talkmagic.co.uk

Just been looking at the memberlist and weve had 86 new members since the 1st november this year.......of those 86, 41 people have never posted! I think its beyond a joke as people are signing up and not doing a single post.Could a moderator please notify the people who have not posted and teel them that they havent and threten them with banning them from the forum, maybe we could communicate with other forums and make a blacklist so they cant join any other groups.
Sorry to rant but it seems stupid signing up and not posting....oh that feels much better doctor!

Just voted no.

I just dont feel bully tactics will improve the situation and would those people have signed up in the first place if only the 10-20 or so regular posters were registered and everyone else had been cleaned off?
I think the numbers help in getting people to join.
Also not everybody has the confidence in what they know to be able to join in on conversations that by deffinition are limited to people that know what we are talking about (a lot of the time, need I mention aardvarks and lemons )
If we are being so secretive, how do you join in, sometimes to an outsider that must feel hard to do, yet given time and more reading here they will eventualy contribute. That's my hope anyway
I think they join with good intentions but get sidetracked or realise the standard buy a video answer isn't going to help them but mixed in with that are people keen to join in but as yet are not sure how.
Heres hoping some of them will realise we are friendly to ALL and will jump in with both feet, if not maybe it's just a price to pay for having a forum.

Please don't take this as me thinking you are wrong boywonder, these are just my opinions and those are just yours

BaB

Good point BaB
It just seems a waste of time registering and not taking part

Thank you for your POV BaB, most welcome
p.s. i dont understand the aardvark and lemon thing, please help!

lol
That's the problem really I can't
I'd be taken outside, tied to a pole, smeared in beef paste and then marvin the magical bear would be released.

It kinda makes it hard to break into a chat when you realise you can't ask how something is done or what it is, the only reason I know what an aadvark is, is that I have one and could understand the threads.

This magic secret censorship isn't my best friend but I like it here so I have to obey, the point is that makes it a forum for reviews and the already knowing, hence the drop rate, at a guess.
What do you think?
BaB

I obey the rules of the Magic circle but would like to encourage novices more, what about a section of the forum for novices where us with more experience can help people

What do you think?

I would LOVE to have a section like that to help people in but it couldn't really work I'm afraid.
The only help allowed to be given would still be this video is great, that book shows you that......
Great if you have money to spend, not so great if you haven't or are just trying to find out if magic is your thing etc.

There are many many websites that help you in this way but we could not share them out etc and I can understand why.
1, This forum is paid for by a shop and as such we would be harming their business. Understandabe and the guy is a nice bloke, I wouldn't want to step on his toes anyway.
2, Magicians like to learn and not share, it breaks the code, has Sankey been thrown out of the magic circle then? lol, I digress.... This keeps the art special and again understandable.
3, No forums allow this kind of secret sharing/help, I have to make it clear I'm not picking on this one in any way, it's the best one out there. If one forum did allow such open learning it is true to say that we would be invaded by people that wouldn't add but take.

I don't want to live in a world where every time I do a trick 5 people say yeah that's easy.... But I would like to be able to help the learner or the people with better things to spend their money on, like food.
Sadly I can't see a way of doing that while ensuring the art is kept as an art and not just a topic down the local pub.

Having said all that the board still has a lot to offer and again if you are new, join in, make friends with people and you will learn, the people here are friendly and will try and help as much as they can.


BaB

They might not understand about lemons and aardvarks but they can certainly post an introduction.
On the other hand, confronting them like that is a bit harsh. They may have a very good reason why they cannot post anything.
As you can see I cannot decide so I wont vote, but i do think your idea of confronting them like that is very harsh, perhaps a pm asking them a little about themselves and encouraging them to make a post rather than threatening them.

somebody does try to pm them and ask them to add age and experience and to welcome them to the board, usualy after they have posted, for now he will remain nameless bu7t if you search for caretaker you might get a clue

i myself didnt post for three months as i was very afraid not to be taken as insulting as i can be abrasive sometimes and very strange oh yes.
i had to wait till someone talked about the haunted key one of my pet subjects before i got the confidence to post.

