Feedback How We Could Boost Activity Here At CF.org - Discussion Thread

[Mathematical]

Hey there.

I'm starting this thread as in my opinion, there isn't really any discussion surrounding this issue. That issue being as to how we can boost the activity and gather more sign-ups here at CF.

But seriously, let's take a look at it for one moment. Back when I first joined CF in 2019 under my first few accounts, activity was booming, aside from a couple drops in-between, things were going smoothly. But as 2019 was coming to a close, things soon started to drop dead. Less posts were being made and more spam-bots started joining. If I'm correct, there was a small period during the holidays that CF was more active, but my poor memory of small things such as this, fail to help me remember correctly. Then continuing over the past few months of 2020 and even now, activity isn't as great as it was in 2019.

So, now we need to start looking into how we can keep activity on the site thriving, especially if we want CF to last for years to come. The site has potential to be a booming forum, but without taking the proper measures to boost activity, we won't be able to achieve a sort of boom period in the site's lifetime.

Of course, there are multiple reasons as to why people who have currently signed-up, aren't as active. That being due to their personal-lives. People have jobs to work in, families to attend to, health-issues to recover from, all of this. Although, it can also just be attributed to the case of forgetting about the site's existence.

I have a couple of ways that we could boost activity and possibly gather interest for newcomers to sign-up. Here's what I've got:

1. Affiliate-Buttons - This will be a small button with the CF logo on it and people can copy a simple HTML snippet that will display this button. The button can be used by sites that are currently partnering with CF at the moment or it can be used on the websites of CF projects. The good thing about buttons, is that they aren't right up in the user's face and so the user will need to take a glimpse at it and click it, just to see if the site may interest them. Affiliate-Buttons will cost nothing to make and are a cheap and easy way to gather site interest.
2. Advertising - Advertising is a method that we can't be sure of. Primarily because of how expensive it is for different types of ads(Banners, squares, etc.) and due to the rise of ad-blockers, NoScript, and uBlock Origin, these ads will be blocked from the user, which will interfere with the growth of the site. Although, it is generally worth a shot, you're essentially betting heads or tails on this one, and are hoping for the coin to land on whichever one you picked - The one you picked being the positive outcome. As stated, it is expensive and may not even be worth it.
3. CF projects - By launching new projects, we won't just gather the interest of CF users, but also outsiders and people unaware of CF's existence. Of course, the projects we launch must have a purpose, use, and goal in mind, for it to gather interest. Official projects could also be launched with their own sub-board somewhere here on CF, which can encourage people who haven't signed-up for CF but yet contribute to the projects, to actually sign-up and get involved in not only the project and it's discussions, but perhaps the site itself. Beware though, that killing off a project, may take away people who only signed-up for CF, just for that project.
4. Word of mouth - Despite being a method already encouraged alongside being another free and easy way to gather new users, we may have to advocate more for this method if none of the other methods above are currently being pursued or are doing well enough. Note that we also won't know how well this method works, unless people actually state that they found out about CF by word of mouth from another user of the site.
5. Expanding the site - What I mean by this, is that we add more boards based on the current interests in programming-languages, frameworks/libraries/APIs, careers(Web-Development, game-development, etc.), and also different pieces of software(E.g. Discussions surrounding free-software). If we can expand how many boards the site has based on what the current trends are, we could perhaps boost our ranking in search-engines, which can lead to more visits, which will then maybe gather the interest of users who will then perhaps sign-up for an account. Expanding boards will also keep current users involved, thus' keeping site-activity on a steady stream of posts being written, rather than having fluctuating post-counts.
6. Having users release more tutorials - Many people online are digging for tutorials on how to use classes in Java, how to write an iOS app, how to connect databases together, stuff like that. If we can get the CF community to band together to start writing more tutorials, this will increase search-engine rankings for the site because as I stated, people are constantly looking for tutorials online on how to do things. Note that we can't just restrain this to programming-languages. We'll also need tutorials on other things like frameworks(E.g. Python Flask - A popular Python web-framework), text-editors or IDEs(E.g. GNU EMACS or IntelliJ), and even for things like operating-systems too. Another thing to note, is that tutorials will also have varying levels of quality, some good and some bad. To tell users that a tutorial is "high-quality" - So, well written, explains things well, etc. - Perhaps giving certain users who provide well-written tutorials, a special role/badge, to let regular users know that this person is an established writer who writes good tutorials for CF, and can stop people from claiming to be "established writers" for CF.
7. Placing more emphasis on the Project Marketplace and the Community Showcase - What I mean by "emphasis", is by encouraging people to post there on those boards more. The Project Marketplace allows people to not only ask others to help them, but also helps people who are looking for work. So, if somebody is looking for help with a project of theirs, then encourage them to post there. Looking for work to do? Post their on the Project Marketplace. As for the Community Showcase, developing things does take time. But, encouraging users to showcase their work once they've got the basics or a functioning prototype down, can actually perhaps benefit the person developing that project. I say this as when things are being shown-off early, the person developing can get beneficial feedback as the project is in it's early stages. But if the person shows of their work at a later time(If it's let's say, near completion), then giving beneficial feedback when a project is close to completion for example, may cause the person developing it to rush out those improvements, as they want to deliver a good product quickly to the market - As we know, rushing things, especially software, isn't good. Encouraging existing users to look for work and showcase their current projects, can also boost activity with what we've got right now.

