[Rick Ace]

I was one of the earliest adopters of ForumCoin. As an avid user of forums and someone who recognized the potential of online currencies that weren't just cryptos, I felt the ForumCoin project had a lot to offer. Another reason why I joined ForumCoin is because I was a fan of Fergal's ability to setup and manage a great community. He's great at that. I'd say the hallmark of a Fergal forum was its quality content. BSA was full of professional advice. FP turned into an active marketplace during its peak under Fergal's leadership. FC seemed to be headed towards the same direction, but then it sort of became unrecognizable.

I haven't been able to check ForumCoin as much as I used to due to personal issues in life. (In fact, life has been really bad to me lately.) So, many of you might not even know or remember me. But I still wanted to bring up a discussion about certain issues regarding ForumCoin.

The main issue that bugs me about ForumCoin is the quality of posts. The topics themselves often start out rather mundane. You would think people would pass such topics without replying, but surprisingly they get a ton of replies. And even those replies sound mostly incoherent. The result is an active forum with many threads but almost none that are readable. Sadly, the content is what I enjoyed most about forums. From a currency standpoint, the value is not worth the effort for most people. I assumed that more and more services would be offered over the years. Instead, the ForumCoin has become stuck a very low value. That's not to say that propagating a forum currency isn't a monumental task. However, the lack of value can be deterring for many users. Let's try to put the value into perspective.

Based on the rate of $5 of Paypal Cash for 500 ForumCoins, we can say 100 ForumCoins is worth about $1 USD. At that rate, an article or tutorial pays $1.50. I estimated an average of 1.3FC/post. It would take 385 posts to earn $5, which means a post is worth about $0.013. How about the facuet? It would take 1050 hours or 44 days of continuous clicking every five minutes to earn $5.

Yikes! Overall, users would have to labor very hard to make $5 a month. That leaves me with a question. If ForumCoin isn't generating readable discussions and it isn't valuable enough to earn it, what is its use? I hope no one takes this the wrong way. I am glad ForumCoin appears to be succeeding one way or the other. Similar forums (or even most forums in general) have fallen by now. Though, I just can't ignore the fact that ForumCoin looks more like an active dystopia than the promising forum currency it once embodied.

[Fergal]

Great to see you back again Rick Ace, thanks for your kind words and sorry to hear that life has been difficult for you. Please do let me / us know if you feel there is anything we can do to help.

Thanks also for your feedback on ForumCoin. I'd be interested to hear other members' opinions on the points you raise and would also be open to hear any suggestions you have.

[suny]

@ Fergal- I have nothing much to say since I am not starting many threads myself (especially lately). But I agree with OP that some of the threads are irrelevant or unwanted which I would prefer to leave without answering. These posts really do not contribute to world community. Thanks...

[OldGuy]

This sentence seems to ask the most important question. It is one I have been asking myself and have been trying to find an answer to that may be able to be used to promote the site someday:

“If ForumCoin isn't generating readable discussions and it isn't valuable enough to earn it, what is its use?”

From my own observations, it appears that the main reason Fergal set up this forum was to discuss the primary topics:

CGT - Computers, Gaming & Technology: Talk hardware, software, computer gaming, mobile devices, the Internet, social networking and other technology

Webmaster Questions, Discussion & News -- Webmaster forum. Website development, design & management. Graphic design. Blog / Forum Set-up, Management, Admin & News

and Business, Money & Wealth - BMW Forum: Questions and discussions related to business, making money online, cryptocurrencies, etc., and the related Subforum: Revenue Targets & Payment Proofs

The rest appears to be added attractions rather than the main event. They seem to have been added to attract members and give them something to log in for on a daily basis. A big problem there is that a significant percentage of all members spend much more time in the general chat category than the main reason the site exists, and there are many members who do nothing but log in to play the games without even bothering to contribute content. Many never do get the meaning of the reputation points.

So, getting back to your questions about topics. You are right. The topics are mostly old and boring, answered to death and not enough new topics showing up to fill in the gap.

It appears obvious that most members who participate are more interested in responding to existing topics, but are not interested or perhaps even able to come up with new topics to discuss. So what will be required to get more members to post quality topics?

Any added financial incentive would most likely result in added meaningless topics just to earn extra income and not necessarily value added topics. The site policy is to merge similar topics so related responses can be found in one place. New topics have to be unique, not just the same things repeated in different words. There would have to be some policy to take back extra earnings if an added topic that had been paid for duplicated an existing topic and they are merged.

