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So @Weissreich, how would you handle promotion of the forums on the region page? Remove the Citizenship stuff and just promote what we're doing on the forums?

It's a tough one when you think about it, primarily because of the differences between the RMB-style posting and forum-style posting. One is pretty much point, shoot and wait whilst the other requires navigating to the correct boards, replying in the right topics, remembering to check back on the site etc...

I don't think we need to de-emphasise Citizenship so to speak, simply add emphasis to what we're doing as a community. The region page info section should be up-to-date on a week by week basis, at the very least, and those of us who're actively involved in culture, legislation, regional publications etc should be on the RMB letting people know what's going on.

In addition to this, we've recently seen (or at least, recently for me) an upsurge in the number of people who're participating in RMB-wide RP's. If we can convince those hosting and taking part that the forums would be a better place to hold their games, we'd bring in at least ten new forum members from the world map-based RP Canmasu or w/e he's called is running.

Other than that, I really do think it's just about showing the flag on the region page and engaging RMB-actives in the hopes that we'd entice them over to the forum. There's a FAQ post in the Intro/Gatekeep forum, but it might be worth having one subforum entitled "Guides" with a forum guide, a region guide, an RP guide, a NS guide... Give people reasons to come to the forums

I'm not what one would call a chatty player. I say hi to those I know and that's that. I came to Wintreath a couple of years ago when Moot first built the region and I've stood solidly for Wintreath ever since. I don't think it's fair to judge my dedication to the region based on the fact that I don't like to chat or post on an offsite forum. Anyone who knows me knows I'm only a telegram away.

I'm not what one would call a chatty player. I say hi to those I know and that's that. I came to Wintreath a couple of years ago when Moot first built the region and I've stood solidly for Wintreath ever since. I don't think it's fair to judge my dedication to the region based on the fact that I don't like to chat or post on an offsite forum. Anyone who knows me knows I'm only a telegram away.

Hey there! It's always good to see you.

I don't think anyone is judging your dedication to the region...I'm certainly not, but the vast majority of people who only apply for Citizenship don't stick around, and it's a fair amount of work to give them security checks, grant them Citizenship, and then have to remove their masking when they don't stick around. If they were to be encouraged to interact with the community more, maybe they would find things and people that they like and have a reason to stick around.

Instead of five posts, what about one topic other than their Citizenship app? It could be an introduction, a discussion about something that interests them, some new spam game...it would be contributing to the community, but would it be less intimidating than five posts?

@Wintermoot I quite like the idea of one topic + application thread before acceptance, but perhaps a mix and match of both? I understand people's reluctance to put a post requirement on but let's be absolutely honest here, it'd take you 5 minutes to make 5 posts. One topic, five post requirement, perhaps?

Well, ultimately it's up to the Storting to add a new Citizenship requirement...I'm just throwing out some ideas.

Hmm, the whole point of this is to lighten Moot's workload, correct?

Let's try something else, first, like giving the Ministry of Integration the power to mask people.

I wouldn't say that the whole point is just to lighten my workload, but to encourage Citizens and prospective Citizens to get involved in the community, where they won't be as likely to drop out and cease to exist. We have an issue where people that have jumped through a lot of hurtles to get to the point of applying for Citizens drop out and cease to exist, and I don't think they would have become Citizens if they didn't expect to get something out of being here.

I've ran some numbers, on post counts for current and former Citizens, and here are the results.

