I've been thinking, who are the most popular members of this site? To find out, we shall vote the top 5 most popular members. I think Giant Mohawk Man is at #1 and Bendy is at #2. So cast your vote.
YOU DECIDE!!!
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Although perception on this thread is that MR is in decline, the numbers show the site growing. A few years ago it was growing very rapidly and now that growth is much smaller.
With the slowed growth I have been kicking around ideas for ways to improve the site, if for no other reason than to keep it relevant and up-to-date with technology. Sadly, with the rapid growth over the last few years I've found most of my energy dedicated to fighting Spammers, but that doesn't really help grow the community, just protect it.
What are some of your ideas? Ugh, this sounds like a separate thread (I'm sure there are old ones on improvements, and whether to start a new conversation or not is a good question).
This "State of our Union" thread covers a lot of things http://www.mohawksrock.com/forum/topics/state-address-changes-costs
One newer idea I've been kicking around is to take an old management theory from Jack Welch that says its good to let the bottom 10% of your company "enjoy success elsewhere". It keeps the organization fresh and moving and actually helps those that aren't happy and contributing do something for themselves elsewhere. Maybe its a fancy way of saying "You're fired" but in a community like ours I'm pretty sure the bottom 10%, at least right now are just abandoned profiles. We ban about 5% of all profiles for being spammy even when getting through our spam filters.
What other ideas might people have?
Todays Trends http://www.mohawksrock.com/leaderboards has been a newer addition that some people like and some dont. You can actually get most popular members (according to a math algorithm) by selecting a time span under the "Members" menu.
Here are this months http://www.mohawksrock.com/leaderboards/topmembers/month
Funny how "organize" and "organic" are so close of sounding words and yet worlds a part; at least when you are talking about the "organization of an organic site".
I equate the site to being a virtual city based upon an idea/ideal, vs. a real city that is usually based upon some sort of geography (fishing, mining, trade, etc.). They behave very similar as its human interaction that makes each thrive or decline.
The population is extremely fluid in an idea-based city which can cause rapid changes in the population, content and "feel" of the citizenry. For those of us that have lived here a long time there is nothing new under the sun in this population. For those of us who are new, everything is different.
If you moved into a new town you'd find yourself asking questions like "Where do I buy groceries? Who should I hang out with? When was this town founded?" After living there for 6 months these now become "dumb" or "old" questions. You now only ask "time-relevant" questions - What do you think about the Casey Anthony trial? Who is the new person in town? Why can't new people find the gas station?
Your town/city/neighborhood then ends up with 2 different types of citizens. The experienced vets and the fresh newbies. So the question then becomes how do you engage both types?
The answer may be pretty obvious. They act differently and a vet like CorpseQueen chimes in occasionally when there is something of interest (The towns annual parade / how do we feel about Casey Anthony) and ignores the stuff she already knows (how to get to the grocery store / how do you spike your hair); while CJ may hang out at the park all day long and meet and greet people in this town full of interesting folks like him, until he gets his group and becomes a vet.
I think this phenomenon is why you see groups of people that start at the same company at the same time, move into the same neighborhood together, attend high school at the same time tending to congregate together.
Anyhow, all that being said, technologically there could still be some things to make MR better organized/gardened even within its organic growth.
Also, I have now officially hijacked a thread with a totally different thought process. Should I have started a new thread?? Added to an old one like this?? I dunno. I think its a good an interesting question.
It's interesting how you mirrored my thinking earlier on a post on another thread I made - on the 'vet' versus 'newbies' idea. I very much agree in that both these citizens exist and are important to the site and I think we can see some people sticking around long enough to become familiar faces and others after a flurry of activity for a few months to a year end up inactive.
I think clutter in any site with growing numbers can dilute the feeling that there is a sense of community there. One of the strong points about Mohawks Rock has always been, it's shared by all - we have most conversations public and everyone can follow along and chip in if they wish or start a chat with others when they read something that interests them too on their profile or pic comments.
This is completely different from most social sites, which are going where there isn't a shared central list of events of all members and most are closing off from new folk they don't 'add'.
I think CorpseQueen does have a good idea with the auto-delete feature for inactive profiles. This might help the community stay active, reduce unnecessary clutter and increase the feeling that the site is manageable and accessible for new folk without them feeling overwhelmed by the total number of 'members' and content to trawl through.
So often forums become unmanageably big and although history is very important (I enjoy looking back sometimes at older comments), I think it's also important not to have too much dead wood clogging up the site. Esp. with profiles which will never be active again after say a year of inactivity.
My apologies, C.J. for straying off topic.
I understand what your saying but I dont think it relates much to my post. Forum organization is important to both new and old users. Baisic organization can be fairly easily achieved with a few mods and another autodelete feature on forum posts. A few people to move threads to the categories they should be under, clear out absurdly duplicated threads (as well as the occasional "offensive" threads- there is no age limit to view this site, keep your tits in your shirts ladies!), along with pointing people in the right direction to finding the already existing ones. I agree with kobalos that its nice to get to go back and read some old posts/threads but the clutter has become so intense that new users dont know how to find the topics they are looking for! Having a feature that auto-deletes threads after a specific length of time of no activity will do wonders for the forums overall.
and for the record, i do my best to jump in and help out the noobs despite them posting the same exact topic that is directly listed under it ;) lol!
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