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by Funky Monkey

What I'm asking then is are people afraid of the site growing at too quick a rate? More to point, are we afraid of new members? I dont think we should be. I'd love to see more members. New members bring with them fresh topics for discussion, and it'd just be nice to see fresh faces posting really - i'm sick of all you lot {jus kiddin folks}

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If nobody wanted/planned for the membership to be very large, then the forum structure was set up incorrectly. With current membership there are far too many forums, with the result that all but a few are largely ignored.

FM, personally, I think new members are essential. Invariably people burn out on sites like this, and you need new members to keep the post count up and to keep things varied and interesting. I don't think you can have too many new members, but I also think that the current level seems healthy and therefore no need for concern. However, if the number of new members were to drop to a trickle, then there would be cause for concern.

As for advertising, as I said before, I don't think things are currently broke, so no need to worry. Plus, advertising costs and this is currently a free site without annoying pop up adverts. I'd like it to stay that way. The site cannot advertize unless there's income or someone puts their hand in their pocket and pays for it themselves. I don't want the site covered in adverts and I don't think staff should have to pay for advertising - I'm grateful they do as much as they do already. Hence I don't think adverts are an option.

We definately need a steady stream of new members to the site - it's how it can grow and stay alive and keep healthy, without them it becomes stale, and slowly dies.
I'm pleased this thread is here, as it gives us some feedback on things

No, we aren't Buffy-centric, we all want T21 to last a long time, and limiting yourself to one show that is getting pretty near the end of it's life is very limiting on the potential growth of the site.

I personally see meets as a way to strengthen the community ties of the site, and at the same time I hope be open enough to make new members feel at home and welcome and get to know us (then they can come out and party without getting freaked out at all the nutters ).

T21 is aimed at a Sci-Fi loving audience, which is why we're trying to push some of the focus back towards Sci-Fi with the themed chats and stuff, sure general chat is great and is usually the most popular forum on *any* forum type site, but that's not where we want our focus to be.

We are trying to push our theme a little more, and I hope you as members will support us in this, be that be introducting new members, posting your thoughts on the latest episodes, chewing things over in chat or providing feedback such as this (preferably all of the above )

It's your site too, without you it is nothing but a lump of code waiting for <Johnny 5>iiiiiiinnnnput</Johnny 5>.

Help us make it be the place we all know it can be

(Edited by Stoo 11/11/2002 02:41)

Through scanning the thread I see a number a conflicts. The main problem I can see is that everyone is saying that we should have more members but everyone who's new say's they're afraid of jioining a chatroom of existing members. Perhaps you ought to be more inviting to people who you don't know, not everyone had the fortune that I had in that my first chatroom experience being with some of the friendliest members on the the site, also some that had a lot of experience with new memers (also MissKittyFantastic was in there and she kinda already knew me(ish) and this helped to get me involved).

From the other side - newbies, do what I did: yes these are people who you don't know but that's also the solution; if people are nasty and you don't like them (which will never happen) so what, it's not like school, college, work etc. where you have to see them every day. If you don't like things you can simply not go on chat which is basically whta you're doing at the moment, and if you like things (which you will) you've found a new way of wasting endless hours: listening to Spike talk rubbish

Bit long winded but I felt I had to post.

P.S to all those who feel "too young" there are plenty of people in the last year or 2 of school or just starting college, me being one of them.

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by Havoc
P.S to all those who feel "too young" there are plenty of people in the last year or 2 of school or just starting college, me being one of them.

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T21 is quite a young group, many of the most active members are in their teens or early 20s -- I'm positively antediluvial by T21 standards :fogey:

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by Havoc
P.S to all those who feel "too young" there are plenty of people in the last year or 2 of school or just starting college, me being one of them.

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...and there are a few of us for whom college is but a distant memory...

/me grabs his zimmer frame and wanders out.

(Edited by gobstopper 11/11/2002 11:35)

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by gobstopper
(quotes)
/me grabs his zimmer frame and wanders out.

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And some of us for whom zimmer frames are likewise...

I'm not very good in chat rooms.
I just lurk and read the posts, and I prefer to meet people face to face, although personal circumstances being what they are now, it may be a while before I get to see any of you lot

I'm also very rarely online these days, as most of my posting used to be done from work, and as I'm not there anymore...

Keep up the good work though staff - if it weren't for T21 I wouldn't have met some lovely people at Nos and the such like.

*Off to get my blue rinse, wash and set*

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by gobstopper
(quotes)
/me grabs his zimmer frame and wanders out.

