Expanding IJBM

GLORIOUSLeader · 2011-09-12 14:29:12

Okay guys, seriously. Every one of our members (save that one guy from Busy Street who posts almost never) is from TVTropes. We have no outside contributors. What is going to happen when we all get tired of this place?

IanExMachina · 2011-09-12 14:31:32

Well it is kind of hard as the forum doesn't really have a page explaining the forum's purpose, just the It Just Lampshades me! picture, so newcomers might be put off or nonplussed.

When we all get tired of this place it will die.

ClockworkUniverse · 2011-09-12 14:31:35

We've got some Something Awful people too.

Your point stands, though.

TheConductor · 2011-09-12 14:31:44

It'll die.

Noimporta · 2011-09-12 14:32:46

It'll die.

Edit: Hivemind

CommandoDude · 2011-09-12 14:34:38

We expand or DIE!

Central Avenue · 2011-09-12 14:35:12

To be honest, when this place was started back in January I figured it would be a ghost town by now.

GLORIOUSLeader · 2011-09-12 14:35:22

OK, just checking.

Maybe we should have some intro page or thing or something.

IanExMachina · 2011-09-12 14:35:47

Also a different picture might help.

Stormtroper · 2011-09-12 14:36:48

We've got some Something Awful people too.

They're all ex-tropers, aren't they? Either way, there's also StrangeBean.

To be honest, when this place was started back in January I figured it would be a ghost town by now.

I think pretty much everybody believed that. I definitely did.

Anyhow, it feels comforting to know I'm not the only one worried about IJBM's future.

Chagen · 2011-09-12 14:38:36

Expanding is hard when we have no specific purpose.

Perhaps advertise ourselves as a place to vent all your frustrations (which is what we do, basically)? Most forums don't let you do that. I.e: We act as a small place for people to express their frustrations/confusions at something. Maybe they do "drive-by" threads every few days or they actualy stay and daily visit.

Perhaps we should view ourselves as a supplement to other forums. Not something to replace them.

glennmagusharvey · 2011-09-12 15:02:41

We DO need a raison d'etre, a reason for being.

We are currently a general-topics forum with a specific style, but the style doesn't actually mean all that much.

Chagen · 2011-09-12 15:05:39

We do have a raison d'entre. It's to vent frustrations/confusions.

glennmagusharvey · 2011-09-12 15:11:15

But is there anything that holds us together as a community, other than "we were already associated before we joined"?

IanExMachina · 2011-09-12 15:15:08

~~Love of hunting Paedos?~~

I can't think of anything serious really, I mean Compaints/Frustrations is what I'd assume our original Raison d'être was but now we are more just a community.

RedEyedAbyss · 2011-09-12 15:18:15

Although admittedly, our original purpose pretty much made us Twitter in forum format, which would lead to the latter when barely anyone else joins up here.

glennmagusharvey · 2011-09-12 15:24:48

~~^^ why do you want to hunt children? What exactly are you after?~~

IanExMachina · 2011-09-12 15:29:02

^^

Hmm yeah, I guess some more focus on discussing the things that bug us, rather than just stating them?

^

~~I don't hunt kids, I hunt Paedos.~~

~~You are the only one talking about hunting children...~~

glennmagusharvey · 2011-09-12 15:48:14

~~You are wrong, sir, as "paedo" means child, so you are the child-finding general.~~

IanExMachina · 2011-09-12 15:50:19

^

RedEyedAbyss · 2011-09-12 15:57:57

"Hmm yeah, I guess some more focus on discussing the things that bug us, rather than just stating them?"

The most problematic users tend to do the latter over the former, incidentally.

IanExMachina · 2011-09-12 17:26:16

^

Well we encourage the discussing angle.

It would be easier if we had a frontpage with explanation, but I'm not sure if Vanilla does that.

Anonus · 2011-09-12 18:58:03

You can put a message somewhere prominent doing that...if you're Longfellow.

Central Avenue · 2011-09-12 19:14:11

This is a self-hosted forum, though, so Glenn or INUH might be able to do it, too.

Chagen · 2011-09-12 19:15:29

^ Yes. Since this forum is self-hosted, it can't be that difficult to itjustbugsme.com direct to a main page with a link to the forums.

Anonus · 2011-09-12 19:22:06

I don't know why I keep thinking about the software and not the site itself.

glennmagusharvey · 2011-09-12 20:53:54

I think Unknown_Entity would have to be the one to do that.

InsanityAddict · 2011-09-13 05:02:45

Does anyone keep tally of the numbers? It seems IJBM gets into this every time a few bannings happen or there is a temporary drought of new subjects.

That said, you can do a honeypot ploy where you crosspost the OP of a thread to another forum with a similar area of interest to the thread subject and hope a few people stick around once they make an account here to enter whatever discussion takes place.

MillerCross · 2011-09-15 00:30:52

Honestly? Why is this a worry?

By now, we can't seriously expand. We are the spawn of an old subforum from a forum that is now normally despised.

What you should be doing is just post and have fun. If new members come, they'll come, if they don't, they don't. But trying to force this kinda thing won't make it comes afloat or whatever.

Nova · 2011-09-15 00:33:09

Because people leave eventually.

MillerCross · 2011-09-15 00:37:31

Yes, I'm aware. My point is simply that there is no way to actually getting around expanding this place beyond talking about it out of here.

Way I see it, it works far better as the little forum it is now than the medium forum that people seem to envision in a future that probably wouldn't come no matter how hard we'd try.

Howdy, Stranger!

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