Your opinion: Growth

I think the bottom line is that users need to have a reason to post here. We post here because we're friends, and familiar with each other, and shoot the shit about various topics.

Being real on the subject though..
Outside of that you need to provide a steady service to get users to frequent the site and participate.
IE: you do reviews, but most of the stuff (ie an external hdd dock), a random HSF, etc., aren't going to generate a continuous and hardcore following. Now if you can consistently provide reviews of the latest and most anticipated hardware, ie gpus, the day the news is fresh and the NDA is lifted, that could garner some growth. Otherwise users don't have a reason to come here, simply because it's already in a thousand other places. Take the review of the 5770 for instance. I didn't bother to look at it or read it because I'm already familiar with where it slots, its pricing, its performance, how it measures up against the competition, etc. If it was 'fresh', I would be intrigued and interested. I'd generally check Giz, Anand, Hard, Engadg, TheInq, etc., for Hardware reviews and news.

That being said, it's obviously a tall order and probably unlikely that you can position yourself in this spot for new hardware. But it's just an example of what I mean. In order to get people involved, you need to offer something that others have not, something that is fresh or something that's different. Off the top of my head I thought what about a lanlocator service, where you routinely add posts about upcoming LANs. I now see something already exists, ie wheresthelan, but you could do something similar. I don't know if that would garner 'hardcore' users or not.

I was also thinking a consistently up to date news service could encourage growth, but it would have to always be updated and fresh. Otherwise why would someone come here as opposed to the other tech sites previously mentioned.

The front page could also look a bit cleaner and simplistic (think Engadget?)

Alternatively, free porn works too? (Okay, I had to lighten it up)

I come onto the forums mostly to talk. Personally, as a person that has been around in LanOC events since the start, reviews are not my main attention grabber. I would pay more attention if I had the money, or the rig to use the things. I mostly read them just for curiousity; not saying that reviews are not important to me, but almost contrary to what was mentioned earlier, new = expensive, and most of us don't have money to spend on everything. Reviews on some things that are hitting bargain deals would be amazing, but I know that can be difficult to time. Maybe pulling up to the front or on forums a previous review on something that just went on sale. I'm currently agonizing over my budget build somewhat, so I may be biased.

I know also that I am one of a dying breed on dial-up, so getting online is not a fun experience for me. I can't play most games, check sites all the time, and all that fun stuff. I would probably take part more if I had the time and speed. I personally do not like the idea of contests, since they do cause competition that tends to go negatively. Staff should also not spend their lives away, trying to set up events and sponsored prizes to get people to post; that's just not right.

It does seem that the site is slightly limited in some areas for post counts on a page, and forum topics listed per page. As far as I have noticed, these numbers are not editable to users (maybe I haven't looked recently) but that would be nice, so users can see more per page, utilizing their giant screens (lol ) and reading more in less time. Also, with the right side now almost unlimited, I think it would be nice to display "Favorites" on that side, above new posts and ordered by newest post. That way people can see the topics that they are interested in (when you click the Favorite button) immediately, and still see newest topics below that. It's reasonable for the right side to go longer than the main left side. Whether Favorite topics that have already been read are shown on the right, idk, it would be nice, but they should be a darker color or something to show that they are read.

Sorry for the length, I think that's enough.

Also something to consider since it's come up several times: what do you guys want to talk about? It came to light during our last contest that a few members are very picky on what they consider worthy, to the extent that even posting tech news was unnecessary. Yes, many of those topics die, unfortunately, but they're posted in the hopes to spawn some conversation, not be the first place you heard about it. Hopefully following some ideas such as this will help.

So if the problem is an absence of things to talk about, what will get you guys talking?

growth... hmm...
well in order for this forum to grow and be active beyond those of us that have met in person, lanoc needs to become a resource that people will want to visit regularly and participate in.

