Attracting New Members

About This Message Board
1

This is a sincere question. I’ve spent a bit in the last day catching up on stuff I’ve missed and notice there’s been some more ‘give and take’ lately about board/moderating issues going on here and in the Pit. Since those all appear to be going whatever current direction they’ve taken, I’m wondering about a related topic…

What is done to attract new members? It seems that is brought up fairly often, the importance of acquiring new blood. How is the Reader and their representatives (moderators and administrators) going about that? Because one would think, and I welcome correction if I’m wrong, that if the goal is to be profitable then this would be a desire. Or is there an employment of the old stumble-in-and-see-what-transpires approach?

Thanks to any that offer insight.

2

**I’m curious as to why SDMB locks out the Google search bots. **
I don’t recall having seen the official reason but I am sure it has been posted.
It offers the board some privacy but it also prevents people from finding the board through the most regular method.

  1. Basically the only way to find the SDMB is to already know about the Straight Dope and wander into the SDMB.
  2. Word of Mouth
  3. Run a Google search for an answer and find the Straight Dope and eventually wander into the SDMB. {that’s how I found it}
  4. Some users link the SDMB on our home pages, but that is close to word of mouth.

If Google was indexing the SDMB:

  1. We would have a far better search engine available, which should relieve some of the burden on the hamsters.
  2. the SDMB would be stumbled upon a lot more commonly, this would then strain the hamsters but hopefully attracted a larger membership.
  3. If we got enough new members it should be easier to pay for server upgrades and lead to less timeouts that should help retain Guest as members.

Jim {Just my conjecture}

3

[QUOTE=What Exit?]
**I’m curious as to why SDMB locks out the Google search bots. **
I don’t recall having seen the official reason but I am sure it has been posted.
It offers the board some privacy but it also prevents people from finding the board through the most regular method.

  1. Basically the only way to find the SDMB is to already know about the Straight Dope and wander into the SDMB.
  2. Word of Mouth
  3. Run a Google search for an answer and find the Straight Dope and eventually wander into the SDMB. {that’s how I found it}
  4. Some users link the SDMB on our home pages, but that is close to word of mouth.

If Google was indexing the SDMB:

  1. We would have a far better search engine available, which should relieve some of the burden on the hamsters.
  2. the SDMB would be stumbled upon a lot more commonly, this would then strain the hamsters but hopefully attracted a larger membership.
  3. If we got enough new members it should be easier to pay for server upgrades and lead to less timeouts that should help retain Guest as members.

Jim {Just my conjecture}
[/QUOTE]

One of the “benefits” promised to paying members was the ability to search. Allowing Google to index the boards defeats that purpose.

Although if some sort of alternative value for paying members was created, I would have less of a problem with allowing Google to index the boards.

4

I think there are both pros and cons to having Google be able to index our posts via a search. However, surely we have some approach that is taken above and beyond that. Is there other ways we’re trying to lure folks in?

5

[QUOTE=brianjedi]
One of the “benefits” promised to paying members was the ability to search. Allowing Google to index the boards defeats that purpose.

Although if some sort of alternative value for paying members was created, I would have less of a problem with allowing Google to index the boards.
[/QUOTE]

That can’t be the only reason, it is too small of a benefit and too weak of a search tool. I think there are additional reasons.

What could be an alternate Member benefit? Maybe someday they can allow Members to Edit our posts if they are less than some small amount of time old. That would probably be a hugely loved benefit for the paying members. I would say a 5-10 minute window for edits. Of course I have no idea if it is possible for Vbullentin to allow this.

I know I feel hamstrung by the search feature. I even use Google to search Wiki
Example: Straight Dope Wiki
works much quicker than asking Wikipedia to do the search.

Google is by far the largest gateway to other sites these days. By offering us members an exclusive benefit, I think the Board is hurting itself in 2 ways.

6

[QUOTE=faithfool]
I think there are both pros and cons to having Google be able to index our posts via a search. However, surely we have some approach that is taken above and beyond that. Is there other ways we’re trying to lure folks in?
[/QUOTE]

If the board can somehow get mentioned in a PC Magazine review of Websites or a science journal.
Maybe cross ads with a site like Snopes would bring in some new members.
I’ve the Straight Dope itself mentioned on a few places that fight urban myths or answer obscure questions. If we could get them to mention the SDMB also it would be a boost.
The SDMB effectively has a minimal web presence. Most boards do.

I think the exchange of ads with Snopes might be a cheap and easy shot in the arm . I have Emailed with the Snopes lady a few times in the past and she seems very nice and might be open to such a fair exchange deal. Snopes also has it’s own message board. Nowhere near as busy as this one. I think SDMB is a top 100 board for traffic. I’ll check Big-boards.com. It shows us as 81st currently.

A quick step would be for one of the Admins to email big-boards and update the SDMB information there.

