[Alaister]

Hello Warriors

With Warrior Forum joining the Freelancer.com family, we received a huge number of messages with your feedback and suggestions. First of all I would like to give a huge amount of thanks to all of you for the great ideas on how to improve the site and increase engagement and discussion in the forums.

The first thing we did was to assign a dedicated devops team to improving the infrastructure. This is well underway and we plan to have the site fully migrated to Amazon AWS by mid May.

Secondly, we've launched the Warrior Ask Me Anything (WAMA) section, and have an incredible line up of world famous Internet marketing experts to kick it off! I'm really excited to see how this goes! I'm sure we'll all learn a lot from this. Remember you can submit a WAMA too! This is all about hearing and sharing interesting stories- no matter who you are, just as long as you have a good story to tell that would interest the community.

The next thing we're going to do is create a new community team to help grow the forums on Warrior. Here we are going to do two things:

1. First, we are going to open up for suggestions for new topic areas; for example there is a lot of interest to start a Growth Hacking forum. We're open to suggestions, so please send them in!
2. Secondly, we're going to open up community positions for Warrior Champions for each of the forum sections. Ideally we would like at least two per forum area.

Warrior Champions will be responsible for:
- Increasing engagement in their area
- Stimulating, directing and nurturing discussion
- Coming up with new ideas that will add value to their area
- Must be a regular contributor to the forum

These roles are volunteer roles for people who are passionate about a particular topic area and have a few spare hours per week to commit to building their area into the best it can possibly be. They will help drive the future direction and culture of Warrior Forum.

The current moderators are doing great job at ensuring the sections are run smoothly. They will continue their roles and can also apply to be Warrior Champions if they would like to adopt a more public role.

To apply all you need to do is fill in the form below. We're looking for a bit of information on what you would do to build conversation and discussion in the forums you want to be responsible for as well as the amount of time you are able to spend on the forums. Current moderators can also apply.

Apply Now

[laurencewins]

That sounds like a great idea. Not sure if I have time...how much time do you need and can it vary? There are times when I am snowed under with work and other times when I'm not but I do come in here every day.

[Alaister]

Originally Posted by laurencewins

That sounds like a great idea. Not sure if I have time...how much time do you need and can it vary? There are times when I am snowed under with work and other times when I'm not but I do come in here every day.

Thanks for your reply Laurence! I'm not so fussed about requiring a certain amount of time or anything like that. I'm more looking for really passionate people. Feel free to fill in the form and specify which category/forum you would like to be a Champion for and some ideas you have to build it up.

Thanks!

[ADVERTHEORY]

Public FOR PROFIT company looking for volunteers...



No thanks.

[IM Lover]

Not being funny but:

These roles are volunteer roles for people who are passionate about a particular topic area

This is not a good way to start running a forum, you should be investing into people to do this.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by ADVERTHEORY

Public FOR PROFIT company looking for volunteers...



No thanks.

Yeah... at least need to provide some sort of incentive. What say you Alaister?

[Colin Palfrey]

If you have a little badge under the people's names saying they are a Warrior Champion, you'll find they all get far more enthusiastic.

It has value to them as it shows others that they are actively helping in the community, and doesn't cost you anything to do. Generally people want to help, but they also want to be seen helping.

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by Colin Palfrey

If you have a little badge under the people's names saying they are a Warrior Champion, you'll find they all get far more enthusiastic.

It has value to them as it shows others that they are actively helping in the community, and doesn't cost you anything to do. Generally people want to help, but they also want to be seen helping.

I disagree. I see contrived conversations led by people with little badges and I'm not going to be interested in that conversation.

They will help drive the future direction and culture of Warrior Forum.

OP: I personally enjoy the direction and culture of the WF as it currently exists and see no value in contrived conversations to change the culture of the WF.

[Jason Kanigan]

Alaister, the conversations typically come from the questions posted.

That's what determines interest level.

A thread can "catch on", but people are self-interested. They can't even be bothered to use the Search feature most of the time. They read the one thread on their topic of interest they asked about and that's it, for the most part. Are there exceptions? Of course. But most people are looking for the lazy, fast answer to their single question and nothing else. That's why you see the same questions posted over and over and over again.

And should we give a soapbox to two members? Do we need op ed pieces? We stay away from self-promotion and this gives prominence to just two members as if they are better than the rest.

At any rate, people already do provide their own content rather than just answering questions. Individuals post their blog entries or opinion about a subject, and sometimes readers like them and sometimes they don't get much attention. The interest level gets worked out on its own. I don't think we need formalized roles to do this.

And how would you set it up for the main forum? That place is huge compared to the other sections. Totally disproporationate.

I think you should look around longer and get a better feel for the forum before making changes. You'll see who the leaders are and who's respected. When you start in a place like this, everyone looks of equal value. But after awhile you start noticing who consistently provides good advice and who doesn't. Who sticks around and who doesn't. Then you'll be reading posts from certain people just because they wrote it--not because you were searching for a specific topic.

