New Member Recruitment

[Asso]

The blood and life of this site is the Forum, sure, but above all is the stream of stories flowing through it.
There's need of new and old writers. And they should be encouraged.

[Silverbullet]

Alelou, what is your criteria for an Admin? I wonder. I have tried to help, often the only voice. If it is wanting to keep this board alive and active I certainly woul dqualify. Cannot Edit stories, sorry.

SB

[WarpGirl]

I have to say Alelou has a point about Administrators and MODS (as we used to call them at KFM). I think the main death knell at that site is the fact that only 1 of them is left. That said, this isn't real life and people have to go on living. Our dear Fearless Leader is getting married. It's understandable that his attention is elsewhere. The same as it is for the other people who've graciously donated their time to running this haven.

Perhaps it would be good for people to volunteer. Unfortunately I am very, very UNqualified, (as I'm sure EVERYONE knows).

[putaro]

Are we seriously going to sit back and expect our one remaining regular tech volunteer to do all the work?

There have been several volunteers to do the tech work (including myself). Most of the suggestions have been 1-2 days of work at most. It's not a big deal but it can't be done without approval and support from TPTB.

What it sounds like is going on is that we (the users) are trying to keep the site invigorated without any actual backing from TPTB. As long as that's the case, it's certain to fail. If the site owners have no enthusiasm for the site anymore then they can at least delegate to someone who is interested.

[Alelou]

Alelou, what is your criteria for an Admin? I wonder. I have tried to help, often the only voice. If it is wanting to keep this board alive and active I certainly woul dqualify. Cannot Edit stories, sorry.

SB

I'm not the site owner and I can't say what his requirements are, SB. But personally I believe an admin needs to be ready to offer strong skills (whether in editing or technology) along with diplomacy, attention, responsibility, a willingness to put in the time, along with huge helpings of patience, good humor, and maturity. Energy and creativity are good, too. It's a tall order, especially since writing by nature creates issues with ego and paranoia that can help make things pretty freaky pretty fast. So this site has been lucky to have so many great admins for so long, but it's clear that many of them have essentially moved on.

Having said that, participants keeping the questions and comments going is very much part of what keeps the site alive, so keep up the good work!

[Distracted]

I really like all this enthusiasm.

Alelou is quite right that I am flying solo at present, at least with story posting and board moderation, but I am open to considering volunteers to assist me.

To moderate the board I would need someone with good people skills and the time to read every active thread at least once daily, preferably to defuse potential conflicts before they escalate. If anyone thinks that's their calling, pm me and we'll talk. If you're a lurker, I'd want you to establish a board presence first and interact with members before I'd recommend that Elessar grant you moderator status.

Story posters just need a solid grasp of English and basic computer skills. If it were technically complicated to post I certainly wouldn't be doing it. If you'd like to be the very first person to read a story and feel capable of doing a final edit, I'm willing to consider you as a story poster. Once again, it would be nice if you joined the discussions, but social interaction isn't required except with the authors. Pm me.

If you're not called to do either, please keep in mind that any member can post a thread. So if any of panyasan's thread ideas sound interesting to you, my advice is that you go for it. If it's interesting you'll get people talking. If not, there's always something else to try. You'll never know until you post it.

About story comment threads. I have been hesitant to post comment threads for stories on the board because I was afraid people would post only in the threads and not in the comments section of the stories. Keep in mind that comments follow the stories into the archive. An author can go back years later and read the comments made on their stories. I do it regularly. It cheers me up when I have a bad day. Threads tend to get lost in the shuffle and they don't have any link to the stories once they're archived. It would be nice to change that, but I'm not sure if it's practical right now, so I'd prefer keeping story discussions in the comments rather than on the boards for now.

Finally, I know nothing about what's been going on behind the scenes with the tech stuff. It's possible that at the time you volunteered, Putaro, that Elessar and mjimeyg thought they had the situation in hand and didn't want to complicate things by putting too many cooks in the kitchen. Mjimeyg is our chief tech guy and he has done a tremendous amount of excellent work on this site. I doubt he would appreciate very much being lectured about what others perceive that he's doing wrong, but I suspect that if you communicate in a respectful manner with him and offer to help him, you may be able to open a dialogue that will include an openness to change. He's a very busy man. I'm sure he can use capable help. But he's in charge, and complaining about how he's decided to design the site isn't, in my opinion, the most diplomatic way to begin a working relationship. Just my two cents.

