Revitalizing the Local boards

[vlad230]

I have noticed that for a few months the interest in the local sub forums has died down (at least for the Romanian local board which I'm aware of) and I wonder why?

I remember when I first heard about this forum, about 2-3 years ago, the first stop I made (although my English skills are decent) was in the local Romanian forum. It seemed like a good place to start for me, to see if my co-nationals have solutions on how to move money in & out of crypto exchanges, how to do that, which are the best exchanges to use with our local currency etc.

I recently saw some posts in Meta: Locked and contented to the given response of Mr. paxmao & Merit source application (French local board) where a lot of people were saying that the Spanish & French local boards were starting to pick up traction with the appointment of new merit sources & stronger moderation.

I know I'm not senior enough to apply for a merit source position but was wondering if any Romanians are lurking here that may apply for something like that. I also tried pinging some legendary members to encourage them to apply, but did not get any response.

What do you think? Would this trigger more activity in the local boards?

[1715020498]

1715020498

[1715020498]

1715020498

[1715020498]

1715020498

[joniboini]

What do you think? Would this trigger more activity in the local boards?

I certainly think so. My local board (Indonesian) is certainly getting better as more members are now volunteering to help the mods fight for spams, which is a chronic problem in my boards. There are more interesting discussions compared to the past. I personally wanted to apply for a merit source even though we already have 2 sources. The more the merrier.

[kenzawak]

I have noticed that for a few months the interest in the local sub forums has died down (at least for the Romanian local board which I'm aware of) and I wonder why?

This goes for the whole forum.
-Summer : people post less
-ICOs failing, scam bounty campaigns... people stop joining sig campaigns and in result don't see a point in posting as much
-Too much spam : people know that if they ask a question, they'll get one good answer for 20 shitty ones. Don't know if that's the case in your board though.
-Not enough merits being distributed, and probably not fairly enough : people have given up on ranking up.

Now I'm not familiar with the Romanian Board but maybe I can make a comparison with the French one. Until two months ago, we had no mod and no merit source. We do now.
Fortunately we had a few motivated members who did their best to fight spam, scam, fake translations... they (we  ) still do. You need people like that, not just moderation. We even got our former mod fired ! He had been awol for a year at least.
Of course a merit source would help but that probably won't solve all your problems.

Do you have a mod in the Romanian Board ? If you do, maybe he should apply as a merit source.

P.S : our mod is also our merit source...and he is only a "member'' so I don't think a high rank is needed to apply.

[vlad230]

I certainly think so. My local board (Indonesian) is certainly getting better as more members are now volunteering to help the mods fight for spams, which is a chronic problem in my boards. There are more interesting discussions compared to the past. I personally wanted to apply for a merit source even though we already have 2 sources. The more the merrier.

Thanks, that sounds encouraging. I think these local boards should get more attention as a lot of people will look there first.

This goes for the whole forum.
-Summer : people post less
-ICOs failing, scam bounty campaigns... people stop joining sig campaigns and in result don't see a point in posting as much
-Too much spam : people know that if they ask a question, they'll get one good answer for 20 shitty ones. Don't know if that's the case in your board though.
-Not enough merits being distributed, and probably not fairly enough : people have given up on ranking up.

-It's been like this even before the summer started, even in winter.
-We don't really have too much activity, that's the issue here. So, no spam either.
-Yes, there are 0 merits distributed. It's sad if good posting users are leaving because of merits...

Do you have a mod in the Romanian Board ? If you do, maybe he should apply as a merit source.

P.S : our mod is also our merit source...and he is only a "member'' so I don't think a high rank is needed to apply.

Yes, we have Cyrus but I'm not sure if he's a merit source or not, I don't really see him posting either.

I think mods do not fall in the same category as regular users, so they can be merit sources disregarding of rank.

[joniboini]

Yes, we have Cyrus but I'm not sure if he's a merit source or not, I don't really see him posting either.

I think mods do not fall in the same category as regular users, so they can be merit sources disregarding of rank.

Might as well apply for a new source. Cyrus is kinda busy and not that active I guess.

[DdmrDdmr]

I would say that many factors are involved in revitalizing a local board; a Merit Source is just one of them, albeit an important one.

Factors such as regulation, hype, crypto awareness, crypto friendliness, share of wallet one can place on crypto, Bitcointalk SEM/SEO, etc. are all factors to be pondered into the equation.

On a specific local board, a Merit Source would certainly help to keep a certain traction going for those who consider rank important to them, but it is not so much a driver as the above. For example, my local board (Spanish) does indeed have a merit source, although he acts both on my local board and globally. In fact, my first two sMerits came from him and got me started.
I would’t say though that my local board is thriving with posts, nor thrilling in terms of content. Rather more, there is a small set of people that post with a good command of expression and knowledge that try to push things forward, but even so the debates are of late not as intense as before.