Kinds of things that i have seen get other forums to be successful in this regard are:

1. HowTos - covering all kinds of topics ranging from instructions for the computer barely literate to advanced such as modding and configuration.
2. reviews - which this site already does quite well
3. we need to encourage new members to win contests. and within reason help them to do so. (not going to go into this in depth weve already beaten that dead horse) Things as simple as shirts, hats, stickers, mousepads are enough to get new people interested sometimes..
4. we need to network outside of the lans we already have. When in game bring up lanoc.org and plug the page. if youre in wow, bring us up. if youre in a FPS like mw2 maybe bring up that youd read about a cool mouse..
WE are this sites best advertisement.

5. Keep in mind with every comment you make " Will this statement be an asset or detriment to this website?" if what youre going to do is hurt the site. then dont do it! Troll away,, but if this fails, then lanoc fails and that means that wes and his crew cant host anymore lans for us to go to.. no lan.. no swag.. and i likes me some swag. Dont you?

Lets be totally greedy about this ( and i think ive covered this before) the more successful this site is. THe more sponsorship Wes will be able to land. Sponsors = swag. If theres more to pass around there is more to get.. its as simple as that.

end rant.

technobear wrote:

growth... hmm...
well in order for this forum to grow and be active beyond those of us that have met in person, lanoc needs to become a resource that people will want to visit regularly and participate in.

Kinds of things that i have seen get other forums to be successful in this regard are:

1. HowTos - covering all kinds of topics ranging from instructions for the computer barely literate to advanced such as modding and configuration.
2. reviews - which this site already does quite well
3. we need to encourage new members to win contests. and within reason help them to do so. (not going to go into this in depth weve already beaten that dead horse) Things as simple as shirts, hats, stickers, mousepads are enough to get new people interested sometimes..
4. we need to network outside of the lans we already have. When in game bring up lanoc.org and plug the page. if youre in wow, bring us up. if youre in a FPS like mw2 maybe bring up that youd read about a cool mouse..
WE are this sites best advertisement.

5. Keep in mind with every comment you make " Will this statement be an asset or detriment to this website?" if what youre going to do is hurt the site. then dont do it! Troll away,, but if this fails, then lanoc fails and that means that wes and his crew cant host anymore lans for us to go to.. no lan.. no swag.. and i likes me some swag. Dont you?

+kudos

It has been mentioned before and I've been working on some rough "How-to's" to post on cooling and modding, etc. Probably get some more work done on those soon now that I'm out of school.

Front page is great for reviews I think. Just adding a couple links here and there for people to more readily see the lan parties, would be all i would add.

-I like the idea to: bring a new person to the lan idea to get an extra raffel ticket.

-Should add, if you have 300 points from the forums you get an extra raffel ticket, or something.

-If you play any lan oc servers, you get an extra raffel ticket.

It would be a great way to lure people to the other areas of lanoc, utilizing the sponsers and growing the problem areas.

Great job times a hundred so far though, i think that goes without saying.

Daveyo wrote:

-I like the idea to: bring a new person to the lan idea to get an extra raffel ticket.

-Should add, if you have 300 points from the forums you get an extra raffel ticket, or something.

-If you play any lan oc servers, you get an extra raffel ticket.

It would be a great way to lure people to the other areas of lanoc, utilizing the sponsers and growing the problem areas.

+kudos

This is genius, seeing as how one of our LAN's strongest points is it's giveaways. LanOC is giving away the stuff anyway, it has nothing to lose by trying this! (right?)

Daveyo wrote:

Front page is great for reviews I think. Just adding a couple links here and there for people to more readily see the lan parties, would be all i would add.

-I like the idea to: bring a new person to the lan idea to get an extra raffel ticket.

-Should add, if you have 300 points from the forums you get an extra raffel ticket, or something.

-If you play any lan oc servers, you get an extra raffel ticket.

It would be a great way to lure people to the other areas of lanoc, utilizing the sponsers and growing the problem areas.

Great job times a hundred so far though, i think that goes without saying.

This coupled with the selling your points for stuff or whatever is awesome!
+ kudos!