Spelunking the Universe
Posts tagged site news
Forums and Retention
Aug 22nd
I’ve been thinking, mostly today, about adding a forums back to the website. We get enough unique visitors a day that if one was captured out of every 10 then there would be a noticeably community in a short period of time.
It’s a matter of retention, my updates aren’t nearly as frequent as I’d like them to be. Illness, stress, and just general forgetfulness leave this space with an emptiness that I don’t think is fair to it. Sure, in essence, it is merely another blip in the galaxy of the internet but it is my blip. Much like the Earth means so much to humanity (most of it) because it is our own blip, in the whole it is utterly inconsequential but for us it is incredibly important.
So how do I want to modify my blip? That’s the topic of debate I’m on right now. Do I want to invest in a forums (I cannot stand PHPBB, perhaps because of my job), or do I want to invest in advertising? Which of these things will bring me the most bang for my buck? It’s an interesting point of discussion that I may bring up to the marketing manager at GC.
Our Marketing Manager is one of those people who “gets it”. She explains topics succinctly and generally seems to know what the heck she is doing. It’s a rare trait that I admire professionally, it isn’t often I get to work with people that don’t make me want to just grab two beers and jump. I don’t drink, but I think you get my point.
I love talking with people, it is something that fills me with a large amount of joy and helps me to better understand the human condition. I don’t enjoy talking with personas as much, if I want to see a falsity manifested I could do much better with a book. When I mention personas I’m generally talking about the negative ones, there are players in HIS that have very pleasant creative role-plays that keep me entertained and I appreciate them.
So what I’m left with really is what will get me the highest retention. I would like the largest quantity of people I can to be centered here so that discussions can be fruitful and multiply (as they say), but I also don’t want to invest more than what is necessary because I am deeply entrenched in the quazi scam that is student loans.
It’s a conundrum and one I hope to solve soon. Because I love working on forums, I love working with people (not so much personas), but I can’t stand working on forums that are run by a persona. So I think this would be a good project. I could perhaps even use a section of the forums for support. Let folks bring up issues and work out fixes for things in my free time, since it would be offsite it wouldn’t necessary be my job which would make it a little more entertaining (I know…weird mindset).
Food for thought, we’ll see where this goes.
Note: I’ll be consolidating tags in hopes of getting fewer, more relevant tags.
A New (Improved?) Update Plan for the Site
May 4th
Each day will be themed. This doesn’t require too much further explanation I’m sure. So without further Adieu here is what is planned for at least the entirety of this quarter (so a month or 30+ updates from this post).
Mondays become Museum and Architecture Mondays.
Simply enough I will discuss museums of interest, my projects in the matter, and personal opinions on the subject. This will change with the next quarter but for now this’ll be on Mondays. I’m sure there is plenty to discuss and it is some fascinating stuff.
Tuesdays become Technology Tuesdays.
Generally I’ll be discussing video games but I might mention anything from new vehicles, energy, convenience, to military grade arms. Whatever catches my fancy that I think would be interesting to research and discuss with the folks that visit here.
Wednesdays become Renaissance Wednesdays.
I don’t know if you ever realized this (it was a shock to me honestly) but the Renaissance is actually quite fascinating. From the rampant plagiarism to the very mathematical approach to art it is a generation of people that get either far too little credit or far too much credit for the wrong reason. I’m sure that I can convey across some of the impressively presented information that I’ve been dealing with this quarter.
Thursday become Artsy Thursdays.
Are poorly photo shopped pictures your fancy? Do you enjoy seeing poorly drawn maps or the occasional attempt at whit via a web comic strip? Well I’ve learned a bit of photo shop and I have now got access to a working scanner. So Thursdays will be your day indeed.
Fridays become Dinosaurs Friday.
One of my favorite subjects, Dinosaurs are absolutely fascinating creatures, to their credit they tend to expand the boundaries of what we figure any one creature would do given enough time. With each new fossil we get ever closer to understanding a world that sadly may never be seen again.
Saturdays become Something Saturday.
Not unlike that painful subject on Jeopardy this will be the potpourri day here. Anything random and interesting that I can find. Now to be fair this might happen any day on top of the other stuff that is designated but specifically Saturday’s will be random and hopefully enjoyable.
Sundays become Spatial Sunday.
The seemingly infinite expanse that surrounds our tiny blue speck. Sundays will end each week with a discussion of something fascinating involving our universe and will subsequently prepare everyone for another humbling week into subjects that generally unfold on our planet. It helps set the scope for just how amazing and yet trivial all things on Earth have, can, and will be. Good stuff.
So that’s it for today. I ‘may’ update again tonight about the discussion that was on hand for MnA but I’m a bit busy. This was in its own right a bit big for just being a status update.
A New Beginning
Jan 29th
I will be attempting something rather crazy. Well when you are about as energized as me it is crazy. I am going to attempt to write something, ANYTHING, at least once a day for every single day until my birthday hits.
So that means until August 28th this site will hopefully be fully of goodies. Even if they be as small as my almost erotic love of Macaroni and Cheese.
Since I’m technically a day late (It takes a while to back up stuff) this will be going out on the 29th but had I already been done backing stuff up you’d be reading it from the past…oh the power the internet brings us.
Also I will be cleaning up the way my site works and as you can tell how it looks. If you are using windows 7 or this Firefox theme which I highly recommend you will find yourself looking into the wondrous world of darkness that will make your eyes want to make out with you.
Because seriously your eyes are annoyed at you for looking at bright stuff all the time. If you don’t stop it they are going to quit doing things for you and make you get around using your ears…and honestly who ever trusted those idiots.
For anyone interested in going back into the ancient world of me you can find it here. It should work good enough to work (yeah I said it), and really isn’t that what matters these days?
- Rico