Plans for 'Poly in 2008

[DanQ]

There is no increasing reliance on the OT on the staff/administration's part. Any new users number as always is misleading as that would take into account spambots, for instance. You already asked about goals for this year, and I gave you my answer.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by DanQ
There is no increasing reliance on the OT on the staff/administration's part.

That's really not the point - the increasing reliance on the OT for activity is a simple fact. The more relevant question is will this reliance continue or are there plans to try to draw more people to the on topic forums? You don't seem to want to answer though.

Originally posted by DanQ
Any new users number as always is misleading as that would take into account spambots, for instance.

That was an example - it's your site, so you can choose the metric. All I am trying to get is a sense that you are monitoring the trends in the userbase properly and have some thoughts as to how you'd like them to continue/change, to act as goals. I'll be honest, it's quite frustrating that as owner you don't seem to want to have this discussion in any meaningful way.

Reading between the lines (and more than happy for you to jump in here and slap me down ) it seems to me that you'd be happy for the site to meander along the path it is now, with a small community of people, a low proportion of which play the games that gave rise to this site. And that's exactly what will happen of course, unless you and the other co-owners/admins set some sensible milestones for development and engage in a serious discussion about how to achieve them.

Maybe you've already started, but even if you have you might want to garner views from the community - perhaps in this thread. You can't get buy-in to anything (or indeed volunteers) if you wont properly engage in discussions such as this one.

[Methos]

Using apolyton plus accounts as rewards for winning the tri-league tourneys is IMO a great way to help increase participation. It also allows those who don't wish to pay the chance to see what they're missing and may help change their mind.

OT is never a good place to see overall growth, as simply OT participants typically stay out of the main forums and are occasionally individuals you don't always want in the main forums due to their behavior.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by DrSpike
That was an example - it's your site, so you can choose the metric.

As a management consultant, I can't tell you how often clients use teh "every metric you propose is flawed in some way" excuse to get out of performance measurement responsibilities.

[DanQ]

DS, we have engaged in a number of community discussions in recent months over plans for this site. We are continuing to work in response to them (and even before that) behind the scenes -- you have read in between the lines incorrectly.

I have said it a number of times before, and I'll say it again: what we are in need of are willing, able and trustworthy volunteers to expedite the process of putting our plans into motion which are to ultimately increase traffic here. That's what would be of help now.

In amendment to my original post here however, I will say that we are going to do a better job of communicating specifics of our plans so that it would be easier for someone such as yourself to think "yes, I could help with X" as opposed to "I could volunteer but I need to know what X is first".

[DrSpike]

That's certainly a good start.

But I still think you should be able to articulate what you want, and how you will measure success. Perhaps you and the other owners could give this some more thought.

[DanQ]

Originally posted by DrSpike
But I still think you should be able to articulate what you want, and how you will measure success. Perhaps you and the other owners could give this some more thought.

The changes in communication I mention will work to incorporate those points such as we deem reasonable to discuss publicly.

[Solver]

Probably a good idea to continue the discussion in the following thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=173386