Outside Habbo Activity Levels

[velvet]

this will be pretty similar to my post in spam, but i felt that this section would be more appropriate.

i've used this forum on-off for a hella long time but never find myself sticking around again due to the state of the outside habbo section; i really think the issues with this section need to be addressed if this forum is to survive.
i'm sure you've all noticed the steady decline in regular users over the years, the core of this forum, the part that made people stick around was always the outside habbo community imo.


i think having some sort of "forum ambassadors" committee could help solve this.
have a group of users who meet every 2 weeks and think of ways to bolster forum activity, whether that be forum-based competitions, creating threads, posting non-habbo related articles for people to discuss etc
you could pay them in vip as a little incentive and monitor progress for a couple of months to see if it's something worth continuing.

when i was younger i worked on a lot of the big habbo forums and we always had a team who did this / gave this duty to moderators.
this forum used to have some really good discussions but it just seems to have gone to shit, i really don't see a point in sections like "discuss anything" when, like i said, it's become a glorified spam section and it seems the staff team are so desperate for activity they just allow it.
i think the habbo section is fine, it's kinda self-sustainable, but the outside habbo section has always been where the core community lies and it's such a shame to see it in the state it is now.

[Samantha]

From someone who has always been on this forum for primarily the Habbo forums I agree with you to an extent! As I've moved a bit further away from Habbo (although I've started playing it more again), I have noticed a decline in posts and active forum users in general. I look at some member's profiles to find they haven't signed on in a few weeks or months and they were the ones always posting, always trying to keep the forum active and alive. I know the forums outside may seem like a glorified spam section, but we have been a bit more lenient on pointless posts and threads to a point; I'm going to talk about the feet thread as you did mention it - that thread generated a fair bit of discussion instead of just 'yes' or 'no' replies hence it wouldn't be moved to the spam forum unless the discussion turned into something like that!

I definitely agree that the Habbo forum can somewhat survive alone, newer people come on the forum for answers and the Habbo section is the quickest way to provide them in most cases and it's the reason why some, not all members still join every day - even if they only post the once. The latter point is what needs addressing the most with giving them something to actually post in and it might be interesting to trial something like an ambassador, but then you get questions raised such as why can't the Forum Moderators, staff members or just members do that - when it might not be enough at the current time and might need that little push in the right direction.

Although I've ventured out from Habbo a little bit, I don't often go outside of the Habbo forums to post as I don't really have too much of an interest in it, don't get my wrong if there are threads to post in I'll happily generate some activity there, but thinking of my own outside of Habbo I become lost! I have a few Habbo threads I could potentially post though. Although, when someone makes a few posts they're often flamed for doing it for post count, when in reality it's also down to wanting the best for Habbox Forum.

In the Forum Moderation Department we currently have a post quota of 15 posts per week, which isn't hard to do whatsoever and we all usually manage to do it; potentially if a handful of those posts we make each week were threads generated outside of the Habbo forums they could help too, even if it's only minimally at least something could be done.

I can't say anything is going to happen, I can just voice my opinions, but our Forum Manager is currently away, so when he's back he might have more to say on the matter. I hope I got the point across what I was trying to make as I wrote more than I expected.

[Inseriousity.]

I disagree.
I have been involved with a number of online communities and they need replenishing. The core of the forum disappearing is because its users are getting older and are here out of loyalty + habit rather than wanting to get heavily involved. Ofc there are exceptions to every rule but generally speaking this tends to be the case. This means there are less threads as people like me tend to just reply when they see something worth their attention rather than actively participating in things. To slow that process down it needs new people to come in and take their place. If the forum wants to be replenished it needs to ironically focus its attention on Habbo and reach out to newer users. I think any attempt to increase post count trying to convert older users back into active members of the community would just be ignoring the wider issue and is likely not to have much success.

Despite that, I think Habbox has often got forum moderators to be a part of the community/forums that they moderate and there was a time when they did create these competitions, try to generate some discussion or debate and get involved. I see no reason why they shouldn't be doing that again.

[Empired]

I disagree.
I have been involved with a number of online communities and they need replenishing. The core of the forum disappearing is because its users are getting older and are here out of loyalty + habit rather than wanting to get heavily involved. Ofc there are exceptions to every rule but generally speaking this tends to be the case. This means there are less threads as people like me tend to just reply when they see something worth their attention rather than actively participating in things. To slow that process down it needs new people to come in and take their place. If the forum wants to be replenished it needs to ironically focus its attention on Habbo and reach out to newer users. I think any attempt to increase post count trying to convert older users back into active members of the community would just be ignoring the wider issue and is likely not to have much success.

