Three strikes you're out

[Tristen]

I am a firm believer in the old addage.. An acitive member is an active forum. So, keeping that one rule in mind, I have developed the following system. All new members are provided the opportunity to review the minimum expectations during the registration process. I am well aware that people need time get acclimated to a forum, to find their niche so to speak. That coupled with the fact that many people cannot login to internet every day or even every other day.

Thus begins the "Three Strikes Your Out" process
Eveybody plays... Nobody gets benched.....

Day 1 - Registration - Member is made aware of the minimum participation requirement. The clock starts ticking.

- Strike 1 -
Day 14 - Progress report - Members reaching this point and no posts have been logged are placed in a special mailing group. This email is very positive and supportive, offering assistance and letting the member, again in a positve and supportive fashion, know the it's been 14 days since they chose to become a participating member. It is then explained one more letter will be sent to them on their 21st day of membership if we still show no posting activity or contact has not been by the member with a reasonable explanation.

- Strike 2 -
Day 21 - Final Warning - If a member has not responded either by providing a acceptable post or by contacting one of the staff on the site explaining their situation, a 21 day letter will be emailed to the member. This time even though we maintain the utmost courtesy and respect, the overall attitude of the email is a bit more pointed and expresses a since of urgency. The member is advised this will be the last notice they will recieve from us regarding this matter. If we have not seen any acceptable post or heard from the member with regards to what is causing the members iniblilty to participate at this time, we can only assume our site was not one he/she found to fit within their areas of interests. At this point we advise the member, on Day 27, if no activity has been seen on their part, their membership will be removed from the active list and they are welcome to reapply at a later date.

- Strike 3 -
Day 27 - All members reaching their 27th day of membership are given to me in a spreadsheet format. the history of the account and correspondence are included with that spreadsheet. After giving the report a carefull once over, I begin the removal process. It takes only a few minutes and I no problems doing it. A strike out is a strike out.. next batter

That is our process for attempting to keep our members participation levels at their highest

================================================== =================
Now.. Banning a member for purposes other than lack of participation....

Mod and Staff receive report of .... oh .... say... a member is posting comments about other members and the material they posted, and the comments are vulgar, without purpose and definitely not within the site guidlines.
!st time: A personal letter from me Miss Bitch. Asking them to stop, if another report is filed on them Iwill be left with no choice... Say bye bye. And don't look back.

ok.. well.. now that I've thoroughly confused everybody. Please, share... How can improve my proceeds, what ather possible methods might you suggest......

Thanks everybody,
Tristen (Mouth of the south)
2nd time:

[Jan]

All forums have their own guidelines that suit their particular forum. I don't agree at all with culling non productive members. Some may only join so they can view profiles or send PMs. If you have a problem with this, you can create a promotion that they can only view profiles/send PMs after they have posted x amount of posts.

You also have the scenario that someone may have been following a particular thread and signed up to either watch it or spend his/her 10 cents replying to it at some stage. I know all forums have *x* amount of signups per day and possibly 50% don't activate the account. But they may contact you a month later or a year later and ask what's up. System emails seem to get filed as junk with many email programs, so you might need to address that issue.

Where there's signups, there's hope :angel:

[Tristen]

Sound advice Jan. I chose email as the method of contact, simply as a matter of courtesy. I know as with the forum I am preparing, in order to be accepted you must take that final step of activating your account via an auto-generated email. This I would think would be an early indicator of how the individuals email host will process messages generated from my forum. Perhaps I can include the blurp I've seen stating to always check in the spame or bulk folder. But I have run a number of email tests to various recepients including but not limited to yahoo, hotmail, msn, gmail, rr, comcast, and a few european, canadian, and asian specific mail servers. So far the messages are reaching the recipients inbox. But you are correct, it is something I need to be ever mindful of.

You mention people who follow certain slow progress threads and this may cause a miss reading when looking at activity based on a set time period. Again Jan, excellent advice that I honestly had not considered. I guess my thoughts and efforts lean in the direction of those individuals who sign up and do not enter a single post in 27 days. I would think if a person reads the introductory to the site and once signing up as member is unable to locate an area that interests them enough to at least announce their arrival, then possibly the site may not in the long run be one they would find interesting enough to make that ever popular "second" visit. And that is the group I concentrate on when looking at the 14, 21 and 27 day reports. But I am definitely going to look hard and long at our current proceeds as it relates to the slow thread issue. Thank you for point that out. Tristen

[vito]

Tristen, I tend to agree with Jan. While it is preferred to have actively posting members, every forum will have a certain percentage of "lurkers". They may not add to the overall post count, but they will add to page views, and if sometime down the road you sell advertising, the added page views will definitely help your bottom line. Good luck with the forum. :)

Vito

[Tristen]

Thank you for the advice and the gook luck wish, vito.

Tristen

[SoftWareRevue]

Maybe it would help us better understand your stance if we knew what your forum is about.

Although I agree that a percentage of inactive members can be an asset to a community, without knowing what your community is about, we're only speculating on if that type of member would be an asset to your community.

That being said, there are ways to remind members that they haven't posted in awhile that doesn't involve a direct approach by you or make the member feel they are being pressured.

You can have a welcome blurb in the navbar that, provided the member is logged in, recognizes that they haven't posted and makes suggestions that they do post.

Even, not knowing what your community is about, it appears that you are reconsidering your staunch position on demanding that members post every xx days.

If this is a new community, I'd have to echo the above views. New members are too important to the growth of a community. More members = more new members. Everyone wants to join an active community.

I think a lot of the big forums wouldn't be so big if they demanded that members post every 27 days. ;)

Maybe you'd consider asking for a review so that we could give more specific answers in the Reviews forum. (http://www.forumuniversity.com/campus/forumdisplay.php?f=26)

[vito]

Maybe it would help us better understand your stance if we knew what your forum is about.
Based on her Profile,

"It's a resourse site for erotic authors and artists."

Vito

[SoftWareRevue]

Well then, I might need to reconsider my response. :angel:

If you're giving members a value for their membership, then you have every right to demand they post every xx days to receive such value.

I think that, if at the end of the 27 day cycle you simply disable the account, might be a bit much still though. Maybe you could move them to a user group that doesn't have the privleges that a full member does. Even a custom title to reflect that they just don't post enough.

As Jan mentioned, email communication can be missed for a number of reasons.

Maybe you could have a forum that Guests (and all user groups for that matter) can view and post in that is for Inactive Member Status. Set up the forum so that if someone is viewing it that hasn't posted in over 27 days goes, "Duh! I wondered what was wrong with my account. Now I know!" :)

Have it at the top of the forum so that inactive members have a way to become active again and active members are fully aware of what happens when they are too inactive.

[Scott]

Humm, this is interesting, certainly not came across a forum which does this before. From a member point of view, I can't see many benefits in it. As an example, I'm registered on WHT but not a very active poster although I read quite a lot.

Not all members want to post, so a system like this would likely go against me. I would rather have members who don't post, than those who post 1 line every 27 days.

However, as SWR mentioned, it depends on your forum. Perhaps in your case it works well.

Although I'd be unlikely to re-register if I wasn't fulfilling the posting requirement.