In keeping people active, I think it's important to consider why they come here in the first place. Just off the top of my head, I have the following:tomw wrote:I totally agree with your concern about people dropping off. WHat other ideas do people have that would allow us to get involved and build community?
[thread=228]Here is a thread[/thread] that discusses some of the existing open source projects that you can get involved in.
[thread=245]Here is a thread[/thread] where the Church has asked for help from people to work on a specific projects.
Tom
- To find information on new and exciting things going on in Church technology.
- To suggest ideas they may have that they feel will help and they also feel will at least be considered.
- To receive help with a problem or issue they may be facing.
Sometimes even some of the minor week to week happenings in various departments that those departments consider trivial would be of interest to the members of this forum. I think it also needs to be remember that each of us here probably has at least slightly different interests in church technology - hence the need for info from different departments. One may be interested in what's going on with the new familysearch website in development, while another wants to know about coming MLS changes, and yet another is interested in changes that may be planned for record keeping systems used by the temples (and no, I'm not just throwing the last one out, that one is actually of interest to me even though I'm doubting it's one that would have been anticipated by many here).
For #2 I'm well aware that we're not here to dictate the direction of Church products, but the Church has already indicated that it has found value in some of the suggestions here like the mapping idea. I think #2 can best be satisfied if every time someone from a Church department found something of value here that influenced their development/implementation/support track in some way that a note was made of it in a dedicated thread(s) so that the people here (and particularly newcomers as well to encourage participation) could see that while we obviously don't dictate the direction, our input is often valued, considered, and can even occasionally make a difference.
#3 is more of a policy decision I guess the various support departments need to consider. The simple truth is that even if these forums are deemed to NOT be for support issues, you're still going to have the occasional user showing up here seeking support. Now since many of the existing support departments do not offer any sort of forum support that I'm aware of, perhaps they could consider allowing such here vs either omitting it completely or implementing their own. If support were done here though, I think at a minimum a change to people's identifiers (member, moderator, etc.) would need to be made to very clearly identify those posting here in any sort of official capacity. There's also the possibility that support forums here could lighten support loads as knowledgeable members assist with what are often already well known problems. Important posts could be made sticky, transfers of commonly needed files might be more easily accomplished through this site, and if needed, responses could probably be limited to only "official" support staff (that way you can keep the lay member response out if you want while still funneling those who show up looking for support to a place to accomplish it instead of directing them elsewhere).
I think the things I listed above, or things like them (these are merely suggestions after all) would go a long way towards naturally helping to build a sense of community around here. I think it's also possible to implement these things in such a way as to only have a minimal impact on the resources of the departments/groups participating.
