Like others have said before me, I may get some heat for some of my observations...but hell I am bored today and felt like saying something.
A thread like this comes up all the time and various suggestions are bandied about how to encourage more postings from both newbies and veterans.
a) Ignore those statistics about the total number of members and the attributed % who actually write reports. Due to natural growth of this site, the expected % of those who contributed reports is expected (naturally) to decline.
Perhaps we should choose a different baseline (number of new reports contributed each week/month) to determine whether or not the forum is truly thriving or not.
b) Encouraging veterans to write more : Really hard to do because practically most of us veterans are in different phases of life where different responsibilities become more important than visiting 141s/saunas/macau/etc as well as many of us do not reside in Asia anymore. Plu it is more expensive and riskier (cultural shame / Law Enforcement) outside Asia to be partaking to the same degree like we did in Asia.
c) Changing the points (A's and K's) award system : We seen so many variations to use points to encourage more reports. Like I wrote in point (b), it won't budge most veterans. Veterans don't write because the points system sucks, it is because life has changed.
Perhaps for the newbies, those 'game show' prizes running on a quarterly basis might be more encouraging...besides awarding a bonus of K's the winner, the winner gets to win a drink at WC with one of the moderators (may inadvertently encourage mods to resign early) who will show them around any place that is listed in 141 HK. An opportunity to learn from a Legend.
d) Finally some have discussed how to boost the banter of the forum as many recent members feel the forum is not 'lively'. Well I think that will be very difficult to make happen.
Remember the early days of forums all over the internet, every where was lively with lots of banter. Well this site has lost that liveliness as well as most forums elsewhere.
The problem especially including myself it is not easy to convery humor/self-deprecation/sarcasm on the net. I 'stepped on the rake' many times myself, earning some scorn (some deservedly so and some not at all) from other members in the past that I now keep myself to asking straight-forward questions or passing on straight advice. PC killed the banter.
Yes, some banter still exists in this forum and think why it does is that those members had the opportunity to meet each other face-to-face and share drinks and visits to the girls together. So with those shared experiences, they can determine whether or not a post from each other was made in jest or not, instead of being misinterpreted as something (usually negative) else.
In Conclusion, I will maintain my current composure to keep my heart rate down until I make a trip back to HK and perhaps meet some of the bros here for a drink at WC.
...Oh I will continue to award Ks to well-written reports from newbies in every section to encourage to stay with this forum and make it their go-to forum for the best information world-wide.