I agree but I don't think just focusing on Habbo will do us much good. I hate to say it but a lot of us are seriously seriously unfriendly especially to newer, younger users and I'm sure that we actually frighten away the few who make it as far as signing up to the forum. I say this because I remember signing up in 2011 as a good day for me was being ignored by the older users, and a bad day was being told things like shut up, you're too young to have an opinion, all sorts. I don't know if this was just me but I know that anyone sensible would have just given up on Habbox and gone somewhere else. I'm sure they thought they were just kidding around and that it was all fine, but it's not fun for a 14 year old girl to be ganged up on by a load of 18+ users simply because they think she's a noob/immature.

My point is, why should younger members stay on the forum when it's such an unpleasant environment for them?

(Also don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't be focusing on Habbo. I'm just saying that Habbo isn't the only issue.)

[Kyle]

Habbo section has been dead for a long long time too. The only traffic we get in those sections is when something 'big' happens and there's room for speculative discussion, otherwise they're as dead as every other section.

I've been involved with forums just as long and agree that having dedicated members creating threads (rather than just having a post quota) is the single most effective way to bolster activity and encourage others to make threads. Moderators should be doing this in their respective sections. Drawing users to post in habbo sections is all well and good, but when they don't have anything to talk about outside of habbo things it's just a fansite and not a community. need both new users and more threads.

[FlyingJesus]

Agree that DA is pointless: if it doesn't fit in any other section it's gonna be spam.

On the Habbo side it would help if articles 1) were actually written and 2) were posted on the forum when they are, as should have been happening for years now. We are ALWAYS behind on Habbo news through the site and generally by the time it's put up there's already a thread with 10+ replies on whatever new feature is released. We're missing out on activity by using the same old "I'm waiting for v#" excuses for everything

[-:Undertaker:-]

Habbo does need to be the focus I agree with Mike.

If departments organised by get-togethers more like the Habbox Awards (and in advance) then I think a lot of older members would be tempted to log in and thus boost numbers. I can't for the life of me understand why we haven't done a huge givaway on the hotel making people sign up for furniture: even if for 200 pieces of furniture we had 5 new members stick about then it'd be worth it. Repeat that every month or so and you're replenishing the forum core.

[velvet]

ofc habbo needs to be the focus, it's a habbo forum, but you can't deny the fact that a few years ago (can't speak for now because i'm not active), the bulk of big forum members and regular users would spend most of their forum time in the outside habbo sections.
people obv join this forum for habbo related things, but they stay because of the community, which is mainly based in outside habbo. if you guys seriously can't see this is an issue then i think activity will continue to decline

[Inseriousity.]

The bulk of big forum members/regular users were the older users that were no longer interested in Habbo. They left but it didn't matter so much because the new Habbos came in to replace them and now those new Habbos are the older users who are no longer interested in Habbo. The problem is that there aren't many new Habbos coming in to replace them. Personally I don't think newbies stay because of the regular users. They stay because they've got friends and the easiest way to become friends with them is on Habbo. Activity will continue to decline because these older users will continue to leave while no effort is made to entice new users from Habbo to the forum.

Would you stay velvet if there were forum ambassadors? No you would quite rightly get back to your life as you've outgrown Habbo and its communities so this idea is aimed at trying to bolster activity amongst users that have already moved on (even if they still log on everyday like myself). There have been numerous attempts to increase activity amongst this group (posting challenges, prizes for top poster of the week) and they do not work because they are targeting the wrong audience. If you want to increase forum activity, you have to increase the community and bring over the new generation and the only way to do that is to get on Habbo.

If you want the best evidence of this in action, you only need to see the advertisement of competitions. It is no coincidence that those that advertise on Habbo do better than advertising on the forum even though the competitions are on the forum because Habbo is the place where people get involved. It is no coincidence that those that are integrated in the community have more entries than those where people don't have a clue who they are. If anything we need Habbo ambassadors that will get people onto the forum and posting!

[velvet]

The bulk of big forum members/regular users were the older users that were no longer interested in Habbo. They left but it didn't matter so much because the new Habbos came in to replace them and now those new Habbos are the older users who are no longer interested in Habbo. The problem is that there aren't many new Habbos coming in to replace them. Personally I don't think newbies stay because of the regular users. They stay because they've got friends and the easiest way to become friends with them is on Habbo. Activity will continue to decline because these older users will continue to leave while no effort is made to entice new users from Habbo to the forum.

Would you stay velvet if there were forum ambassadors? No you would quite rightly get back to your life as you've outgrown Habbo and its communities so this idea is aimed at trying to bolster activity amongst users that have already moved on (even if they still log on everyday like myself). There have been numerous attempts to increase activity amongst this group (posting challenges, prizes for top poster of the week) and they do not work because they are targeting the wrong audience. If you want to increase forum activity, you have to increase the community and bring over the new generation and the only way to do that is to get on Habbo.

