Getting people involved

Dec 4 21:21 UTC 2003

We seem to have discussed this to death in other items of this cf, so 
I'm starting a new item here. A little background.

I have been arguing that a lot of users do not have a sense of 
belonging here. Maybe a misperception on my part, but I'm not the only 
one who feels that way. I have mentioned conversations I've had with a 
couple of users, and Jamie has posted an email from a user who would 
like to get more involved, but isn't sure how, and besides, does feel 
a bit unconnected to the rest of the community.

I'd like to use this item to brainstorm. How do we get people more 
involved in grex as a community. While there are the lunches in AA, 
I'd like the focus of this item to be people who are not in AA.

response 2 of 39:

Dec 4 21:26 UTC 2003

I disagree.  It has worked for grex: we get lots of new users.  What we
don't get is members.

I don't think focusing on off-line actions will help.  The community is
online.

response 4 of 39:

Dec 4 21:37 UTC 2003

Re 2> We get a lot of new users, true. What we don't get is more 
people into the community. That's what I want to focus on with this 
item. Once you get people interested in the community, the paying 
members will follow

response 6 of 39:

Dec 5 02:19 UTC 2003

Thanks for entering this item, Sapna.  I think we could do a survey of
nonmembers (or anyone) if we discussed it here and reached a consensus on
how to do it, when to do it, what questions to ask, and how to report the
results.  I think it's a good idea.

Some questions: do you feel connected to the Grex community?  (Well,
something like that; it might sound too weird to people that way)

Do you participate in BBS?  Do you participate in Party?

What things do you like about Grex, and what don't you like?

What brought you to Grex?  What made you stay?

response 8 of 39:

Dec 5 03:31 UTC 2003

Putting a message into a new mailbox as it is created is trivial and not spam;
the file has to be created any way.

I *thought* we were already doing such, but it is not in my mailbox now.  I
_could_ create a new account, but I'm kinda busy on other things. :(

response 10 of 39:

Dec 5 05:22 UTC 2003

I'm in favor of creating new user mailboxes with a message included 
which does two basic things:  Serves as a reminder of the terms of 
use, and explains briefly what Grex is about and how to participate.

How the message is crafted will go a long way toward determining the 
effect it has, assume anyone actually to read it.

If a poll is to be conducted, I would not want to see it implemented 
any other way than in bbs, though responses could be sent by email 
if the user wishes to remain private about their answers.  The 
intitial message referred to above could link or point to the poll/
survey, but spamming people with surveys is still spamming them.

Sapna, one thing you've mentioned a bit is the MOTD, and this is a 
sore point for a lot of people.  I don't know why it is such a big 
deal, but a lot of people get annoyed when the MOTD gets large, and 
a lot of people don't ever even see it.  People get practiced at 
ignoring it, even if it doesn't scroll past them and out of view 
faster than thay can read it.  The upshot is, I don't have anything 
against using the MOTD, but I don't think it is nearly as effective 
a communication tool as you seem to think it would be.  I could be 
wrong, though.

Despite the way jp2 went about it, the notion of somehow 
selectively contacting non-member users who login within a certain 
time period just to find out what keeps them from joining up is 
intriguing to me.  It presents sort of a slice of life, or a 
statistical sample which can be valuable for several things, as the 
result jp2 claims appear to suggest.  When the new machine is up, 
perhaps implementing an automated system which sends an email 
crafted by a Grex outreach person or team to non-member users 
logging in on a specific day or week, a few times a year, might be a 
n interesting idea.

response 12 of 39:

Dec 5 11:56 UTC 2003

Eric - just when I blast out against you, you go and redeem yourself ;)

The MOTD approach - I know people get annoyed by it. But I would like 
to argue as to its effectiveness. The grexergallery has seen the most 
new picture uploads for the time the message was on the motd. So there 
are people who do read it, even if it does annoy them. I think this 
route is worth discussing.

As for your idea about sending email to random users - I was thinknig 
along the same lines last night. However, I do want to see this go out 
to members also - especially those that are not members on a regular 
basis. Don't want them to think that now that we have their money , we 
don't care :)

response 18 of 39:

Dec 5 17:01 UTC 2003

I don't know.  At very least you should provide some kind of opt-out
feature for people who don't want to receive surveys in the future.

response 20 of 39:

Dec 5 18:07 UTC 2003

Re #16: Yes, like via email.  I think that's probably the best way.  But we
should work out the details here ahead of time, and get the staff onboard
with the project, before doing anything.

I'm no expert, but I know that some surveys turn out to be useful and some
don't.  So I think we should give some thought to what questions to ask, and
what reports we'll run on the data when we get them back.

response 22 of 39:

Dec 5 19:29 UTC 2003

No-one responds to spam, jp2.  That way they'll KNOW the e-mail address's
active.

response 24 of 39:

Dec 5 20:12 UTC 2003

There are two issues here, and they demand different approaches.

For an introduction to Grex and its services, a message delivered when
the mailbox is created is great.

If the goal is to collect data with a survey, however, I think the
answers we get would actually be more useful if we *didn't* deliver the
message right away, but rather waited a few weeks.  Someone who has just
connected for the first time won't have had time to form any opinions.