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gimme my zimmer frame back

The thing with the chatroom is silence breeds silence , if no one is talking people will think there is no point going into chat as it will be quiet so its a vicious circle really .... Although from experience the T21 chatroom is always very friendly

Whenevr I'm in chat, if there's a long pause in the conversation, I usually try to ask the most stupid question I can think of. That usually gets people talking again, if only to tell me to shut up!

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by Havoc
Through scanning the thread I see a number a conflicts. The main problem I can see is that everyone is saying that we should have more members but everyone who's new say's they're afraid of joining a chatroom of existing members.
Perhaps you ought to be more inviting to people who you don't know, not everyone had the fortune that I had in that my first chatroom experience being with some of the friendliest members on the the site, also some that had a lot of experience with new members.

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Well, that does apply to the main site as well, so what I'm saying will also apply to both the site and the chatroom.

At the end of the day, it's down to all of us, whether we're staff or members, to welcome the new members into the site. Staff can only do so much to welcome new members in, the rest of it does depend on existing members to welcome in the newbies, and encourage them to join into the various conversations, after all it is more likely through sheer numbers that the first people a newbie will "meet", will be a member.

For any new members, or older (lurker) members reading this and have been worried about posting, or popping in the chatroom, don't be! - It's no different from a new school, or new job, where everyone or nearly everyone is new to you, and this place is no different

If you don't feel you can't post for any particular reason, then contact a staff member, we don't bite

Back the the general populace - if you see a newbie posting on one of your threads, give them that bit of extra space when you post a reply, and try to encourage them to post more by involving them in the conversation

(Edited by Stoo 12/11/2002 00:27)

Stoo has made some very valid points above

At some point in time everyone was a newbie - this xmas will be my 3rd year online with buffyuk being the first site I joined. I did my share of lurking in the first couple of months getting to know everyone from their posts and banter. But really its the chatroom that gave me that boost of active conversation and it accelerated my confidence to post onto threads.

Of course everyone is different, and granted, there are quiet spots in a chatroom or on sites. Somedays there are more things to talk about than others - its all a matter of preference and voicing your say

If there are specific things you would like to see, there's a thread in feedback for your suggestions HERE

Whilst I agree with the previous comments that T21 isn't, and shouldn't become, a Buffy specific site, the fact remains that probably the bulk of people here are ex-yukkers; and if we wish to quickly increase headcount then one viable means to do this would be to email everyone who was a member of buffyuk to notify them about this successor site.

Obviously, there are a million concern with this, and it would need to be done with exceptional care; however as far as I'm aware most yukkers never found out about T21 directly (I certainly didn't) so it may be worth one carefully worded email to the four thousand or so yukkers to let them know about this non-buffy-specific site.

The problems with doing this are, I'm sure, obvious, but can probably be overcome. Even if it's not viable or is decided against, I feel it's something that should at least be considered.

I for one only found T21 by chance (actually RTT21) while trying to find out where buffyuk had gone.

There was a post on uk.media.tv.buffy-v-slayer only yesterday from someone wondering whatever happened to Buffyuk...

(Edited by In a State of Dan 12/11/2002 16:26)

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by Callum
I for one only found T21 by chance (actually RTT21) while trying to find out where buffyuk had gone.

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I also only found the RTT21 site through some investigation into what had happened to BUK...after weeks without the site or chat which had both been down, I managed to get into chat, where Wo told me about RTT21...Seeing as a lot of peeps don't use the live-chatroom(as talked about previously) then there will be a lot of yukkers (prospective T21ers) who just will be left wondering what happened.

Well I never knew what actually happened to BUK and thats another reason I feel a bit distanced. I mean I have been a Yukker for a long time, and I never knew why suddenly BuffyUK wasn't there! It really confuzzled me

Well, it's not something we want to get into, suffice to say we had the need to find a new home while we built this place, hence RTT21. We had send emails out before, but the vast majority either came back as either "This mailbox does not exist" or we simply never heard from them again.
Rather then trying to force the issue, we ended up relying on word of mouth. That and the fact that this is nothing to do with BUK, and is a completely separate entity, it just happens to be run by a few people that used to help run BUK.

I may sound stupid but what does the RT in RTT21 stand for? also what was Buffy U.K? was it just a site that the hosts had before T21?

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by Havoc
I may sound stupid but what does the RT in RTT21 stand for? also what was Buffy U.K? was it just a site that the hosts had before T21?

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RTT21 stood for "Road to Tangent21", a temporary posting board we used while the site proper was developed and allowed people from BuffyUK to stay in touch and somewhere to 'go'.

BuffyUK was a site owned by someone else. It was staffed by those people who now staff T21 but the two sites are completely separate entities.