 Our Glorious Community: Runeweb, Yet another thought-provoking topic from Makoto! |
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 Dec 2 2006, 08:02 AM | Post #1 |
 
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Unregistered
A thought's been lingering in the back of my mind lately.
"What would happen if RW never earned recognition as a major fansite?"
I probably shouldn't be saying "lately", this has been a major focal point for at least eleven months now.
Anyway, compared to the other "major" RuneScape fansites, we're not sitting so pretty as far as content and forum activity goes. Using (shudders) RuneHQ, Tip.it, RuneVillage and Zybez/RSC as our competitors (other sites aren't as recognized and were thusly excluded from this), I have found where we stand globally.
Content:
- RuneHQ - Most up-to-date website out there.
- Tip.it - Doesn't fall too far behind RuneHQ, could even be a tie.
- Zybez - Up to date content but not so easy to read.
- RuneWeb - Surprised? We rank 4th because of our skill guide completeness.
- RuneVillage - Ranked last because of its lack of up to date content.
Community/Forum Activity:
- Tip.it - Total Registered = 135,695; Most active on one date = 354 (0.002% of total registered); ~1,367,724 total posts (10.07 posts per member)
- RuneScapeCommunity - Total Registered = 80,445; Most active on one date = 2,989 (0.037% of total registered); ~1,144,307 total posts (14.22 posts per member)
- RuneVillage - Total Registered = 72,125; Most active on one date = 355 (0.004% of total registered); ~166165 total posts^ (2.3 posts per member)
- RuneHQ - Total Registered = 53,980; Most active on one date = 1,581 (0.029% of total registered); ~522,197 total posts (9.67 posts per member)
- RuneWeb - Total Registered = 3,839; Most active on one date = 150 (0.039% of total registered); ~77,504 posts (20.18 posts per member)
The points highlighted in red indicate their weakest point, compared globally with the other fansites. As you can see, we at RuneWeb have an extreme disadvantage when it comes to these sites: the community.
This is something that is rather pertinent to the hopes and dreams of RuneWeb, what it is, what potential it has and what it can become. Without the community's help we're going nowhere - and rather quickly.
So, my question to you all is, "What can we do about this?" A few ideas were tossed around in IRC, such as incentives to help our fansite, special ranks, and to cut down on our own personal "xenophobia". I want to know (in at least five sentences if NOT a paragraph!) what we can do to help boost our activity, content and overall position globally (based on my personal rankings). All posts with less than 5 sentences (unless those sentences hold your premise/idea/theory/conclusion REALLY WELL) are spam, and will be treated as such.
Discuss.
This post has been edited by Makoto: Dec 4 2006, 03:45 AM
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Dec 2 2006, 08:13 AM | Post #2 |
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Unregistered
First off, the # of active members is horrible, we have 3000+ members with around 26 active give or take, so that leaves us, with probably the most inactive community forum wise, thus making us go slowly downhill until it ultimately dies, unless we do something.
Ways to accomplish this (in my opinion)
1) Make more Content Staff/Forum Moderator positions, to keep the guides updated and get us new guides, and to keep the spam on the down low. Because when people come to a community like this one, for example and see spam just sitting in the forum, not being taken care of, they think "Hey they must not have an active staff team, not cool, I'M OUTA HURR" And never again return.
2) The more guides the better, even if your not on a content position, theres always the temporary guides subforum, located in RW Suggest/Submit and Report, so you can get input on your guides and maybe even get them published on the site.
3) IRC Chat it is not the same as the forums, but you get to become friends with members in much more depth, because you can actually communicate on a regular basis, there is always a staff member there aswell, so if you need help with something on the forums, go there and find them.
The other problem with RW is the % of spam. It is outrageous. In the past 100 new members who have come to the site, they have been banned within the first 10 minutes for spamming.
Ways to get rid of that problem, make the spam policy visible somewhere on every board, so members know not to spam, and don't just delete posts, use them as examples for other people.
Those were some of the ideas thrown around in IRC.
Hope this helps.
This post has been edited by Cky: Dec 2 2006, 08:16 AM
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Dec 2 2006, 08:52 AM | Post #3 |
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Unregistered
What distinguishes RuneWeb from every other fan site out there? So far, the sigs have done what they could in terms of attracting members, but RuneWeb needs something new to make it stand out in the crowd. This can be done with RuneWeb having something like an item/Bestiary database that presents information in a simple and understandable way. A majority of the Runescape population are quite young or just lazy, so guides should be made in way everyone can understand them.
