Kickstarting the activity here.

[Temor]

I'ts been incredibly dead here for quite some time now ( apart from the massive volumes of spam ) and it's beginning to get a bit boring and tedious.

So I was thinking ( now that Jacek is gone ( or is he? :S ) ) that we should take it upon ourselves to kickstart this back up if we want BetterPHP to survive.

I've got a few ideas on how we could do this, but it would take some effort from all of us, so I want to know first if you're feeling the same way I do or if you'd rather just leave it be.

If you feel like I do, and think there is a possibility we could build this back up, please let me know. I'll be more than glad to brainstorm ideas with you.


Thanks.

[EcazS]

YES! We need to do something! I don't know what yet but I'll think of something, maybe.

[Helx]

I think we should start submitting our own tutorials in the user-submitted content section.
More tutorials for a wider range of topics, more specifically Minecraft. The post Temor made in this section titled: "Minecraft!" attracted 1,000 browsers in a few days. I think we should use that to our advantage, and start making more tutorials based around Minecraft web-administration and plugin building. Maybe even single-player mods, if anyone here knows how to do that (I know I'd be interested in learning).

I also think that we should start making scripts and sell them on Gumroad. This would be a perfect way to help Jacek pay for hosting, so he doesn't need to worry too much about placing ads everywhere.

[EcazS]

I have no idea how to create anything in Java.
And we need some ideas for scripts we can sell then.

[Temor]

Okay, you two I sort of expected to post here. I was hoping someone else would post too though! Maybe they will.



What I had in mind was more or less what Helx suggested. Making our own Tutorials.
I don't believe the views on my topic amounts to anything really though since it's probably just crawlers and whatnot picking up on the very popular Minecraft keyword. And this forum isn't exclusively Minecraft related, it's just a fun thing we happen to have in common
I know Bowersbros ( did I spell that right? ) did / is doing good-quality video tutorials.
My idea was to use that concept, but with our own channels / audiences, and instead of creating a whole new forum for users to ask questions, we just use this already existing one.

I do believe we need some fresh blood in here. There are a few newcomers once in awhile, but they never really stay for more than a post or two. I would like to see more people like us, who are willing to help others without anything in return.

I have a few other "marketing" ideas in mind too, but they are either pretty silly or not very thought out.

I wouldn't mind spending some of my free time writing and selling scripts to pay for hosting, or writing tutorials, if it meant helping the community.
I would like some input from Jacek too if he ever does come back here.





And guys, any and all ideas can be built upon, so brainstorm away!!!

[EcazS]

Ye, the only idea I thought of was to create our own tutorials and "reference" this forum.
We need to think of some tutorial topics though.

[xXEpicAcedXx]

How About A Better Forum And Website, With A Nice Layout.
How About A Better Section And a Place to download the scripts from users.
How about some more YouTube in the community.
Its All Up To You Guys Now. I Just Follow.

[Helx]

How About A Better Forum And Website, With A Nice Layout.
How About A Better Section And a Place to download the scripts from users.
How about some more YouTube in the community.

Nice ideas, but we simply can't do a few of them. We can't modify the website or forum, that's up to Jacek (I believe he's still in the middle of developing his own forum system, and re-designing the whole of BetterPHP)

We generally don't give people direct downloads to tutorials, because you learn nothing. However I'm starting to grow on this idea, it may mean more traffic from people who just want code right-away.

Not too sure what you mean by "more YouTube in the community", but I'm going to assume it means we need to reach-out to social media. I totally agree with this, social media is the best way to engage with users. Maybe we should get a shared twitter for the the forum mods and Jacek, where users can send an @ to us and get a more immediate response. The only downside is that it may decrease user activity on the forums. May need to think this through a little more.

--

Ye, the only idea I thought of was to create our own tutorials and "reference" this forum.

By "reference", I assume you mean: make great content and then add a link out of pity to this site because you're doing better at getting an audience? Or would that be putting words in your mouth :3

I personally think we should use this website as the publishing platform for our tutorials, mainly because its already a well established and working forum (and it's free ). We just have to rely on Jacek to make it look pretty. I would say it is like the 'multiplier effect' (definition here: http://www.answers.com/topic/multiplier-effect ).

