New Staff?

[Alreiger]

I think Omniscient can handle the simple task of moderating the forum. If the need for a new staff member ever becomes an issue, a user could be chosen then. Until that point, things are calm and enjoyable.

[astonish]

It is not our place to talk about who we think "deserves" staff.

[Fragma]

It is not our place to talk about who we think "deserves" staff.

That's not the point of this thread lol..

[Omniscient]

Considering Omniscient probably doesn't want to deal with reports everyday on top of his other commitments

I'm here everyday even if I don't post. I've been dealing with more reports than the staff did anyways. Not that it's bad to have some extra help but unless there are 10-15 reports per day I don't see a need to add someone. We also get a lot of false reports as people mistake HF rules for SF ones. We do not have the same set of rules here.

Unfortunately I allow members to input the report reason and it's nothing but disaster. Most use it to just complain about something they don't like and not really state a rule violation.

Considering how the past few staffers don't commit very long I'm not going to be in a hurry to add anyone. But as usual I'll keep a close eye on things here as I've always done.

I don't think Omni would be happy after reading this thread.

When I read threads here they don't really bother me the way they do at HF. People talk a lot of crap there. The maturity level on SF is much higher. We can actually discuss things here rationally.

Go and click "View New Posts" and you will find maybe 1 interesting thread per week. That is a direct result of the Support Feather award (so this will change once traffic starts generating from elsewhere...but that is on Omniscient to do). All we have is mindless discussions, un-enthused staff, and a weak memberbase.

Mindless discussion is what most of the internet is made of. But I think we have more than one interesting thread per week. You've personally made a couple hundred threads which upon review are very high quality imho. And you're just one member.

No changes, no administration support, no contests, and no events. Sure, you don't need that stuff for a community. But for this one, we do need something to constantly keep the members (and sadly even the staff) actively posting and checking the board.

Unfortunately you have a point and I'm shamed to admit that but I will. We do need something here. I just gotta figure out what it is exactly. I knew removing the SF Award though would force me into action on that cause. I think we're ready for a new chapter in SF. We do have the natural traffic from search engines I've always wanted. The issue now is bounce rate. We're just not interesting enough for first time visitors to join. I need to figure out why.

Our SEO btw is very good. We rank very well for a variety of topics. I'll be examining it more closely though. I am imho very good at SEO analysing.

edit: and Breshie will never become staff.

True statement. I think he knows that already anyways. We have other members dedicated and worthy of the title.

If he would have discontinued the award after a month or so. This site would have been a better place.

I don't agree. Not at all. I think I know the path to a success a lot better than most. While not all my ventures are successful I can say that I've had multiple successes. I not only have HF but I have personally created at least 4 forum that reached the 250k post mark. This site will hit 1 million posts too.

I would say that it's not active because there's no interest from a first glance here

Problem in a nutshell. First glance there is nothing exciting here. It's a reasonable looking forum but there is no WOW factor to entice joining or participation.

I GOT IT. I've got a great idea.

It's a shame seeing the direction that this forum is heading, and has been heading for a while now.

We are not headed in a bad direction. My measurements are stats. Stats are stable and fine. The issue is growth rate. Most forum admins would be really happy at the current level SF is at. Most forums never reach this point. I was hoping to be further along though than we currently are.

If Omni spends more time on the forum then we won't need another mod. Like Fragma said, the forum is easy to moderate and dealing with a day's reports wouldn't take longer than 30 mins/ 1 hour.

I'm really here more than anyone thinks. I have literally 4 quick links on my browser. HF, Central, SF, and MyBB. Those are the 4 sites I visit most often and daily. I probably click to visit SF 3-10 times per day. You can see I have a respectable amount of time online but my ratio of time online to posts is not very good.

I don't see there being a new mod, at least not for a while.

Yeah...me too. And no mod forces me to participate more anyways and examine this forum more closely. I need to be more involved here. That's bottom line.

[Peter L]

Mindless discussion is what most of the internet is made of. But I think we have more than one interesting thread per week. You've personally made a couple hundred threads which upon review are very high quality imho. And you're just one member.

That was my original point, me and members like myself are the minority.

Unfortunately you have a point and I'm shamed to admit that but I will. We do need something here. I just gotta figure out what it is exactly. I knew removing the SF Award though would force me into action on that cause. I think we're ready for a new chapter in SF. We do have the natural traffic from search engines I've always wanted. The issue now is bounce rate. We're just not interesting enough for first time visitors to join. I need to figure out why.

Our SEO btw is very good. We rank very well for a variety of topics. I'll be examining it more closely though. I am imho very good at SEO analysing.

You're very prone to having very calm, basic themes for your forums. They don't look bad, but nothing stands out. Perhaps a new theme can be arranged, we have many themes designers here and I would assume you have many contacts with the bigger designers such as Audentio. Design is the first thing people look at, obviously.

And if you don't want to do that, another idea would be to have a News bar at the top, similar to MyBB.com. Just a simple, color-contrasting bar that gives members/guests updates on the forum. It gives a social and lively feel to any forum which is what Support Forums needs. Even adding social networking buttons like twitter/facebook somewhere will give the forum a more modern and approachable feel. Then people will sign-up and realize the community is a thing to love. Currently I'd bet over 60% of traffic from Google don't give the website much of a chance because they are turned off in general. Big changes (a new theme) and little changes (a news bar) will change that.

[BlackChaos]

I GOT IT. I've got a great idea.

This. Now I'm quite a bit excited. Hopefully it'll be a bit more than a youtube award.

[Omniscient]

I won't change this theme. I know I can add more enticing items to the header though. Possibly a news bar or some other information bar.

Even adding social networking buttons like twitter/facebook somewhere will give the forum a more modern and approachable feel.

All these FB addons ons and plugins imho are a big forum mistake. You're just giving away your traffic and control. You might as well just redirect your domain to FB.

Currently I'd bet over 60% of traffic from Google don't give the website much of a chance because they are turned off in general. Big changes (a new theme) and little changes (a news bar) will change that.

Bounce rate is a huge problem. I wish it was 60% but it's actually more like 81%. A year ago we were at 60% and we had a lot less search traffic. What's happening is that visitors and search traffic are increasing disproportionally to actual activity.

I have what I think is a good idea. My approach will be to target the type of activity we want here and go from there. I won't say more but I do believe what I have in mind to entice activity will greatly help. Incentives can work. I personally believe the SF Feather Award was a great value to the site but it's now past its usefulness and we need something new to go to the next level of activity. I really do think my idea is strong. For now I'll keep it to myself until it's ready to be implemented. I need to think it out a bit more.

[Alreiger]

I was thinking you could introduce a portal page to give users a proper (and enticing) idea of what the forum is about. I also sent you some ideas a few minutes ago, but they're pretty bland and I'm sure you've given them a thought before. I'm not creative.

[ABlackFedora]

I honestly am a HF member, and a SF member, but it's like these forums are slowly decaying. I'd like a bit more active-ness in the animal section, or at least my guru thread.

Also, Omni's OSHT area seems to be the most popular, even amongst the guests. Just my input.

[Fragma]

Thanks for the response Omni. I look forward to seeing what your idea is.