Member to Guest rates

This has been brought up a lot in the past and mostly with heated discussion.

However I found within the past few years that the ratio of Members to Guests on this forum has gone from more members than guests, to equal to more guests and now to a point where there are five times more guests viewing the forums than there are members. I'm not suggesting blocking access without logging in after x posts, some people like to watch the forum without joining, but, something can be said for being a bit more insistent on them joining.

I would suggest the following:

- "Second Post in a Thread" join the forum advertising
- Every ten/twenty pages redirect them to a page asking them if they'd want to join
- Rewrite the guest welcome banner so that it talks about stuff like competitions and prizes first.
- Fix how the layout looks in IE, there are some minor bugs in places that may be off-putting to guests who are more likely to be using IE.

Possibly some other stuff. It would be interesting to see the statistics on how many pages the average guest views in a session.

Apparently the amount of guests you see browsing the forum is inaccurate

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Originally Posted by The Don

Apparently the amount of guests you see browsing the forum is inaccurate

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Yeah I think the number is greatly enhanced by things like Google Spiders.

Never understood why habbox don't use that addon so users can view 5 post then are forced to sign up if they wish to view further.

any forum I want to view a thread on with that addon enabled just makes me ragequit the page instead of joining

Theres not much benefit of having people view your forums if they have no intention of joining

Unless they're after maximizing advert money + traffic

And I'm sure majority of the time people will register to the site, and ultimately put more contribution into the community rather than watching it.

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Originally Posted by Stephen!

any forum I want to view a thread on with that addon enabled just makes me ragequit the page instead of joining

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that was same for me when ch did the same thing.

I signed up to CH after they told me I couldn't view any more. I'm sure there are more people like that than those who click off.

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Originally Posted by Stephen!

any forum I want to view a thread on with that addon enabled just makes me ragequit the page instead of joining

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Which is why I've never signed up to Club Habbo and another forum which I can't remember. :P

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Originally Posted by scottish

Never understood why habbox don't use that addon so users can view 5 post then are forced to sign up if they wish to view further.

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Nvrspk4 has been heavily blocking the idea since it arose, and for good reason. The only reason he joined this forum was because of a friend who just viewed the forum.

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Yeah I think the number is greatly enhanced by things like Google Spiders.

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There aren't that many spiders and they don't spend all their time on Habbox..

The welcome banner guests see isn't inviting... It seems more of a "This is what we are" rather than "See what you can be a part of".

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Welcome to HabboxForum!
HabboxForum.com is part of Habbo's oldest fansite, Habbox.com. Here at HabboxForum we offer you a chance to meet fellow Habbos, discuss a wide range of topics and best of all participate in a range of events and competitions in which you could win rares and credits on Habbo.com.

Wherever in the world you are, you can take part in this fun by Registering at HabboxForum today! Click here to get involved now or click here for help.

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I would like to see inviting sentences and words like "Do you like what you see?" or "You can be a part of this community by registering" etc. At the moment it isn't drawing people into registering, assuming there are a lot of people browsing the forums who are actually human beings rather than Bots set to appear as Guests.

Perhaps you could build on Chippiewill's idea and that is instead of "forcing" guests to sign up or log-in, perhaps a pop-up saying "Care to join us?" or something could appear that isn't too forceful? It's the sort of pop up you get all the time with websites wanting to compile a survey. Seems better than being forceful, which makes you seem far too desperate which is undesirable, as some users on here may agree with (or they do not like being redirected to a sign-up page, either way, not very nice :P)

I wish vb removed bots from the guest count like phpbb does, we'd be able to see some more useful stats then. But even taking bots into account at a rough guess (50 tops, unless the google analytics, image, both web, shopping and all their other bots are looking at habbox 24/7) that's still a lot of people just reading.

As people have said they don't like the 'force-join' attitude, but no harm in inline stuff except a couple more kbs of bandwidth and also in improving the welcome banner as above..

Would be nice to see management opinion (Apart from Inseriousity's brief comment)? (Especially before it gets to long for Matt to bother reading it..)

I think the major issue for habbox going ahead is gaining new members, and more thought should be going towards it.

