Let's brain storm some ideas and ways to encourage users to post without having to rely on the Tour de Vizzed. Ideas to get people to contribute would also be great.


3 ideas I have:

User Achievements / Trophies
This was an idea I brought up in the past. Basically there'd be achievements that users could earn that would hopefully encourage posting. Achievements could include:
-1000+ Posts = From making over 1000 posts
-100 Post Streak = Make a post on 100 consecutive days
-100 Posts in a Day = Make 100 posts in a single day
-All 24 Hour Poster = Make a post in every single hour of a day
-100 Thread Posts = Make a post in 100 different threads
-25 Forum posts = Make a post in 25 different forums

These of course are just examples and these names wouldn't necessarily reflect the final names. And each of those would have different levels too for example:
-50 Thread Posts
-100 Thread Posts
-250 Thread Posts

And each Achievement would be worth a certain amount of points and each user would have a total achievement score (like with Xbox).

I should also point out that I'd run a script that would figure out every achievement all of the users would have already earned and automatically give them those achievements (along with the dates). This wouldn't work with some CP actions since CP actions have a log for only the past year.



Current User Streaks
Somewhere at the top of the page (maybe just forum pages) it would show who currently holds which current record. So for example:
-Daily Post Streak = Would list the user who has the most consecutive days with posts and how many
-Weekly Post Streak
-Monthly Post Streak
-Today's Highest Poster = Would show who currently has the most posts today and how many

If anyone has any ideas for more categories for that, I'm all open for ideas.



User Announcements
The site currently announces when someone catches someone with a trap at the top of the site with the Vizzed GO feature. Well what if it also had announcements when someone achieves something big or hits a milestone? Like if someone makes a massive post, earned a ton of CP for a single action, earned a rare Achievement (read above for the Achievement idea), etc.



So if anyone has any other ideas, or like any of these ideas, all feedback would be great.

pokemon x :
supercool22 :
tgags123 :
Zora Marslink :
Since you guys are higher ranked Patreons, I'm going to let you guys have highest priority over having a say in which of the 3 features I add first from my list (assuming people think any of them are a good idea).

I really like the idea of posting achievements /trophies it can potentially boost activity outside of the TDV.

One thing that might help quite a bit are threads staying open for longer. Maybe allow them to stay open for up to 3 years or longer. A lot threads tend to just die after the TDV and might end up closed within a year (especially during the 6 month TDV cycles).

I know i've looked at closed threads at the bottom of the forum that i would post in if they weren't closed. Before we actually would just manual open them to help bring more activity during the TDV last year.

The achievements thing could also be done so they have levels based on how many times you earn them. For example, the 100 post streak could be earned several times, or maybe even have a bronze trophy for first timers, silver for three timers and so on. That could further encourage people to post in the long term and maintain a certain activity.

This could mix with your idea of increasing requirements so not all achievements are earned the same way and some just get harder to level up. This way, some people may prioritize some achievements over others or let some be accomplished over time rather than pushing for them, opening up different approaches to this.

The User Announcements thing could also work, but it should be more focused to achievements or when people hits fire. Otherwise, we would have announcements for whenever I drop a 1% for my power when people post a guide or a review. Donations would be the exception to the ton of CP in a single action, in fact that could even have a brighter font or whatever like many streamers do.

This made me remember about the post radar of old. I remember using it to track users more easily, and maybe it could see a rebirth. Not sure if anybody would use it, but it could be expanded to be an achievement radar as well if you want to easily track who's getting which achievement and what not.

I really like the achievements idea but my thoughts on it is maybe that would get the 12 of us or so to post more outside of tdv that's already active but would it bring old users back or encourage new people to sign up? I don't really know. I feel like this could be a good start to getting people already active to be more active but how do we convince new people or returning members to join in? I just keep drawing a blank.

I also agree with supercool that having threads stay open longer could be a good thing in fact I can't really think of a negative with that outside of people maybe sometimes posting in things way after the fact but I mean with activity so low is that the worst thing? I don't think so in fact I might even suggest keeping them open forever if possible and then only mods can close threads that don't need to be open.