If you want the best evidence of this in action, you only need to see the advertisement of competitions. It is no coincidence that those that advertise on Habbo do better than advertising on the forum even though the competitions are on the forum because Habbo is the place where people get involved. It is no coincidence that those that are integrated in the community have more entries than those where people don't have a clue who they are. If anything we need Habbo ambassadors that will get people onto the forum and posting!

i quit habbo not long after i joined, i stayed because i made friends with people on the forum and the outside habbo section was interesting and had its own little community.
i know you won't bring in new members with the outside habbo section and the majority of your points are completely valid, but honestly, i think a lot of the older members *would* continue to use the outside habbo section long after they quit; i did myself for a good few years.

you've completely missed my point i think, like i said, i'm not denying that 99% of the userbase here came from habbo and to keep this place going yes, that needs to be the focus, but that doesn't mean that outside habbo needs to be completely neglected.
clubhabbo is a good example. they had a super strong outside habbo community until the very end because effort was made to keep activity, but failed due to bad management and not bringing in new members, which seems less of an issue here.
clubhabbo would have died a good year or two before it did if it wasn't for the strong outside habbo section. a lot of us from that forum still talk today.

[Inseriousity.]

I agree that it doesn't need to be neglected. I actually said that in my first post!

My point is this:


clubhabbo is a good example. they had a super strong outside habbo community until the very end because effort was made to keep activity, but failed due to bad management and not bringing in new members, which seems less of an issue here.

It's not, it's the major issue that is being swept under the carpet where every new idea, initiative is aimed at the older users/current community rather than getting more new users. I can't talk about ClubHabbo as I wasn't there towards the end but I have been involved with other communities and they all ended the same way.

- Management focus on keeping the older users involved.
- Older users grow up and leave
- No new users left to take their place
- Older users still remaining argue about what to do to increase activity and get new people involved
- New people who do arrive tend to get hounded out by older users (Empired has mentioned this)
- Those older users also leave.

This tends to continue until there's no-one left and those in charge decide to give up the fight. Weirdly I think we agree with each other but we've sorta looked at the same thing from different sides :P

[Matthew]

I agree with Inseriousity.;

The techniques which we use at the moment to boost activity such as quotas and happy hours are all aimed at the existing, declining user base. Sure, I still come on habboxforum every other day to see what's going on (even though i rarely post now). A happy hour of course makes me post a little more as it actually starts up some discussion (even if most of it is spam) but then as soon as it's over everything just goes back to how it was- often instantly. You can keep doing these quota things etc but eventually all you're doing is asking a tiny user base to post a little more when the fundamental issue is a lack of (new) users. 10 more users are far more valuable in the long run than 10 people spamming to get some extra tokens in the short run.

[Matt]

Sorry for the delayed reply!

As you've rightly mentioned, Forum activity has been on the decline for quite some time and something does need implementing and/or changing in an attempt to tackle it. Over the Christmas period we definitely saw quite a jump in posts and activity compared to previous months and I believe when School/College/University etc all finish or go on breaks, the activity slowly increases. A possible solution would involve not just HabboxForum but all sites and involve multiple departments in an attempt to retain newer users as I think we definitely have a serious issue in that area. Older users leaving and moving on from Habbo/x is the main cause of declining activity and has also been raised in relation to a number of other departments and areas of Habbox to explain decline in popularity/staff/activity etc. I won't hide behind that and use it as a reason as to why nothing has been implemented sooner but I do think it should be acknowledged.

Other fansite forums do have Forum Events staff and such roles which would perhaps be worth trying here at Habbox to see if it improves retention and activity. At a guess, the role would operate similar to that of Debates Leader where they work mostly on their own with occasional support from myself and other administrators. I know this role has been suggested before and I do think implementing it (even for a period of time or as a trial) would give us a gauge or whether or not that would be an effective role.

I could see Forum Ambassadors working to an extent. I'm not sure if making it an official role (with usertitles etc) would be necessary but if enough people were interested in perhaps joining and being a part of that then I don't see why not. I assume it would be made up of older members and include a few newer members as well to get a range of people and varying viewpoints and members from different target audiences as possible.

I'll take these ideas and discuss them with Management and see which one(s) will be implemented. I definitely don't see the Habbo section of the forum being nearly as active as it has been before so I think it's just a general issue across the entire Forum.



Also on a side note - Happy Hours were good to begin with before the Tokens currency went stale & became unpopular. I am still working on a change up with that and a slight revamp, it's just taking a bit longer than I first thought it would.