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Grex > Coop10 > #78: How Can We Get More Users Into the Conferences? | |
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dpc
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How Can We Get More Users Into the Conferences?
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Feb 1 22:33 UTC 1998 |
I'd like to see more Grexers participate in the conferences. I don't
have any firm figures, but I think that we have maybe 150 or so regular
conferencers out of some 16,000 total users. This is not great.
Two ideas:
1. Technical solutions. For example, make bbs the default
for every newuser. I haven't been through newuser since 1991, but
maybe people are being given too many choices and never do figure
out that we offer conferencing.
2. Publicity solutions. We could send every newuser an
invitation to join the conferences.
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| 62 responses total. |
robh
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response 1 of 62:
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Feb 2 00:24 UTC 1998 |
Hmm, last O jeard every member was being told about the
conferences when they ran newuser...
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richard
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response 2 of 62:
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Feb 2 00:42 UTC 1998 |
since so many people use grex primarilyfor email, maybe more would
participate in the confs if they could "subscribe" to them and
have new responses in selectedconfs delivered via email. Instead
of using picospan or backtalk, theycould read the grex confs as they
read their listservs or other lists they subscribe to. Couldnt
it be set up so people can opt to have confs delivered via email?
some people simply go straight into email, so this would allow them
to read the confs in their preferred environment, not forcing them to
learn new interfaces.
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remmers
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response 3 of 62:
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Feb 2 00:57 UTC 1998 |
There goes bandwidth and disk space down the tubes...
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krj
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response 4 of 62:
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Feb 2 02:13 UTC 1998 |
Maybe conferencing is obsolete.
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steve
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response 5 of 62:
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Feb 2 04:42 UTC 1998 |
No conferencing isn't obsolete--the number of web based "forums"
out there in nat land is nothing short of amazing. There are lots
and lots and LOTS of people who've never heard of "computer
conferencing" but know what a forum is. This is the new, popular
term for conferencing, unforunately.
Grex's problem is simply that we don't have good documentation
and pointers to people on how to use things. Backtalk fixes a
lot of the problems, but it would still be good to have something
that we should show people, who ask for it.
I'm pretty sure there are more than 150 people using the
conferences here, btw. Still not enough, but more than 150.
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gerund
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response 6 of 62:
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Feb 2 18:18 UTC 1998 |
I wonder if maybe some of this is only perception.
People can actively read conferences, but not necessarily respond and make
their presence known.
(i call that lurking, btw...) :)
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richard
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response 7 of 62:
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Feb 2 18:27 UTC 1998 |
people dont want to run strange interfaces to conf...thats why I was
saying that if email is being at least partially shifted to another machine
when the new SUN is running grex, maybe the time has come to let
people read the confs as mailing lists if they choose. Bandwidth wouldnt
be the obstacle it would'vebeen in the past.
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other
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response 8 of 62:
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Feb 2 19:02 UTC 1998 |
is there a fairly simple way to find out how many people have responded in
a particular conference within a given period? say if we wanted to see how
much use each conference is getting... i'd be interested to see a listing
of all the conferences with the number of users responding within the last
week for each one.
gathering that data, or making it readily available, say by running a script
which would gather and format the data, might make it easier to sell the
conferences to people who just don't have any idea that there are things going
on in them....
another idea would be putting together a periodic mailing (say monthly) with
interesting or juicy selections from recent discussions within the previous
month. this could be sent to either all users (except those who request
omission) or all new accounts within the last three months, or some similar
arrangement.
this could be put together by group effort. interested parties could excerpt
and send selections to an editor who could then vet them, and choose some to
include in the mailing. if this idea has any support, i'll volunteer to take
the first editorial shift. i'd like to be able to include some conference
use stats like those i mention above. whaddaya think?
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other
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response 9 of 62:
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Feb 2 19:03 UTC 1998 |
oh-- i'd need some assistance from staff in gathering recipient information,
like a newuser list for the relevant period...
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scott
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response 10 of 62:
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Feb 2 19:14 UTC 1998 |
Richard, people don't want some strange interface for conferencing, so let's
write an entirely new (and therefore strange) interface?
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aruba
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response 11 of 62:
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Feb 2 21:06 UTC 1998 |
I think Richard's idea of showing the conferences within an interface that
users already know is a good one, but it won't work. In order for a mailing
list to make any sense, people have to quote messages they are responding to,
and people don't do that in Grex. If every response came in a separate mail
message, the discussion wouldn't make any sense at all.
(And the last thing I'd like to see is conferencers quoting big chunks of
previous responses - that's why I liked Grex so much better than usenet in
the first place.)
As for mailing out summaries of conferences, I think the main problem with
that might be the disk space it would take up to have umpteen copies of the
excerpt. If we could set it up so that there was only one copy but lots of
people were given a pointer to it in their mailbox, that might be reasonable.
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dang
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response 12 of 62:
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Feb 2 21:30 UTC 1998 |
I'd feel uncomfortable about sending unsolicited mail to people anyway.
Seeing as I hate it so much...
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steve
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response 13 of 62:
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Feb 3 05:05 UTC 1998 |
Richard, people do seem to be flocking to web based forum systems
quite well. The web, no matter what the specifics of the interface
(well, within reason, I suppose--you could make a really awful one)
draw people in. They like the click this, click that style of
interface. I've now met many people who don't understand what
telnet is at all, but understand how to use places like HomeArts
and such fairly well. It's really amazing, how things have changed
so rapidly in such a short time.