By the way do announcements email inactive users? I can't remember if that was something it did or if in the past you set up a thing to email people to try and get people back or if it was automatic if it's automatic I could see someone getting enticed to come back for a day and maybe they get hooked if say there was an announcement for someone getting fire.

Davideo7 : problem is most of us have probably already surpassed the 1k post part

I think the bigger problem is figuring out how to get people attracted to the site. Instead of adding more to people already here there needs to be something attracts people to the forum.

I don't think adding achievements would help unless it also seen on the guest side then it might help a little.

The biggest thing I see is that the site has no niche topic for someone to attach to.(Not counting retro games) For example pokecommunity is centered around pokemon.

To me I feel like RGR is the selling point while the forum/VGR/music are extras to enjoy more with the site.


If I were to stick to your ideas though I lean more towards the first idea of achievements. Maybe that could get somebody that is competitive to join and shoot for the big stuff as a goal. This would need to be advertised pubicly and obviously so people know just viewing the site.


For the User Announcements idea though one of the suggestions I would give is when someone gets the fire username. That would be something else that would have to be tracked. I assume it would be easyish considering the site already knows when you hit the post requirement for the requirements for the day.


Lastly for the "Current User Streaks" I am personally not a huge fan of it especially for the long term daily ones. First off you would always be at top
Maybe upto Monthly would be ok since people could treat it as mini TDVs and if the site does become big enough maybe one of us on the mod side could make the threads and keep track? That is if someone wanted to. Would probably be strictly post only since I don't know of an easy way to calculate words and points in a day without manually counting.

When I decided to have a small and somewhat restrained spree a few weeks ago, the biggest thing I noticed is lack of threads to post in. Personally I think this is the most pressing issue to solve because nobody is going to want to post if there is nowhere to post in the first place.

Granted, I am not really the type to want to engage in elimination threads, Crazy House, etc., but with so few options your hand does kind of get forced if you're aiming for X posts in a day, even during TdV season.

I think:
A) threads should absolutely last much longer, like supercool22 originally said. why is there an auto-close at all at this point?,
B) there should be more incentive to creating threads in the first place,
C) there should be additional incentives/rewards if your thread gets some posts, to contribute to the discussion factor.

Even something like significantly raising points for creating threads during the TdV will help off-season months because those threads will still always be around.

I do recognize it is kind of a tough call to make because obviously there is only so much "reward" you can give somebody on a website like this. Perhaps the value of Viz needs to be raised as well as a motivator to contribute to the site (in other ways beyond posting too), but that's a different discussion at this point.

I do also think there is a metaphorical wall between RGR and forum users. I would wager that if you put them in a venn diagram, perhaps 1-5% of active users use both. Forum posting is simply a thing of the past, as unfortunate as that may be, and any idea we have is still going to be a very hard sell to anyone who has not explicitly come here to relive forum posting.

I'm certainly not saying it's hopeless, but look at where we're at right now - barely a handful of active posters, and many of them all posting in the same threads over and over because of a lack of variety in threads. It's not a great look for someone looking to get into forum posting, but are not already acquainted with Vizzed.

I think there would likely be sooner luck with SonicOlmstead's idea of sending emails to inactive users to try and bolster numbers at least a little bit, and THEN trying to attract new users to the forum. I also like pokemon x's idea of perhaps going a little more niche, though I don't really have many ideas on that path - but it would help attract new users if we focused in on one thing, rather than trying to blanket everything.

I like the idea of adding achievements. The more the merrier honestly. That seems to be something that people really enjoy. Getting all the achievements in a game seems to be an obsession so it makes sense for a forum like this as well.

Also, I agree about the getting rid of or extending the timeline for closing threads.

I wonder if there is a way to re-open any thread that has had a post in the last 2 or 3 years. There isn't enough activity to keep many threads active for long if they close in 1 year.

I had the same problem when I was posting around a week ago where there just weren't all that many places to post. I made the most of it but it did limit how easy it was to post a lot.

I honestly would love if the site were moderately more active. Regular activity would definitely encourage me to post more and hopefully others would as well.