(12-16-2013 04:54 PM)OldTimer Wrote:  Here’s a new suggestion to hopefully promote members to post, and to feel more welcome & comfortable at OSF.

At date of my typing this OSF has 897 members – yet only 191 “introductions “exist in the welcome category.

Perhaps each member should be required to post an acceptable introduction prior to being granted the permission to view/download pictures and attachments………. Or make any other posts.

An “acceptable” introduction need not be much - just three or four sentences letting your fellow members know how long you’ve been fishing, generally where you hail from, and what species and styles of fishing are your favourites.

Furthermore – I suggest – that the introduction will gain acceptance after either approval of the moderator, or upon reciprocal welcomes from 5 different existing contributing OSF members.

Not a bad idea perhaps.

Plus ………… it sure will cut down on the "16+ posts in one night or so" zoomers.

Cheers,

OldTimer

(05-14-2015 12:36 AM)MuskieBait Wrote:  Yeah, but you'll now get the "intro" zoomer...one intro, then dwell in the lurker category...

Intros are worst really...one intro, a few BS sentences...and then they have unlimited access without the requirement of any future input. It still doesn't solve the issue.

What is contributed to the forum if you know member XYZ likes to fish for species ABC, they've fished for N years and their so-and-so relative/friend/neighbour/whatever taught them to fish...and that's all they will ever share before "lurking" in the background? It really adds nothing to the forum in terms of discussing techniques, species knowledge, fishing locations or timely fishing reports. It gives a neat historical account of the member...but that's all. One short story may be all that you'll get.

I know...because sometimes I'm digging for into and I'll come upon a report I really, really want to read...so I register for the forum, write a little intro, read the necessary report, and then I may disappear forever. Often times, these forums are catered to fishing in a particular country somewhere in another part of the world...one that I won't have any worthy contributions to share...

However, there are many "lurkers" that will simply sign up and read reports, techniques and locations but will hardly if ever contribute back to the forum...such is the natural law of these forums...

Like I've said to MA before...on any given forums, if you get 5% of the members to post on a regular basis, you're doing well.

As it is, 16 posts still doesn't work. Once a member reached 16 posts, they can go on the "lurk"...as we've seen many times already.

I still believe that an algorithm that can track contributions is the best way to maintain an active forum...a member must contribute X number of posts within N number of days in order to maintain membership...otherwise, their access to the forum material is suspended until they have something to contribute again. Once a new contribution is made, their account is active again for X number of days again.

(05-14-2015 05:24 PM)MuskieBait Wrote:  Well, the idea is to have an active forum. If most of the members are silent and not chiming in, how active is it? If most are silent and not participating, then what kind of community is it?

If the "good folk" are in the background simply silent, how do you meet these "good folk"? How do you know they are "good folk" if they never interact with you?

My friend Andrea speaks broken English...he types to me in Italian...but we still email each other back and forth...and we still discuss fishing techniques and arrange fishing trips together. Is it really a barrier? If you want to make it happen, you WILL make it happen.

I post on a Hong Kong fishing forum in English while most of the reader there converse in Chinese. We get it done.

The beauty of fishing is that it doesn't matter where you are from, or what language you speak or write. A knot is a knot regardless of language. A nice fish is congratulated just the same in many language. Writing skills or language is only a barrier if you want it to be the barrier.

When I was young, I learned to be computer literate by daily use of fishing forums...I have older friends who learned to use computers, emails and internet because they wanted to participate in fishing forum discussions. If there is a will, there is a way...and the learning comes with it.