Like Cky said, the amount of spam found in the forums is a big turnoff to new members. This can be solved by recruiting more active Moderators that can keep the forums clean.
Also, people want to be in a warm, accepting environment where they can settle in easy. The atmosphere of RuneWeb could be considered quite xenophobic. New members dont want to come in and be totally ignored, they want to feel like they're in a place where their help or prescence is appreciated. RuneWeb can solve this problem by being more welcoming to new members. This can be done quite easily, just be nice to people!
RuneWeb can never prosper without a loyal staff that are willing to get the job done at all costs. The guides can be up faster and updated to keep up with other sites much faster if the Staff are reliable. RuneWeb just needs to find the right people with the skills and motivation to make guides that are useful to the Runescape community and presented in a way everyone can understand.
Well thats my two cents, hope it helps.
-AbzAbzAbz
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Dec 2 2006, 09:43 AM | Post #4 |
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Unregistered
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I can't quite see how more forum moderators would solve the situation of spammy topics. Their instinct and JOB is to simply lock it. It falls on the Global Moderators to keep the forums clean and free of topics/posts that contain raw spam (whereas mods aren't prohibited from deleting spam at all). In effect, not many people at RuneWeb are active, and therefore the pool of new modship (if it exists) is extremely thin. I'll boost my efforts to keep the forums clean and rid of spam as much as permissible in my power.
Our guides may be lacking in overall completeness, but what we do have surpasses much of the content out there, according to several people that I've asked. However, when we're competing against these much larger sites, quality may not always surpass quantity.
As far as warm and inviting, I've been trying my damnedest to extend my arms to all newcomers and newbies that wander into RuneWeb, but every single time I do, I get chastised with extreme prejudice that I am catering to the newbies and not giving the regulars/alumni of this forum any slack. Truth is, on that one my hands are purely tied.
On the topic of "innovation", my goal to 90 slayer has not only been a personal conquest, but I figure if I offer whips for a discount price to members who are truly active on RuneWeb, then the forum activity will increase (if only temporarily). A caveat to this is that people could take advantage of the system OR meet all my requirements for "activity" and then disappear. That's one way I've tried to be innovative.
As much as I hate to chastise our staff, I have to. We (I say this collectively since moderators are also technically staff) are not getting enough done. Heck, half of us don't even really play! This has to step up, but I doubt adding more members will solve it. We added members a while back and I don't see a single one of them (except maybe Mysticallity) that is still faithfully and happily on the team.
One thing I will say that we do have in our favour is that whenever we do get to speed with another community's features, we come to speed with an added bonus you cannot find anywhere else. One in particular was the update that Catatifish did with the items that allowed you to mouse-over them and see a 100x100 image of that item, in infinite detail. That's never been implemented anywhere else, and I'll rue the day that another major fansite DOES come up with it.
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I'd also like to see suggestions to improve activity. What have you all got?
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Dec 2 2006, 09:43 AM | Post #5 |
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Unregistered
Also, the absence of topics with some REAL purpose/meaning, creating more conversation (like this one here), drives away people, there's a lot of people who want to discuss large matters, and if they don't find something, they'll probably leave.
Solution to these problems would be have large, OPEN conversation, obviously.
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Dec 2 2006, 10:05 AM | Post #6 |
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Unregistered
QUOTE(Makoto @ Dec 2 2006, 05:43 AM) [snapback]80755[/snapback]
I can't quite see how more forum moderators would solve the situation of spammy topics. Their instinct and JOB is to simply lock it. It falls on the Global Moderators to keep the forums clean and free of topics/posts that contain raw spam (whereas mods aren't prohibited from deleting spam at all). In effect, not many people at RuneWeb are active, and therefore the pool of new modship (if it exists) is extremely thin. I'll boost my efforts to keep the forums clean and rid of spam as much as permissible in my power.
I can see it very clearly.
We'll use the way I said it on IRC.
More Staff Members/Moderators = Less Spam
Less Spam = More members posting because of lack of spam
More Members Active = More members joining
More members joining = More Active members
More Active Members = Successful Fansite
The more moderators we have, would be the first step in a wide array of steps to make RW a great community, because even though we have the most posts per member out of all of the Fansites, it's because of the people with 1,000+ posts, 60% of the members haven't even POSTED.
This post has been edited by Cky: Dec 2 2006, 10:07 AM
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Dec 2 2006, 01:12 PM | Post #7 |
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Unregistered
There are two ways to do this. We can either hire more content staff, or to rely on the community to gather information. If we're going for the latter, I suggest making a post on a list of things we are lacking. People may choose to take up the position and make a guide on it. Then the content staff will be able to format and publish it on the website. We will need some sort of reward system for this though. Perhaps we should award 10k for each small content published and 50k for the larger ones?
