Especially because wishie is now the only active pixelist on staff - getting extra items made might be tough. All the other 3 pixelists are on hiatus.

I mean you could also give out old rares say to top posters instead of new items as I think someone mentioned influxing the old stuff as a draw to new users. Coding things is still an issue, but like that posting contest that was done before, it was all counted by hand I think. There are things that can be done without too much extra. It's just that fancy stuff will work the best.

Maria - I can probably recolor (except I work full time) so sadly I'm not up to par to help with that. Ive only recently got back into it and it's hard with nobody keeping me consistently doing it.

Kat - Counting by hand would be a bit hectic for overworked staff though. Applying volunteers would I think help though. I made a thread about that in feedback. Hoping the staff consider it.

Edit - I wonder if maybe I should just do a constant wave of contests and prizes and see if I can drive up activity.

I have a lot of items but I think once I finished I would probably leave mene if it failed. So I'm torn on the idea.

I wish I knew how the contest was done before so I could say for sure. Users could keep track of their own posts for the length of the contest, but I know that before quality and popularity of new threads was also judged.

I really don't want to go anywhere else so I hope things get better. I've never seen mene quite this slow before.

I don't want to go anywhere either, but they have one after another shot down all my offers to help. I've nothing left to offer but my items.

Yeah. The problem is it's hard to fix a problem like this because all the solutions require more than can easily be given.
And even if I do leave here, just migrating to another site won't even help that much, because few other sites are much better off in the first place. Why did avi sites have to fall so far out of favor?

Because Menewsha didn't change to compete with the changes.

I think Menewsha has the upper hand a little though. We are small. We are not very graphic intensive. We have the potential to go mobile, which I think is the only way Menewsha will survive. The majority of kids are all on their phones now and Menewsha is VERY not phone friendly.

Edit - I think though... whatever Menewsha decides they need to do it before too many more people fade away.
Even if it's something like a Menewsha mobile app fundme campaign. I would definitely have donated to something like that.
The main reason I nolonger donate is because I don't know if Menewsha will be around long enough to enjoy anything I buy.

I don't have a lot of trouble using my phone for this site. Maybe I'm just used to it. Other than rping, I'm happy to just use my phone or tablet. However, there are no avi forums with a mobile site that I know of so it would be cool to see.
Crowd funding might really work.

Well, sure it's managable, but I've had to get the handle of it over a long course of time. Lots of zooming in, zooming out.
I can't see a full page without the links to click on being incredibly small.

Would a new user consider Menewsha good enough to deal with the side effects of using the mobile browser? If I had to do Menewsha mobile from day 1 I'd not have stayed to meet all the people I have.

A crowdfunding could even be as simple as getting a special CI that would be handed out. Maybe they could look into something that would entice everyone.

But if they don't do something, then we will not gain enough to combat the losses.

Mene would be okay on a tablet. On a phone? No, not so much.

An app would be better, but keep in mind: Gaia had an app, too. And it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.

Well... Gaia sucked... so there is that.

I mean... do we simply let Menewsha die?
I've been honestly starting my process. I don't know what future Menewsha holds now so my items are starting to slowly lose value to me. I'm donating my gold and some of my items as I go. I've lost interest in dressing my avi because it just feels pointless... nothing is ever changing.

Of course I have a ton of crap so I've got a long time before anything happens to me.

Gaia has always kinda sucked.

And no, we shouldn't let Menewsha die.

I guess I'm just of the opinion if you want it to change make it happen. You don't need a title to stir activity. You could create your own thread, your own contest, your own giveaway, another ure. Invite others into the endeavor. Don't wait for permission from Admin to do it because you are a user. You won't be an official thread or contest or whatever. But user runs threads and contest are just as good. Then ping the crap out of users that are online to get them in there.

I dunno. I just think we are in here kicking around ideas but none of them get done. And no, they don't all have to be on official staff. They say they have things planned and in the works. With wishes choose your own ci thing for the western ci that won, the events, they are definitely getting work done. AND inso is updating the aerver...he wouldn't do that if mene were about to croak.

But to stir up activity ...that can also be put on regular users. I come on here and the only active threads are hangouts with an established user group that seem uninviting and these threads talking of mene's demise...as a new user ID take a look at it and peace out.

But make some newbie threads. We have one but after they stop there, what else do they do? Make multiple threads to get them going.

Ping new users to your hangouts as soon as you notice them. Get them in those threads

I dunno. Sorry if I'm pushy.

Maria - I offered to make my change happen. If you read back I had offered to personally fund advertisement for menewsha. No strings, no perks.

I know the threads discourage... But it's how we feel. And with so few active users it never falls off the front page

I'm not talking about paying for advertising. I'm talking about doing things right here, right now. Advertising is great but when they come on, again, they are coming into clique-y hangouts and threads about how mene is going downhill. Advertising won't help in that case....they'll look and never come back.

Build it from the ground up. Get some activity going. You don't need to be an admin or put money into the site for that. Create some threads, events, contests, make it fun, inviting, welcoming...and THEN think about advertising.

How do we build activity? I do everything I can to try and make new users feel welcome when they join.

Often times the reason they leave is lack of activity. But with only a few posting it's hard to make that activity visible with so many forums and sub forums.

I mean I talk to the same 10 people every day no matter where I go it seems.

Another URE or two would probably help, even if it were something that lasted only a weekend.

That is true. I'm not too good at running events or contests but I could definitely help with some items.

I really think play-by-post/forum-based avatar sites are absolutely on their way out as they currently stand.

I reject the idea that an app is the solution, since apps are notoriously costly and have terrible rates of retention on a given person's phone (how many apps do you keep on your phone? me, I purge at least half a dozen every few months).

There's a lot of inertia right now that parallels Mene and its peer sites as well as MMORPGs and similar games: there's this buzzy, sexy interest in and fascination with mobile, but it's so myopic. Much of the world isn't on mobile still. Perhaps Mene could shift its gaze out of the West, out of English-speaking territory, if even just to hyper-connected, mobile Asia for starters. Why are we still so Western-focused? The world's been globalized for decades now, and there are Mene users from all corners of the world. Can't we pick more than one to market to?

Aside from this, there really needs to be investment in and expansion outside of the forum model. Is our future some kind of instant messenger client that has some sort of mini game functionality? I remember feeling that when the instant-post feature in the Quick Reply was added to Mene, it felt revolutionary and innovative. Instantly I saw my post pop onto the thread and my gold count go up.

What's exciting about that now?

And what's thrilling about hopping from thread-to-thread, often from stale conversation to soon-to-be-stale (or stagnant/stalled) conversation?

Is the concept of separate threads itself on its way out?

I guess my head's all over the place as someone who's worked in digital marketing and digital engagement for several years now, albeit for a niche professional audience, and seen some communities adopt more activity-stream/FB-wall-esque formats with forums as a de-prioritized and de-populated yet still available feature. Would one contiguous (or multiple contiguous) streams with the ability to comment be the way to go?

I've seen several of my most favored forum-based sites (one text-by-post RPG that had been approaching 15 years; the other an MMORPG player-run forum community; and others) fall to the times recently. If you think about it, the forum concept really hasn't undergone any radical evolutions since it was created decades ago: take away the shiny features here or there, and very few sites have truly innovated beyond the forum/category/thread/post structure.

Perhaps that's too clunky for today.

It sure as heck is too clunky for mobile, if that's where we're trying to go.

Ah maybe I'm weird. I never uninstall stuff.

You make some very good points Facade. I only say mobile app because I see people staring at their phones all day. They gotta be doing something o.o