Weekly gD Request TORD Announcements

[nina@]

I do have a suggestion for the gD awards section and am daring to post it here, for most of the categories like best blogger, best ama etc (except for dare of the month) while voting should be left to gD members, nominations should be made by say, a predetermined committee of 2-3 active members of that specific section, and if they miss out gD members can always recommend.. this way the process may be more inclusive.. maybe some more categories added like best thread, most frequent poster/ dare giver in other people's dare threads .. etc (basically any interaction is an act-react cycle and right now most awards target the ones who act/request dares or posts etc and not the ones who react/give feedback/post dares etc)

For the forums to be more active, there is a need for gD members to reach out and post/give back by posting in others threads/blogs/pm's too along with their friends etc. As per Cass's poll people generally post/interact with small pool of people they are acquainted with and a little reaching out and posting in unknown or newer members threads will be more inclusive.

To achieve that lola's idea is good. I agree with bea that 1 thread a week is a bit less. But apart from just making the announcement widely visible, the implementation is also upto the regular members to take the initiative to post in those threads too.

[Butterfly]

Originally Posted by nina@

I do have a suggestion for the gD awards section and am daring to post it here, for most of the categories like best blogger, best ama etc (except for dare of the month) while voting should be left to gD members, nominations should be made by say, a predetermined committee of 2-3 active members of that specific section, and if they miss out gD members can always recommend.. this way the process may be more inclusive.. maybe some more categories added like best thread, most frequent poster/ dare giver in other people's dare threads .. etc (basically any interaction is an act-react cycle and right now most awards target the ones who act/request dares or posts etc and not the ones who react/give feedback/post dares etc)

For the forums to be more active, there is a need for gD members to reach out and post/give back by posting in others threads/blogs/pm's too along with their friends etc. As per Cass's poll people generally post/interact with small pool of people they are acquainted with and a little reaching out and posting in unknown or newer members threads will be more inclusive.

To achieve that lola's idea is good. I agree with bea that 1 thread a week is a bit less. But apart from just making the announcement widely visible, the implementation is also upto the regular members to take the initiative to post in those threads too.

I think the getDare awards section is on hold at the moment. I am hoping that in the fall, the active staff members can get together and discuss a better way to handle them. I think nominations by getDare members is a great start, but I also think that there should be a committee of people to make sure that the best are highlighted (between those nominated as well as those that may have been missed).

We also need to be better organized and have better prizes. Andom was not able to finish the threads in January, which led me to have to jump in and it led to a lot of confusion and floundering on my part.

I also agree that while us mods are trying to get things active, we really do need the members of getDare to step up and become active to make our initiatives a success. I hope people are willing to do that. Lola's suggestion is a great start!

[PrincessJessica]

Originally Posted by lola.fox

perhaps i could sticky my post a thread? so that it will appear at the top of each forum?...
also "sticky" my 'post a thread' to the request TORD forum and continually updated that post with the 3-5 threads that occur weekly so we have a running list that you could view and be notified of. I could also do a "post a challenge" thread and do the same for games like the ones you suggested?

I think it depends which option you want to do, if you want to sticky to multiple sub-forums it'll need to be an announcement but if you want it just in one forum you can have it as a sticky (that's how it works in my very minimal forum admin experience anyway). If it were me I think
- I'd have it just one thread for all suggestions to announce that week rather than a separate thread for games suggestions, with probably just you picking off your favourites. You could just aim to pick one game type thread each week from the ones suggested (if no game type threads are suggested I guess they aren't as good as I think ). While polls are probably fairer it sounds a little over-complicated to me, the smaller and more sustainable the better.
- I'd rename your thread "Hot Threads - Suggestions welcome" (or similar) so it sounds more enticing as an announcement.
- I'd make it an announcement in at least the "Dares" and "Request TORD Online" forums.

Also, I just realised that announcements already do appear under unread posts, and there's already an advice section I do tend to miss the sub-boards as they're not available from the main forum page...I've only realised tonight that you can click the forum header, like "Special" to display all subforums.

While I'm suggesting I'd highly recommend installing Tapatalk for mobile users. The site is a pain to navigate on mobiles but Tapatalk would make it much easier. One thing to be aware of is that any add-ons (including those that restrict posting in some way) won't work with Tapatalk and neither will polls. Everything natively supported by vBullentin should work though, but I assume that would need rachie to add (the only admin?).