When the website is complete, we can then move onto the community. I believe the xenophobia is there because of the lack of proper English usage. You can tackle this problem at two angles: the new members, or the existing members.
- For newer members, we could enact a rule on using proper English all the time, but that would be drastic. I suggest making a post on what type of post is recommended and what is not. The problem is, not many people would read these kinds of posts.
- The root of hostility is the existing members. We are not exactly as tolerant as other fansites, which scares potential members away. Even though we have a rule against flaming, it is possible to enforce it much more strictly.
As for spam, I have not seen much spam recently so I have no idea on how it's related. If you're basing it on the amount of banned members, then it's not an accurate indication either. If anything, it shows how well the moderators are doing in stopping rule-breakers before they start spamming.
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Dec 2 2006, 01:52 PM | Post #8 |
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Unregistered
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Dec 2 2006, 04:25 PM | Post #9 |
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Unregistered
QUOTE(spikey188 @ Dec 2 2006, 06:12 AM) [snapback]80766[/snapback]
yeah that woudl sound about right cky but runeweb is fouth!?!!?! wow! well i been to the others befor runevillage was tarrable! few itemto look at fo help. and rune hq is talked about alot in the game, along with tip, runevillage will come up rarely like rune web...
QUOTE(dark sloth1 @ Dec 2 2006, 10:47 AM) [snapback]80790[/snapback]
Eather way, I love RW... i love the small communtiy and would NEVER choose anything differnt in my opinion we are the best out of them... *me hugs runeweb*
Gee, thanks for ignoring my topic rules!
Consider this a pre-warning.#runeweb is independent from the forums in the sense that the rules are a lot less strict. I highly doubt another channel could solve anything except cause more of a headache for me, since I'd have to moderate there as well.
If the community got into the swing of helping Content then we'd be able to have this site completed in a month, hands down. I'd hope that such a thing happens, too.
This post has been edited by Makoto: Dec 2 2006, 05:59 PM
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Dec 2 2006, 06:34 PM | Post #10 |
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Unregistered
QUOTE
#runeweb is independent from the forums in the sense that the rules are a lot less strict. I highly doubt another channel could solve anything except cause more of a headache for me, since I'd have to moderate there as well.
I don't understand why you would have to moderate it, I mean you have enough on your plate with #runeweb, I'm saying use moderators that have nothing else to do, or Content staff that visit IRC, I mean, you don't have to have a hand in everything, even if theres regular users that know their stuff, they could help out in the room.
Think about it, if there are newer members looking for advice in how to become a better member and part of the community here, they can join that channel and get help from staff members and such, so if they can get help in a much more newer-member friendly environment, they could eventually go to the main channel without getting in some sort of flame-fight.
As for the incompleteness of the site, well, the reason most other sites is complete is because they have a lot more content members than here, I mean, I'm sure someone has a hunter guide out already, and tip.it has the new quest guides done the first day their out.
If there were more people working on the guides, we would have a lot more people coming for some RS help.
Some other things that could be to the sites advantage are a NPC/Monster and and an Item database.
If we could get a working price guide up, that was updated accordingly, a lot more members type in "RS Market Guide" in Google or some other search engine, other than, "Good Runescape Fansite".
So yeah.
This post has been edited by Cky: Dec 2 2006, 06:41 PM
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Dec 2 2006, 08:00 PM | Post #11 |
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Unregistered
Problem is, who have time to do all of this?
And why im not talking about the forums? To me the main page is the first reason to anyone get curious about the forum.
Another option is close some parts of runeweb just to registered users (like the new quest guide) but it only works if we are the first fansite to release it.
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Dec 2 2006, 08:28 PM | Post #12 |
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Unregistered
Simply because of people like me, who hate new people.
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Dec 2 2006, 09:27 PM | Post #13 |
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Unregistered
Incomplete Main Site: Imo, I think that throws off a lot of newcomers to the forum. Compared to tip.it and the other sites, we have next to nothing to offer in the way of guides, besides the quest guides. If the site was finished and we offered more stuff (more calculators, bestiary, newcomer guide, moneymaking guide, exp tables, maps, clue help etc.) Those are just a few things that came to the top of my head. With all that, I am SURE it will boost the forums A LOT.
