[Rejected] Some Suggestions for Moving Forward

[Caido]

Wanted to make this post to air out some of the thoughts/ ideas I’ve had since coming back and seeing where we as a community are heading.

 

Keep in mind that these are rough explanations of my thoughts as I would have to write a novel to fully explain everything. If anyone would like to discuss further or get some more information of what I mean let me know and we can have a conversation about it on discord or ts.

 

Seeing where we are and where we are heading is one of the reasons I came back so I feel since I am back for that reason I should throw some ideas out there to be reviewed or at least discussed. Some of the things may have been in discussion already or brought up so sorry if there's any repetition.

 

Let's get started!

 

The Mega Thread!!!!

 

Regular vs Member Color Change

 

I believe this was previously discussed a long while ago and may even have been implemented at some point. An idea here for the forums to perhaps gain more engagement from non admin/ non position holding members could be implementing a different appearance between Regular vs member on the forums. 

 

I feel like this may motivate/ incentivize newer members to voice their opinions and react more actively on the forums which in turn may also raise activity for newer members on other platforms like discord or the servers themselves.

 

Having something to work towards or an award is a nice incentive which motivate people. (time for some psychology behind the idea) Its a minor change but as humans we always strive to move forward and when there’s physical or visible rewards/ changes or status changes it motivates us to pursue a goal as we know the outcome to committing to completing the goal.

 

Something like keeping members as the basic white color and once they have completed the requirements and are moved to a regular change them to something like a silverish gray or something (Colors can be discussed just an example). 

 

This would also help differentiate members from regulars in other faucets like discord where currently a member and regular are the same color.

 

 

 

Some Surf Ideas

 

Now I only say surf Ideas because its the server I play on the most, but in reality this can work with any of the servers.

 

I believe it would greatly benefit the server to do something like a rotation of maps. The idea is on a bi-monthly basis or monthly basis hold a poll for least liked maps and pick out two and move them out and move two fresh ones in. It keeps the map pool fresh and lets the community get rid of those pesky hated maps.

 

With this idea comes part 2! The reason I first mention a bi-monthly is because of part two and to prevent the idea from becoming very stale very fast. The second step to this would be once new maps are added and old removed for a day or two host a release party for the maps. This would be an event that would be a vibe and for a certain period of time we only switch between the two new maps.

 

During the release part host some prizes for server record time and do a giveaway or two for anyone who is a member and within the server at the time. Doing things like this would seed the server and have more people join and let everyone have some fun Surfing! I can explain more like I mentioned, just ask.

 

 

 

Changing Directions

 

Now what I’m proposing here isn’t saying we have to move past what SG was, it’s simply a recommendation of my experience online and what I’ve seen work and what hasn’t worked. All those marketing and business development classes in college are finally paying off!

 

 

 

Sociality of the community

 

Internet Communities have changed and developed greatly since SG first appeared on my radar or the majority of people's radar. It used to be that the majority of internet communities were separate per niche like having a gaming community, which more or less was strictly focused on the main subject.

 

Nowadays it’s sort of meshed together and I believe that something we as a community should work on is moving towards being a more social community rather than strictly a gaming community. This doesn’t mean we stop what we are currently doing as at the end of the day we are a community which hosts game servers so we can all play with our friends and meet new people. I’m just suggesting we make a push to branch out to other areas, which may help grow the community as a whole and fill in some of the missing gaps.

 

Things we could do to help improve this part is something like building our discord as I know we are currently trying to do. Discord has become a powerhouse for community hosting and partnering. If we can build Discord more it will certainly grow the community. Which is where moving towards being a more social community comes in rather then 100% on gaming. Not everyone who joins a community does it to play CSGO TTT or Surf. A lot of people now join communities solely to hang out and make friends. Meet new people and just chat on discord while they do homework or are at work.

 

See the next section for some explanation on how we could go about this.

 

 

How would we do this?

 

Lets start with a simple one that I mentioned in my response to the Discord Growth thread. Pushing things like the Art Contests or Clip contests over on discord along with the forums. While growing the discord we will certainly get newer members who are artists or editors pushing things like these contests on the discord rather than solely on the forums would entice members to join in on the fun and may even encourage them to tell their friends. “Hey this server is doing a contest for this or that, come join and enter”. Simple things like this could help gain a more attentive and active community.

 

Another point following that has to do with Giveaways/ Contest winnings. I believe we should move forward from solely giving away things like CSGO skins. I know we take skins as donations, which could still be done, but I feel if we want to continue to move the social way we have to open our range of prizes. Of Course it doesn’t have to be anything crazy but simply doing something like the winner of the art contest gets a 25 dollar Starbuck or Amazon gift card would first draw more people to the contests but also bring in a new audience of people who may or may have never even touched CSGO.

 

Giveaways are a big part of any community which may be lacking in SG at this time which is understandable from its previous state. But following the same logic we should try to do these a bit more. Even if the giveaway’s are something even more simple like a random person active on the discord at this time gets 2 months free sub or something. Giveaway’s should be spontaneous and effortless for members.

 

Straying away from Giveaways another big thing which may help is partnering, which I know is something we are looking into. But what I’m suggesting is the partnering with a partnered Discord Community or a bigger Discord community. Usually the way this works is the communities both advertise each other and push for member growth on the servers. There are plenty of massive communities which are partnered with Discord out there that solely do partnerships to help grow and uplift smaller communities and I believe this is something we should look further into. 

 

Like I mentioned these are some brief thoughts and Ideas I’ve had and am constantly thinking and improving in my head. There’s definitely more ideas I have just can’t remember them all at this time but I can come back and add as it goes. 

 

Feel free to add on this MEGA THREAD. Or leave your comments/ thoughts on the ideas brought. And like I mentioned, if anyone wants to pick my brain I work a lot better through speaking then typing haha, so feel free to reach out and I can elaborate or share more.

[Mace]

2 hours ago, Caido said:

Straying away from Giveaways another big thing which may help is partnering, which I know is something we are looking into. But what I’m suggesting is the partnering with a partnered Discord Community or a bigger Discord community. Usually the way this works is the communities both advertise each other and push for member growth on the servers. There are plenty of massive communities which are partnered with Discord out there that solely do partnerships to help grow and uplift smaller communities and I believe this is something we should look further into.

If Oooonly we had a team whose focus was centred on finding not only internal problem areas for improvement to increase community engagement, overall “quality of life” and other financial duties but ALSO external forms of growth through partnerships, advertising, giveaways and producing extensive research on future trends or opportunities that could be beneficial for the community to be a step ahea— Oooooo wait..

 

Just messing around but yes, this idea has been brought up many times in the past and I’m sure is in their heads currently. Those are good ideas, hopefully those thoughts are acted on. 
I for one would LOVE to help with acquiring partnerships and rebuilding the marketing team back to where we were 1 1/2yrs ago before the communities internal/external issues occurred.
That was were I felt my best contributions over 2yrs laid. *hint hint*

[Dominic]

Partnerships, especially with other Discord communities / gaming communities, is legitimately my top priority at the moment. Please, if anyone has any in mind, message me. Skimmed the rest of the post and it looks like you bring up some great ideas, I'll probably respond more in depth later.