Edit: Formatting of registration page on IE needs fixing, the entry boxes are all over the place.

Just to add some input to the IE problem. I used to use IE before changing to chrome and while using it i constantly had problems using habbox forum on it. I reported this a few times but i'm not sure if the problems ever got fixed (seems they didn't?) .

Most casual pc users use IE as it's the default browser for most computers and most people don't bother changing it. It's just as important if not more to have habbox forum working well on IE as it is on other browsers.

Before attempting to get any guests to sign up, I think they need to sort the fact the forums down for like 2 hours a day, and when it's not it's lagging like hell

That's more likely to put every new member off, rather than attract new members.

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Originally Posted by scottish

Before attempting to get any guests to sign up, I think they need to sort the fact the forums down for like 2 hours a day, and when it's not it's lagging like hell

That's more likely to put every new member off, rather than attract new members.

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The forum does seem a lot better now but I agree it puts both members and new members off than it has recently and I believe we do more than a lot of forums to try to get new members posting and active. As somebody said prior to this post most of the 'guests' are bots.


Edit: Message from xxxMATTGxx

I have seen the thread and I do have a reply ready to post but to an error on the forum I can't submit just yet.

Thanks Rosie!

Right:

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Originally Posted by scottish

Before attempting to get any guests to sign up, I think they need to sort the fact the forums down for like 2 hours a day, and when it's not it's lagging like hell

That's more likely to put every new member off, rather than attract new members.

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Jin is/has been speaking to the datacenter in terms of any recent major downtime and he has also looked into a problem that may be causing us the issues lately.


Hello Chippie, I'm posting in your thread on the 2nd page, are you happy? ;) :P

- "Second Post in a Thread" join the forum advertising

Could you explain this? I'm not sure what this is or maybe I'm not thinking straight at the moment.


- Every ten/twenty pages redirect them to a page asking them if they'd want to join

Could do but then that's a bit like the force registration but maybe a pop up like others have suggested on the actual page they are viewing, seeing they want to join the forum or what not. So they are on HabboxForum and after X amount of minutes, a notification pops up asking if they would like to join the community and so on.

That way it doesn't redirect them off the forum completely and still see it. Hmmmm

- Rewrite the guest welcome banner so that it talks about stuff like competitions and prizes first.

That can be done and should be done to encourage members to join the forum. I'll tag [@]@Sct[/@] into the post so he can see the thread.

- Fix how the layout looks in IE, there are some minor bugs in places that may be off-putting to guests who are more likely to be using IE.

What can you say, It's HotelUser. He hates anything Microsoft! (I'm having a joke David, don't kill me!) - I don't use IE and I don't know which bugs you are fully talking about but feel free to post them in the bugs forum and we can make sure [@]@HotelUser[/@] gets round to fixing them if possible. Although sometimes it's due to the end user using an outdated version of IE, so Windows XP users need to upgrade to IE8 at least and Windows Vista or 7 should upgrade to IE9. They should do that regardless if they use it or not.

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Originally Posted by Eoin247

Just to add some input to the IE problem. I used to use IE before changing to chrome and while using it i constantly had problems using habbox forum on it. I reported this a few times but i'm not sure if the problems ever got fixed (seems they didn't?) .

Most casual pc users use IE as it's the default browser for most computers and most people don't bother changing it. It's just as important if not more to have habbox forum working well on IE as it is on other browsers.

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Yes I agree but also depends which bugs these are, some are due to IE not being as good as other browsers in terms of showing the same result in Firefox and Chrome. If they are bugs that can be fixed then I do 100% agree with you.

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Originally Posted by xxMATTGxx

- "Second Post in a Thread" join the forum advertising

Could you explain this? I'm not sure what this is or maybe I'm not thinking straight at the moment.


- Every ten/twenty pages redirect them to a page asking them if they'd want to join

Could do but then that's a bit like the force registration but maybe a pop up like others have suggested on the actual page they are viewing, seeing they want to join the forum or what not. So they are on HabboxForum and after X amount of minutes, a notification pops up asking if they would like to join the community and so on.

