07-18-2008, 04:32 PM
As some of you might know, I have been tracking the size of TSP in the past years:
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://trevon.net/thesp/TSPpopulation.csv'>http://trevon.net/thesp/TSPpopulation.csv</a>. If we take this as a measure for activity levels, we can conclude two things:
- Activity has declined steadily during the past two years (not only here but throughout nationstates)
- There are peaks and dips in the course of the year (of course we already knew that, too)
I think we could make use of these fluctuations by timing our elections and other events.
We see that the peaks in activity levels are in September, December and April, with a minor peak in February. The lows are in January and July/August, with a minor low in November.
High activity levels usually come with new players. To keep these new players, we should offer them something. So I say we should have major events at the beginning of these activity periods. Not only does it give a boost to the participation in events, it also shows how cool we are to all these active new players. Then, one-and-a-half month later (approximately) we should have elections, so that the new players that are settled in get a chance to run for government (or make themselves useful in other ways). With events I mean something like the SPAA or Independence day festival.
This would probably boil down to the following schedule: big event in the second week of september; elections in october. This is our current election schedule anyway.
december/january is tricky. The peak is just before the holiday season (second/third week of december), but it's tugged in between some pretty strong lows. January is actually a pretty bad timing for elections, but maybe we could have some christmas/holiday season related events in december, and hope to raise activity levels in january a bit...
The next event should be done in late february, with elections in April.
One could argue whether the summer elections (as we have now) are even necessary... We could have our independence day festival in the first week of July (which we did nothing with this year
) and hope that we can keep interest levels up till elections later that month...
In short: our current election timing is actually pretty good, if we can do something with the peaks in the activity levels by actually doing stuff around those times. Especially September-October and Februari-April having a lot of potential, while December/January and July will remain tricky.
After discussing this with some people, it was suggested that maybe we can have some belated independence day festival in september, after all it's been 5 years and all that. Which means that we should start organizing NOW.
Any suggestions for activities?
A second thing I thought is that we need some point-and-click activities throughout the year. With "point-and-click" I mean something like the poll of the week: people get entertained but don't have to think hard to create original content. I have made the observation that the more mindless a web activity is, the more popular it is. All I can think of is putting some simple javascript games on the board, but I'm not too sure which and what... Also, if people have ideas for poll-of-the-week questions, by all means, let me know.
Third, I thought maybe we can have a weekly theme on the message board (perhaps every friday?). I mentioned a poetry marathon before, but we could do other message board games such as a post A-B-C (the next post should start with the next letter of the alphabet), maybe a kind of telephone game, ascii-art marathon, whatever.
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://trevon.net/thesp/TSPpopulation.csv'>http://trevon.net/thesp/TSPpopulation.csv</a>. If we take this as a measure for activity levels, we can conclude two things:
- Activity has declined steadily during the past two years (not only here but throughout nationstates)
- There are peaks and dips in the course of the year (of course we already knew that, too)
I think we could make use of these fluctuations by timing our elections and other events.
We see that the peaks in activity levels are in September, December and April, with a minor peak in February. The lows are in January and July/August, with a minor low in November.
High activity levels usually come with new players. To keep these new players, we should offer them something. So I say we should have major events at the beginning of these activity periods. Not only does it give a boost to the participation in events, it also shows how cool we are to all these active new players. Then, one-and-a-half month later (approximately) we should have elections, so that the new players that are settled in get a chance to run for government (or make themselves useful in other ways). With events I mean something like the SPAA or Independence day festival.
This would probably boil down to the following schedule: big event in the second week of september; elections in october. This is our current election schedule anyway.
december/january is tricky. The peak is just before the holiday season (second/third week of december), but it's tugged in between some pretty strong lows. January is actually a pretty bad timing for elections, but maybe we could have some christmas/holiday season related events in december, and hope to raise activity levels in january a bit...
The next event should be done in late february, with elections in April.
One could argue whether the summer elections (as we have now) are even necessary... We could have our independence day festival in the first week of July (which we did nothing with this year
) and hope that we can keep interest levels up till elections later that month...In short: our current election timing is actually pretty good, if we can do something with the peaks in the activity levels by actually doing stuff around those times. Especially September-October and Februari-April having a lot of potential, while December/January and July will remain tricky.
After discussing this with some people, it was suggested that maybe we can have some belated independence day festival in september, after all it's been 5 years and all that. Which means that we should start organizing NOW.
Any suggestions for activities?
A second thing I thought is that we need some point-and-click activities throughout the year. With "point-and-click" I mean something like the poll of the week: people get entertained but don't have to think hard to create original content. I have made the observation that the more mindless a web activity is, the more popular it is. All I can think of is putting some simple javascript games on the board, but I'm not too sure which and what... Also, if people have ideas for poll-of-the-week questions, by all means, let me know.
Third, I thought maybe we can have a weekly theme on the message board (perhaps every friday?). I mentioned a poetry marathon before, but we could do other message board games such as a post A-B-C (the next post should start with the next letter of the alphabet), maybe a kind of telephone game, ascii-art marathon, whatever.
