Opened State Communities

by rrusczyk, Jun 17, 2006, 3:21 PM

We originally had our state communities closed, hoping to give the users 'privacy' of sorts. We've found that this effectively kills the community, as it's hard to join, etc. Therefore, we've opened nearly all our state and local communities (but not the ones that are for specific groups, like the SDMC or Stanford Math Circle, though we will open these if the users request it). So, jump into your state's community and get some conversations started about your local events & opportunities.

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Personally, I don't like the change. The thing that kept me on AoPS was the Michigan forum initially, and I liked its privacy. Now that anyone can access a forum, they've lost their community feel. I'd rather not post something in the Michigan forum anymore, which has been the most active by far.

Just my opinion.

by 1234567890, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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1234567890 wrote:

Interesting observation - we would consider making any one of these state forums private again if the active participants in them would prefer it so (and are willing to pull people into the forums to generate conversation). Mainly, as you can see from the state forums, the problem has been that there is so little conversation in the closed ones.

by rrusczyk, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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Already non-Georgians are having fun in our forum; sure, it isn't that active, but I'd rather have an inactive GA forum than a forum where residents of other states practically spam.

I think that we let non-members of the usergroup read the state forums, but they can't reply. That way non-residents don't spam, and people thinking about joining can see whether it's worth the time to join.

by solafidefarms, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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Just to add credibility to my argument, 137 of my posts have been in the Michigan forum.

I'd prefer the forums remain completely closed. But maybe you could have a permanent "Join community" button on the top of the forums. That would certainly increase the number of participants

by 1234567890, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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It seems privacy has lost its popularity lately

Seriously though, I agree with Mr. Rusczyk that something must be done to increase the usage of the state forums. The biggest problem was that a lot of people were unaware of the forum for their state. On the other hand, taking away the privacy of the forums changes them dramatically and that's not necessarily good. Perhaps we should search for a compromise. Billy's suggestion about letting non-members read but not reply is a great idea. Another idea that I have is to let non-members view and post in just a sample of the forum. This way you let everyone know the forums exist but they can't see the whole thing unless they become a member. You could give the power to the moderators to decide which topics are public and which are private. Dunno how much work that would take to implement...it's an idea though.

by joml88, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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1234567890, what kind of discussions go on the Michigan forum? Just curious because there have only been 13 user posts in our forum and the last one was on october 12...

by chess64, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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chess64 wrote:

1234567890, what kind of discussions go on the Michigan forum? Just curious because there have only been 13 user posts in our forum and the last one was on october 12...

You can go see for yourself now

by joml88, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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Yup, a lot of posts.

I had to edit some of the more "personal, exuberant" ones once I got word of the change (privacy).

Adding on to what I said, it would be a good idea to have a button like "contests" (it would be join Community instead of memberlist) on the top of the forum except highlighted and made bold, so people can see that. Or maybe when someone registers, an e-mail is sent saying "Join a ____ community". Just throwing out some ideas.

by 1234567890, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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There's not a single post in the Kansas Forum!

by pianoforte, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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Keep the ideas coming - we're trying to find something that will make the local communities most useful. Completely closed failed for almost all of them. We'll see what we can do about having a button to join the community, but I think that's going to be a fair amount of coding trouble. Perhaps instead I'll just let people within the communities sort it out. Right now, though, if a new user comes to ask something about an event, say, in Alabama (or any other local group), they'll be lucky to get into the group within several days, and may never get an answer to their question. I'm not sure how to balance this issue with people wanting to be 'private'. I'm also not sure what is really meant by 'privacy' in this context. It's not like we're making private messages public. Why do you feel like a 'State' forum is 'private' (even if closed) and the forum as a whole is not?

by rrusczyk, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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I'll also note that we do have private, closed communities, which were created at the request of specific people for specific purposes. These we will, of course, keep private to those groups. Most of these are for math teams or math circles. (In general, we're only willing to host these if we are fairly confident they'll get use, so please don't ask us to do so lightly.)

by rrusczyk, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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Oh wow. The problem for me was that I didn't know they were closed- I used to check Maryland to find it had 0 posts... so I never went. how silly of me

by daveed, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM

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Maybe I'm overly sensitive about privacy but I'm not thrilled about the change. There are messages I've posted on the Colorado forum identifying me and my family which are now accessible through Google and other search engines. It's one thing to reveal personal information to a small group of Colorado math enthusiasts and another to reveal it to the world. I'm going to have to edit/delete many of my old posts.

My guess is only a small fraction of AoPS members have noticed this change. Can you post a notice on every state forum announcing that the formerly private forums are now public? I see there's an announcement in the National and Local Communities forum but it's easy to miss.

On a different topic, thanks for supporting the USAMO expansion. My high school math club has several students who might benefit from this change.

by coloradoarml, Jun 17, 2006, 3:22 PM