We members could attempt a minor Wikipedia campaign. If we see articles that have good debate or answers here in GQ, we can add an external link to the wiki article.

Jim

7

[QUOTE=What Exit?]
If Google was indexing the SDMB:

  1. We would have a far better search engine available, which should relieve some of the burden on the hamsters.
  2. the SDMB would be stumbled upon a lot more commonly, this would then strain the hamsters but hopefully attracted a larger membership.
  3. If we got enough new members it should be easier to pay for server upgrades and lead to less timeouts that should help retain Guest as members.

Jim {Just my conjecture}
[/QUOTE]
Google was allowed to index the boards for a short time after the ads were implemented. One would think it would reduce the burden but that wasn’t the case. Their indexing bots reduced us to a crawl for several hours each day.

8

[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher]
Google was allowed to index the boards for a short time after the ads were implemented. One would think it would reduce the burden but that wasn’t the case. Their indexing bots reduced us to a crawl for several hours each day.
[/QUOTE]

That is a better answer, there might be a solution to that also.
Once the primary index is done that daily index should be painless. I don’t know if I am talking a few days or a many days however.

Jim

9

My mistake, apparently it was several minutes, every two hours. Still, I don’t think the majority would be happy about the Dope being unavailable at the top of every other hour.

10

[QUOTE=What Exit?]
**I’m curious as to why SDMB locks out the Google search bots. **

I don’t recall having seen the official reason but I am sure it has been posted.
It offers the board some privacy but it also prevents people from finding the board through the most regular method. …

Jim
[/QUOTE]
You represent my objection to this. Not you personally, but you did once post on a very close variation of your name. There are others that post here using their names, and chose to use them knowing that they were searchable only through SDMB. Changing the rules now means that they either accept that they are now searchable to the world, or else choose another name and endure the inevitable “Oh yeah, now who were you?”

11

The concerns over whether or not the boards are searchable outside of the SDMB is valid. But that really wasn’t what I was asking about, although it would be a wonderful thing to see it addressed as well. What I’m hoping to understand better is what we’re doing to prevent us from just being the same people all the time, discussing the same things. If there isn’t any really straightforward plan in place, then what are our options once folks do find their way here?

12

[QUOTE=What Exit?]
Maybe someday they can allow Members to Edit our posts if they are less than some small amount of time old. That would probably be a hugely loved benefit for the paying members. I would say a 5-10 minute window for edits. Of course I have no idea if it is possible for Vbullentin to allow this.
[/QUOTE]

Apparently this is doable, but the mod response to this request has been that even five minutes is a lot of time in fast-moving threads, and we would run the risk of people withdrawing their posts when they get negative feedback.

Personally, I don’t think this would happen with only a five minute window for edits, but I don’t really care either way. I almost always use Preview to at least check if I used the vB tags correctly.

13

[QUOTE=faithfool]
The concerns over whether or not the boards are searchable outside of the SDMB is valid. But that really wasn’t what I was asking about, although it would be a wonderful thing to see it addressed as well. What I’m hoping to understand better is what we’re doing to prevent us from just being the same people all the time, discussing the same things. If there isn’t any really straightforward plan in place, then what are our options once folks do find their way here?
[/QUOTE]

Well what about the Snopes and Wikipedia ideas? What did you think of them?

I understand the objections to Google, but it really would increase the SDMB exposure. Maybe too much as **Plynck ** very well pointed out.

The Wikipedia links might also (no nice way to say this) bring in a more intelligent group of people then just googlers would.

**severus ** Where Preview fails for me is in a fast moving thread, when the board stalls and then it returns I have quite often hit submit, thinking the preview was done and gotten VB code errors. Especially with quotes.

Jim

14

I’ve addressed all of this in other threads and I feel like I’m posting the same thing again. Sadly the comms geek in me is attracted to the issue.

I’d like Google to index the boards, board search (which is fairly poor anyway) could be disabled or discouraged.

Since, as far as I know, the powers that be have never promised not to allow searching in the future the whole privacy thing is not really an issue. Really, I think you’re getting a false sense of security from this board not being searchable. Hmmm, maybe I could start a general thread about online security.

As for search being a ‘valud add’, it looks like they’ve already disappeared a (small) chunk of the archives, I’d rather have them back and google searchable somewhere (even if the recent posts are only board searchable). I’m sure they can find something else to add to the subscription package.

[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher]
My mistake, apparently it was several minutes, every two hours. Still, I don’t think the majority would be happy about the Dope being unavailable at the top of every other hour.
[/QUOTE]

Obviously I can’t say anything about the SMDB 100%, I don’t have the information. But, that thread was just speculation and I’ve mentioned google a few times and it’s never been brought up as a performance issue. TubaDiva, I believe, said that it was up to the higher ups at the Reader to decide.