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- "Second Post in a Thread" join the forum advertising

I'm sure hes talking about on some forums theres always an advert as the second post, something like http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=239981 but instead of having an advert to somewhere else, have advert to sign up to hxf.

- Every ten/twenty pages redirect them to a page asking them if they'd want to join

If you allow members to constantly view the forum then they'll probably not bother registering, imho something like this won't put someone off using it but will encourage them to sign up to avoid the redirect. Could also do when a guest first comes on habbox they are forced to view a thread, the thread could give benefits of signing up etc but they can alternatively just go back and skip it, so technically not forcing them to sign up

I've lurked on digitalspy for ages. It all depends on the content. I have been tempted to sign up if there was a good thread I'd like to post inbut there's never been enough incentive for me to take that extra leap. Instead of force-reading threads or whatever, it would be imo much more beneficial to focus on improving the incentives to ensure that as many people as possible take the leap from lurker to registered user and then from there, committed user. :D

DOn't do force reading, they piss me off. If I see one I just leave

I joined this forum after reading the forum for months beforehand, usually reading the UK News and Rumours forum for 'juicy news' which I wouldn't get if I just stayed on the hotel. A view block would produce unintended consquences as 'good ideas' like this usually do if they aren't examined properly. The pop-up idea seems good though, make it very friendly 'simple sign up' and I think it might work.

Scumbag Habbox

I make a thread specifically going through solutions that aren't force read and EVERYONE goes into how force read is bad.

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Originally Posted by Chippiewill

I make a thread specifically going through solutions that aren't force read and EVERYONE goes into how force read is bad.

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Your suggestion about having guests redirected to a page after viewing ten/twenty pages did sound similar, so maybe they are confused about that? :P

Good to see MattG's reply :P What seems the most desirable course of action?

Pop-up notice
Redirection to page
Other suggestions.

I think that habbox needs to focus on trying to recruit the younger generation of habbos. Most people that know/use habbox are in the oldest range of habbo members. I'm not too sure what the best way to go about doing this is, but certainly something/s need to be done to bring in younger habbo users.

what if a little positive popup saying something like "hey you! it seems like you've been viewing quite a lot of habboxforum recently, why not take the plunge and become a part of our community. just click here!" rather than YOUVE VIEWED ALL YOU CAN, GOODBYE.

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Originally Posted by Publicised

what if a little positive popup saying something like "hey you! it seems like you've been viewing quite a lot of habboxforum recently, why not take the plunge and become a part of our community. just click here!" rather than YOUVE VIEWED ALL YOU CAN, GOODBYE.

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That'd be dead annoying !

Making a popup come up for every 10 different threads guests view or so asking them to register might be worth looking into

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Originally Posted by HotelUser

Making a popup come up for every 10 different threads guests view or so asking them to register might be worth looking into

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But it annoys them, they may register but they wont be active :(

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Originally Posted by GoldenMerc

But it annoys them, they may register but they wont be active :(

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So what is your suggestion to counter that then?

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Originally Posted by xxMATTGxx

So what is your suggestion to counter that then?

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Well if you force them to register, they may register but not post as they got forced to so they'l just use the account to look at threads. Maybe offer more competitions? More things for them to do?

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Originally Posted by GoldenMerc

Well if you force them to register, they may register but not post as they got forced to so they'l just use the account to look at threads. Maybe offer more competitions? More things for them to do?

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but the prizes offered in forum competitions only benefit your forum account and if the user isn't interested in posting they aren't going to be bothered about receiving VIP/Rep, maybe more Habbo prizes for forum competitions?

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Originally Posted by The Don

but the prizes offered in forum competitions only benefit your forum account and if the user isn't interested in posting they aren't going to be bothered about receiving VIP/Rep, maybe more Habbo prizes for forum competitions?

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Yeh i guess so! I wonder how many people register from events though?

Not a clue :P

I don't really play Habbo anymore, but are there still really popular Habbo's? If there are, we could get some of them to endorse Habbox in public?

