how active should ADISC be?

[avery]

pros of being a bigger, more active site:

• we help more people
• we show up more on google, and places like deeker and dpf show up less
• we could change people's perceptions of what being ABDL means
• we'll never get bored here

cons of being a bigger, more active site:

• more crazy people, spammy posts
• less intelligent discussion -- we compromise our principles
• little or no sense of community
• impossible to keep track of all the new posts
• very difficult to make any new friends, or keep in touch with old ones

personally i can totally see both sides of this issue. i'm not even going to vote yet. i'm just interested in whether anyone has anything to say about this.

[Baby-JJ]

I don't think we should get too much bigger. Smaller communities are easier to get settled in and a lot friendlier. Then again, more people would spice things up.. A bit more activity is good in my opinion.

[Jack26]

Though question. I think I'd prefer a smaller community, because I love the feeling of a family... having new users coming in all the time and posting quite unintelligent things kinda ruins that. And then having loads of new posts all the time makes things hard to follow... in fact, some days I just shut down and don't post anything because it's going to fast for me.

So I'd definitely prefer a smaller community. But that would mean we would sacrifice our ability to help people so it could be better for the people already here - and that is very, very selfish. We're supposed to be a support community, so it'd make no sense to shut ourselves off.

And that's the dilemma - We shouldn't push away people who need help, but if we let them all in we won't even be able to help them! It's already too big for me to keep up, so I have no idea what'll happen when it gets bigger. But there are so many people out there that genuinely need our help... I'd never support anything that makes it harder for them to get it.

[Mickal]

We need more lolable idiots.

Just I think we could do with a few more. (people not idiots)

[Monkey]

When we start to turn away members for our own selfish reasons, that's what this is, then I'll be unhappy.

[Spirit]

You can't control how large a community grows unless you turn the registration off, and that greatly decreases the appeal of the forum because many people don't like reclusive/paid forums.

In all honesty, if God was a member of one of these reclusive forums I still wouldn't attempt to join or accept an invitation.

</pointless rant>

[Charlie F]

Well, what would be better for me would be a nice tight community where I could read most of the posts.
But from an outside view the best thing would be a large community that helps a lot of people.

I guess I'm on the fence too... I know what I'd like, but I'm not sure what's the best for the site.

Imagine there was a cake, that was baked by a million people who now all wanted a bite. Do you give the cake to 3 people, who get very fulfilled by their generous slices and the 999,997 people left get nothing? I think most people would say that's unfair.
So do you split the cake a million ways? That would be pretty silly, since (and by the way I'm talking about an averaged size cake!) everyone would get such a small amount they would gain nothing by eating it.
So do you split it between X amount of people, and turn away the rest? Well then you'd have to say who should get the cake. Does being here before someone else make us more deserving of using this site?

So now I'm hungry, but also thinking that we should take what measures we can to promote good quality posts and good quality members. There's a lot of pointless posts here now. If we can minimise the crap, and attract the right kind of members then we might be a bit less active but things will still be as useful!
In other words: get fewer people to bake a bigger cake!

[kite]

i partly agree with jack. i like the intimacy with the small group we have and yes, we do get some spammy posts, but what i've noticed is we turn those people around (or out) real quick.
i like the idea of having new members because they bring fresh, new, and unventured ideas into our small group and make us think.

[avery]

Originally Posted by Spirit

You can't control how large a community grows unless you turn the registration off

actually there are a lot of things you can do.

• you can request that other sites link to you.
• you can discourage or limit lurking so that people have to sign up and post if they want to read the site.
• you can post statistics like "referrals" "gallery uploads" and "wiki edits" in prominent places so that people feel motivated to be as active as possible.

all those actions encourage an increase in membership and activity. in my opinion they also tend to lower the common denominator and decrease the overall quality of discussion.

i'll freely admit to being a bit elitist. my idea of an ideal community is one that people seek out over time, then lurk for a few days to see if they want to sign up, and then register IF they feel drawn to the particular type of conversation that takes place there. it'd be a small, tight community of friends who get to know each other quite well, and who are able to take the time to get to know each new person who signs up.

our forum would grow even if nothing was being actively done to increase our exposure and seek out new members. i definitely understand the desire to help as many people as possible, but we also have a reputation for being one of the few ABDL sites on the internet where common sense and rationality prevail. it'd be nice to preserve that reputation.

[Dash]

Originally Posted by Baby-JJ

I don't think we should get too much bigger. Smaller communities are easier to get settled in and a lot friendlier. Then again, more people would spice things up.. A bit more activity is good in my opinion.

Very true, I think when a community grows beyond a certain point, "cliques" or "sub-communities" of members start to form - which defeats the purpose of the word "community". To me that could discourage people to make new friends, let alone keep in contact with the old.

Originally Posted by kite

i like the idea of having new members because they bring fresh, new, and unventured ideas into our small group and make us think.

Yeah; on the other hand, there will always be people finding themselves in the position most of us came to ADISC (or TBDL) in - looking for a forum where they can open up about being *B, DL, babyfur or whatever. By halting the registration process and preventing newcomers, we ourselves become our own wee clique in a corner of the internet.
Like kite said, the idea of having new ideas, fresh input, and of course newcomers' perspectives of what it's like to be *B or DL is something we shouldn't be saying no to.
I mean you gotta look at it from the perspective of someone who is looking for the forums such as this one. In my opinion, ADISC is the best support community in it's field. To be turned away would be quite a put down...?