These are all of my suggestions as to how we can improve both user-activity and encourage more people to sign-up for an account on CF. I'd like you to chime in with your thoughts, opinions, and suggestions, for as to how we can improve this on-going issue that has persisted for the past few months now, with little being done about it. Feel free to also discuss and maybe further expand the suggestions I've made above.

 

[TopSilver]

This site just needs more time in my opinion. Activity will grow when Google has enough time to build more link-flow and put it with more search keywords and phrases in Google. One way I think to boost activity is make a nice default light theme and have the dark theme selectable but not default. Personally I myself prefer light themes and I know sometimes when someone comes here from Google immediately with everything so dark they might click off the page before they have a chance to see what the sites about. The dark theme is beautiful don't get me wrong but I think a good light theme would be worth investing in as well. @Master Yoda seems to be doing great with the CF discord server. Maybe possibly partnering servers with other users would be another good way to attract more attention.

This site is going to have no trouble being placed for high keywords I can promise that. Just need to keep getting content up and waiting for it to continue to grow. Growth is all it needs

 

[Mathematical]

One way I think to boost activity is make a nice default light theme and have the dark theme selectable but not default. Personally I myself prefer light themes and I know sometimes when someone comes here from Google immediately with everything so dark they might click off the page before they have a chance to see what the sites about.

As a light-theme user myself, I couldn't agree more. There was a light-theme being available for testing a while ago, but it's no longer available. I'm not sure what happened to it. Perhaps it was taken away to have further improvements. We may never know unless @Master Yoda chimes in with his answer to the light-theme situation.

Although, dark-themes are the craze for some reason nowadays, and I can see why one may click off once they visit the site due to the dark-theme. Google is completely white and transferring from light to dark takes a bit to getting used to(Although, enabling dark-theme on either Chrome or your operating-system apparently changes Google Search to dark). And of course, there are people who like me and you, prefer light-theme for different reasons(I prefer it as when I try to use dark, I find that it doesn't go well against my eyes, and text is harder to read. Even with glasses, dark-themes still don't go well against my eyes).

This site just needs more time in my opinion. Activity will grow when Google has enough time to build more link-flow and put it with more search keywords and phrases in Google.

I would just like to note that Google isn't the only search-engine out there. Yes, there are other search-engines like Bing, Qwant, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo!, and a bunch of others. Even if they don't get used at all or only get used by a small percentage of people, we should still also be focusing on them. You never know when a search-engine might start to become just as popular as Google Search and thus' pouring in the effort for a different search-engine is worth it, in the case that that happens.

@Master Yoda seems to be doing great with the CF discord server. Maybe possibly partnering servers with other users would be another good way to attract more attention.

While Discord's core purpose was originally for gaming, there is no doubt that using it for other things such as CF could work. Although, only time and activity will tell. CF does appear to be partnered with a few other servers, but that's only for two programming-languages. We'll need to partner with more servers if we're going to increase the amount of sign-ups and activity on the site.