FORMER CITIZENS (363 TOTAL)
--------------------------
1 post - 102 (27.71%)
2 - 4 posts - 109 (29.62%)
5 - 9 posts - 70 (19.02%)
10 - 50 posts - 49 (13.32%)
51 - 99 posts - 12 (3.26%)
100+ posts - 21 (5.71%)

CURRENT CITIZENS (112 TOTAL)
--------------------------
1 post - 18 (16.07%)
2 - 4 posts - 19 (16.96%)
5 - 9 posts - 15 (13.32%)
10 - 49 posts - 19 (16.96%)
50 - 99 posts - 3 (2.68%)
100+ posts - 41 (36.61%)

The first result that I see is that nearly 28% of our former Citizens and 16% of our current Citizens have only made a single post: their Citizenship application. These are people that seem to have hit it and quit it. Further, 3/4 of former Citizens made fewer than 10 posts on the forum. On the other hand, there seems to be a good correlation between higher post counts and remaining Citizens...2/3 of the people to ever reach 100 posts are still Citizens today (note: this counts Paragons). Although it's ultimately the Storting's call as to whether to create a new requirement, I think there's a case to be made for doing so on top of the improvements we recently made to the actual process.

Additionally, it seems to me that as a region (especially the Ministry of Integration), we need to stick with new Citizens until they have reached 50 posts, since over 9 out of 10 former Citizens failed to reach that point. Some of these people may just be long-term residents that aren't into the forums, but a lot of them are people that are at risk of dropping out. We need to try to keep in communication with them...just to make sure that their experience in the region is good, to make sure they know we're there if they have questions, need help, or just have ideas, and let them know of things that are going on in the region. To some extent we're beginning to tackle these problems on the region page, but I think individual contacts would go a long way too.

Any thoughts there?

Yeah, I'm very much in agreement with the communication suggestion, Mootles - I think the most important thing in any community that draws new members in and allows them to properly bond and settle with those of us already here is definitely engaging them in conversation, answering questions, lending a helping hand where needed.

The new poll on the RMB is a step in the right direction, at least in regards to NS parts of the region, but in terms of correcting that new member drift (as I like to call the phenomena of people signing up only to vanish) I'm not 100% sure how we can go about it. We need more to do on the forums, but what else is there?

The region page will be more active going forward...we had a discussion in the Cabinet and determined that the Ministry of WA Affairs should take the lead in keeping the region page up to date and interactive, but the other ministries should be pitching in as well. I also recommend that anyone doing events or announcing things post on the RMB as well...I try to do that, but sometimes I forget.

I've already made my initial suggestions, but I think this is going to be a journey we have to take for a long time...we have to look at what people want and expect when they come to the region and forum. For example, Sherlon posted in his Citizenship app that one of the things that attracted him was the LGBT community, and that's something I've heard from others before...but what do they expect when they read that we have a LGBT community? Are they wanting to get to know the people in it, or are they wanting discussions on LGBT topics and news, or do they just infer that it means we're an open and accepting community?

That's just an example. We're going to have to ask those questions every time someone tells us what brought them here, so we can bring about the things they want.

Since there hasn't been any further discussion since my last post, I have drafted a simple proposal Act containing the post requirement. I'm perfectly fine with this passing, failing, or being modified, but at least this will steer the topic towards some conclusion.

The Citizenship Integration Amendment Act

Title
1) This Act shall be cited as the Citizenship Integration Amendment Act.

2) The following shall be inserted into Section 2 of the Citizenship and Demonym Act, with subsequent subsections being renumbered accordingly:

2.1 Prospective Citizens shall have made at least five posts on the regional forum prior to approval of their application for Citizenship.

@Barnes @Laurentus @HannahB @Pengu @Weissreich @North @Point Breeze

I approve of this wholeheartedly.

I'd probably support something like this if a push is made to give people things to discuss too. Not everyone requests a mentor, so a mandatory Q&A thread for prospective citizens (AMA, basically) would be nice.

I'd probably support something like this if a push is made to give people things to discuss too. Not everyone requests a mentor, so a mandatory Q&A thread for prospective citizens (AMA, basically) would be nice.

Are you saying that you don't believe there are enough discussions for prospective Citizens to take part in, or that they should be given direction on what specifically they should post?

The latter.

I'm not sure that I would go so far as to mandate in law the types the post they should make, but if we came together I think we could create a list of current topics that Citizens (and non-Citizens) might be interested in participating in...maybe we could create a section on the site for it, or post it as a dispatch or something.