Do you have a lot of opinions on local topics and aren't afraid to share them?

So Michelle what do you want? Want me to talk about the village board and citizens of Gays Mill and the plight of will they really relocate the main street business district to higher ground? How about how Crawford county has a beautiful county fairgrounds that gets used three times per year, instead of being actively offered to groups for various events and to promote tourism? How about the dairyland Electric generating station in De Soto that burns upto 27 tons of coal a day to create electric power and the air quality issue that creates?
:0 there I started some for you *wink*

@wodam: Those sound like lovely topics. Feel free to make new topics out of them. Not living in that area, though, it's not something I have any knowledge to discuss.

As for what I want, well, a lively discussion forum. I want the forum to not go into hibernation if I'm not able to post for a day or two. I want a place where people can have fun, get to know each other, and discuss things that are important to them. I want people to be able to express opinions, even strong opinions, without being attacked. Forum nirvana? Maybe.

@Roadangel: That's a big part of my problem. Well, not packing and cleaning but not being up to date. I'm working on that but there's only so many hours in a day.

"But if you post something local I might discuss it."

Unfortunately, that's where a lot of folks are at. It's much easier to respond to a topic than start a new one. But there needs to be more than me starting topics, too. Which is why I wrote this post.

Michelle

Well, it doesn't have to be La Crosse. The Coulee Region is a big place. Bigger than I realized, actually. I still need to revise the description and add more communtiies to the list. (It's on my to do list )

Wodam asked, "So Michelle what do you want?" but I'd like to turn that around. What do you, our regular members here, want? It seems the more I try to bring balance to the force the site, the more resistance I get. This is a community site, not a dictatorship. Maybe I'm pushing to hard to make the site fit my dream instead of just letting it be what it wants to be.

Maybe it would help if I laid out my reasoning:

1. We currently have about 15 fairly regular posters.
2. About 99% of what is posted has nothing to do with the Coulee Region
3. About 80% of what is posted is "fluffy" fun stuff. There's nothing wrong with fluffy fun stuff and a good dose of it is healthy. But is that all we want here?
4. Our userbase is pretty stagnant. We've gotten 20 new users in the last month and 2 of them have posted.
5. Site visits are stagnant as well. We occasionally have small spikes, but mostly we hover around 50 local (WI/MN) visitors a day.
6. New users rarely join quiet/dead forums. If they don't see activity, they move on.
7. There are a bajillion general interest forums on the net filled with activity. It is extremely difficult to build a forum that doesn't have a niche.
8. Our niche is that we are a local forum. But that takes us back to point #2.

So that's where I'm at. I want this site to succeed. I want this to be the place to go online to find other local folks to talk to. While I love you all and think you're a great group, the average web surfer is not going to be interested in joining up to talk to 15 other people.

So what are our options?

We can stay small and not worry about growing. That has the benefit of keeping the close knit group and minimizes the chances of a troll attack. But it also means that pretty much any day I don't post the whole site goes dead. With a few exceptions, Gina and I are the only ones that start new topics and Gina has more important things to worry about right now. So that leaves me and my limited posting time. And what happens if I go on vacation? Will a week with no new posts kill the forum? Will folks drift off and never come back?

Or I can keep pushing, keep trying to grow the site. Activity begets activity. Every time there's a new crop of posts, folks come back and respond and it gets going again for a while until it runs out of steam. With a solid base of posters, that could keep going, all the time, day after day, even if one or more of us has to step away for a while. With more people joining and telling their friends, we could get to be a big, busy, exciting forum. But, of course, the cost is that we'd lose some of that close knit feeling. And there's the risk of folks getting overwhelmed with all the activity. And the danger of attracting trolls goes up the more popular we get.

Whew. I didn't mean to write a book. I'm just putting my feelings, my hopes, my worries, all out there so you can see where I'm coming from. This is what I've been struggling with from the start, the worry behind my "getting the silliness under control" post, what prompted this topic we're in now. It's not that I don't appreciate every one of you that's already here. I do, I really do. I just think this site can become something bigger than a hang out for a handful of mostly quiet folks. We just need to find a way to do it without losing what makes this place special in the process.

Michelle

Awesome! Looks like you figured it out because I see a new post from you. Thanks!

I'm actually only here for like 2 minutes. Crazy busy day today, mostly out of the house so I can't even sneak a peek at the computer. But I look forward to coming back and checking in this evening.

Michelle