Just need to keep getting content up and waiting for it to continue to grow. Growth is all it needs.

Well, unless the current userbase starts logging back on again to post more often, people like @Master Yoda, yourself, and I, will probably be stuck here trying to fill out and fix those issues. A couple of new users have posted and that's generally great. But then comes the issue of whether they're going to come back to post again, issue solved or not.

I've written quite a few tutorials so far(Some under previous accounts but have now been transferred over to my current one now) for CF. One for the GNU/Linux terminal(It only covered the APT package-manager, as I only use Debian-based operating-systems, and don't have any experience with any other manager) and alongside that, I've given detailed explanations of C, Java, and Lua - Covering their history, usage, and how to learn them.

If we write more tutorials, then as I stated in the original post, more people who are looking for tutorials can come to here. But as I also stated, quality of the tutorials posted will vary depending on the person who's posting that tutorial. If somebody's English skills aren't very good, then that can cause issues as people won't understand what the writer of that tutorial is saying. But if you have a native English speaker(So somebody born in a Commonwealth country like Britain, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. But they may also be born in the United States or perhaps even be born under an English-speaking family but in a non-English country), then that person who will know everything about English and can speak it clearly because English is their native tongue, then the large majority of people coming to CF will have very little trouble understanding the writer who wrote the tutorial. Of course, it isn't just the English skills in the tutorial, but also how it's being explained and the details being give, that can also determine the quality of it.

Now tutorials aren't the only thing that need to start showing-up more often here. Discussions of frameworks and libraries, possible careers for graduates, and debates on what the best IDE/text-editor is, is what's needed more here on CF too. Of course, there's more things to discuss than the ones that I mentioned above - Like learning how to set-up a piece of software(E.g. An XMPP client).

But as stated, we need the current userbase(So people who've already signed-up and have made many or little contributions to the site), to start coming back more often. If we just keep on having new accounts that post a few things and then leave, that's not going to cut-out well for CF's future. The userbase in my opinion, is like a rapid-release GNU/Linux distribution. A new user comes(Update), posts(Bug-Fixes or additions), and then leaves(Also break a ton of stuff, thus' possibly breaking a system, which will need to be repaired). That's sort of what it's like.

 

[Malcolm]

Hello @Mathematical, thank you for posting this.

Because of Code Forum's young age, I believe this thread is very important for our future. And, I am truly thankful that you took the time to post it. You made a lot of good points and I apologize it took me a little bit of time to address them. CF has its moments where it has really high activity to really low, its a constant rollercoaster adventure. Therefore, it is expected to experience a lack of activity, however, I have noticed an increase in the duration of low-activity and it has me concerned which is why I have been working with a team of individuals to help CF face this particular challenge and many others.

But of course, I would like to extend a call for help to the community to help boost its activity as well. I encourage all to participate, generate conversations, don't be afraid to ask questions. It shouldn't have to be just staff members to post tutorials, guides and tips. We are a community of coders, let's help all of us aim and blast off to the stars. If you see that there hasn't been activity for a couple of hours, help be a community player and start a conversation. Perhaps answer questions that haven't been answered, and or even provide more solutions to threads that have already been solved.

Affiliate-Buttons - This will be a small button with the CF logo on it and people can copy a simple HTML snippet that will display this button. The button can be used by sites that are currently partnering with CF at the moment or it can be used on the websites of CF projects. The good thing about buttons, is that they aren't right up in the user's face and so the user will need to take a glimpse at it and click it, just to see if the site may interest them. Affiliate-Buttons will cost nothing to make and are a cheap and easy way to gather site interest.

I will come up with a solution for this soon. I love the idea, honestly not sure why this idea was acted upon. Will invest time into this.

Advertising - Advertising is a method that we can't be sure of. Primarily because of how expensive it is for different types of ads(Banners, squares, etc.) and due to the rise of ad-blockers, NoScript, and uBlock Origin, these ads will be blocked from the user, which will interfere with the growth of the site. Although, it is generally worth a shot, you're essentially betting heads or tails on this one, and are hoping for the coin to land on whichever one you picked - The one you picked being the positive outcome. As stated, it is expensive and may not even be worth it.