Having said all that I would be extremely surprised if the googlebot was hitting the boards that badly. Search and indexing are (was?) their core business, they’re good at it and good at doing it without causing problems that would discourage people allowing the index to run. And unless something odd is going on they certainly don’t index a site every two hours, although other search engines or board readers might. I’ve had a quick poke around (too late here to do any more, sorry) and can’t find any other reports of googlebot causing that sort of hit.

Snopes or Wiki links don’t seem like a bad idea.

To answer the general question about attracting new members, as far as I know the board doesn’t. But it does pull in member via the Straight Dope column, particularly when one of them hits the blogs in a big way (think airplanes on runways). Similarly event threads (Lord of the Rings by different authors) pull a lot of people.

So one way of encouraging people to come and join is to create interesting questions/threads and then to share those links in the hope that one takes off.

Of course the downside is that a really popular link that hit a couple of the big sites (fark, digg, slashdot, boing boing, etc) would probably cause spontaneous hamster combustion.

SD

15

[QUOTE=SpaceDog]
Obviously I can’t say anything about the SMDB 100%, I don’t have the information. But, that thread was just speculation and I’ve mentioned google a few times and it’s never been brought up as a performance issue. TubaDiva, I believe, said that it was up to the higher ups at the Reader to decide.

Having said all that I would be extremely surprised if the googlebot was hitting the boards that badly. Search and indexing are (was?) their core business, they’re good at it and good at doing it without causing problems that would discourage people allowing the index to run. And unless something odd is going on they certainly don’t index a site every two hours, although other search engines or board readers might. I’ve had a quick poke around (too late here to do any more, sorry) and can’t find any other reports of googlebot causing that sort of hit.
[/QUOTE]
Something slowed us to a crawl and that something ended when Jerry edited the bots file to keep out the bot that reportes to Google’s search engine.

16

[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher]
Something slowed us to a crawl and that something ended when Jerry edited the bots file to keep out the bot that reportes to Google’s search engine.
[/QUOTE]

What he said.

There were also major objections from many members on the grounds of privacy. Yeah, this is a public message board but not everyone wants it to be that public.

17

[QUOTE=TubaDiva]
What he said.

There were also major objections from many members on the grounds of privacy. Yeah, this is a public message board but not everyone wants it to be that public.
[/QUOTE]

Thank you for the reply, that was one of 4 suggestions made so far in response to faithfool’s Op. Plus faithfool asked for some clarification from the Admins.

  1. A quick step would be for one of the Admins to email big-boards and update the SDMB information there.
  2. Maybe cross ads with a site like Snopes would bring in some new members.
    I think the exchange of ads with Snopes might be a cheap and easy shot in the arm . I have Emailed with the Snopes lady a few times in the past and she seems very nice and might be open to such a fair exchange deal. Snopes also has it’s own message board.
  3. We members could attempt a minor Wikipedia campaign. If we see articles that have good debate or answers here in GQ, we can add an external link to the wiki article.

[QUOTE=faithfool]
The concerns over whether or not the boards are searchable outside of the SDMB is valid. But that really wasn’t what I was asking about, although it would be a wonderful thing to see it addressed as well. What I’m hoping to understand better is what we’re doing to prevent us from just being the same people all the time, discussing the same things. If there isn’t any really straightforward plan in place, then what are our options once folks do find their way here?
[/QUOTE]
My Gray to highlike faithfool’s points.

Jim

18

I think your asking the wrong questions. Historically, the SDMB has never had a problem with attracting new members. In fact, it’s had the opposite problem that every upgrade in server speed would quickly be consumed by more people joining and bogging down the new server. With P2P, this problem has been reduced somewhat but I’ve not seen any indications that the board is shrinking or even slowed down in growing significantly.

A lot of people here regard not being searchable by google as a feature, not a bug. Sure, someone with a bit of dilligence could eventually find out anything they want about you but a casual google search by your employer won’t turn up that post you made in the TMI thread or that workplace rant you made in the pit.

19

I think that this is a legitimate concern, and in fact when we went to subscriptions, I for one was afraid that it would discourage newbies. But from what I understand, turnover (both new joins and folks quitting) is about the same as it ever was. So it doesn’t look like it’s a problem.

20

[QUOTE=TubaDiva]

[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher]
Something slowed us to a crawl and that something ended when Jerry edited the bots file to keep out the bot that reportes to Google’s search engine.
[/QUOTE]

What he said.
[/QUOTE]

Well actually the robots file now disallows everything (apart from the google-ad bot) so blaming google alone is a bit of a jump. Again I don’t have access to the information but I’d suggest that it was something else. Even if it was google they have a process you can go through to report the problem (in case it’s a bug in their spider or your web setup that could be easily fixed).

Fair enough. I disagree but I can understand that reason. Are you basically saying that the board will never be indexed by google ? Or that it’s very unlikely ? Or is it basically all in the hands of the higher ups ?

I don’t think some sort of subscription drive every so often is necessarily a bad idea. It depends how well we do at the moment. Is it not really a problem ?

SD