referral system

[Hunter]

we need a referral system.
today, i noticed that we always get the same people
some are lurkers
some post everywhere
a few stick to off-topic
others play around in the gaming forums
and still others stick to commenting on status updates.

this is boring and i want more people that stay for more than a week or two
if we had a referral system and maybe trophies for "referred X number of people" or something to get people to try to advertise the community for us that would be super awesome

 

[Iguana]

unfortunately, you are describing every single forum

people come on the forums for things that interest them or pertain to them
if they like off-topic random shit, they'll stay there and i can't really make them post in other places

if they like to talk to their friends on statuses then i can't really make them open up and speak to everyone one else

if they come here to merely play games then they're here to play games

saying "i want people to stay for 2+ weeks" has nothing to do with that, it has everything to do with what forms of retention we have
the people who leave after 2 weeks is because we cannot accommodate to their needs, hence why we are expanding currently

they'll stay for more than 2 weeks if they came from forum games and got good forum games, or wanted to discuss video games and have meaningful discussion every few days, enough that it will satisfy that thirst (the first part literally has nothing to do with having a referral system, but has everything to do with user retention)

having a referral system does near nothing except inflate the e-penis of people who either stream, are famous in a game community, or just have a lot of friends with nothing better to do

being honest here, i don't really care about trophy points, i don't think anyone here really does, it really means nothing

not saying that advertising is bad, but why should i make users advertise for some imaginary points to inflate their e-peen instead of getting them to advertise because we have good services that retain users well and actually make people go out and say "hey, this server does something better than everywhere else" or "hey, this server has something nobody else has" because that's ultimately what i want users to stay for, not for my 6969 trophy points that nobody sees

 

[Hunter]

i dont give a shit about trophy points either just thinking of a motivator
just forums are pretty inactive and sure we did an overhaul thing but still have the same members
it's not what the forum people do that's the issue it's more of them being the same people every time

edit: basically i agree with what iguana said and couldn't have worded it better myself

 

[Iguana]

i dont give a shit about trophy points either just thinking of a motivator
just forums are pretty inactive and sure we did an overhaul thing but still have the same members
it's not what the forum people do that's the issue it's more of them being the same people every time

it should 100% never be the forums that do the attraction is why and that's what i'm getting at by reading this post

all the attraction and user retention should be done on the server/game end and isn't yet done due to many of the main attractions not being up yet
the forums should merely be a means of conveying these interests between users who are enjoying the same medium