They sound like good ideas so far and I'll certainly try to at least suggest a few threads (chat games will be too late for me but I really need to brave diving in there at some point)

[lola.fox]

Originally Posted by nina@

I do have a suggestion for the gD awards section and am daring to post it here, for most of the categories like best blogger, best ama etc (except for dare of the month) while voting should be left to gD members, nominations should be made by say, a predetermined committee of 2-3 active members of that specific section, and if they miss out gD members can always recommend.. this way the process may be more inclusive.. maybe some more categories added like best thread, most frequent poster/ dare giver in other people's dare threads .. etc (basically any interaction is an act-react cycle and right now most awards target the ones who act/request dares or posts etc and not the ones who react/give feedback/post dares etc)

For the forums to be more active, there is a need for gD members to reach out and post/give back by posting in others threads/blogs/pm's too along with their friends etc. As per Cass's poll people generally post/interact with small pool of people they are acquainted with and a little reaching out and posting in unknown or newer members threads will be more inclusive.

To achieve that lola's idea is good. I agree with bea that 1 thread a week is a bit less. But apart from just making the announcement widely visible, the implementation is also upto the regular members to take the initiative to post in those threads too.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

I think the getDare awards section is on hold at the moment. I am hoping that in the fall, the active staff members can get together and discuss a better way to handle them. I think nominations by getDare members is a great start, but I also think that there should be a committee of people to make sure that the best are highlighted (between those nominated as well as those that may have been missed).

We also need to be better organized and have better prizes. Andom was not able to finish the threads in January, which led me to have to jump in and it led to a lot of confusion and floundering on my part.

I also agree that while us mods are trying to get things active, we really do need the members of getDare to step up and become active to make our initiatives a success. I hope people are willing to do that. Lola's suggestion is a great start!

thank you for your suggestions nina . i would be all for additional categories but agree with butterfly on the prize aspect. it’s difficult to try to come up with prizes as the ones currently in place required an admin which i think was just too much work to pile onto one persons plate with all the other administrative work that needs to get done. that bit will take a bit of work to come up with a better reward.

i will be adding multiple thread links as suggested - i am just waiting til the thread closes so i can hopefully get more input from other users to give everyone ample time to see this thread. when im not on mobile i will be sticky-ing my post a thread ( located here http://www.getdare.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=336731 ) so that users can promote their favorite threads created by others too. this way everyone gets to nominate a thread and i could try to pull from suggestions there too.

we definitely need other members to join us in our efforts - even if it’s only commenting on a handful of threads/blogs when you log on. the mods could make all the changes in the workd but it will do no good if we’re the only ones changing our patterns.

[lola.fox]

Originally Posted by maleforyou

I think it depends which option you want to do, if you want to sticky to multiple sub-forums it'll need to be an announcement but if you want it just in one forum you can have it as a sticky (that's how it works in my very minimal forum admin experience anyway). If it were me I think
- I'd have it just one thread for all suggestions to announce that week rather than a separate thread for games suggestions, with probably just you picking off your favourites. You could just aim to pick one game type thread each week from the ones suggested (if no game type threads are suggested I guess they aren't as good as I think ). While polls are probably fairer it sounds a little over-complicated to me, the smaller and more sustainable the better.
- I'd rename your thread "Hot Threads - Suggestions welcome" (or similar) so it sounds more enticing as an announcement.
- I'd make it an announcement in at least the "Dares" and "Request TORD Online" forums.

Also, I just realised that announcements already do appear under unread posts, and there's already an advice section I do tend to miss the sub-boards as they're not available from the main forum page...I've only realised tonight that you can click the forum header, like "Special" to display all subforums.

While I'm suggesting I'd highly recommend installing Tapatalk for mobile users. The site is a pain to navigate on mobiles but Tapatalk would make it much easier. One thing to be aware of is that any add-ons (including those that restrict posting in some way) won't work with Tapatalk and neither will polls. Everything natively supported by vBullentin should work though, but I assume that would need rachie to add (the only admin?).

