activity of people/support from members/staff

[Nabz]

I would like to start off by requesting the moderators or whoever is concerned about ibsurvival to excuse me if i make shrewd remarks about anyone or anything.

I have been visiting this website for quite a while now and had been pretty much disappointed by the fact that you either have to be "way too helpful" in order to really get mod's attention to get access to the files out there or you just "pay". Plus i've asked a couple of questions here and most of them were left unanswered so first off all i would like to ask you guys whether you have also noticed that the community is sort of "dying?". I just wanted to tell you guys about what i think as a new member, really.

Cheers!

Edited November 14, 2012 by shad0wboss

[CkyBlue]

I'm sorry you feel this way about our community. Our website is to encourage students to help each other through the forum, and if we see a significant contributions, we grant them VIP status. This can be seen through file uploading, the quality of your posts and reputation. Without supporting the idea of helping each other, members would just be taking files and leaving, which defeats the purpose of a forum.

Members of the community come and go, because they're finished with the IB and move on with their lives and some of them have just started and can only offer little help if at all. It's not guaranteed that your questions will get answered because helping is voluntary here; you can't expect most solutions to your problems by relying on the website. Members who help in the forum take time from their own lives to help others anyway, and honestly, if something you post on the forum isn't answered then I'd bet most people wouldn't know how to answer your concern as well. So you've noticed how the forum is "dying"- if you were in our shoes, what would you do about it?

[Nabz]

I'm sorry you feel this way about our community. Our website is to encourage students to help each other through the forum, and if we see a significant contributions, we grant them VIP status. This can be seen through file uploading, the quality of your posts and reputation. Without supporting the idea of helping each other, members would just be taking files and leaving, which defeats the purpose of a forum.

Members of the community come and go, because they're finished with the IB and move on with their lives and some of them have just started and can only offer little help if at all. It's not guaranteed that your questions will get answered because helping is voluntary here; you can't expect most solutions to your problems by relying on the website. Members who help in the forum take time from their own lives to help others anyway, and honestly, if something you post on the forum isn't answered then I'd bet most people wouldn't know how to answer your concern as well. So you've noticed how the forum is "dying"- if you were in our shoes, what would you do about it?

Your point about just downloading files and leaving is something that is inarguable but i mean, let say someone joins the site in the middle of the year and by the end of the year he gets no potential help from the site whatsoever whether it be the number of replies he gets from the members here or he gets no VIP status, which would really be just him wasting his time really and getting nothing as a pay back. I hope you understand what i mean.

So i would say that having an automating system for all users would at least let the members know that i have to reach a goal of maybe 10 useful uploads + 500 posts + 100 likes or something if that's even possible. Once this rule has been established, you can then let the members know that you have to reach xx in order to gain VIP access. This way, i think many will start to answer threads even when they don't know the exact solution to the problem and that can give you the activity while it helps the others get their replies whether it be useful or useless. One thing that might be affected, may be the amount of funds you guys generate in order to maintain the website but that can be balanced through having a higher requirement from members in order to gain access.

[kim luffy]

Then that person shouldn't even use this forum if he/she feels that way. If you get no help, why come back right? Like Capt'n Marth said, it's all voluntary here. You shouldn't forget the fact that some people won't even know the answer to your questions because they just don't know (the course probably isn't offered at the school) OR they don't take the same courses as you. You can't blame the site for not answering your questions. All of us here, as a community, we do try to answer all questions to the best of our ability. If we don't know the answer, we'd rather not reply, and leave it to someone who probably does know. This would be better then us just replying to you for the sake of it, and you getting more confused or getting misguided etc.

Also, why would anyone want a useless answer? if you came here with a question, and someone gave you an answer that didn't help you whatsoever, how does that work?

While your idea is partially good, if we do do that, people will just post for the sake of posting and with no intention of helping (maybe some will). People will get answers which won't be 'useful'. I doubt anyone would want useless answers especially on something like their EE or TOK essay.

[Nabz]

Then that person shouldn't even use this forum if he/she feels that way. If you get no help, why come back right? Like Capt'n Marth said, it's all voluntary here. You shouldn't forget the fact that some people won't even know the answer to your questions because they just don't know (the course probably isn't offered at the school) OR they don't take the same courses as you. You can't blame the site for not answering your questions. All of us here, as a community, we do try to answer all questions to the best of our ability. If we don't know the answer, we'd rather not reply, and leave it to someone who probably does know. This would be better then us just replying to you for the sake of it, and you getting more confused or getting misguided etc.

Also, why would anyone want a useless answer? if you came here with a question, and someone gave you an answer that didn't help you whatsoever, how does that work?

While your idea is partially good, if we do do that, people will just post for the sake of posting and with no intention of helping (maybe some will). People will get answers which won't be 'useful'. I doubt anyone would want useless answers especially on something like their EE or TOK essay.

A couple of confusions i want to get rid of.