We currently run ads on YouTube and Google Adsense, however it is currently paused at the moment. I should mention that CF's number one method of advertising is actually from Word of Mouth.

CF projects - By launching new projects, we won't just gather the interest of CF users, but also outsiders and people unaware of CF's existence. Of course, the projects we launch must have a purpose, use, and goal in mind, for it to gather interest. Official projects could also be launched with their own sub-board somewhere here on CF, which can encourage people who haven't signed-up for CF but yet contribute to the projects, to actually sign-up and get involved in not only the project and it's discussions, but perhaps the site itself. Beware though, that killing off a project, may take away people who only signed-up for CF, just for that project.

Glad that you have mentioned this - because surprise! We got a project in the works and I'm excited to an announcement of this shortly! So currently still pondering of ideas of how to display these projects, I have an addon I may try but also may just designate a board to Official Projects as well.

Word of mouth - Despite being a method already encouraged alongside being another free and easy way to gather new users, we may have to advocate more for this method if none of the other methods above are currently being pursued or are doing well enough. Note that we also won't know how well this method works, unless people actually state that they found out about CF by word of mouth from another user of the site.

Perhaps we can come up with an incentive to encourage community members to practice this method of advertising for the community. This method is honestly, Code Forums best source of user growth, its how CF reached 100-200 members.

Expanding the site - What I mean by this, is that we add more boards based on the current interests in programming-languages, frameworks/libraries/APIs, careers(Web-Development, game-development, etc.), and also different pieces of software(E.g. Discussions surrounding free-software). If we can expand how many boards the site has based on what the current trends are, we could perhaps boost our ranking in search-engines, which can lead to more visits, which will then maybe gather the interest of users who will then perhaps sign-up for an account. Expanding boards will also keep current users involved, thus' keeping site-activity on a steady stream of posts being written, rather than having fluctuating post-counts.

This is being considered. Thank you for the suggestion. I still want to focus primarily on 'coding' but I may be interested in freeing up boards for those particular topics.

Having users release more tutorials - Many people online are digging for tutorials on how to use classes in Java, how to write an iOS app, how to connect databases together, stuff like that. If we can get the CF community to band together to start writing more tutorials, this will increase search-engine rankings for the site because as I stated, people are constantly looking for tutorials online on how to do things. Note that we can't just restrain this to programming-languages. We'll also need tutorials on other things like frameworks(E.g. Python Flask - A popular Python web-framework), text-editors or IDEs(E.g. GNU EMACS or IntelliJ), and even for things like operating-systems too. Another thing to note, is that tutorials will also have varying levels of quality, some good and some bad. To tell users that a tutorial is "high-quality" - So, well written, explains things well, etc. - Perhaps giving certain users who provide well-written tutorials, a special role/badge, to let regular users know that this person is an established writer who writes good tutorials for CF, and can stop people from claiming to be "established writers" for CF.

Agreed. Perhaps well-written tutorials will get stickied or have the author receive a badge of some sort.

Placing more emphasis on the Project Marketplace and the Community Showcase - What I mean by "emphasis", is by encouraging people to post there on those boards more. The Project Marketplace allows people to not only ask others to help them, but also helps people who are looking for work. So, if somebody is looking for help with a project of theirs, then encourage them to post there. Looking for work to do? Post their on the Project Marketplace. As for the Community Showcase, developing things does take time. But, encouraging users to showcase their work once they've got the basics or a functioning prototype down, can actually perhaps benefit the person developing that project. I say this as when things are being shown-off early, the person developing can get beneficial feedback as the project is in it's early stages. But if the person shows of their work at a later time(If it's let's say, near completion), then giving beneficial feedback when a project is close to completion for example, may cause the person developing it to rush out those improvements, as they want to deliver a good product quickly to the market - As we know, rushing things, especially software, isn't good. Encouraging existing users to look for work and showcase their current projects, can also boost activity with what we've got right now.

Agreed. I will talk to my team to see if we can get this sorted. Thank you for this pointer.