--

To expand my own ideas, I think that we need to review how we type posts as a community. For example, why not pose incentives to reply to a topic? I've seen too many unanswered topics because the poster never asked for anything directly: merely put their error and code in the text area and expected people to help. Why not get users asking "why does this do that?" Or "what could I do instead of that?" This may very well come down to the people that consistently reply to posts (Temor, EcazS, etc) by assuming the OP did ask these things, and write larger paragraphs about what they could do instead, and why they do that. Basically just writing higher quality content, so that browsers who aren't even having trouble can just come from a search engine and find out why "we should use PDO instead of MySQL".

[EcazS]

By "reference", I assume you mean: make great content and then add a link out of pity to this site because you're doing better at getting an audience? Or would that be putting words in your mouth :3

As in upload a video to youtube, betterphp watermark, link to this forum, make it clear in the video that if you need help you should go here.

[Temor]

To expand my own ideas, I think that we need to review how we type posts as a community. For example, why not pose incentives to reply to a topic? I've seen too many unanswered topics because the poster never asked for anything directly: merely put their error and code in the text area and expected people to help. Why not get users asking "why does this do that?" Or "what could I do instead of that?" This may very well come down to the people that consistently reply to posts (Temor, EcazS, etc) by assuming the OP did ask these things, and write larger paragraphs about what they could do instead, and why they do that. Basically just writing higher quality content, so that browsers who aren't even having trouble can just come from a search engine and find out why "we should use PDO instead of MySQL".

I totally agree with this idea. I think this is most likely to result in a traffic boost actually.

Google seems to be our #1 source of traffic right now, so keeping that in mind when we create titles for our posts etc could really bring a surge of new users here.

By "reference", I assume you mean: make great content and then add a link out of pity to this site because you're doing better at getting an audience? Or would that be putting words in your mouth :3

As in upload a video to youtube, betterphp watermark, link to this forum, make it clear in the video that if you need help you should go here.

¨
I think this would work as well. It's requiring that at least one of us has the equipment and skill to create good tutorials though, like Jacek did.









I did some research ( I really just went to the Betterphp YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/betterphp/discussion ) and there seems to be at least a few people missing the tutorials. If only we could get those people to come here!

[EcazS]

It's not that hard to make tutorials. I did a few a year or two ago. It just sucks that my upload is 1Mb so I can't really upload now...

[Temor]

The problem is making interesting tutorials about topics not covered by a million people already.

I could probably create some tutorials too. I'd have to buy a better Microphone first though or all you would hear is *BZZBZZZZ - Static - More buzzing - Static - Poor english pronunciation of complicated words - static *

[EcazS]

Static - Poor english pronunciation of complicated words - static *

I don't really have any ideas for tutorials, but there are usually less tutorials for new things...

[Temor]

Static - Poor english pronunciation of complicated words - static *

I don't really have any ideas for tutorials, but there are usually less tutorials for new things...

We could just do the same tutorials that are out there, just better. It would fit the name.
Most of the tutorials out there are pretty shite. They have horrible noise in them and / or an untalented tutor.

If we scour the internets and read the suggestions people post we'll probably find quite a few good ideas for tutorials.


Ooooooor, we could just follow Jacek's planned tutorials list and finish it for him?
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=25

[EcazS]

Yes to all of that.

[Temor]

So. Who's going to create the video tutorials?
I can do text tutorials. At least until I get a better mic.
And of course I'll be here on the forums all the time.

[EcazS]

I could, but it would probably take me a couple of hours to upload the video >_>

[Temor]

Okay, guess I have to buy a new Microphone then!

[EcazS]

If you buy online, make sure you buy from Inet.se and use this https://www.inet.se/produkt/6101343/fra ... over-500kr

[Temor]

If you buy online, make sure you buy from Inet.se and use this https://www.inet.se/produkt/6101343/fra ... over-500kr

I would, but they don't have any decent ones, only a crappy Deltaco headset mic on a stick.


I'm probably going with one of these: http://bluemic.com/yeti/
because then I can use it for more than one thing, and I'll never have to buy a new microphone

[EcazS]

Lol yea, that mic looked pretty weak