mscherer
Full Member
Learn. Teach. Do.
Posts: 172
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Post by mscherer on Mar 17, 2012 6:43:57 GMT -5
Need your help, fellow Shmucks.
How do we grow this message board? We have been stuck at 63 members for almost a month. I have tweeted my a** off on more than one occasion to encourage other writers to stop by and join and I have seen the number of guests skyrocket to over 100 when I do this. All good.....
But no new members.
What do you think would draw in more members? Or, are you happy with the low membership? Have you invited all of your writer friends to stop by and join?
I would love to see this message board grow into THE premier site for screenwriting discussions (not as huge as Done Deal, but at least as large as the GITS Club).
I will entertain any and all suggestions, ideas, comments, etc.
Thanks for your participation and always,
Keep Writing!
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Post by churnage on Mar 17, 2012 8:40:44 GMT -5
Mike,
Maybe have a couple of weekly features (what? I'm not sure) that bring people in and elicit comments.
Right now, the site depends on members posting screenplays. And we've hit a dry spell, so the crickets have been chirping.
Also realize to build this into something as popular as GITS, it's gonna take some time. There are already a number of well-established screenplay sites out there.
Here are some ideas for possible weekly features:
1) Success Vs. Flop. Analyze two films by the same director/writer/actor -- why does one work? And why did one fail?
2) Great Scenes in Bad Movies
3) Terrible Scenes in Good Movies
4) Franchise Films: Original Vs. Sequel
Just spitballing this morning,
Greg
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Post by clayjs on Mar 17, 2012 15:06:59 GMT -5
While it is a pretty low membership number, the board's only been around for about 3 months, so it might start to grow organically after it's been around a while.
I'd personally like to see more posts from our less verbal members. The prominence of just a few voices in the board makes the community seem smaller than it really is and might scare off some of the browsers who visit and decide not to join.
If you're out there, speak up. Contribute. Don't be afraid.
Otherwise, a board like this is a good forum for people to test out their writing chops on friendly readers.
The upcoming Tax Day challenge represents a good way to get people involved with that who, like me, are just getting started with this whole screenwriting monster. I think regular short script contests and the good-will that they can build will go a long way toward building membership. It's a good way to give someone who is browsing forums a concrete goal and a reason for sticking around. So, the more publicity that can be generated around these, the better. Will Scott at GITS or other bloggers post links to them?
Clay
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Post by mbarrett on Mar 18, 2012 7:04:49 GMT -5
Mike - Maybe you could elicit something on another website, with their permission of course. Something on Go into the Story, or Done Deal. Just a thought.
There are some good comments from Clay and Greg. Mark
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ihop
New Member
Posts: 8
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Post by ihop on Mar 21, 2012 6:03:42 GMT -5
I think the problem may be in the set up of the web site. What I mean is, there are so many topics on the main page that inevitably a lot of those will not be commented on. This then shows a number of those topics with the most recent comments dating back sometimes over a month, maybe longer. A new visitor to the site sees this, thinks it's a sparsely populated forum, moves on to find another more active one. I know this for a fact because I actually did just that. The difference was, I came back a few days later. Many forums are set up in such a way that the most recent topic is always at the top so it looks like an active board all the time. I'm not suggesting you change the software / server or anything like that because I know how much work it is to do that. So the alternative is to reduce those topics on the main page. I would have the For Review section at the very top (surely the most popular??) and then put sub headings inside that first link if you think it needs sub headings (personally, I don't - I'm sure a member could post the title of the project and then put (feature) or (treatment) or whatever afterwards). I'd do the same for the other links too; Genre - not all the sub headings Art - ditto - we don't need separate threads for agents and managers for example. Anyway, you get my point. It's not a criticism at all, just reasons that I think people will be put off from joining up....
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