 

[Malcolm]

As a light-theme user myself, I couldn't agree more. There was a light-theme being available for testing a while ago, but it's no longer available. I'm not sure what happened to it. Perhaps it was taken away to have further improvements. We may never know unless @Master Yoda chimes in with his answer to the light-theme situation.

Although, dark-themes are the craze for some reason nowadays, and I can see why one may click off once they visit the site due to the dark-theme. Google is completely white and transferring from light to dark takes a bit to getting used to(Although, enabling dark-theme on either Chrome or your operating-system apparently changes Google Search to dark). And of course, there are people who like me and you, prefer light-theme for different reasons(I prefer it as when I try to use dark, I find that it doesn't go well against my eyes, and text is harder to read. Even with glasses, dark-themes still don't go well against my eyes).

The light theme has been temporarily put on the back-burner due to my time constraints. But I wouldn't mind if someone would post a thread in Community Hub about suggestions for the light theme.

I would just like to note that Google isn't the only search-engine out there. Yes, there are other search-engines like Bing, Qwant, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo!, and a bunch of others. Even if they don't get used at all or only get used by a small percentage of people, we should still also be focusing on them. You never know when a search-engine might start to become just as popular as Google Search and thus' pouring in the effort for a different search-engine is worth it, in the case that that happens.

Noted.

While Discord's core purpose was originally for gaming, there is no doubt that using it for other things such as CF could work. Although, only time and activity will tell. CF does appear to be partnered with a few other servers, but that's only for two programming-languages. We'll need to partner with more servers if we're going to increase the amount of sign-ups and activity on the site.

Code Forums Discord is used more for notifying rather than actually being a source to find coding help. However, a partnership plan and events are in the works.

 

[Mathematical]

Hello @Mathematical, thank you for posting this.

Because of Code Forum's young age, I believe this thread is very important for our future. And, I am truly thankful that you took the time to post it. You made a lot of good points and I apologize it took me a little bit of time to address them. CF has its moments where it has really high activity to really low, its a constant rollercoaster adventure. Therefore, it is expected to experience a lack of activity, however, I have noticed an increase in the duration of low-activity and it has me concerned which is why I have been working with a team of individuals to help CF face this particular challenge and many others.

Hey, @Master Yoda.

First of all, thank you for chiming in on the thread. It's great that we're now getting input from you, the owner of the site. I'm glad that you've taken appreciation of my points and suggestions, and I'm also glad that you've taken note of some of them or are at least working towards already improving the things I've mentioned.

While the site still is considered a small forum, by working fast and agile, but also carefully planning how things will be carried out, should hopefully help boost growth exponentially. Although, I'd like to make one more point and that is competition.

The use of forums has steadily been declining since the 2000s and even further in the 2010s with the launch and rise of Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, and help sites like StackOverflow/StackExchange. Forums only fill a small portion of Internet users now, appealing to people reliving the old days of the web, posting only to get support, and people trying to keep what was once a thriving forum on life-support, because it's users went on to bigger(Social-Networks and help-sites like StackOverflow/StackExchange and Quora) and better(Worse) things.

As a result of the growth of these networks, it's in my belief that things like Reddit Sub-Reddits, Facebook Groups, and StackOverflow questions, are the road-blocks stopping from CF achieving success. If CF was launched at some point in the 2000s or maybe even the early 2010s, we would have gained a stronger foothold by now. But due to the launch of the site nearer the end of the decade, it appears that we've come to late to the forum-game now and it's now a game of life, to try and keep the site on it's feet for as long as possible until we give up, and either shut-down or change owner(s).

We'll need to work fast, but plan carefully. Work slow and the site will lose it's current userbase very quickly. Don't plan carefully, users will hate the site for poor-planning, and leave. Do neither and you might as well bury the site at that point. But if you do both, then that's when you can actually start bringing in both the interests of current users and new users who haven't signed-up yet.

