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Platter contest participation

G

GeeSeaWhy

Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Messages
46
Likes
1
Location
Massachusetts
For the just-ended platter contest there were 13 entries, which I'd say was pretty good. But only 57 people voted in the poll to decide the winner, and if we assume that all the participants also voted (for someone else, of course!) that leaves only 44 people bothering to contribute. That seems like very few, especially given that voting takes considerably less time and effort than creating an entry for the contest.

Moderators, are there any statistics on how many different people post or login in a month? Are there really not that many active members or did something else put people off voting?

And congratulations Mike, I do like that piece even if it isn't as weird (I mean creative) as some of your work.

Graeme
 
I tend to agree with you. We did have a very good turnout for a first contest. But it's easy to vote and a lot of folks didn't take the time.

I just reviewed the statistics:
- there are about 100 people/day visiting the forum on average
- there is an average of 3-5 new threads started each day
- there is an average of 15-20 replies (posts) each day
- there are over 1,000 people registered

It is possible that visitors do not login when they visit, and I don't know if the software counts them as a visitor or not. Many people have registered, but I estimate we probably have 100-200 active members. Many of the registered folks do not post, and some probably rarely visit the forum.
 
You will find there is always a lot of lurkers. They like the opportunity to see what is going on but are hesitant to put their ideas or questions forward incase they make look inadequate.

They have to learn that there is no such thing as a stupid or silly question because you are guaranteed that there is someone else waiting to ask the same question but will not come forward.

The only silly question is the one not asked.

There is a wealth of knowledge on these forums so use them to help yourself and anyone else who wants to know.

Back to the original post , I tried to put forward a vote in the platter contest and it came back to me as I had already voted which I had not, at the time I did not have a lot of free time to follow through as to why my vote did not get through so my vote was not counted. Maybe this happened to others.
 
Around this whole topic, I tended to be a lurker for a few years. But now I'm woodturning nearly full time. That generates some questions. Also it qualifies me to actually answer some of the questions posted by others now that I've turned hundreds of pieces. Even when my answers are not always 100%, I try to stay within my realm of experience to pass along info that has helped me. :cool2:

Jim - about voting. I can't determine who voted on the platter poll. The platter poll was setup with the option "don't show who has voted", which is an option that one selects when setting up a poll. So I can't debug the specific platter vote situation.

However, if others experienced problems voting I can setup a test poll and with the option set to "show who has voted". Then I can debug the problem. Could it be possible that you voted accidently by pushing "vote" (or whatever the button is called)? Or I could setup a test poll to ensure that you can vote in the next one.

I noticed that after one votes, the software italicizes the selection you made. That should still occur for the existing poll. You can go back to that thread and see if that is occurring on your account. I just checked for my personal account and the software is correctly italicizing the name of the person I voted for...when I look at the "View Poll Results" screen.
 
We were talking about this the other night at our club's board meeting. All were surprised at the lack of views and responses. I think it was the first real indicator to many of us about just how many (or few) people utilitize this website. I would have thought the board was much more popular than the numbers show.

Side issue to this - we're a new club in Baltimore and are now setting up our website. We questioned what, if anything, AAW has to facilitate new clubs with this effort. It would seem natural (to us anyway) that AAW sponsor webspace and perhaps even a standardized template or style sheet that clubs could draw on when organizing their web presence. Doing so could also help promote the AAW website by requiring links back and forth. Member clubs could also use the AAW individual gallery features for their own members, saving space and providing seamless links back and forth. Has this been discussed with any outcome at AAW? Would seem to me that they'd prefer some sort of harmony throughout the clubs web presences, today it is totally disjointed and haphazard.
 
Mike - I think those are good suggestions in general.

About forum usage - if anyone has suggestions on how to increase visibility or usage I'm open to ideas.

NOTE: I just researched the usage issue. "Lurkers", people who do not login, are NOT counted in the usage statistics. As a result there is no way to tell how many people are just reading the forum, or just looking at the gallery pictures. I would posit a guess that a lot of folks do just that....they hit the forum to glean some info without logging in. It could be 20 people/day or 100/day.

I think it is good to let unregistered or un-logged-in people view the forums. As an example, I posted some pics in the photo forum and Theresa (my Sig-Other) shared those pictures at work. Then they started looking at other photos from other members. The general idea is that unregistered people can look at what we're doing....benefitting woodturning in general.

About webspace and webformats for chapters. This has not been discussed. We just finished the chapters website competition and there were a variety of designs. There is a lot of creativity out there. We could tie into the network of webmasters who entered the competition. I think if your chapter came up with a couple of designs, the webmasters could provide comments or suggestions.

Sharing the AAW hosting space, the gallery, etc is an interesting idea. It has not been proposed or discussed. The AAW is paying for hosting and there are usage and size limits for each tier of usage. In the past 2 years nearly all the website and forum changes were proposed by me, and most were implemented by me as well. Notable exceptions are:
- The recent POP work which was proposed by John Hill and had an excellent implementation by Paul Vonk
- Chris Wright gave me extraordinary help in setting up the text and photo forum implementation
- Mike Nelson co-designed and gave extraordinary help in designing and testing the redesigned website.

My point is that someone has to propose the idea to the board, foster it, then usually put in a lot of time to get it done. I think one simple thing we could do is to sponsor chapter subforums from this forum as desired. I'm not sure if that's something people would want or even use.
 
It should be easy to get guest usage by getting site statistics for the forum opening page on any given day and subtact the amount of logged in users were there that day. A convoluted approach, but it works.

Personally, I have cookies set so that I am logged in on every computer I regularly use when I go to the forum.
 
Difficulty in voting

I don't know if anybody else had the same experience, but I was unable to find where to vote. I specifically logged in twice to make a vote but left without doing so because I couldn't locate the link to make my vote. It was probably staring me right in the face, but for whatever reason I couldn't find it.

I've had some difficulty in navigating this site. Trying to post my first photo, for example, was far too difficult. Maybe the voting suffered because of the same problem.
 
Chris - why didn't you post a question asking about the vote? Or you could have emailed me, or sent me a Private Message (PM).

The voting thread was "stuck" as the very first thread in the main forum. It was entitled "Vote here for Spring 2005 AAW Forum Platter Contest". (Actually it still has that title).

Also for posting photos I have a short tutorial which is stuck as the first or second thread in this forum "How to post photos". If you have suggestions on the content in that thread or how else I can make it easier please suggest them. I'm open to any suggestions.
 
Voting

Jeff,

I told you it was probably staring me right in the face! I do recall seeing this thread, but not until the votes were in and the poll closed. How long was the voting thread open? Could I have been looking for it before it was posted. Actually, a lightbulb just went off -- I may have been searching for information on the website about the platter contest, and it was that information that I couldn't turn up. Regardless, it sounds like the problem I was having does not apply to others in this case. Please disregard it as a possible cause for low voter turnout.

As for not asking for help...sorry about that. I usually try to stumble through things without bothering someone else.
 
That's no problem Chris, I just want to be as helpful as possible.

The voting thread was opened on Sat 5/8 and closed on Sat 5/14, so it was open for 7 days. Sometimes it's easy to overlook the first item in the forum, since it's usually the "how to post photos" item.

Maybe next time I can also post a link on the homepage.
 
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