Hey guys,

I'm a little disappointed in this forum - not because I don't think it has any potential (indeed, the threads so far have been of a pretty good calibre - credit to the people who participate) but because of its current lack of activity. And I think I know why.

Consider the person who comes in here, has a brief look at the thread topics, and decides that it's mostly about schooling, university, etc. and for some reason there's a few topics here and there which seem to be about some truly arbitrary concepts.

All I'm asking is this - since there is currently no sticky that gives advice on topics (or indeed rules other than the forumwide ones), what is the topic content of this forum, exactly?

You might argue that it's not worth the effort until the forum grows, but I think that the opposite is true. Once you've actually told people what can and can't be discussed in here, it will be much more attractive to old- and newcomers alike.

So..?

This message was edited by Praetorian_Lord on Apr 22 2008.

Agreed. I'm basically that person you described. Problem is, what type of thread would be more interesting?

I share your frustration, I've tried to make a few interesting threads to spark discussion, advertised in my signature and even got the forum as Loungin's featured entity for a week but there doesn't seem to be many members interested. It's a shame as I really like this forum and believe it has great potential to work. I think the absence of a moderator is unfortunate, I know the PPD doesn't warrant a moderator at the moment, but if someone were promoted even on a temporary basis to try and organise the forum a little and help push things in the right direction it would help. Hell just having the link under someones name in other forums would help make it more noticed.

I think one of the problems with the forum is that a lot of the threads which could be discussions just end up turning into a bit of a list, where instead of talking about what they are studying or whatever they just have a one line response saying "I am reading X book" or whatever and not venturing any more information.

I think perhaps moving the homework help thread from Intellectual Exchanges to here could be useful, but then theres the danger that it could just turn into a forum full of little kids asking for help. Thats where having a moderator, even despite the low PPD could be beneficial.

quote Sphinx

I think perhaps moving the homework help thread from Intellectual Exchanges to here could be useful, but then theres the danger that it could just turn into a forum full of little kids asking for help. Thats where having a moderator, even despite the low PPD could be beneficial.

This is a great idea. Oh shadows eclipse, maybe you could arrange it because your the IE mod?

I could, and being the moderator and one who has appreciated this forum, I too see the issue.

I do agree that we could warrant the Homework Help thread's disintegration and have the issues moved here, which would help increase activity, and if activity was increased, then we could get a moderator to maintain the forum. It is a good idea. As for the Homework Thread, I will talk to Koloth about it.

I think that this forum should have a homework help thread. But truth be told I don't think the one in IE is detrimental to this forums health. Though we could put a link to this forum in the first post.

Though here is the problem with that thread. The fact is the posts in that thread aren't exactly the kind of posts you want in here to increase activity. They are usually just questions meant to get some quick help with a homework problem. I don't think that is really what you want here, is it? I think what you want is a forum more akin to IE but focused on education. Which is going to take some work to achieve because lets face it many people hate school.

Plus it really isn't going to help increase the PPD here significantly anyway. I would guess the thread generates about 5-10 ppd in IE. But I would suggest as an experiment that you get a super to sticky a homework help thread here. And we will link to this forum and list it as an additional source of help. Then just wait and see how things go. If members migrate over here for more help we will kill the help thread and funnel everything here. If no then we will need another idea to increase activity.

Okay, so Koloth and I have linked to the Education forum in the opening post and the forum caption. Hopefully, that will do its part to stimulate activity.

If more measures need to be taken, we can consider them, but for now, these are the agreed-upon terms. I do think, however, other ideas should be proposed.

I think the thing that scares people away the most is when they see "Education forum". A lot of people just aren't interested in this forum, even though it can be a good forum and has a lot of potential.

quote Koloth

Though here is the problem with that thread. The fact is the posts in that thread aren't exactly the kind of posts you want in here to increase activity. They are usually just questions meant to get some quick help with a homework problem. I don't think that is really what you want here, is it? I think what you want is a forum more akin to IE but focused on education. Which is going to take some work to achieve because lets face it many people hate school.

Well my main hope was that by relocating the homework help thread here, that would help the forum gain a bit more through traffic that could hopefully filter out into other threads in the forum. Thanks for the steps that you have taken so far though

quote Sphinx

quote Koloth

Though here is the problem with that thread. The fact is the posts in that thread aren't exactly the kind of posts you want in here to increase activity. They are usually just questions meant to get some quick help with a homework problem. I don't think that is really what you want here, is it? I think what you want is a forum more akin to IE but focused on education. Which is going to take some work to achieve because lets face it many people hate school.

Well my main hope was that by relocating the homework help thread here, that would help the forum gain a bit more through traffic that could hopefully filter out into other threads in the forum. Thanks for the steps that you have taken so far though

Well, we could do that, and we could even make it more organized with threads like:

Math & Science Help Thread

English Help

Social Studies Help

Elective Help

Project Help


Unity, we know that already. What we are trying to do is come up with specific ideas.

I don't think all those would stay afloat. Better to make one general homework thread and if it gets that active then you can expand. Unless you mean to like discuss your actual science class or whatnot.

Maybe some sort of game/competition could be started. Not really sure what would be appropriate for this forum but if anyone has any suggestions?

I think there's no reason why we can't go about setting up "Subject Discussion Threads". Someone with a vested academic interest in the subject would kick off the discussion and the thread could be left to go in whatever direction people wanted to take it.

It's all well and good pondering what topics we should be discussing but if we're not going to create threads then the situation won't change. I'm going to start off a general History thread and we'll see how it goes.

I like The Dave's suggestion, sounds contributing and helpful. Could they also be used for homework-related issues involving the subject, or could we also form our very own homework help thread (or make a transaction from IE to here)?