Ideas for more Recruits/Publicity

[maineroad]

I wanted to see what ideas were out there for recruiting more members and gaining our team some publicity. This is especially pertinant now that our production seems to be 23,000+/day and we're entering territory occupied by the elite top 20 teams. I can't wait to see more members join and I want these members to pick Macrumors before anyone else.

I think we agree that there was a huge boost in membership when Arn posted our folding milestone on the main page. I know other Mac teams took notice of this and were jelious at the amount of publicity power we had because of Macrumors.com's enormous visitation stats. More and more Mac users are finding out about folding@home but there are still many who are not aware of the project.

Here are my suggestions:

-Ask Arn to devote a part of the main page (any part, large or small) to revealing our stats, ranking, and a link to the forum FAQ for folding. Something similar to this left sidebar on MacNN would be great. This section could be as small as a 75 x 150 table. It doesn't need to call too much attention away from the main rumors/ads.

Mention that we're the #1 Mac team and add some compelling language about taking on the top 20 "PC" teams. (Ex. "Want to fight for the Mac on our quest to the top? Enlist your G3, G4, G5 troops!)

-Review our instuctions/questions in the FAQ to ensure they are clear for newbies. Also include an updated 4.0 installer for mk68k's great script. Maybe add a "Download Here" sticky for users who don't think of looking in the FAQ.

-Start a monthlong contest for newbies. Off some kind of recognition or prize. Perhaps their nickname/named placed on the Macrumors.com front page for a day (in the folding section)?

-Create a graphical banner to be placed in signatures or on professional or personal websites of our members (with their permissions).

-Open up a sticky thread with pictures of our members' folding machines. A lot of people join folding teams because of the sense of community that their team provides (whether in forums, IRC, etc). I think a permanent thread with pictures of members and their setups would show people that our team is a good community to belong to. Plus people love setup pictures in general.

What do you guys think? Please add your suggestions.

 

[Selecter]

I love all your suggestions. Not a bad one in the bunch.

I personally would like a unified macintosh folding team of all the mac folders combined into one team with member sites instead of having the mac goodness diluted between so many teams. If the masses could be assembled and rivalrys put aside the mac could easily be into the top 3 very quickly. I think the best Macrumors will be able to do is around # 11 or 12 by itself. The only way to do this is to have a unified macfolding team using each team site now as a team member site instead. All would fold for the same team number, but each site could still have their own identity etc.

I agree, the board would be greatly enhanced by the use of pictures. Also the ratio of folders to active board posters is low. This joint aint jumping enough for me!
I'm used to big active community type forums and those are the ones I wanna be around. You can hear a pin drop here sometimes.

I also notice lots of folks read yer post and nobody saw fit to comment on it. Thats that pin droppin thing again.

 

[jbeetz]

Great ideas, especially updating the stickies for v4. I personally have been having a whale of a time with a 2GHz G5 dualie trying to get it set to run both procs at night (only) using cron to start and stop everything. A sticky with a "how to" would sure make things easier. I love the ease of mc68k's scripts, but he hasn't had the time to update them... could someone else step into the breech?

And a unified Mac team would be something to behold, although I must confess to having (gasp) two P4s working for the team myself... so we wouldn't want to get too restrictive!

 

[schneeblee]

Greets.

I've seen some interest in a unified mac team on other mac boards. It might fly, though I think someone will have to organize and spread the word on all the various mac forums. I'm in the MacNN fold right now, but I'd switch to a unified team if one existed.

 

[maineroad]

I would join a unified team too, but is there any way to transfer WU and Points from the 3 other teams? Has anyone talked to Stanford about this prospect? I know it has been discussed many times over but has yet to happen.

Also, I agree with the posters above that there should be more replys to this thread. I hope more people get involved.

I've messaged Arn about the front page idea and I'll be glad to initiate as much change as possible. Alas I am new to the forum and I'm unsure who to talk to get things done (sticky, front page, contest, etc.)