And as another suggestion, perhaps instead of bringing in new staff every so often, maybe try creating "volunteer-periods". In other words, maybe do one-month, three-month, six-month, maybe even a year-long periods, where CF cherry-picks a few users that they see fit for certain roles. So, if one user seems to be good with trying to settle debates, maybe give them a volunteer-position as a moderator for a certain period of time, and once that time is up, revoke them of their privileges, and analyse their work at the end. If they did good, perhaps offer them a permanent position for CF. If they did bad and perhaps abused their powers, warn them or ban them for a period of time. Another example is a user who's good at advertising their new piece of software. Since this user is so good at advertising their software, you decide to offer them a volunteer-position as an advertiser for CF. If they don't spam users on other sites and users start to flow in with sign-ups, without negative-press coming from those new users, then maybe consider giving them a permanent role as an advertiser. If they constantly spammed users on other sites and they start coming to CF, with negative-press this time, consider warning them or banning them for a period of time.

Although, that again is just a suggestion. It could come in handy in the case that CF is suffering a shortage of staff, but is struggling with finding a good, permanent staff-member.

 

[Mathematical]

I've now noticed that the boards for TypeScript, Angular, and React have been added. But there is one issue.

I stated in an earlier post made before the announcement of these boards being added that we're better off adding boards based on the popularity of a language, framework, or API. I suggested that we use the TIOBE Index for adding boards for programming-languages and then something like GitHub for adding boards for frameworks and APIs.

TypeScript itself, despite having a small market open for jobs, and having many repositories open on GitHub, GitLab, and SourceForge, the language only ranks forty-two on the TIOBE Index. Which proves that alongside the small market and it's poor ranking, it isn't generally a popular language to add. Plus, by just doing a quick-search here on the forum(For posts), I've only seen about one or two confirmations of people knowing TypeScript. Maybe there have been new accounts created who's creator also knows TypeScript. But we won't know until they start discussing TypeScript. But again, it doesn't look like a popular language, so it isn't really worth it to have here on the forum.

I know that React is a popular framework alongside Electron too, so adding that was completely fine. Angular, I can't exactly say for certain.

We can't go around adding boards for random things. We don't know how exactly popular the tool or language is and we may not know what it will be like in the future. So, we're better off waiting and giving it time to grow. Plus the thread in which a poll was made for the additions of these boards, had very little input in my opinion, which isn't the way to grow. I know you may want to add these in, even if input is small, but perhaps reminding active users about the thread would've done better for input. As a side-note, all of these new boards are for all things JavaScript. Not everybody knows JavaScript and while yes, it may be a popular language around the world and here on the forum, perhaps polling for a mixed-bag would've been best(So one for JS, one for Python, and maybe one for Java).

 

[Mathematical]

Okay, so I figured I'd bring this thread back into the spotlight as activity seems to be on a steep decline again.

I know that with the whole Covid-19 situation happening that there isn't enough time for people to either post or for staff to work on the site. Understandable. But for the staff, at least trying to set aside an hour or two each night to attend to CF would probably be a good idea, until restrictions are relaxed(In which hopefully, there won't be a demand for certain workers as much anymore).

An idea that has just struck me while writing this is that we try providing an incentive for users to post and chat here. Rather than having the trophy-points system that's built into XenForo(The software that CF runs on), perhaps we could try installing a mod that gives us a different kind of points system. Every time you write a thread, you get about five or ten points; a reply is one or two points; and a like is just a point. Then with these points, users could gain access to more parts of the site that the general userbase wouldn't have access to(A secret sort of lounge, is what I'm talking about. Think of Reddit Premium and giving the user access to the r/lounge Sub-Reddit - Which is a special lounge only for Premium users). I know it would seem unfair to lock out certain parts of the site to the general userbase but as long as it's only for special places(Like the lounge example), then it shouldn't cause too much uproar. Again, we'd need some sort of points system if we want a way to encourage the user to log-in and post more. If you can't find a mod for such a thing on XenForo's website, hiring a couple of programmers will need to be done then, or even getting CF's community involved and setting-up a repository for the mod on GitHub should do the trick.