Eric, staff could help gather the info, but you need to think
about what it is that you're measuring: simple amounts of entry
into a conference, or amount vs. time, or what. I've thought
about this and have gleaned information about conferences before
but I've never liked what I've done--it never felt like I had
a good yardstick.
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other
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response 14 of 62:
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Feb 3 07:20 UTC 1998 |
specifically, a list of all the conferences, each with a number representing
the number of *users* who have entered responses into that conference within
the last period X.
To my thinking, this would give a good sense of the variety in each
conference, much more so than just the number of new responses...
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janc
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response 15 of 62:
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Feb 3 15:46 UTC 1998 |
(One of the functions planned for Backtalk in the future is the ability for
users to choose to receive digests of conference activity in the mail. You
won't be able to post via email though - you'll have to actually come here
to do that.)
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remmers
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response 16 of 62:
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Feb 3 18:45 UTC 1998 |
(Interesting. I don't want to drift too much, but what are the
reasons for disallowing posting via email? I can think of one
reason that may be sufficient in and of itself -- the difficulty
of verifying authenticity of email -- but I'm curious if there
are others as well. Will the "digest" be less than the full
text of the items?)
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aruba
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response 17 of 62:
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Feb 3 18:56 UTC 1998 |
And how will the digest make sense, if it refers back to previous responses?
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richard
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response 18 of 62:
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Feb 3 19:43 UTC 1998 |
allowing conf'ing via email would allow participation by non-grexers as
well, something that could liven up many confs.
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mta
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response 19 of 62:
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Feb 3 20:29 UTC 1998 |
Call me conservative, but I think conferencing via e-mail starts in a direction
very different from what Grex started out to be. We might become more and more
like Usenet and less and less a community. I don't think it's necessarily so
-- but it certainly is a risk.
Digests of conference activity could be good, though, for keeping up when you
have to be away for a while.
Eric, are you intentionally ommitting the 80% or so of people in conferences
who lurk but never resond? It seems to me that in some conferences it would be
quite possible for the interest to be high but for relatively few people to
have much to add to the conference. (Specialty conferences like the web
conference come to mind.)
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other
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response 20 of 62:
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Feb 3 22:23 UTC 1998 |
Yes, but i do so because i cannot see how a measurement of the number of
people who read but do not contribute could reflect the actual activity in
the conference. It certainly would be interesting to know how many people
*read* the conferences, but it doesn't seem to be of any use other than
determining just how many people *don't* look at the conferences...
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dpc
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response 21 of 62:
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Feb 4 01:54 UTC 1998 |
Misti, according to what Valerie has said, that "80% of people are lurkers"
is wrong. She says (nearly) everyone who enters a conference participates
in it. While I haven't analyzed Grex' conference usage, I know that
it is true on M-Net. You might pick a couple of Grex conferences here,
do a "p" at the Ok: prompt, and you'll see a list of "participants"--
people who have joined, whether or not they've ever entered any material.
Then go through the conference and check out if those folks have *actively*
participated. I suspect the overwhelming majority will have.
Soo- what you see in the conferences is what you get. My concern
is that we're not helping Grexers find the conferences effectively.
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krj
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response 22 of 62:
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Feb 4 02:36 UTC 1998 |
Back to Steve in #5:
>#5 of 21: by STeve Andre' (steve) on Sun, Feb 1, 1998 (23:42):
> No conferencing isn't obsolete--the number of web based "forums"
> out there in nat land is nothing short of amazing. There are lots
> and lots and LOTS of people who've never heard of "computer
> conferencing" but know what a forum is. This is the new, popular
> term for conferencing, unforunately.
1) So, should we start marketing Grex's conferences as "forums", then?
2) How does Grex compare with some of these other web-based forums?
Content, network link speed, the lag perceived by the users, etc?
For better or worse, maybe we need to think of ourselves as
competitors with these other sites.
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remmers
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response 23 of 62:
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Feb 4 11:11 UTC 1998 |
The term "forum" fits very well with our choice of "agora"
as the name for the default conference.
I hang out in party a fair amount, where there are lots of users
whom one almost never sees in the conferences. Many of them are
quite aware of bbs, have taken a look at it, and simply prefer
live interaction. Although I'd like to see more participation in
bbs by the party users, they can't be forced, and it's not the
case that they need help "finding" the conferences.
So I'm not so sure it's true that the conferences aren't more
active because people don't know how to find them. It's more
likely, I think, that lots of people know how to find them but
aren't really interested. That doesn't surprise me much. Out
there in the offline "real world", just about everybody likes
to chat with folks but a comparative few are into writing
essays or even letters to the editor. Participating in
conferences is akin to writing lots and lots of op-ed
pieces. Some people are into this, but most aren't. Among
the people who use Grex mostly for chatting and mail, one
might be able to find a few who would become active
conference participants -- and this has happened now and
then -- but I doubt that there's a lot of gold to be mined
there.
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davel
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response 24 of 62:
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Feb 4 12:38 UTC 1998 |
Re #21: don't do a "p" unless you have lots of time to wait.
And this will give you a somewhat skewed view still. It will give you people
who joined the conference once, looked, & decided then & there they'd never
want to read *that* one. As long as they never ran the "resign" command,
they'll still have a participation file.
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