 

[kettle]

what's stopping me?

How about a thread that shows exactly what software we need to download and what to expect when we've done that. (no techno babble until I know what I'm looking at). It always sounds too much hassle to get the stuff together, I need to know I can get it set up in an hour and start folding. I don't want to become a slave to it, endlessly tweeking. I want it to take care of itself when I 'm not using my mac.

Hope that helps

 

[twiztidn8v]

I would join a unified mac team as well. Up until two days ago, I folded for MacAddict, and thought I'd try to help a more active team get up in the standings. I love MacAddict, but I love community and how much more active it seems here.

I'm willing to help out with any of the above ideas, just ask me.

Latahz,
Shaun

 

[Dreadnought]

New idea...

All newbies have to get involved with folding for team 3446 and have to finish at least 5 wu! If they don't, they are banned! (a bit harsh, but it will do the trick!) In this way, even the Knights who say ni have to fold for us if they want to taunt us on our own forums!! LOL

 

[Rower_CPU]

Re: what's stopping me?

Originally posted by kettle
How about a thread that shows exactly what software we need to download and what to expect when we've done that. (no techno babble until I know what I'm looking at). It always sounds too much hassle to get the stuff together, I need to know I can get it set up in an hour and start folding. I don't want to become a slave to it, endlessly tweeking. I want it to take care of itself when I 'm not using my mac.

Hope that helps

Have you read through the FAQ?

maineroad-
-The unified team idea has been floated several times, but no-one ever got enough people on any site to agree to it.

-I doubt we'll get much more from arn, in terms of front page space. I'm happy with the periodic updates I can get arn to post when we have something notable to talk about.

-mc68k will have his script done soon, and it will be posted on his download page.

-Images aren't allowed in sigs, not even ones linked from elsewhere. If you do a search, there have been some banner discussion threads for possible posting in the forums (if arn is amenable).

OK, that all sounded really negative, but I wanted to let you know what ground has already been covered here.

It would be fun to organize some in-team contests if we can achieve critical mass.

 

[twiztidn8v]

I would love to get into some in-team competitions. I saw MacNN doing something, and wondered how something like that is organized. Perhaps some people here have some good ideas? Chime up if you have any kind of idea. I would love to hear it, and I'm sure others would too.

Hmm I think I'll go take a peak and see how they did it. I'll report back…

It seems that they just got some teams together and then a single person added up each teams user totals for the day and then posted the results. As to how long they will fold for, who knows. But I think we could make up our own rules. Any suggestions out there?

 

[Vlade]

Whoever can get the most new computers to fold for us. We will take an average of their PPW for the last few weeks, and compare it to what they are getting at the end of the competition, and whoever improved the most wins.

 

[twiztidn8v]

That's a good idea. Very original, but I think it should be team oriented. I think that team oriented competitions would draw more new users and bring more of a sense of community to our board.

Don't you agree?

 

[Vlade]

It is team oriented, if we have 10 users all competing for a few weeks, each time they 1up each other, the team gets more points!

 

[twiztidn8v]

Okay, but the new users who have a 0 average for the past couple of weeks would gain the most. A big part of the games is to get people involved, especially new recruits, as it helps to get them/and keep them folding.

I'm going to start a new thread to see if we can get some support for playing a team game. I'll explain an idea, see if we can get anything better, and see if we have enough people to make them start.

 

[MrMacMan]

Yeah if we have some sort of contest I think people will get into it.

The 'unite the Mac Universe' has been talked to death, I have found that the MacRumors Crew would easily give up MR for a United Mac Team... but rather other teams would not do the same thing...

Also Standford doesn't allow WU/point transfering...Whatever you sent in to whatever team stays, it doesn't move with you.

The contests are goods stuff.

edit want:
The Mac Team Thread? HERE


Also... what happened to the Banner Design Thread?


Where did they go?