I figure nevertheless that Merit Sources on local boards are assigned, amongst other criteria, based on the number of posts on the local board.
My local board for example had an average of 229 posts/day at the end of June 2018, with an average of 0,033 merits/post. Even with a Merit Source, only 22 people have ranked-up at least one level since the Merit System was introduced, and out of those, only 5 have got all their sMerit on the Spanish Local board (the rest have emigrated partially so as to say). 

The Romanian local board had an average of around 40 posts/day at the end of May 2018 (June was 28), with an average of 0,004 merits/post. Only 3 people have ranked-up at least one level since the Merit System was introduced, all of them receiving their sMerit on local and English boards simultaneously.

The French local board had an average of around 170 posts/day at the end of May 2018 (June was 132), with an average of 0,039 merits/post. Similarl, to the Spanish local board, 21 people have ranked-up at least one level since the Merit System was introduced, and out of those only 7 have got all their sMerit on the Spanish Local board (the rest have emigrated partially so as to say). 

To sum it up, a Merit Source is important, but there are many more factors that play their roll in driving traffic to the local board. A “largish” number of posts per day is probably essential to get thing moving.

Sources for the above data:
- Analysis - Ranked-up Users – Section/Subsection profile (& Local Boards)
- Bitcointalk – Posts per Day - evolution during past six months 

[vlad230]

[...]
To sum it up, a Merit Source is important, but there are many more factors that play their roll in driving traffic to the local board. A “largish” number of posts per day is probably essential to get thing moving.

Thanks for the detailed analysis, DdmrDdmr! I know I can count on you for accurate data analysis.

I agree there needs to be a large number of posts per day "to keep the ball rolling" but that's what I'm trying to do - sparking interest back into the Romanian local board - through merit.

I think that if people will see that merit is being awarded there, they will be more active.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

I agree, an essential part for a local board growth is by stimulating those that are on the local board that really want to contribute through their posts. I guess though it’s an easier task to do when there is a steady largish flow of posting going on, making it clearer to state a case.

I’ve taken a look at what local boards seem to have a Merit Source with at least partial dedication. I may be wrong in some of the cases where the Merit Source distributes a small amount of sMerits (and I may therefore not detect it). In addition, some of the Merit Sources are Staff in some of the Local Boards, which is probably a good starting point if there is room for that kind of task alongside the regular tasks.

-   What looks like no assigned Merit Source: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Greek, Hebrew, Indian, Korean, Philippines, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Skandinavisk.

-   What looks like a Partial/Dedicated Merit Source: Croatian, French (recent), German, Indonesian, Italian,  Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish.

Some of the above strike me as strange. For example, the Chinese community do not seem to have a Merit Source, but perhaps the initial sMerit airdrop still keeps them going.

Your local Romanian board is perhaps similar in size to the Croatian one, which does seem to have a Merit Source.

I think it would be good for all local boards to have a Merit Source, even if it were to be a small one in terms of assigned sMerit. Sometimes a staff member will suffice, whilst others a regular forum member would need to undertake the task at hand. Here again Trust may be an issue when determining a potential Merit Source, and language a barrier in terms of ease of supervision.

[LTU_btc]

I think in general, people interest in cryptcurrencies reduced if we compare what we saw in the end of 2017- start of 2018, and it probably affected activity of local boards. I read analysis in Meta board that there was less new sign ups on Bitcointalk in recent months. More experienced users posting (or spamming) in main boards, they're not so interested to post in local boards because bounty campaigns aren't paying for posts mace in these section. Meanwhile there aren't so many new people joining this forum who would ask basic questions about exchanges, how to buy crypto and etc in local boards. But I suppose if Bitcoin would start to go up again, we would see new wave of people coming into crypto world again.
I think that all local boards should have Merit source. But there is one problem. Some of smalker local boards don't even have dedicated mod, not only Merit source. Probably theymos can't find right people because these communities aren't big and there aren't enough users with solid reputation. And on the other hand, while these boards aren't very active, theymos don't see big demand to appoint mods and Merit sources for these boards.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

For me it’s made no difference. The Spanish board was quite uninteresting when I joined the forum in August last year and now it is as uninteresting as it was before. All info I see there I can find it in more depth on the English board.

I suppose you find it more interesting the poorer English level you have, so you can't compare.

[vlad230]

Might as well apply for a new source. Cyrus is kinda busy and not that active I guess.

I already applied here: vlad230's Merit source application - Romanian Local board

I would appreciate it if you guys could offer your support to make the thread more visible to theymos.

For me it’s made no difference. The Spanish board was quite uninteresting when I joined the forum in August last year and now it is as uninteresting as it was before. All info I see there I can find it in more depth on the English board.

I suppose you find it more interesting the poorer English level you have, so you can't compare.

I don't think it's 100% tied to speaking or not speaking English. I found it interesting at the beginning and still see it interesting today, since there are a lot of things related to your geographic location like: how & where to buy BTC & altcoins using the local currency, new BTC terminals installed near you, cheap mining farms in your country etc.

You can't find such information on the English board for your country but you're right too, new stuff usually shows up on the English boards first.