Outside Habbo Activity Levels

[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

[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.