[WarpGirl]

I can't help but feel bad for the people who have already put years into running, maintaining, and dealing with the fires on this site for years. I mean all of this disatisfaction seems almost unfair. After all nobody gets paid for this, and most of our dear Administrators have paid to keep this site running from their own pockets. In this economy, and the fact that a good many of us haven't chipped in... (I know I certainly don't have a dime to spare) I find it a tremendous sacrifice.

So before any more suggestions, or other issues are brought up lets just all say a great big whopping THANK YOU to each and every person who dedicated their time and effort into building this place for years.

And of course our lovely Distracted gets the highest praise for putting up with us all by herself.

[Distracted]

I'm just the latest in a long succession of volunteers, Warpgirl. No more and no less. Anybody with the time, desire, and necessary skills can do this. It's not rocket science.

But you're very welcome. Thank you is always nice to hear.

[WarpGirl]

Yes but as long as I've been here you've usually had back-up, for now you deserve extra love for flying solo.

You know, I hesitate to bring this up, but one of the reasons I don't chat as much is that everything seems to have already been said. All of us regulars seem pretty entrenched in our own opinions, (yes I am one of the worst offenders) so maybe instead of re-hashing the same hot button topics, we could all search the forums for the relatively unpopular topics and try to bring fresh life into them.

I realize the center of everything is TnT rightly so, but it seems that all popular the converstations are geared toward only them as a unit. They are only part of a whole and it might be interesting to look at them from other angles. Whether through other characters or some other ways. There are many sub-divisions in these boards that don't get near enough attention. That good be a good way to keep things fresh. Maybe we all just need a shift in perspective.

[panyasan]

I realize the center of everything is TnT rightly so, but it seems that all popular the converstations are geared toward only them as a unit. They are only part of a whole and it might be interesting to look at them from other angles. Whether through other characters or some other ways. There are many sub-divisions in these boards that don't get near enough attention. That good be a good way to keep things fresh. Maybe we all just need a shift in perspective.

That's a very good point. I personally love the relationship between Malcolm and Trip and I find the relationship between Jon and Trip very interesting. I do find the character of Jon more interesting by the years, BTW. But maybe it also nice to have a thread about the personality of T'Pol and Trip apart. Right now I am thinking about the relationship between T'Pol and T'Les, between T'Pol and Vulcan society and her and her family. Having said that, I wouldn't mind more discussion about Trip and T'Pol as a couple. Most of the discussion is now about their up and down relationship before they came a couple in Terra Prime (as in my personal canon )

I understand from previous posts that other admins have stepped down. Besides my thanks to Distracted for all her hard work, I also would like to thank the previous admins. Thanks and good wishes for you and your families!

[WarpGirl]

Well I don't know if the absences are perminent. It would be just awful if that was the case. However they so deserve all the thanks we can give.

[Kotik]

The recent Facebook link is an attempt to connect with new members. It was a good idea, but it doesn't seem to be working as well as we'd hoped. So I thought I'd open a thread for discussion of ways to recruit new members so as to keep the site vibrant and active.

To be honest, I think the faceborg link is what brought the recent influx of spammers, so I wouldn't put too many hope in that one. In all honesty, you won't attract too many new members, because we're all worshipping a product that has been ditched almost 7 years ago, so if anything, more activity has to come from already active members or we'll all end up like some former members, who left to set up their own board, who enjoy 3 new messages in as many months...

[panyasan]

Maybe it was just me, but I couldn't connect with the Facebook page of TRIS and when I did, there was nothing to see.

[putaro]

In all honesty, you won't attract too many new members, because we're all worshipping a product that has been ditched almost 7 years ago, so if anything, more activity has to come from already active members...

I disagree. I think there is still a significant amount of Enterprise Fan Fiction being written that could be posted here as well. ff.net doesn't provide much of a community for readers/writers, which is something that TRIS could focus on.

[justTripn]

If I read another Trip and T'Pol story, even a good one, I'm going to scream. Nothing against Trip and T'Pol, who I've written a novel's worth of fanfic on. My hat goes offf to Distracted who has stepped in to moderate this site at many crisis points in the past.

I hope the new people do have as much fun here as I had. I think the secret is delegation. Elessar needs to delegate the task of moderating to someone who is always here, and I am sure that we have amongst us, among the "new people," the talent it takes to moderate/administer this site. If you want to be king or queen of Triaxian Silk for the next year or so, volunteer to D.!

Also, in my experience our wonderful magical IT wizards are not adverse to suggested improvements. It can't hurt to ask.

ek set up some facebook ads for pennies a day. It may have been just a coincidence, but when they were up we got lots of new people. Maybe we can pull those out and use them again?