I’ve been looking at the amount of users and I’m having a hard time seeing stuck at 1179 members. I know I for one could begin to step up and do more invites.
I’m thinking there must be other ways we can do this.
if we could find other ways to promote getting new members, it would certainly benefit both us and them. Maybe could collectable think of some ideas to do this. As of now I haven’t thought of any. " Let’s get this party started "
I started thinking maybe sending invites out to Steve Hoffman members. Are you ready for this, they are 70,000 members strong. You heard it right 70,000 . Not only would this benefit us but surely there is so much to learn from them.
One thing and it’s most important - " Garbage In, Garbage Out " Now many of those folks know best sources of recordings both albums and cds.
Maybe we can learn from each other and up our Members
If you have friends, or people you regularly converse with, there (or elsewhere) then sending them invitations makes a lot of sense.
I would be more cautious about random invites (and I’m not saying that’s what you’re suggesting). Quality trumps quantity. Signal beats noise. Large influxes of people from other places will tend to have them try and “steer” the culture to what they’re used to … and the natural evolution of that, so far, here, seems to be unique. And that’s something worth preserving, even if it is at the cost of raw growth rate.
I think the best way to draw people in is to have useful, insightful and interesting content, an inclusive atmosphere, and productive discussions around it … and let that be the “hook”. And then refer people here as/when the topics discussion or general flow/content warrants it.
Words of Wisdom . Thanks
Agreed. It seems that from a search engine optimization perspective, the forum is actually doing pretty well as I’m finding that some of our content comes up when I Google search for relevant keywords, which bodes well for our content delivering new eyeballs.
I would love for the forum to grow in number. It’s very difficult to grow very big without letting in the type of people that we would rather not have, eg disruptive and argumentative types. The forum should be open and an environment for people who love this hobby to be able to participate in discussions and learn from ones peers. So I don’t know how you would get around the fact that we will eventually get some abusive types on the forum. I hope not, because this place is a haven from some of the trolling that goes on in other places. I don’t have an answer though. I am sure far better minds have struggled with this very problem and failed.
-Paul-
I guess I would question the value of growing big. From the perspective of making this a good place to hang out, I would rather grow well and focus on adding more of the kind of polite and thoughtful people that we have, ideally with additional diversity of experience and viewpoint. In terms of making the community financially sustainable, perhaps with enough quality content we can generate the kind of affiliate link traffic we need without all of the readership actually being members…
So, perhaps it’s useful to make a distinction between adding “members” and adding “readers”?
Yes that’s a good point regarding the diversity of experience amongst people on a forum. To have people at differing stages in the journey so to speak can only benefit everyone. It can be daunting to go to a new forum and participate. An inclusive and friendly environment helps.
With regards to the funding of the site I would have to leave that to the people who know how that kind of thing is implemented. Although it goes without saying I would back what is best for everyone.
-Paul-
While I agree that we need more members (what forum doesn’t) I think the quality of those members is of higher importance. Like Torq and others have stated it is difficult to cultivate quality members with random invites. As long as our main members now continue to post quality information and reviews we can grow organically by attracting better and better members. This means slow but quality growth. I wouldn’t be opposed to sporadically linking high quality posts from here on other forums to attract interested parties, but full on mass invites may be a bit too on the nose. 
Thanks for bringing this up though as it makes people think about who and where they should be advertising this forum.
The best way to deal with these types, is to ignore them. People that want to argue for the sake of it, or force their “one true way” beliefs down other people’s throats tend to get bored when people don’t give them the satisfaction of a response.
Flagging such posts will help draw them to the attention of the moderators who can then take more prescriptive action as needed. With a little diligence, obvious troublemakers, trolls, bullies or “people on a crusade to convert the great unwashed” aren’t likely to be around long enough to matter.
This sounds like a few people I’ve come across. Toxicity has no place in a hobby this subjective.
Well said. There’s already too much venom flying about around the Internet.
-Paul-
I agree that I would never want to sacrifice what our community has. Nowhere ever, have I experienced a more calm, respectful, non-ego driven and peaceful climate we have here. My thoughts about this topic is hoping we can maintain its existence financially.
I am so appreciative of you guys and gals letting me know the pitfalls of randomly increasing member population. You’re right Quality vs Quantity is the way to go to maintain our peaceful existence.
I am sorry but I may disagree with some of the sentiments expressed here. I really do believe in increasing discussion. Yes…there is the downside that some will go to extreme measures and language to express their views. These types tend to lose interest and just go away. IMHO,we need to have more people see this site,discuss a bit,a see who will stick. A couple of hundred headphone/general music listeners are a drop in the bucket. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Thanks for your input. I think we can all agree that more traffic is better. More site traffic means more input and variety which is good. I don’t want to sit in a vacuum all day and hear the same exact thing regurgitated over and over.
Advertising the forum is a tricky activity. Where and how much you advertise (if at all) is going to drastically affect the volume and type of people that are attracted. All forums should be careful about how new members are found. I’m not of the mindset that we should be careful to the point of strangulation where no new members are allowed, or even only the ones we vet and invite.
I’m of the persuasion that mass advertising and thus mass influx of members might lead to a thinning of are values and community mentality. The slow build of new members through word of mouth, links and other small forms of advertising will mean that both new and old members can get to know each other and the community. It’s also a lot easier on the small amount of administrators we have.
In short, while I do believe quantity merits higher variety, quality of membership will make this community a better place for all. In time variety will increase.
I posted a thread over at the Roon forum informing members of the website forum. Lots of neat folks on that site who love music and headphones. Hopefully some of my Roon compatriots will check out the headphone.com Forum and join the discussions.