We could also host an event with a huge prize, like a couple of thrones or something and a years VIP on the forum and get everyone talking about it on Habbo, maybe half the competition could be through the hotel and the other half through the Forum/Habbox Liveto get all sites really active and that would hopefully encourage a few Habbo's to register on the forum in order to win the prize and hopefully they would stick around after the competition has ended?

Maybe an official Habbox Casino? They tend to be quite popular, obviously only the most trusted staff would be dealers, maybe hxhd senior staff and senior DJ's? This way scamming shouldn't really be an issue.

They did a official casino before, i think they should bring it back to be fair. Wouldnt be hard to get it packed, do LMS or something, never the less sell rights not just give them to managers, as most managers don't have thrones or enough rares. Sell rights for like 2gb, each person who buys rights could happily go towards the site.

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Originally Posted by GoldenMerc

They did a official casino before, i think they should bring it back to be fair. Wouldnt be hard to get it packed, do LMS or something, never the less sell rights not just give them to managers, as most managers don't have thrones or enough rares. Sell rights for like 2gb, each person who buys rights could happily go towards the site.

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There could also be room moderators or middle men? each person gives their half the bet to that individual and the middleman gives the winner the prize, this would make scamming less frequent. They would also be there to serve the same purpose as hxhd staff, to make sure everyone abides the rules and to kick and ban advertisers/bots.

Just do room moderator's could even be a role (like Habbox staff) find a few trusted people and work it how the helpdesk runs, with hours etc. I'd happily do that :) even though im more of a better. I doubt Habbox will do a casino idea, they tried it before but i don't think they did it the right way, it should be owned by Sierk,Jin or Matt. No one else. Personally i'd vote for Jin and Sierk so when Matt resigns it doesnt just lose all its reputation when its gone, Only give certain people rights, Use D.e instead of rights to avoid trashing etc.

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Originally Posted by GoldenMerc

Just do room moderator's could even be a role (like Habbox staff) find a few trusted people and work it how the helpdesk runs, with hours etc. I'd happily do that :) even though im more of a better. I doubt Habbox will do a casino idea, they tried it before but i don't think they did it the right way, it should be owned by Sierk,Jin or Matt. No one else. Personally i'd vote for Jin and Sierk so when Matt resigns it doesnt just lose all its reputation when its gone, Only give certain people rights, Use D.e instead of rights to avoid trashing etc.

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I like the idea of Jin owning it. I'm not down with Habbo slang so have no idea what D.e means? haha, yeh there could be a separate room with tele's to the booths so that rights are kept to a minimum with the room password being changed if a booth owner does scam someone, then all the other booth owners could be alerted through pm or whatever so that they know the new password. That'd be a pretty good role if Habbox were to run with the RM idea. I'm not sure what the helpdesk hour requirements are but the same amount could be used for the room moderators. Obviously there would be a manager with a similar hierarchy compared to helpdesk staff. If done properly, this could bring in a lot of new forum members and traffic to habbox and habboxlive.

D.e = Dealers entrance, so let that be owned by someone who uses habbo daily.
The requirements for helpdesk are 5 hours a week so thats fairly easy to get staff to do that kind of thing, do things such as LMS to get the casino popular LMS = last man standing. Which brings in a huge audience, knowing Habbox it will be popular for the first few months, but they can keep this at a steady level by doing LMS once a day, which they'd give prizes out to the winner :)
Ross

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Originally Posted by GoldenMerc

D.e = Dealers entrance, so let that be owned by someone who uses habbo daily.
The requirements for helpdesk are 5 hours a week so thats fairly easy to get staff to do that kind of thing, do things such as LMS to get the casino popular LMS = last man standing. Which brings in a huge audience, knowing Habbox it will be popular for the first few months, but they can keep this at a steady level by doing LMS once a day, which they'd give prizes out to the winner :)
Ross

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Would the official dealers be the room moderators as well or would RM be a different role to OD?

I can't remember or find the reason as to whymanagementdisliked the idea of an official casino, anyone know why?

It sounds like a good idea and Habbox should give it a trial run, at least.

With casinos if a member scams then people turn to habbox for the blame.

Dealers shouldn't be doing RM aswel in my eyes, it would end up with people being scammed. As the room mod is the person in charge