I've recently started trying to revitalize a niche community ([email protected]) that had been silent for a year or so, simply by posting more content. I have been made a moderator by the instance owners (so I could do any cleaning/maintenance if that was needed).
I have been posting for almost a month and got my very first new post, by another user than me I mean, in the last 24h. That was so effing cool! And it also was real good content for our niche.
That said, I still want to post more stuff.
And I would like to also renew the old banner and icon which I think is meh. I even made a mock-up I wanted to put online and then see if members liked it. That's when I started worrying it might be a very stupid idea.
I don't want members to feel like I'm taking hold of anything. My sole objective is to encourage more people to post more, and to help make the community as welcoming and alive as I can. But by doing too much I'm afraid I would only make members feel I'm making it 'mine'.
Instead of doing that, I considered asking all members their opinion about renewing the banner, and invite them to submit their own propositions. But, here again, I'm worrying:
- They could feel bombarded by my too many posts and/or intimidated by my invitation to participate.
- And then, if we were to organize some friendly competition, how would I (and why me?) pick the winning proposition? By a vote? Sure, but then I'm afraid people would encourage their friends to vote for them which would not be fair to people with fewer friends.
So, here I am. A bit naive and afraid I could do more arm than good.
What do you think? Do I worry too much?
Do you have any practical suggestion? Should I post less? Should I give up on that banner idea? (I really think a new and less serious banner could help but it's also not an obsession, so...)
On Reddit I posted a lot less. Often I'm super late to the party and someone had discovered and posted it 6 years ago. Even when I discover it in a timely manner, someone else has usually already gotten to it and posted it. For comments, often people already summed up everything I wanted to say and I have nothing new to add.
Here, usually nobody has posted the thing already, so I am not just duplicating an old post and I can go ahead. And the comments are sparser, so I can post my take without just rehashing someone else.
In French, we have this saying (I don't know where it come from): 'les anciens ont volés mes meilleures idées' which can be translated as 'The elders they all stole my best ideas' meaning one never truly create anything new. But, yeah, I understand your feeling regarding reddit: at times it can feel like a never ending and an impossible to win race.
I made it a personal rule to not care about being first, only focusing on what I could bring to the discussion (and if nothing, I would not post).
That is kind of what I mean though. I did not post because I wasn't contributing to the discussion, because someone else contributed all my thoughts already. I'm not very upset about others making it first. It's just that here, now I'm usually able to contribute because there are not a huge amount of people interested in contributing, so they do not get there before me.