The issue of RECRUITMENT. We need to discuss this - can we have your input please?

[Migroo]

I just thought I'd bring up the issue of recruitment. Please leave your comments, including death threats if need be.

There is no denying it, people are enthusiastic about recruiting - which is a good thing We have done an amazing amount of recruiting throughout the race with DSLReports. If we are to continue recruiting and make a decent stab at getting further, we need to recruit some more people.

I agree that we need to keep recruiting, however I want to show the other side of the coin.

To be honest I think people have gotten the message now as we have saturated the forums with information about the race and Distributed Computing projects. If they are interested, they would have said hello, and if they had any trouble we would have sorted them out - its not exactly like installing SETI or another DC client is that difficult - therefore is seems highly likely that we will have recruited anyone who was in the slightest bit interested, either that, or another thread wont make a difference.

If were not careful, people here in other forums like General Hardware and Off Topic might get slightly annoyed at what they might consider spam - there has already been a thread in Forum Issues complaining about such threads (Yes, the Moderator did just bat the argument aside, but thats not the point - some people dont like it)

Now, some people might say, 'Well OK Migroo, what would you do?'. I'd say that we should recruit people outside of the forums - its easy to do. Some of my colleages are cracking for me. Its easier to persuade them to crack for you, as they see signing up for themselves as extra hassle that they dont want .

I realise I probably seem highly critical of some people's high effort (particularly Engineer). I dont mean to be critical at all , I just want to put forward another probable view.
Now I hope that I havent offended anyone, just please consider what I have said.

I want people's comments please as we need to discuss this. How we recruit should be a concentrated effort as it will be more efficient.

EDIT - I have to add that the other side(s) of our operation are brilliant. The way we welcome newbies into the team is very encouraging for them - our effort is cirtainly put to good use there.

 

[networkman]

You're right on target, Migroo, and I know that at least some of our primary recruiting-message posters are aware of this as well.

I'm a member largely of this Forum and also the For Sale/Trade forum - and I know for a fact that the recruiting threads in that forum are rapidly approaching annoying(based on PM comments from others and public messages).

It's a good message that we're putting out - but even a positive message can have a negative impact on people causing the opposite result of what's desired.

Let us seriously put some thought in this - perhaps contacting the people that have been "recruited" to get their thoughts on this too.

 

[Migroo]

Thanks for your input networkman and the clarification that I wasnt barking up the wrong tree!

I have just become a bit worried as I was sure that potential recruits would surely have joined up by now. Barring the anoyance of the recruiting threads, there would be nothing to say that we shouldn't bother with them, however I am aware that they probably take up an immence amount of effort - surely that effort can be put to a greater use somewhere else?

Thanks.

 

[conjur]

While it appears that only the anal-retentive (or previously banned/reproached, maybe) are complaining, it certainly is a good idea to start searching other venues. I wouldn't go out of my way to post a recruiting msg in, say, alt.sci.seti.

But, I'll subtly add it to my sig in any Usenet or email message from now on!

 

[Migroo]

Thanks conjur - thats a good idea

Just food for thought - I have found it highly effective trying to recruit people such as drinking buddies! Just food for thought

 

[TallBill]

yeah... even i was offended by one of the threads in off topic... i got no problem with seti in general, but i run eccp... and 99% of the seti users completely respect that...

 

[Domination]

It seems that a few have become annoyed... we can't dispute that.

But...fact is that unlike me, most people don't visit the forums each and everyday... or spend hours at a time here.

I don't think that most notice the bumps as much as one might think.

The fact that we continue at add double digit members each day, leads me to believe that many people are still only seeing these posts for the first time... or are on the fence about it, and seeing the post a few times convinces them to join.

I say we continue to post while the mods allow us to do so (ie. during the race)... Then maybe after that we can ask them if they would allow us maybe a recruiting post a week.

I agree we need to be careful not to be annoying as it could become counter productive.

BTW, I don't think anyone would/could take offense at your post

Dom

 

[Migroo]

I can relate to that Bob.

Although I only run SETI, the primary reason is that I only know what SETI is due to its publicity. If there were more publicity about other projects its equally as possible that I would be an RC-5 person or something.

Another point to add to this is that while we may have gathered up all the SETI wannabes (for the time being) there may be people who might not want to run SETI, but are perfectly willing to run something else!

 

[Migroo]

<< BTW, I don't think anyone would/could take offense at your post >>



Thanks for your input Dom.

