Thanks for the responses.
I don't want to be defensive or get into an ongoing argument with people here, so will post once more and then step out of the debate.
My instinct is that there is a divide of sorts between the hobbyist/amateur forum experts like yourself, and those that do this on behalf of organisations like me. We don't tend to mix very often...which is a pity I feel.
Craigiri, on the control groups, yes to some extent. Both our own studies (we always use a control group) and the work of a few
thousand academics here (browse at your leisure). There is a lot of incredible information locked up in academic about how to increase the types of commitment, knowledge sharing, and retention rates of active members in a community etc...Much of this practice isn't being applied at the moment. It's something I would like to cover in depth. Thus it's not just one person's opinion, but the opinion of people who have studied the topic in depth, collected and anaylzed the data.
That's not to say these tactics work universally across communities. Many motivational appeals to get people to join/participate don't work in more collectivist cultures for example. In some sectors too, like video gaming, attention is harder to sustain over the long-term. However, I feel it's the best information we have at the moment.
Sorry if sharing half the book sounded self-promotional. It wasn't the intention. The goal was more to say 'if you like this, you might like the talk'. Or at the very least, give it a shot.
Rick, I grew up running online gaming forums on VB, phpbb, mybb etc...Now we advise clients how to develop communities on forum-based platforms. We specialize solely in increasing levels of growth and activity in a community. My personal experience isn't just limited to working on one type of forum, nor platform, it's from working on around 120+ communities. We've tested hundreds of tactics in over a hundred communities to see what does/doesn't work. There are some people that have more data than us, but it's not too many.
You can see a previous webinar on a
related topic here. If you DM me your address, I'll happily send out a copy of my book your way for review. You can judge the material for yourself at no cost.
I can't speak for how/why ForumCon select speakers. But I know Jeff, David, Justin personally, and they're all incredibly smart people who I think will be very impressive speakers. I hope to see a few of you there.
I'll have to be honest and say that other than Patrick O'Keefe's book which actually talks about the part that's most relevant to forum admins - day to day forum administrating and building your community, giving decent examples and insights - I've yet to see any other book actually tell me something worthwhile or useful.
), etc