I know I know, that is a lot of work to get all that done and that means time that none of the staff have. That would have to mean getting more content staff to work on guides and trying to get the community to help too. Even more so, you could get new mods so the current ones could focus on the main site and less on monitoring the forum. I suggest someone to make a post stating EXACTLY what guides/maps the content team needs help with to speed up the process.
Another way to increase popularity and activity would be completed the so loved Toolkit that everybody loved from RN. For those who havnt seen the RN Toolkit, it was very nice and attracted members. Of course, this new one would include much more information and be much more in depth, but nevertheless, it would attract new members.
Yes, time is the factor again. People dont like spending so much time helping this fansite so what can we do? This is why we could use more mods and content staff. I'm sure there are some true members here at rw that could fill those needed positions and help rw get back on its feet. More staff means less work for everybody and less work means more time, simple as that.
Forum Behaviour: As i'm sure all of you know, rw is a close community with few active members which lets us get to know everybody. As we are all close members, we tend to joke around a lot and be sarcastic in some pretty nasty ways. New members are not aware of this and that could be a factor that affects new members/activity. Of course we cannot stop our joking around, but maybe cut back a bit and be a little more positive. We should truely welcome new members and make them feel at home and that we [i] personally [i] care about them and try to help them as much we can. There are some old members among us that are pretty cruel to new members and that is not ok (you know who you are). If that is how you feel, keep it to yourself and vent to friends and not in public on these forums.
So basically, just be more polite and caring for the members here. If newcomers see that we are caring and helpful etc, they will want to join and even get their friends to join. When they see negative comments and indifferent attitudes, it will be the opposite. They will not join and they will tell their friends not to join either. Word spreads fast and we want a good word to spread about rw.
IRC: This really doesnt help attract members but our irc is pretty damn bad. I rarely go in irc and the very rare times that I do, all I see is flaming and never about runescape. Im not saying that irc has to be all about runescape, but pretyt much all of the active irc users dont even play. That is where a separate channel could come in to play. If the active irc users use a different channel, #runeweb would be more on-topic and less flaming. There would not be many members in it if we had a separate channel, but then we could advertise it more and with less flaming, more ppl would chat in it, including me.
Staff: I've been mentioning this throughout my post and we DO need more staff. We don't need more staff to keep the forums clean, but to create less work on the current ones. More staff means less work which means more time which means more time available to work on content and complete rw and leave the "beta" stage. It is never a problem to have too many staff...atleast I dont think it is. "Too many" staff would just mean spam will be dealt with faster, posts will be moved faster when they are in the wrong section, questions will be answered faster etc. Don't think there are many disadvantages of too many staff.
I also noticed that in the figures Makoto posted, we have the best number....besides the number registered and most active at one time. We have had 150 on at one time which is 0.039% of total registered which is more than any other one. We also have more posts per member than the rest too, but I guess this is all because we have such few registered users.
That was a little longer than expected but I think I made some good points there. I hope this helps a little bit and changes some peoples views toward rw.
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Dec 2 2006, 10:05 PM | Post #14 |
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Unregistered
Okay, I think an awesome idea would be to have a medal system like we have for the posts, only a little different.
Let's say, a person posts in one category more than another. Well, after so many posts in that particular catergory, he/she obtains a medal.
Example: I post one hundred times in the Storyboard forum, I'd get a medal. After five hundred, I obtain a higher medal for that forum. And so on and so on.
It would kind of feel like a game. A way to achieve something and become part of the community. And if people read the actual rules, spam shouldn't be a problem.
Also, maybe tests about RS and RW to earn medals too. I dunno, figure it'd be fun for users.
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Dec 2 2006, 10:22 PM | Post #15 |
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Unregistered
QUOTE(Drunken @ Dec 2 2006, 05:05 PM) [snapback]80860[/snapback]
Let's say, a person posts in one category more than another. Well, after so many posts in that particular catergory, he/she obtains a medal.
Example: I post one hundred times in the Storyboard forum, I'd get a medal. After five hundred, I obtain a higher medal for that forum. And so on and so on.
That would probably promote alot of spamming of threads and forums to gain medals, not to blow your idea out of the water, its a pretty good idea, but like I said, it will likely promote spam :\
As for my opinion, I really like the RW community, we are a tightly knit community, but as others have said, we tend not to take kindly to new members (especially the young ones), and that drives them away in most cases.
Another big factor that prevents RW from gaining popularity is the lack of guides we have. Forums like Tip.it and RuneHQ have guides for anything and everything. Though runeweb has by far the best guides imo, we jsut dont have as many of them, (I know we are working on them, I'm just saying).
But what we lack in guides, we partially make up for with our kick ass sigs!
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