Bitcoin Forum

I've just received an email alert from a web hosting forum that I haven't visited for over 3 years. It claims to have been made in a thread to which I had subscribed. I tend not to subscribe to threads, as I am often a fairly prolific poster, but maybe this one slipped through the net. However, it did raise an interesting thought.

Bitcoin Talk has many valuable members who have drifted away from the forum, and I believe that the forum would be richer if they were encouraged to return. Would it be possible to use subscribed thread alerts ( where possible ) to pique their interest, and possibly return to contributing to the forum?

They usually drift away for a reason and notifications like that would be annoying imo. Good idea nevertheless.

I know that you would only get notified if you activate the "Notify" button itself and send information towards the thread that you subscribed to. Maybe the easiest way to let someone remember the forum is to simply just message them directly, that way they could receive a sure email from BTCT and be notified. Maybe when theymos sends a message it would reach their interest.  :D

It would be nice to know the exact reason why they've moved away from the forum. Whether that be because they've found an alternative like Reddit to discuss Bitcoin or if they genuinely got tired of Bitcoin. I imagine they still keep an eye on the forum, but not actively participating in discussion. Either way, a notification probably wouldn't pique many users interest, especially if the recent rise in Bitcoin hasn't.

A few days later, the 10th anniversary of this forum will come, I think theymos should do something because many old members will come back to the forum to celebrate that anniversary.
It is better to make some changes in the forum in the hope that they will continue to participate in this forum.
Overall, the discussions on Twitter look much better than the discussions here.

Or maybe just a mass email sent out to registered email addresses of those who haven't been online here for X amount of time telling them what is new on the forum and what can be expected in the future. It could have the same effect.

Personally if I leave the forum today, it'll be for a reason best to me, and I would not need to be encouraged to return as I already am aware of all the positives I gain from the forum, and TBH I'll be the one on the losing end.

This forum offers all that users desire about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, so for someone to leave the forum, we've got to think, did they get banned? Are they now apathetic to the bitcoin and cryptocurrencies or have they found themselves another area of interest in real life.

I'm completely fine with it if the invitation email would be sent rarely like probably once a few years just so they wouldn't be annoying. This is really good in a marketing perspective too; especially when executed in a non spammy manner, with a decent invitation email.

I agree with Welsh that chances are, they've already moved to Reddit r/bitcoin or probably on Twitter, but hey. Some of the OG members might just want to have a nostalgia trip.

It doesn't have to be any sort of ban, could be moving on with life or something happened along the way.

Once I left Bitcointalk because I didn't realize its appeal back then. Only after I returned to check on some threads some time later, I realized it's the one Satoshi made himself first known on.

Not a worst recommendation but won't this destroy the reputation that Bitcointalk already has, of not engaging in any sort of forum marketing strategy but still attract tens of thousands of active users. I mean that's one of the biggest bragging fact about the forum. I'll interpret the message as the forum been desperate and lacking productive users (but that's not the case). Do we actually need them back, I mean those that have left (abandon) the forum, the forum is doing quite great without them. If they did valued the forum, one way or the other they would had found a way to give the forum their time.

They left for a reason, they might just leave again or bring unnecessary drama with them, which won't be healthy for the growth of the forum.

The Forum doesn’t seem to exploit email communication at all (except for topic notifications). I don’t know if it did it in the past (i.e. during forum hacks, or initial years), or simply prefers to be as less invasive as possible.

In marketing, typically you would study customer churn (forum member churn in this case) and design a communication strategy to try to incentivize them to come back (at least to those that are worthwhile investing in). Of course, it should be accompanied by an opt-in option to receive forum communications, which is there in our profile under "notifications and email" -> "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email.", although one could discuss if the wording would cover churn-triggered recovery strategy.

The strategy would normally be segment based, and depict possible journeys to try to recover forum participants. It could be worth a try, although I figure that the "do not disturb" sign idea rules, and that eventually they may come back incentivized by market movements, technological advances or whatnot (perhaps even by catching the wind of Bitcointalk over Epochtalk at some point …).

Seriously.  Let them drive their Lambos in peace--if they want to return to bitcointalk I'm pretty sure they know where to find it.  And then there are some members who've gone inactive *ahem mixan (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=195206) cough* for their own reasons and probably shouldn't come back.  I also think it would be annoying to get e-mails and whatnot like that.

Yeah, there are a lot of members I've seen come and go in the past 4.5 years.  Sometimes you just lose interest in online things, and it's not like at least 70% of this forum's posts aren't complete garbage.  And that's being generous.

Sending people an unwanted email would not be good. I'm sure We will start getting the mails in junk boxes in a few days.

The forum should do something about the anniversary. Asking veteran members to join the forum on its 10th anniversary will be a good option.
Although a thank you note to all the people who were the part of this forum from the start when the value of bitcoin was nothing.

