by YFWE » February 11th, 2012, 9:23 pm
Heard from a member about all the fracas going on over here last few days and wanted to come check it out for myself. I will say that the staff definitely has its collective head in the right place with these changes.
I would like to bring up a quick point with No. 6 to potentially be taken into consideration. The idea of keeping new members from the den/arcade in order to promote more TLK discussion is an admirable idea and I'm by no means against it, but I do think that the posting minimum to be allowed into those topics is a bit high. It MAY cause more TLK discussion, but such a thing may also deter new members from sticking around. If someone joins but finds that there's only so many places they can post, and that said areas aren't garnering as much activity (as is the current case), their interest in the site may wane. People inherently don't want to be restricted anyway, but a more easily reachable post ceiling (say 50, for example) might be the better way to go.
These new members can only contribute to TLK discussion if there's enough TLK discussion at all. And not everyone is necessarily interested in sitting at their computers and posting lines from one or more of the films like others are, which kinda leaves them out of luck for a pretty long time. I just hope that the site doesn't lose prospective members because there's not enough to keep them here before they hit their 100 post count, if they ever do. That would be a real shame. On the other hand, prospective members interested mainly in TLK and less in socializing DO need more talk aside from, again, posting lines from the movies.
So in all, this is something that EVERYONE needs to work toward, whether you're a new member, a veteran or a staff member. If every person works toward making that section more active, it will be. For now, I kinda worry that the same people sticking to the OT board will stay there and rely on the usuals and the new folks to make discussion in the on-topic sections.
So my respectfully-submitted recommendation is to lower the post count from 100 to a lower number. Otherwise, I honestly worry that some members may be turned off from sticking around, or you may see a definite increase in one-word posts from people in order to get their count to where it needs to be. This is hypothetical of course, so if you don't see the need to change things until that happens (IF it even happens), that's cool. The other points are good. I'm especially excited to see what y'all do in regards to revitalizing the fanfic section. Keep doin' your thing, babehs.