- some1 with guns
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- Exalted Mythic Member
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| \------/ | ODST For Life
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Posted by: kegler73
Posted by: nickl61
Being in a clan is oviously alot easier than running one. A question to mind is the large clans: like the UN or SOV I dont know how they get consistantly active members online. I can possibly manage about 8 if im lucky. Classifieds please spare me your words of wisdom.
I've been running Midland Base for over 2 years now.
First, your paradigm might be a tad off. A group's discussion forum is an asynchronous method of communication. So how many members you actually have all on line at once doesn't really matter. What really matters is how many member log ins and posts you get across an entire 24 hour period.
One thing to foster activity is recruit heavily in a mature way. That means don't spam people's XBL with messages in match making, and certainly don't try to recruit anyone on XBL who is obviously already a member of and playing with a clan. There are plenty of websites besides B.Net and Waypoint to recruit - use them.
Other things you can do to recruit are getting into social networking. Get a Face Book, Google +, and Twitter account. Use them to post news articles / weekly updates about your group. You can get a YouTube channel and make group montages. You can live stream your game nights.
Impose a minimum forum participation requirement, and delete members from your roster who go inactive and don't meet it. For almost two years we tried every idea under the sun to foster group member activity in our forums. Forum games, challenges, in group ranks / titles, real prizes like XBL Gold and MS points.
On 03 DEC 10 our group had 332 members. We then conducted our first activity scan, and have since instituted a minimum forum participation requirement deleting inactives from our roster. We fluctuate between having 60 - 80 members now because of that, but our forum and our game nights have never had as much participation as they do now because we only keep active members and delete inactive members.
Other things you can do are to have group game nights, events where you all get together to play as a clan / group.
Anyway, those things have worked for me so far. I founded Midland Base on 26 FEB 10, and we're still here.
PS - It alos helps to have a "live and let live" mentality. Not all groups / clans can be all things to all people. In other words, there's a niche / home for every group / clan out there. Every group / clan can coexist just fine. This whole idea of "clan wars" is insane. Here's a hint. Gamers join groups /clans to have fun playing the game, not to have to deal with a bunch of drama. If another group acts like a bohiney to you, just ignore them and move on.
I agree with you on all points except the minimum posts thing. In my experience, it doesn't fix anything. Your problem is that there is not enough to talk about on the forum, not that people are not posting. It treats the symptom instead of the cause.
If you're having problems with forum activity, its because your forum has no point (or not enough). Just like the group as a whole, people will come because of the things they can't get elsewhere. No one joins a group to do the things they could (or already) do, they join because of the things they can only do in the group. The forum is no different. If all you have is casual conversation and announcements, no one will come to the forum because they talk on XBL. Add things that can only be done in written form (Story Threads, Forum Games, Weekly Updates).