Or Tesla's :P

---

Well, I was away from bitcointalk for a few months, I didn't need any sort of reminder to return. Besides, there are literally thousands of different activities you can do besides reading redundant shit posts on the 'bitcoin discussion' board :)

I doubt we would have members return simply to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of BT.
Follow up is an essential part of entrepreneurship, I don't often in my business, but I don't see how it would be reflected in the forum or also what algorithm would be used to determine the members that were valuable

Some forums send messages to user notifying them of any new updates to the forum or contests (in some cases wherein forums held contest) so even sending them updates would make them aware that the forum is constantly improving and making changes. Some users have mainly drifted away due to the rules that don't seem encouraging to some. Theymos keeps updating this section about updates so it would be good if users could be informed about them via pms. Anyways, these new updates comes once in 2-3 months so it won't be considered spam.

Any one can make the forum a better place or can use the forum to increase his knowledge is welcome. But I don't think sending emails cause any one who has already left the forum to become active again. They have left the forum for a reason. I don't think any one who left the forum and is still interested in cryptocurrencies has forgotten the forum. Bitcointalk is now the biggest community of people interested in crpytocurrencies and is well known enough.
Generally, I don't think there is any problem with sending emails to those who have left the forum, but in my opinion that's useless.

people who have stopped coming to this forum had their reasons such as being busy in real life with jobs, family obligations,... so even if you brought them back, they won't be as active as before since those reasons that led to their departure would still be there.

besides i believe it is best if we get more new people in mainly by improving the contents. for instance i hope to see a more active technical discussion boards specially in general cryptocurrency and blockchain topics not just bitcoin focused and we still don't have any board for that.

Honestly I'd be more annoyed than having my interest piqued if I received thread-alert like emails on a regular basis. This would get Bitcointalk on my blocked list rather than me returning to the forum. I'm sure many other people feel the same.

I do believe a mass mailing for special events, like the upcoming 10th anniversary, would be fine though.

Regular subscription emails get annoying, although well planned, and executed emails can be good. In modern times I think email marketing is getting less, and less effective because it uses a repetition model rather than well timed emails. Don't get me wrong email marketing is still a very good way to get business, but I think for a forum which is sort of trying to separate itself from that area of things a one off email every few years could be something to consider. 

I don't think this will work for people who have lost interest in something since the only way to make them come back is if they start to be interested on their own. It's similar to games and apps on my phone that I don't even use anymore they still notify me with updates and notifications but it doesn't make me more interested in using them that after some time now I will get annoyed and just uninstall them right away without any hesitation. I have a feeling that this won't be an effective way to convince them to come back.

Hi, can you please change this into a voting discussion so that I can vote "no" please?

Some people drift away from groups or forums because of how toxic they become over time and the last thing I would want is a group I was once a member of having carte-blanche (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte_blanche) to send emails I didn't want to receive - effectively spam.

I have seen on BCT people have been criticised for "necro" bumping the occasional thread here with valid to the topic posts, so I would imagine you would need a fundamental shift in attitude to necro bumping threads before your suggestion would gain any traction.

I'm an active member, and I don't think the forum is "doing great". There's still a massive spam problem (which is most likely the reason most members left), flags and the trust system are confusing, and though I like the laissez-faire attitude, others may not enjoy the lack of handholding.

A section for new members in order to introduce them to the various systems of the forum would be good.

The way I see it is that there are 4 types of members who stopped using the forum.

1- Bcash team and supporters

There is really nothing that can bring them back for now.


2- BTC price crash, no more lambos , bounties and signatures campaign slowed down , less money to make spamming the forum

They will come back when prices go back up , ICOs start to come, shitcoins start doing 100x a day ,etc,,

3- They can't stand the forum rules

IMO this group is fairly large, I am very active on telegram and sometimes bitcointalk.org gets talked about,  many people said they don't like the "strict" rules , it's fairly easy to be banned over a copy-pasta and "lose" an account you build for years, I am not saying this is wrong or right, but if you want those people to come back, lower the bar , but then more spam will come along , so pretty hard to decide on which option is better for the forum.

4-Harassment against unpopular opinion/s

There are many examples related to this, in fact the first point does relate quite well, you see a few Bcash supporters getting tagged, being called scammers and insulted for thinking their version of bitcoin is a better / more realistic bitcoin , while they truly are full of shit they shouldn't be treated that way , the same thing goes to cryptohunter and his team, the majority of the forum are being so "mean" to them, this will make a lot of members leave, we should really treat one another with more respect , the forum is large enough to accommodate all different types of people.


So instead of trying to bring back those who left, maybe we should work on keeping whoever we have now, everyone should do their part by creating quality content that will attract more visitors, and of course respect everyone equally regardless of their opinions.  

Wouldn't the idea be considered as spam in itself already? Though if it were let's say every few years im up for it. It could be a great idea but I doubt that those who left would even forget about bitcoin talk so much that they'd need an email to return. They would return when they want to but I seriously doubt most would return because of an email alert about bitcointalk itself.

I doubt the new members would even try to understand the information attached to that section. Most new members are just made to spam spam spam spam spam and only a select few even try to participate and contribute to the forum.