Improving posts / members ratio

Replies

• 

  durga ch

  😛
  
  I am again sticking to my old point, delete all the users with 0 posts and who have register before march 09.Though this is just one of the methods, more participation as well is needed though.
• 

  Kaustubh Katdare

  Again, that's not the point. The point is to make people post more and get more active users.
• 

  durga ch

  As I told before that not the only point , but the ratio of 10 people posting 100 posts per head is not same as 100 people(10active+90inactive) posting same 100 posts. I am not yet sure how one can be compelled to post forcebly on a forum taking quality into consideration.
  This is more of dead lock, the more active people => more discussions and more pots, but active people will be around only when they have more to take rather than give which is case 90% of times.
• 

  Kaustubh Katdare

  Looks like the best option is to try to get more members and find the active ones among them.
  
  Even the vB official forum has only 7k active members.
• 

  Anil Jain

  durga

  😛
  
  I am again sticking to my old point, delete all the users with 0 posts and who have register before march 09.Though this is just one of the methods, more participation as well is needed though.

  Durga, I can see two main reasons of not deleting users are,
  
  1. They may become active later and can contribute to CE's growth.
  2. Larger the numbers count any froum shows, more number of members it will attract to join.
  
  Another ovious reason is funding. We can attarct more advertisers only when forum has larger members, and hits per day.
  
  Biggi, Correct me If I am wrong??
  
  -CB
• 

  optimystix

  crazyboy

  Durga, I can see two main reasons of not deleting users are,
  
  1. They may become active later and can contribute to CE's growth.
  2. Larger the numbers count any froum shows, more number of members it will attract to join.
  
  Another ovious reason is funding. We can attarct more advertisers only when forum has larger members, and hits per day.
  
  Biggi, Correct me If I am wrong??
  
  -CB

  very true CrazyBoy. I was inactive for months but took a fancy to this site this january. there could be many like me.
  
  
  I think the important/popular sections such project and ideas section could be made members only. so that anyone wanting to check them out will need to register themselves and post at least 5 posts,say. 'Cos I have seen most of the times it is like 150+ guests and some 10-20 odd members online. that could be converted into members easily. Also if people are forced to make a nominal amount of posts before they could see the projects section, they will try to posts here and there and that might get them interested in our forums.
  
  Many forums use this technique and this works many a times. It may turn off a few but will add to some more people getting loyal to CE
  
  
  EDIT: read up later that Project section was closed earlier and was opened later on. Well, so be it. Just gave my opinion.
• 

  tashirosgt

  I think you should be concerned about the quality of posts as well as the quantity. Most people don't have something worth posting every day. Five posts per day? That would lead to a lot of inane drivel.
  
  Rather than delete inactive members all at once, you could have a periodic membership renewal policy. Renew members who post automatically and, starting now, begin deleting those who don't post in the next 12 months. Send out email reminders to announce this policy.
  
  I'm not a student trying to do a project. However, I question whether most of the project ideas material on the site could be of practical use to anyone. Much of it is simply a suggested title or list of such titles. To do a real project, the student would have to look for more detailed expositions. If a person doesn't understand what terminology to type into a search engine, I suppose a title is useful. But how many members find themselves in this situation?
  
  A useful resource at many USA colleges is collections of old tests that have been given in courses. These are sometimes made available by the college departments and sometimes by fraternities and similar organizations. By analogy, something useful to a student doing a project would be a collection of old projects, if the colleges don't prohibit consulting such reference matter. A particularly useful type of project would be a project of the type "I did such-and-such with the ABC-type of hardware or chip". It should be fair game for another student to do the same type of work with a different type of hardware or chip.
• 

  optimystix

  tashirosgt

  I think you should be concerned about the quality of posts as well as the quantity. Most people don't have something worth posting every day. Five posts per day? That would lead to a lot of inane drivel.
  
  Rather than delete inactive members all at once, you could have a periodic membership renewal policy. Renew members who post automatically and, starting now, begin deleting those who don't post in the next 12 months. Send out email reminders to announce this policy.
  
  I'm not a student trying to do a project. However, I question whether most of the project ideas material on the site could be of practical use to anyone. Much of it is simply a suggested title or list of such titles. To do a real project, the student would have to look for more detailed expositions. If a person doesn't understand what terminology to type into a search engine, I suppose a title is useful. But how many members find themselves in this situation?
  
  A useful resource at many USA colleges is collections of old tests that have been given in courses. These are sometimes made available by the college departments and sometimes by fraternities and similar organizations. By analogy, something useful to a student doing a project would be a collection of old projects, if the colleges don't prohibit consulting such reference matter. A particularly useful type of project would be a project of the type "I did such-and-such with the ABC-type of hardware or chip". It should be fair game for another student to do the same type of work with a different type of hardware or chip.

  I did not mean 5 posts a day! what I meant was let them post min 5 posts after their registration before they can view certain important sections of the forum.
  
  anyways I later read that Big K had tried something like this and that didn't turn out well too. So he made it free for all😁
  
  and with regard to the underlined sentence in the quote, I mean no offence but here in India people will rather copy the stuff as it is rather than improvising on a pre existing project. But anyways, that idea of yours was what it was originally meant to be(I think so, Big K or mods may clarify on it) but it has turned out that most people are only here to leech ideas rather than give out in return.
• 

  tashirosgt

  optimistyx,
  
  I'm glad you clarified it wasn't 5 posts a day. I had the wrong idea.
  
  Don't universities have means of detecting plagiarism? There is software used in the USA by professors that tries to detect if material has been copied from a website. Don't professors all over the world do this? Don't they compare a student's project with projects that other students have previously submitted?
  
  In this post you are being pessimistic about human nature instead of optimistic. Certainly, there are some who would simply copy a sample project. Is it true that most would?
  
  I don't have a good picture of the typical forum member who seeks help. I will state my impression as follows: There are many requests for help and they are often written in prose that is almost incoherent. (I don't know whether this is because I am unfamiliar with the expressions they use or whether the posters are not good writers of English.) The help the get is often simply a phrase or title. Many express thanks for such help. I don't know whether they are simply being polite or whether hearing a phrase or title actually helps them. (If I were doing a student project, a title wouldn't be of much help to me.)
  
  Please tell me if my impression of the situation is correct.
• 

  Kaustubh Katdare

  The intentions were right, but we made lot of amazing discoveries over the time. Lot of traffic (about 60-70 % ) comes from India, where engineering is a 'compulsion' than 'option'. What I mean is, Indian students (majority of them) do not opt for engineer as a career out of deep interest & liking for engineering but because its a way of securing a job.
  
  That's why most of the students tend to ask for ready made projects than working on them on their own.
  
  That's the reason we created 'Project Ideas & Seminar Topics' section where we redirect all the traffic that comes for ready made ideas and help.
  
  Both quality and quantity is important; because we have ambitious plans of turning CE into an engineering company. Quantity brings us revenues and quality brings us satisfaction ( 😀 ) .
  
  Closing sections to visitors isn't the right way to go; because that means we force members to join CE.