Activity and communities musings

[Guest]

I found activity levels on internet communities have always strangely fascinating (and since this topic stretches beyond this community I decided to post it here rather than the in game forums). Look at the recent developments here. Currently there seems to be what people call a large amount of activity going, but if you look behind what's apparent, I think the numbers are rather fascinating, and indeed, sometimes a bit shocking. The daily activity is currently generated by some 15 people, both here and on the RMB. Is this a lot? Not if you consider it in absolute numbers, not if you relate it to the amount of nations in the south pacific. I reckon that from the 5000-something nations we have, at most 1/3rd are unique players, but at least about 1/10th judging by the number of WA nations). Yet, less than 1% of the nations, and only a few percent of all unique players, do indeed post or interact. Yet if you compare it to 2 months ago, then we had about 3-5 active posters on a daily basis. So the current increase is about 10 people, but that's also an increase of 300% or more. From my experience on this community as well as others, I found that you need 5-10 active people (as in, people who post on a daily or near-daily basis) to be self-sustainable as a community. Below 5 it's very hard to keep activity levels up. It can be done for a while, but requires a lot of effort from those few people involved. 5-10 is borderline, more than 10 means an active board. So apparently, if you put 10 people together (and these are not even 10 random people is a community is usually built by people with a common interest of sorts) there is enough different input and ideas to keep discussions going. With less than 5 people this is apparently difficult. In a way this makes sense: if your ideas and opinions deviate drastically from those of others in the group, there is generally not much sense for you to be part of that group (there are exceptions, of course. And there are trolls.) If there are more people in the group, then the other members can perhaps bridge the gap between the most extreme opposing views in the group so that there can be a wide range of opinions even though the group stays together. (Anyway, that's just an engineering attempt at psychology, so please bear with me if it doesn't make sense ).Now let's go back to that 1% of people who publicly communicate. Now I can imagine that not everyone in NS is eager to join an off-site forum, so let's restrict this to the people who communicate via the in-game facility: the regional message board. In the end, this doesn't make much of a difference as the people who post there usually also post here. There's maybe a few who don't, and there are maybe a few here who don't post as much on the RMB, so roughly the numbers are the same. Apparently there is a big threshold to speak out, even if the infrastructure is there. (Maybe that's a good thing, imagine all 500 WA nations posting on a daily base!). From this I extrapolate that a game or website where you can join fairly anonymous and just click a few links provided to you (and provides some entertainment value), is much more popular than creating a place yourself. Maybe the majority of people come on line for some mindless clicking and relaxing, rather being creative and working their brains?Maybe I should have majored in psychology and statistic rather than engineering...(at least I shouldn't have majored in languages... some bits and sentences are a bit incoherent I'm afraid...)

[californiaaaaaa]

Well, how about this.I spent a good deal of time trying to do stuff in TSP, protect the region, spent hours and hours swapping endorsements, run for delegate, talk a real lot on the rmb in funny interesting politically pertinent ways, spend a long time answering questions in the delegate campaign thread with super thoughtful answers, planned a stuff for the region's future, and the only communication I've gotten from our new delegate, or mostly anyone on this forum, is one telegram to my nation from Ms Daynor telling me not to increase my endorsements.Now, I don't want to sound like anyone involved in the recent coup, because their motives were completely self-serving. But the key to TSP community building is right here. You have in front of you someone who obviously wants to be part of things. Did you ever see that movie "Mean Girls?" The parallel is so clear to me. The only reason I'm bringing this up is because it fits the context of this thread. Otherwise I wouldn't even have bothered after things going like this, for the past week.Key word: Cliquey. It drives newly interested people away. Southern Bellz wasn't like that. Where are you guys headed?

[Antariel]

We've got ongoing discussions at the moment on this very topic My current proposal, which I'm now researching, is opening up a thread that doesn't require any signing in of any kind, that all can post on. Would you consider such a move at least a step in the right direction? (I'm going to get granted said thread if I can drum up enough support)(Also, I've been doing some telegram recruiting of nations for the forum. Hope it works) :ele:EDIT: for the Mean Girls reference ' You go, Glenn Coco!'

[LadyRebels]

Well, how about this.

I spent a good deal of time trying to do stuff in TSP, protect the region, spent hours and hours swapping endorsements, run for delegate, talk a real lot on the rmb in funny interesting politically pertinent ways, spend a long time answering questions in the delegate campaign thread with super thoughtful answers, planned a stuff for the region's future, and the only communication I've gotten from our new delegate, or mostly anyone on this forum, is one telegram to my nation from Ms Daynor telling me not to increase my endorsements.

Now, I don't want to sound like anyone involved in the recent coup, because their motives were completely self-serving.

But the key to TSP community building is right here. You have in front of you someone who obviously wants to be part of things. Did you ever see that movie "Mean Girls?" The parallel is so clear to me. The only reason I'm bringing this up is because it fits the context of this thread. Otherwise I wouldn't even have bothered after things going like this, for the past week.

Key word: Cliquey. It drives newly interested people away. Southern Bellz wasn't like that. Where are you guys headed?

Did you not get my PM about the Elections? I spent one night doing that, going through and PMing people here on the boards.

[Daytime to Night]

I know that for me I try and talk to people via telegram that I don't talk to on the forum or RMB and discuss with them regional happenings, even if they don't have a huge interest in getting involved, they appreciate the updates.It would be impossible to do this for all 4000+ nations so people like yourself Cali, I know you keep an eye on what is happening here and on the RMB so I don't feel the need to telegram you.Feel free to telegram me for a chat though! ^_^

[Belschaft]

I haven't been TGing people, but I'm active on the RMB, forum and IRC.I plan to have a major activity, open to anyone and everyone, set up by the end of the month. But we can't force participation, only facilitate it. What more do you think we should be doing?