Also, something needs to be done with inactive accounts. You cannot just have an account lying dormant, as it then adds onto the sort of ghost-town vibe the site is starting too and will soon completely give off. I can understand that you wouldn't want to do such a thing, as when the user of the deleted account comes back, they may be upset to find that their account no longer exists. But in my opinion, something needs to be done about it. If we want to avoid deleting accounts, then sending out emails about once or twice, encouraging the user of the inactive account to come back, should do. Either that or we just delete the accounts after a certain period of time. But please, do something about this issue. I know CF has worked hard to get to where it is now, but the last thing you want is to be celebrating the reaching of 1000 users, only for about 5-10 of those users being active on a regular basis, and having new accounts popping-up either posting nothing or posting and then leaving, never to be seen again.

Also, regarding the CF projects, I keep on seeing mentions of a project, yet it's not even available on the GitHub. The only project under CF's name on GitHub is a repository for the help page(Why that is there, I don't even know).

Attention needs to be brought back to the inactivity issue fast before the site ends up shutting-down due to inactivity, lack of interest, and just regular users like myself also leaving because nobody else is posting. Then at the end of the day, why should we post if nobody else is posting? You cannot rely on the users you've got now to stick around forever because it's going to get annoying, constantly bringing-up this subject. We'll all just get old and tired of hearing about it, that we just get up and leave. At that point, you either rely on the regulars who've left to come back or you rely on new users coming, posting or not, and then leaving.

 

[Malcolm]

I’ll respond in full shortly. However, posting posts like these doesn’t help our inactivity problem.

If you truly want to see activity then please help us go through posts and help find solutions to them. Come up with tutorials, guides you etc respond to old posts.

 

[Mathematical]

I’ll respond in full shortly. However, posting posts like these doesn’t help our inactivity problem.

Yeah, we're all aware of that. I just wanted to bring attention back to this issue, before the issue gets any worse.

 

[Mathematical]

I think now is a suitable time for an update.

Over the past couple of weeks, it definitely does seem like activity has picked-up a bit. It's mainly still just the regulars coming, but some new users have joined and have posted quite a bit. So, we need to see where this is going.

Of course, our only methods of growth right now are word of mouth, advertising on communities designed for advertising other sites, and bringing-up more topics to discuss, and having users write more tutorials. Xenforo also claims to be improving SEO results in the upcoming V2.2 update, so we'll see what that does to our current rankings. I have used DuckDuckGo and even after digging through like four pages after searching-up "programming forum", CF doesn't show-up. But, "coding forum", brings-up CF as the first result on DDG, so that's something. Using "coding forum" again, CF places ninth on Metager(https://www.metager.org). A quick-search for "programming forum" on Metager though, brings up the same as DDG when that term was used: nothing for CF. It'd be nice if anyone who uses a different search-engine, whether it be Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Yandex, or Qwant, to use the same two terms that I have used, and see whereabouts CF is on the rankings of those engines. This could help give insight as to see what keywords we should be utilizing and what engines we need to target too.

As stated many, many times before, it's simply just a matter of having to rely on new threads popping-up to boost the rankings for CF. Taking keywords and trying to abuse them to get the top, does not cut it. So, if you have knowledge to share, write a tutorial. If you've got a good idea for a discussion that might take-off, create a thread for it. I'm gonna be heading back to writing tutorials and advice-pieces again soon. I've already created a few good discussion-threads, so feel free to chime into them, as I'm sure they'll help with boosting CF's rankings.

Also, please do not post simply for the sake of posting. Put some time and effort into your posts. Format them, provide details, you get the idea. Higher-Quality posts not only produce better results, but will make CF a seemingly good place for high-quality content, which is what people look for nowadays. Don't forget to be welcoming and helpful too, as that will do a lot in the long-run. We want to make sure that CF is the kind of site that respects everyone and is helpful to everyone - But don't make it like some sort of utopia, as that may give off some weird vibes to people. Just do be yourself, but remain respectful until the time comes to lose that mask. Arguments can happen, but that shouldn't stop you from doing your part in trying to help the site. Once you're done arguing and everything has been dealt with, move along.

And if anyone does have any other ideas as to how we can improve the rankings for CF and encourage new users to sign-up and post, I'm sure @Master Yoda would love to hear your thoughts.