Well I just wanted to make sure that the people who put so much effort into the recruiting cause didnt think I was ridiculing their efforts

 

[Baldy18]

<< To be honest I think people have gotten the message now as we have saturated the forums with information about the race and Distributed Computing projects. If they are interested, they would have said hello, and if they had any trouble we would have sorted them out - its not exactly like installing SETI or another DC client is that difficult - therefore is seems highly likely that we will have recruited anyone who was in the slightest bit interested, either that, or another thread wont make a difference. >>



I wouldn't agree with that but I would agree with this:



<< If were not careful, people here in other forums like General Hardware and Off Topic might get slightly annoyed at what they might consider spam - there has already been a thread in Forum Issues complaining about such threads (Yes, the Moderator did just bat the argument aside, but thats not the point - some people dont like it) >>



I don't think we should stop but we deffinetly should scale back or risk having a negative immage.

 

[Migroo]

Right Baldy - thanks for the view

 

[Engineer]

I agree that the bumping could be toned down a little.....but to not recruit at be...well lacking. The goal is to keep one live thread in each forum....and bump it. I'll tone down the bumping and maybe bump every 4 to 5 hours instead of every 1 to 2 hours. Also, changing the title seems to spur interest...especially in a close race.

On your second point...I would love to see some different angles on recruiting...

It's an issue that has been appearing more lately...probably because this is the longest that it's run.....

I'll change the title once and a while...and, if others agree, bump it maybe 4 to 5 times per day (in heavy traffic areas only).....One thread in the many thousands in some of these forums couldn't be too bad

Oh...one other point...I'm not bumping anything else tonight...I like all the 9's under my name....5999 and 1999!

(See Tarca's thread...buwhahahahahaahah! :Q)

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=39&threadid=689231

 

[Domination]

Maybe instead of putting a time limit on it we could say we would bump it when it was let's say 3 or 4 pages from the top???

 

[Migroo]

Thanks Engineer,

Well on different angles:
- Friends need recruiting - they are a walk-over if you install it for them, also if you mention that they dont have to sign up for them, they seem to be even more eager (lazy things...)
- Family - very easy to recruit. Barganing points are free and often 'Tech Support' as you check on something like Seti Driver.

There are plenty more - we should have a definite list, I shall compile one and post it up after a few days of (hopefully) witty idea hunting

 

[zeruty]

I agree that some of the bumping may be excessive

I dont even read most other forums and I got a little annoyed while reading down some of the recruiting threads
I have a few thoughts
in forums that dont already have a whole bunch of stickied threads, perhaps we could ask for stickiedness status....
I know when I've read over a stickied thread I usually tend to ignore from then on....
I dont know if others are the same way....someone reads the recruiting thread... decides they are, or aren't going to join up...
if they decide they arent, they dont notice it again
I usually just notice stuff thats bumped
also... when it comes to bumps, I dont think we should be posting messages that just say "Bump" or "TTT", etc
EVERY post we make in the recruiting threads should have a worthwhile comment... stat fact...recommendation.. tip.. etc..
if you wanna bump the thread, put worthwhile content in there

also.. instead of a stickified thread, just a simple link above the threads would be nice but I dont see that happening....

 

[medic]

My opinion:
I say bump them when they are off the page or close to the bottom, this depends though on the frequency of posts and the setting of viewable threads.
I strongly believe that a bump every hour is NOT overdoing it, 30 minutes or 15 is too much. We have a golden oportunity right now with the DSLR race to recruit as many as we can. We have the full support of the mods to recruit and bump until the end of the race. I think we should use our time before we lose this on Feb.28

There are some who jump in the threads and voice their displeasure, we have a famous one in GH who has dogged us and crapped in our threads for years..I feel if they don't want to join they should ignore our threads not crap in them. It's like Off Topic, if you start a thread asking for opinions on what color to paint your car and people come in and say it sucks, junk it..that's nearly the same.
Don't like it..ignore it.

Look at the HUNDREDS of new people that have joined thanks to Engineer and EVERY supporter that bumps them (once an hour) with 80,000 members there is many, many, more to come.

 

[Migroo]

Thanks zeruty

I agree that posts shouldnt be simple bumps - perhaps something easy like a race status or 'new members so far' update.

About the sticky vs. normal thread argument.
- A sticky doesnt have to be bumped, a normal thread does.
- I tend to not notice stikied threads, as its hard to tell if they have been replied to recently. With a normal thread if its at (or near) the top of a forum you can tell immediately if there is something new inside.

I think we have already asked for stickied thread status though - and had it denied.

Thanks for your input medic.