They sound like good ideas so far and I'll certainly try to at least suggest a few threads (chat games will be too late for me but I really need to brave diving in there at some point)

yes rachie or depp are the only ones who can make that change. ): depp is currently doing some updating so once he is finish ill ask to have your suggestion looked at .

i think i’ll probably sticky the post in request tord as thats the busiest forum and anticipate a bulk of the threads to be from there as well. i’ll make an announcement to appear at all forums showing where to find it so hopeully that generates some traffic as well.

[lola.fox]

post a thread has been edited and stickied!

[Magnetic]

Maybe you could do this but give it an weighted average of the percentage of votes in a voting module:

1. Each person is allowed one vote per day.
2. Each post gets a weighted average of the number of votes it received that day divide by the number of views that it received.
3. In case of tie, the one with the least views wins.
4. If the tie persist, the thread posted is chosen at random from the available choices with the highest weighted average with the lowest numbers of views that day.
5. If a user votes twice that day, he will be prompted if he would rather have this particular thread gets his vote or the previous thread.

Note that these rules greatly favor the lowest number of view threads. A thread that was not viewed once that day, would not have been voted once either, so they will have a vote count of 0, which will not make it the highest vote count.

[lola.fox]

Originally Posted by Magnetic

Maybe you could do this but give it an weighted average of the percentage of votes in a voting module:

1. Each person is allowed one vote per day.
2. Each post gets a weighted average of the number of votes it received that day divide by the number of views that it received.
3. In case of tie, the one with the least views wins.
4. If the tie persist, the thread posted is chosen at random from the available choices with the highest weighted average with the lowest numbers of views that day.
5. If a user votes twice that day, he will be prompted if he would rather have this particular thread gets his vote or the previous thread.

Note that these rules greatly favor the lowest number of view threads. A thread that was not viewed once that day, would not have been voted once either, so they will have a vote count of 0, which will not make it the highest vote count.

thanks for your suggestion - unfortunately i think that process might be a bit to complicated for what i’m after.

[PrincessJessica]

Originally Posted by lola.fox

yes rachie or depp are the only ones who can make that change. ): depp is currently doing some updating so once he is finish ill ask to have your suggestion looked at .

i think i’ll probably sticky the post in request tord as thats the busiest forum and anticipate a bulk of the threads to be from there as well. i’ll make an announcement to appear at all forums showing where to find it so hopeully that generates some traffic as well.

Great thanks, if the site was easier to use from mobile I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one happy. If the updating includes vBulletin version updating that could open up the possibility of using a mobile-friendly style (from what I can tell that's version 4.1.1 or later).

Hope your post generates a bit of extra activity for some deserving threads then.

[Magnetic]

Originally Posted by maleforyou

Great thanks, if the site was easier to use from mobile I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one happy. If the updating includes vBulletin version updating that could open up the possibility of using a mobile-friendly style (from what I can tell that's version 4.1.1 or later).

That's another request for the mobile subject... There are two kinds of solutions possible for GetDare mobile problem:

1. A new phone app
2. A new mobile friendly skin

Ideally, you should provide for both.

The app would be ideal... People like apps because they integrate better with the phone and are easier to deal with...

In case of users concerned with privacy, you could provide them with a mobile friendly skin. Such a solution would provide a much better experience on your web site than what's currently available, yet it would offer no additional security risks.

[Butterfly]

Originally Posted by Magnetic

That's another request for the mobile subject... There are two kinds of solutions possible for GetDare mobile problem:

1. A new phone app
2. A new mobile friendly skin

Ideally, you should provide for both.

The app would be ideal... People like apps because they integrate better with the phone and are easier to deal with...

In case of users concerned with privacy, you could provide them with a mobile friendly skin. Such a solution would provide a much better experience on your web site than what's currently available, yet it would offer no additional security risks.

This thread really isn't about providing updates on the software of the site. Lola is trying to get people to be more active, and as an admin she does not control what software or mobile skins are available for use on getDare. If you would like those changes to be made, there is a thread currently in the getDare.com section of the site that is about the current updates that are happening. It might be better heard over there.

[lola.fox]

thank you for all your suggestions - i made my first announcement last night and hopefully made it easy to navigate!! please check out the links on the post and let me know if you have more suggestions regarding this topic!