1. Pardon me if it seemed as if i was forcing people to answer my questions which is not the case here. Thing is, people are not attracted towards the site due to the fact that they can see the amount of disadvantage (spending time and getting nothing out of it) over weighs the advantages of being active on this site.

2. Maybe you misread my idea, i said that there should be a balance between the number of posts and the number of likes. If someone goes around posting **** then he/she won't be getting likes thus there's no advantage in posting rubish.

3. I didn't really mean "useless" but anything that can help with the topic and not answer the question directly itself...

Hope you understand what i'm trying to say.

[Award Winning Boss]

A couple of confusions i want to get rid of.

1. Pardon me if it seemed as if i was forcing people to answer my questions which is not the case here. Thing is, people are not attracted towards the site due to the fact that they can see the amount of disadvantage (spending time and getting nothing out of it) over weighs the advantages of being active on this site.

2. Maybe you misread my idea, i said that there should be a balance between the number of posts and the number of likes. If someone goes around posting **** then he/she won't be getting likes thus there's no advantage in posting rubish.

3. I didn't really mean "useless" but anything that can help with the topic and not answer the question directly itself...

Hope you understand what i'm trying to say.

1. Valueless posts would be a problem. Not necessarily spam but just things that don't really add to the conversation/topic. We don't really want that to happen because it degrades the quality of the forum overall. People already make extremely valuable contributions to the site which is something that every forum wants but that doesn't link with an incentive to post loads. It's much easier to post one sentence than a paragraph (I'm not saying that a paragraph for every post is ever necessary.)

2. Your idea for a like to post ratio doesn't look feasible to me. If you make it a 2:1 post:like ratio, people won't always like helpful posts (they're more inclined to just say thanks).

3. For the most part, it seems like VIPs just get to VIP status and just take files without continuing any contribution to the site. IBS is a forum. Not a fancy drop box. It's more likely to reduce the forum to a lot of people making unnecessary posts just to boost their post count, then leaving now they can take files.

4. As already mentioned, if we think that you make valuable contributions to the site overall then you'll be granted VIP. That's not to say the posts made now aren't valuable.

Just as a final note, you'll be much better off posting and asking for/giving help without the ulterior motive of just getting VIP status.

Just my thoughts,

The Award Winning Boss with many many medals.

[Nabz]

A couple of confusions i want to get rid of.

1. Pardon me if it seemed as if i was forcing people to answer my questions which is not the case here. Thing is, people are not attracted towards the site due to the fact that they can see the amount of disadvantage (spending time and getting nothing out of it) over weighs the advantages of being active on this site.

2. Maybe you misread my idea, i said that there should be a balance between the number of posts and the number of likes. If someone goes around posting **** then he/she won't be getting likes thus there's no advantage in posting rubish.

3. I didn't really mean "useless" but anything that can help with the topic and not answer the question directly itself...

Hope you understand what i'm trying to say.

1. Valueless posts would be a problem. Not necessarily spam but just things that don't really add to the conversation/topic. We don't really want that to happen because it degrades the quality of the forum overall. People already make extremely valuable contributions to the site which is something that every forum wants but that doesn't link with an incentive to post loads. It's much easier to post one sentence than a paragraph (I'm not saying that a paragraph for every post is ever necessary.)

2. Your idea for a like to post ratio doesn't look feasible to me. If you make it a 2:1 post:like ratio, people won't always like helpful posts (they're more inclined to just say thanks).

3. For the most part, it seems like VIPs just get to VIP status and just take files without continuing any contribution to the site. IBS is a forum. Not a fancy drop box. It's more likely to reduce the forum to a lot of people making unnecessary posts just to boost their post count, then leaving now they can take files.

4. As already mentioned, if we think that you make valuable contributions to the site overall then you'll be granted VIP. That's not to say the posts made now aren't valuable.

Just as a final note, you'll be much better off posting and asking for/giving help without the ulterior motive of just getting VIP status.

Just my thoughts,

The Award Winning Boss with many many medals.

I understand your point about VIP and all that. My thought on this is, if people realize that the chances of them getting something back from these forum is lesser than the amount of time spent on these forum = affect forum's reputation in a much larger way than making good amount of posts.

No one helps in this world for nothing anyways, even the site has a partial motive of earning money than just helping people, you know?

Cheers!

Edited November 20, 2012 by shad0wboss

[~Lc~]

Hi Shod0wboss,

I would like to start with thanking you for expressing these opinions. I don't think we've met, but I'm one of the 3 founding members who've unfortunately become inactive over the years. I have been asked by Graeme to investigate the decrease in Forum activity, and your comments have been helpful to understand the matter qualitatively.

I will arrange for a meeting with the staff and hopefully make some advancements so we can have the community feel up and running once again.

Moderators who have replied, I appreciate your inputs as well to the discussion and will keep these things in mind. Just a gentle reminder that we cannot be too idealistic in what we expect from members, but we can certainly police them according to the guidelines that Maha and Alice have trained you with.