I agree with you, everyone has done a fantastic job, but what I meant by this post aswell was that there are only a cirtain number of people who can be recruited - its not a bottomless pit unfortunately

 

[Tarca]

In my opinion I can understand how people could get upset by us bumping our threads in there forums. I consider this forum as a second home We all get along together and we have fun with each other. I would guess that the other forums feel the same way about there own forum. So with that thought I could see getting annoyed after awhile if these Seti guys kept bumping there thread every hour. I admit that I have bumped our thread in the forums quite a few time myself. We probably should cut back a bit.

I am all for getting are friends crunching with us or for us. I use OhioDude's race thread and Smokeballs site to help sell and it works pretty good.

Those are my thoughts.

 

[medic]

No it's not a bottomless pit, but I do think we are far from approaching saturation level, this is evidenced by the massive numbers of people who have joined in the last few weeks.

Remember also that the forums are very fluid, people come and go and join up at an alarming rate. (This site averages nearly 110 people joining EVERY day.)
We couldn't sustain the record levels of new people for too many weeks but I'm positive we could easily get 5+ recruits a day with an ongoing thread or sticky for ex.

 

[Migroo]

Medic - OK fair enough I didnt mean we should stop the threads - merely scale down a bit.

Tarca - Yup agreed. I keep my assimilations interested by sending them race stats

 

[medic]

Migroo: I agree
I do think you make an excellent point that we need to assimilate family, friends, co-workers, pets ect..far more!

Also for all you guys with "almost" enough parts to build another PC (like me) hit those second hand computer stores and get that cheap Vid. card, HD ect. and just build it!!

 

[Migroo]

Thanks for your comments again Medic.



<< Also for all you guys with "almost" enough parts to build another PC (like me) hit those second hand computer stores and get that cheap Vid. card, HD ect. and just build it!! >>


This applies to me about 3 times over, but I can't justify spending any cash like that

Edit: Going to bed now, since its quarter to 3 (am..). Anything important - PM me I shall have 5 mins or so in the morning to check AT, but wont have time to go searching threads. Thanks lads.

 

[zeruty]

I have two pentium 166's here not doing anything....
one being a dell, with a really finicky bios which wont allow me to use a cdrom at the same time as other devices... for instance a usb device (i know, its crazy... usb on a 166), parallel port device, or the nic!
the other being a compaq...it's hard drive went bad.. and I can't figure out how to get into it's bios to configure a new one...I've been told to hit f10 but that doesnt work. the normal delete or f1 or f2 wont either
I cant find a bios boot disk on compaq's site either

I could get the dell up and running if I wanted but I dont have the space, plus my dad's getting laid off from boeing after 30 years of service :disgust:, so I can't justify using the electricity for that few of wu's :frown:

 

[Fardringle]

On the question of when to bump the threads:

I think that any time there is something significant to report (us leading by 1500, Kelemvor joining with 24K WU's, DSLR getting close or taking the lead with a big dump, etc.) is an appropriate time to bump the threads. Other than that, I really don't think they should be bumped regularly unless they are dropping out of sight (a few pages back) but there isn't any new info to share. The second type of bump needs to be fairly rare in order to avoid annoying people. If we have good news to share, people will be more likely to want to help. Or if we're suddenly way behind, maybe someone that was 'holding back' will be willing to jump in if they see that we need them...

 

[Wiz]

I just read this entire thread. My comments:

AT is not a bottomless pit. It is a well though, and dipping into that well to involve AT members in Team Anandtech is both a noble and profitable exercize.

It has been working. We all know the numbers. This works, and has not stopped working.

Should we merely "TTT" or provide something so we are not just wasting their time? Of course it is better to provide more information when you post. This is true even in nef threads. If you can provide something of value when you post then you are adding more to the value of the recruitment effort.

Here is the post I sent the last time I "bumped" the threads several hours ago, I hope you find it upbeat and informational:

"We have made a lot of advances this month, thanks to all the great new Anandtech members that have joined the team.

We have moved up from the #15 team in the world past IBM, Microsoft, Intel and The Planetary Society to 11th place in the world.

We now have more active members, those who have completed at least one work unit in the past week, than ever before.

We have a much deeper pool of members to help any others who are having trouble with their systems or their seti accounts or any other things they ask about in the DC forum.

If you haven't checked us out yet please do come by and try us out. I know you won't regret it!
Here is the link to the DC Forum, or you can just go there from the normal AnandTech navigation at the top of the page - it's called Distributed Computing.

BTW we are ahead of DSLR in the race, come help us in our decisive victory!