 

[Tealk]

It'd be nice if anyone who uses a different search-engine, whether it be Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Yandex, or Qwant, to use the same two terms that I have used, and see whereabouts CF is on the rankings of those engines. This could help give insight as to see what keywords we should be utilizing and what engines we need to target too.

https://www.qwant.com

• programming forum
  • not on the first 5 pages
• coding forum
  • place 6

https://startpage.com

• programming forum
  • not on the first 5 pages
• coding forum
  • place 3

That's the way things are with users. If somebody has a question, he writes a post and after the answer he comes only back when he has a question again. Of course this is not true for all of them but certainly for over 90%.

 

[Mathematical]

https://www.qwant.com

• programming forum
  • not on the first 5 pages
• coding forum
  • place 6

https://startpage.com

• programming forum
  • not on the first 5 pages
• coding forum
  • place 3

That's the way things are with users. If somebody has a question, he writes a post and after the answer he comes only back when he has a question again. Of course this is not true for all of them but certainly for over 90%.

Thanks for replying with your results, @Tealk.

I do actually find it quite funny how we're not listed when "programming forum" is searched-up, but we are when "coding forum" is searched-up. Although, that's probably because of the name of the site that's causing the results we're getting right now. If we do modify the keywords associated with the site, we could perhaps boost the rankings of the site when somebody searches-up "programming forum" instead of "coding forum".

Regarding the users, you have a valid point. Most don't come back until they get responses to their question. Then they come back all of a sudden a few weeks, maybe even months down the line, only to post another question again. It seems to be a never-ending process for newer users. Hell, some only say hello and then they never come to answer a question or ask a question of their own. It does show that something needs to be done about engagement, but with recent updates, I'm sure that's bound to change.

 

[Tealk]

but with recent updates, I'm sure that's bound to change.

Why would you think that?

 

[Mathematical]

Why would you think that?

Good question.

Well, when I refer to recent changes, @Master Yoda has added a checklist for new users to work through when they sign-up. It simply just encourages the user to post their first thread, verify their email, and customize their profile. Nothing special. But it does add a little bit onto engagement and should also lead to less bland-looking accounts with nothing on them. XenForo V2.2 also does a little bit more with profile-customization. So, if somebody likes customizing their profile, it encourages them to toy around with avatars and profile-banners(An up-coming addition in V2.2), which adds onto the amount of time spent on the site. Yeah, it's small, unnecessary, and won't do anything important(Such as engaging with posts), but it's something at least.

 

[Tealk]

Yes well it buys time but I find the changes of XF2.2 irrelevant for almost all forums

 

[Mathematical]

Yes well it buys time but I find the changes of XF2.2 irrelevant for almost all forums

How so?

 

[Tealk]

Well, banners for profile pages might be interesting for sites like Facebook, but the focus of a forum is quite different. The profile views are very limited.

The search forums are interesting, but have only a very few and special forums in it needs.

 

[Mathematical]

Well, banners for profile pages might be interesting for sites like Facebook, but the focus of a forum is quite different. The profile views are very limited.

You are right in saying that banners are really more for social-media sites. But, it doesn't mean that they cannot be applied to forums. As a person who does enjoy customization, I know that I'll definitely enjoy the feature. Others of course, will think differently.

Xenforo V2.2 is of course, a minor update, not a major one. But even then, they have sunk a lot of effort and resources into it and they are still unveiling new features. All of which, you can find here: https://xenforo.com/community/forums/have-you-seen/

They just recently revealed something called "Forum and thread types", which definitely will benefit CF. Then there is the all of the other new features, such as the PWA(For Windows users), improvements to the text-editor, and new account controls. Plus, they claim to have improved SEO, which CF could also benefit from.

I'd like to take this thread back to the way it was, which was surrounding the discussion of improving CF's user-activity. If you'd like to further continue the discussion surrounding Xenforo or any other piece of forum-software, then feel free to start a new thread for that.

 

[Tealk]

Xenforo V2.2 is of course, a minor update, not a major one.

Yes, I know that and I have already explained it to others who said that this is not an improvement.
I just mean that there are improvements that are hardly needed; there are many good add-ons that could be integrated, see the free add-ons from Xon

Forum and thread types

I think this will be very useful here