Even the two-man participants couldn't be bothered to name their teams.
We need to come up with ways to get people to participate here. Maybe form a committee to e-mail or chat about ideas?
I'm even starting to get bored with the whole thing myself because so few residents participate or even post on the message board
I'm giving a pass on the Two-man stuff because I first said I was going to hold off, then decided last minute to continue it. And with that, i'm not overly concerned with team names.
However, I tried giving away hundreds of credits for doing nothing other than post a long shot pick each week and I think we actually got less entrants per/week than it did before when it was only for the 100 credits. Of course people didn't stop playing because of it, but I thought the number would for sure go up.
What we have is a VERY strong core of 8-10 members who are here through thick and thin. Then you have a group of members who sorta cruise the forum and post occasionally for big contests (Cavalcade being one example).
Then there are residents who do nothing or don't even have an account created on the forum. Those residents are affected as they are not eligible for the "big" prizes that come with the divisional challenge payouts.
If anyone has the magic answer, i'm all ears. Am I doing something wrong? Not enough contests? Not big enough prizes? I post just about monthly in the main sim forum looking for new residents.
We did get one this week, so the jury is out on him. But like i've said in the past, if we keep a strong core in place, I will keep moving forward, but if that number starts to falter, i'll have to reevaluate.
And i'll keep saying this until i'm blue in face...I just don't understand why people join residencies and don't participate in forum chats or contests. What is the benefit or purpose for joining and doing nothing with that rez?
I personally think you are doing a great job - that no one other than you has bothered to answer speaks volumes in itself. I don't have the magic bullet; that's why I was hoping for some thoughts or suggestions. All that being said, it is holiday season and people are busy with a lot of personal activities so maybe there will be responses coming later on. Hopefully
absolutely nothing wrong with the way you run things here ... you do a top notch job mate and deserve more from your members than you get.
Having felt the frustration that goes with keeping a residency ticking over with a half-hearted following, I can only hope the members that DO make the residency alive can keep your interest from waning to the point of closure.
I know that a residency with set tracks makes things a tad tougher than a run where you want residency, but if you take on the challenge, it is a very interesting battle to take on.
I do feel that people that have split loyalties, fingers in several pies, and stables in multiple residencies, find that they have too much going on and certain residency commitments get sacrificed to make their week to week ressie chores an easier task. I sometimes feel that if you cannot commit, you may as well bail and let those who want to be a part of a successful residency, get on with doing just that ... enjoying the challenge and camaraderie that goes with being an active member in a good residency.
I remember having my blood boiling in a former residency when I tracked residency support and found members switching support of a, sometimes, weekly basis ... allowing them to run any horse from any barn at any residency they were aligned to and run in residency races with a horse that may have only supported a barn for the week of the event and then switch back to the other residency ... that is just nasty antics in my mind.
Anyways, I guess that is my "End Of Year Rant" out of the way for 2010 ... lol ... I agree with the initial post that gocashbaby posted, and hope that it does spark a reaction from those who have let their interest here at the NWRC wane recently.
I usually do a full rez wide stable support check every time a new divisional challenge starts and also do spot checks every 6 weeks or so. Any stables that I find not supporting are then immediately removed from the div challenge and TOTM contests.
I agree with the pie analogy. I look at some of our residents who have dozens of stables and you see them touching 3-5 different residencies. I have 8 stables and 7 of them support this rez and I have one in Comedy Central to support Tracy who while she has been MIA recently was a big time supporter of our residency. Only 5 of those 7 actually participate and are "official" members of the residency. The other 2 are my roaming stables where I race anywhere without restriction, all while still earning this residency the points.
I offered multiple times the option to either expand or eliminate the track list and the responses from those who responded was to leave it alone. That what we have is a good thing, etc.
We usually have these types of posts every 6 months or so and everyone says they are on board and everything is ok, but it never really changes anything. People are attracted to free things, but I am not that creative when it comes to contests, thus my simple ideas of credits for the highest longshot or credits to the 25th poster, etc.
I'll keep plugging along and hopefully things will kick back up.
Here is my 2 cents - almost all the residencies have a core group and they are the ones you need to cater to. Even the biggest residencies have a small group at their center. Of the four I belong to, Queensland and Vermont seem to have the largest group of participants. Vermont, probably because it was one of the first and one of the two oldest, and Queensland because they let nearly everything count I don't mean that in a bad way necessarily but you can belong to different residencies with the same stables (maybe that was what Ross was talking about - I had never heard about people moving their support around - but then I am quite sheltered) and anyway, I have never believed in that. I don't see how you can be in two residencies with the same stable.
I wouldn't worry about the amount of contests you have, as it is hard to participate in everything, every week. I love the sim but I can't do them all - especially this time of year. But a couple of weeklies, and then spread the others out through the year. If you want a busier message board - get rid of all the sub boards or at least a lot of them. There are not enough of us here and maybe I am just lazy but I never look at the others unless someone specifically asks. Put announcements up as stickies and keep people on this board. And to go along with that, other than something like Secret Santa, keep the contests on the message board. Like the puzzle contest. - have people post their answers on the board - not in a pm. It's fun to see who is guessing what.
Ok - so thats a bit more than 2 cents but it probably wasn't worth 2 cents - LOL!
Roys, with all due respect, everytime I hear that people can't scroll down it amazes me. If someone knows that there could be something information down lower (in our case Contests), how can you not scroll down?
My professional life is in the web world and I completely dislike forums/threads that jumble many different topics into one. It becomes very hard to follow and then forces visitors to sift and/or scroll through unimportant information to find what they are truely looking for.
So if your argument is lack of interest in scrolling, then combining alot things into one will not solve your concerns because then I would think people would lose interest because they can't find what they are looking for.
Imagine 10 "sticky" items followed by 3-5 contest related posts, followed by my weekly update post then finally getting to your weekly longshot luck thread.
Besides, in looking at google stats for visitor preferences, 95% of the visitors to this site have at least a screen resolution of 1024x768, which means you will see 80% of the forum without the need to scroll the way I created the forum.
And you only need to look in those forums if it has a yellow arrow, otherwise there are no new topic and thus don't need to read it.
Bah Humbug! Ok - so I am being obstinent here, but look at the use - one hasn't been used since Sept, two since October, one since Nov, and one since June. But they are fine, Will - I am just giving you a hard time. I do check this board everyday so as long as there is a message here - I won't miss anything....
I understand your points, but they are contest threads and only need attention when there is a contest ongoing. Which is why i stick them at the bottom.
For myself I think everything is Okay. Sure there could be more chitty chat on the boards and a larger "community" feel But if I have said it before I have said it a million times lol.... there's just too many residencies in the Sim. The numbers overall have dipped from what I understand but there's a ton of residencies. I see many people with their hands in a couple of residencies, and that's fine but if we lowered the number of "active" residencies we could engage these people in larger numbers in a smaller pool. Also, if we used more sim wide residency contests support for residencies would be stronger and would likely grow. Only so many people are going to comment on chat boards and message boards anyway, some people just don't engage in their online activity that way.
Now I am not saying throw in the towel and call er a day, but maybe a residency league type of thing?? I think the best thing about this website is the Divisional Challenge. It's a great contest and is a real challenge to win more often than not. As for contest ideas well I can't offer much there lol.
Anyone ? 