I was asked by Amex to be their OPEN Forum Advisor, and after a few good weeks that place quickly became a spamfest of people posting their articles. Hardly anyone asks questions there. Having to wade through all that spam to get to legitimate questions is a waste of my time. I can see that happening here.

Finally, WF doesn't have trouble with new content. If things were slow, I could see the need for a curator or idea prompter. But as things are now, I don't.

Quora would be the place to look at for the right balance of user questions and individually-provided content.

[Kay King]

- Stimulating, directing and nurturing discussion

I think many of us already do that - and not only in one section of the forum. By pointing out facts that prove or disprove something under discussion - by questioning negative comments or skeptical remarks - quite a few people here do "stimulate and direct" discussions. It's done by being part of the discussion, not a leader of it.

Having what amounts to a "designated driver" in discussion threads could end discussion. If I were debating a subject in a thread and some 'champion' posted in an attempt to direct or focus the discussion....I'd be out of there.

If that happened a couple times I wouldn't bother starting new threads or entering conversations or offering advice and I don't think I'd be alone in that. It may be a focused and more controlled discussion area is what the new owners want and if so, that's fine.

This could change the entire atmosphere of the WF and maybe not in a good way.

[Alaister]

Thanks for all your input guys. You have all raised some really good points. My goal was to creatr a dedicated concentrated effort to grow each section and provide as much value as possible from all the discussions.

You guys have provided really good feedback on the idea and concept. At this stage we might put this on hold and continue running the sections as is. There is great conversation already happening and the discussions are very vibrant.

[XponentSYS]

I'll champion the WSO section (raising hand HIGH)!

This way I can post all my products for sale and always stear the conversations back to them!

Obviously I'm JOKING - but I just couldn't resist, lol

[MarieDi]

Originally Posted by Jason Kanigan

I think you should look around longer and get a better feel for the forum before making changes. You'll see who the leaders are and who's respected. When you start in a place like this, everyone looks of equal value. But after awhile you start noticing who consistently provides good advice and who doesn't. Who sticks around and who doesn't. Then you'll be reading posts from certain people just because they wrote it--not because you were searching for a specific topic.

I was asked by Amex to be their OPEN Forum Advisor, and after a few good weeks that place quickly became a spamfest of people posting their articles. Hardly anyone asks questions there. Having to wade through all that spam to get to legitimate questions is a waste of my time. I can see that happening here.

I agree 100%. Like I said before: if it ain't broke, do NOT fix it. And it ain't broke. At least it wasn't broke until you started changing things BEFORE you had time to get the feel of things, sometimes just for the sake of change.

(Oops. I hadn't seen Alaister's response before I posted...)

[neralu]

Hi Alaister,

I am interested in contributing in the PPC section , I am Google adwords certified professional.

I just filled the google forms

Thanks

[neralu]

I will be interested in the JV Section as well

[imzunleashed]

will these premium warriors get any benefits?

[David Beroff]

This thread is still open?

[Kay King]

This thread is still open?

Sure - what's a year here here or there....

[Steve B]

Thread started in April 2014.

It's now June 2016.

26 months.

Look how far we've come!

Steve

[ForumGuru]

Originally Posted by Alaister

2. Secondly, we're going to open up community positions for Warrior Champions for each of the forum sections. Ideally we would like at least two per forum area.

Warrior Champions will be responsible for:
- Increasing engagement in their area
- Stimulating, directing and nurturing discussion
- Coming up with new ideas that will add value to their area
- Must be a regular contributor to the forum

These roles are volunteer roles for people who are passionate about a particular topic area and have a few spare hours per week to commit to building their area into the best it can possibly be. They will help drive the future direction and culture of Warrior Forum.

The current moderators are doing great job at ensuring the sections are run smoothly. They will continue their roles and can also apply to be Warrior Champions if they would like to adopt a more public role.

To apply all you need to do is fill in the form below. We're looking for a bit of information on what you would do to build conversation and discussion in the forums you want to be responsible for as well as the amount of time you are able to spend on the forums. Current moderators can also apply.

Apply Now

I guess at this point I have to ask...

Why in the world did you not run with this prior to initiating the recent inexperienced newb article blasting campaign?

I guess this vision died when Alaister left or what? Or did Alaister's idea get run aground by peeps telling him it was a bad idea?

Originally Posted by Alaister

Thanks for all your input guys. You have all raised some really good points. My goal was to creatr a dedicated concentrated effort to grow each section and provide as much value as possible from all the discussions.

You guys have provided really good feedback on the idea and concept. At this stage we might put this on hold and continue running the sections as is. There is great conversation already happening and the discussions are very vibrant.

Good grief.... Either way, someone should have implemented this once you knew the forum's participation level and traffic decline was steeper then you could handle organically.

Cheers

-don

[vedremo]

Competitor forums do this.

It's considered a member promotion.

Change the positioning, add incentive and this could work.