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It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
The Lumia competition seems to be bringing the best and the worst to these forums. I was brought here because of it, as was Techblitz and many other quality members (wasn't trying to imply I'm a quality member -- far from it). But it's also bringing too much spam and too many hooligans. I enjoyed chatting with people when I first came here, but now it seems every other post is spam or discussions have, for the most part, fizzled. There isn't much speculation around about Windows Phone. Sure, there's the Verizon hype and the Lumia, but other than that there isn't much press. And it doesn't help that most of the users (judging from what I've seen) are not WP7 users. I am most likely getting the Lumia 900 for my next phone, but I'm not upgrading until July, so I have to wait until then or try to con my family into getting it for me.
Without many WP7 users, I feel like the community is really a gilded spam-heap. Everyone here, including myself, hopes to win the phone, and most will disappear after the contest ends. I feel this isn't a sustainable state of the forum, and there are two things that must be done to make it a long term achievement.
1. Get rid of spam. Promote a few new mods. Give those mods some reason for being here. To entice a couple new high-quality posters, offering the Amazon gift card is a good start, but there is no incentive to stay. I've never worked in management, so I have no idea what would be feasible. But there needs to be some incentive to keep quality members around if the spam keeps up.
2. Create original content. This contest is a nice start, but there is no reason why most people will come here for their WP7/8 news. Mock-up contests, contacting manufacturers, anything to create a unique reason to stay here. If you, the mods, were to generate some kind of monthly contest that awards the person with the highest quality of posts, as voted on by users with x-number of posts, some kind of award, there would be a reason for people to stay.
These both boil down to: Give them an incentive. This is not, currently, a sustainable community. Until there gets to be enough reason for the community to stay because of the community alone, there needs to be something that anchors people here. But that's just my opinion.
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Originally Posted by johnnyb