Perhaps members could earn extra privileges by adding new topics to the mix. Since the site hosts the games section but derives no income from those posts, maybe members could earn the right to contribute a specified number of posts to topics in the game category with each unique topic added to the main categories. Anyone who has spent time in a video arcade has seen the flashing lights asking you to add more tokens to continue the play. Why not have a flashing sign that asks them to contribute another value added topic to the site for x number of added entries in the games category?

The long game drawing to win a growing number of FCs has been absent for quite some time. Maybe offer members one chance at the monthly drawing for each new value added topic in the main categories.

There may be other site privileges that could be offered based on a volume of new topic postings.

The key is that the site needs to continuously expand with new topics both to provide added opportunities for members to add their own insights and to also provide new information to attract visitors again and again. Participating members need to contribute content that will add value to the topic with each post. After all, if the value of the content were to improve, the value of ForumCoins could also increase in the future.

[Rick Ace]

Great to see you back again Rick Ace, thanks for your kind words and sorry to hear that life has been difficult for you. Please do let me / us know if you feel there is anything we can do to help.

Thanks also for your feedback on ForumCoin. I'd be interested to hear other members' opinions on the points you raise and would also be open to hear any suggestions you have.

Thank you, Fergal. I'm happy to see you again too.

As a general idea, I would say one way to boost the value of FC is to base it on services. Currently, the best valuation of FC appears to be the $5 Paypal thread. While it has worked greatly to stabilize FC, it's also not enough for many members to invest their time and efforts for more serious tasks.

Looking at other digital currencies, its value seems to grow when more services are offered. As more services are offered, more people can find something that interests them and can afford to invest more effort into it. In other words, digital currencies seem to become more valuable when more people have a reason to trade it. If only there was some way to make it more attractive for professionals and freelancers to make offers for ForumCoin? One way to do that would be to setup a trading market, but that is no easy task.

Perhaps, it may be possible to work with publishers who need content? They may be willing to use FC and pay larger amounts of FC for higher quality articles/content? It seems to be a large market and could be tapped into.

ForumCoin could also benefit from a better marketplace interface. The forum setup isn't the easiest to navigate (especially in the cases of people who have never used a forum). If there was a simple user interface that resembled stores/marketplaces, it might encourage people to buy FC. I am not sure if there is a way to purchase FC, but that option might also be beneficial if a user wants to come in and purchase a service without having to earn FC. Having a marketplace UI, would also increase the chances of meeting such users.

These are some of my unrefined ideas. They're not perfect, but could be developed into something useful.

---

@OldGuy,

Forums have changed in general. I remember a time when one of the worst things you can do on a forum was make an off-topic post or out-of-category topic. It would result in heavy warnings and bans in earlier forums, and it shows how serious forum discussions were taken in the beginning. Later, forum admins started realizing that they can grow their userbases much larger if they could appeal to a larger group of users. Traditional forums resisted but succumbed to the power of more active forums that contained users of various levels of experience in the niche as opposed to only those who were experienced in the niche. However, this also led to
a watering down of forums, and niche-discussions have moved on to places like Reddit, Tumblr, and so on. As a result, I think it's very difficult to start any focused discussion on a forum these days.

So what will be required to get more members to post quality topics?

I think there's an answer to that question. Either there needs to be a financial incentive that makes it worth the effort or a community who is truly interested in such a topic. For example, a web developer would post if he could speak with like-minded web developers. Otherwise, he'd want a reasonable financial incentive to make a guide to help other web developers.

I agree that the forum needs to continuously produce new topics, but members also need to be able to have an environment where they see like-minded people. If there are 5 good topics and 7 bad topics, someone might dismiss the community as a whole. While I don't advocate for it, I can see why forum admins back in the day were very strict on staying on-topic.

The key is that the site needs to continuously expand with new topics both to provide added opportunities for members to add their own insights and to also provide new information to attract visitors again and again. Participating members need to contribute content that will add value to the topic with each post. After all, if the value of the content were to improve, the value of ForumCoins could also increase in the future.

I agree completely. To add on to your ideas, ForumCoin could have special forums with greater incentives to post, but would have to follow stricter guidelines on quality and must gain access to post there by meeting certain qualifications?

[bestwriter]

I have been on several writing sites each with their own flavour so to say. ForumCoin has its own. It suits those who are looking for information on paid to post sites. Members who post such information do so because they have tried those sites and know they are genuine.

Members can promote their own sites and referrals on a small payment which is one of the attractions here. Users earn Forum Coins by participating in those promotions.

Article writing is yet another opportunity that members get to showcase their knowledge.

And finally it is the users who should be adding colour to the forum by posting new topics. May be some kind of incentive could wake up users to come up with new ideas.