To a certain extent, I can understand BW's point and I believe Laurence (or someone!) did a bit of pruning during the Summer time as the list of members before that was only 42 less than the population of our Galaxy.

However, as with most of the members here, I did a lot of reading before my first posting and this is probably what goes on in most cases. It's a bit worrying to see so many names with zero posts but I guess we can only hope that they're lying dormant ready to amaze us all in due course!

So, if you're one to those who have registered and not yet posted, please have a go at posting, even if it's just to say hi, howdy or whatever greeting you prefer and take no notice of the lemons or the Aardvarks, they're only figments of some of the deranged, but harmless, minds here!

Well we now officially have 167 members who have never posted!!!
Mind you, I did try pm ing a few people a couple months ago, and probably scared them off with my weirdness .

Still, 167 is a pretty big number. I have no idea why I am telling you this, but I can't sleep, I'm gradually converting night into day, maybe I'm turning into a vampire...
Anyway, IF YOU HAVE JUST REGISTERED, PLEASE POST, WE DON'T BITE (well, once I'm a fully fledged vampire I probably will).

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic3318.php check this out and mods please check and move were apropiate .

Breathing life into a forum takes activity, and activity takes life, it's a bit of a catch 22. A lot of people will look at the forum and think ooh this looks cool and so will register, but initially they will be busy reading many of the existing posts and so won't necessarily post immediately. However when they return and see very few new posts the likeyhood of them posting goes down. Even posting a simple introduction is quite daunting to a new member when no-one else is posting. It's like walking into a silent room full of strangers, easier to lurk in the background than to break the silence and draw attention to yourself not knowing whether you are going to fit in.

I have a little experience in this area, my own forums (different subject matter) have 11,118 members 63,567 threads and 708,132 posts and gets around 1500 new posts per day. I'm not saying that to boast, my site started out like this one and this one will end up where mine is now if we get the ball rolling. Once you get the activity it snowballs, but over the last week since I joined there have only been about half a dozen people posting regularly and it's real hard for such a small number to generate enough activity to start the snowball rolling.

I'm trying to do my bit by posting as often as I can but we need more people to get involved. 10 people posting 5 posts per day brings us up to 50 posts per day, 50 new posts is 50 opprtunities per day for new guys to get involved. 50 per day is 350 per week and with 350 posts there is a high chance that someone new will find something that spurs them on to respond. The mods and admins can only do so much, they have provided us with a venue to discuss our hobby, it is up to the members to turn it into a home. So if you are lurking in the shadows, get posting, ask questions, tell stories, offer opinions or simply say hi

Hehe I know I'm the new guy but us new guys need to get involved rather than leaving it all to the old guys so all you other new guys hiding in the shadows, I've dipped my toe in and the water is lovely, so come on in

Mark

The forum is now far more search engine freindly so hopefull y we will have more people falling on it during google searches too.

Having been out of touch for a couple of weeks (some folks would say I've always been out of touch but let's not go down that route) there were three pages of 'Postings since last visit' when I got back on Monday so a fair amount of activity in recent times is indicated. OK, many were later threads to the same topics but each was a contribution. I'm always chuffed to see new members and new threads but I have a small caveat: I'd hate to see us get to the Magic Cafe stage where it's virtually impossible to keep up with threads on a daily basis as there are far too many of them. After a few days off it would be disappointingly difficult to miss out on quality postings due to the sheer mass of messages.

As a bit of a balance to that rather downbeat observation, perhaps I should add that we need to understand that the small scale forum that we've known since the great crash of '03 has to change one way or another and I know we've debated this before on a couple of occasions. We need new input and we need new ideas to keep the interest alive otherwise there's a chance we'll just go in ever decreasing circles and disappear where the sun doesn't shine!

I think the bit about getting non-posters blackballed from other forums is a bit harsh.

Anyway, I've voted 'no' for reasons already stated; people post when they're good and ready, not because they feel under pressure to post something, anything, and then risk getting told off for posting a load of rubbish under duress (I post rubbish all the time, but I stand by it and love the sound of my own voice, so there!).

"When I have nothing to say my lips are sealed
Say something once; why say it again?"
-David Byrne, Psycho Killer