking at all of the good things we do, there's not much that I can add to all the self-satisfaction. I just cannot see anything that remotely reflected on what DC failed or any tangible plan to fix things before I caused this outcry.

NANY was a ton of fun this year I thought, and a lot of coders participated.  Although a few apps got quite a bit of attention from external sites, in general it got less attention on external sites than have some past NANY events -- and that was unfortunate.  But that's something that's really hard for us to control.  DC doesn't advertise, we don't have a public relations department, etc.  We just don't have the time, money, or inclination for such things.  We rely on DC members to spread the word, etc., and we worked hard to spread the word about it.

Mouser probably you got me wrong as I'm not proposing big marketing money for anything that DC does. It's not the DC way and I cannot remember we ever spent big bucks on marketing. Back in 2006 when I did my first NANY there were tons of external attention and support, there wasn't much promo required, and I don't think we did anything different. Everyone was pretty high at the time and the discussions and resulting improvements on the apps lasted a long while after the event.

This NANY effectively lasted 3 days with most of the replies posted by senior members on this forum. External support was very minimal.

Actually it's a little ironic that you are so against having a fundraiser, because the fundraiser is one of the few times when we actually make a real effort to get other sites to tell their members about us and to spread the word that what we do is worth supporting and contributing to.

Nope I'm not against fundraisers, I just have a inner feeling that this fundraiser is not well-timed to highlight anything and will likely make future one much less effective.

Hm, I only participated in the last NANY (although I noticed the previous one, but had not enough time), but I do not think the reception was that bad. I cannot compare it to the older ones, but one thing is certain: The freeware landscape has changed a lot in the last 4 years. There are now much more freeware applications and freeware is not as attractive to bloggers as it used to be. In order to attract similar level of attention, the event would have to be much bigger.