We would like to know for the non-contributing members, what incentive would you need to start contributing.
Also we would like to know why periodic contributors don't take on an editorship and try to make the guide the best they can

and the last thing is a bit of a brainstorm question, for years we have tried to have community traffic but every time we failed, can some of you if possible bring over friends to talk here.

And any ideas on how you think can drive forum traffic up without inviting your friends is also more then welcome.

For those who think this message is a plea for help in order to prevent us of sinking, but that is not the case.

TVRage has 100 000 unique visitors a day, our budget has increased and a lot of it is being put into project development, a new layout is coming up and after that TVRage will be completely recoded with features that have not yet seen the net.

Thanks you for your input.

Well the first time I visited TVRage, which was roughly about 4 years ago, I didn't even know I could register in the first place. But since then I have used the site as my only/primary source for TV Show information, and frankly, just until a few months ago I had no idea I could contribute in any way. I registered and made my first contribution shortly after I found out, but the main change this site needs is to organize things in a better perspective in order to get more genuine contributors/members.
I guess a great incentive for some people would be some kind of competitions with prizes for the winners such as DVDs, t-shirts, Blu-rays, collector's edition stuff etc.
Just my two cents.

It's interesting that you say you didn't even know you could register. How did you eventually figure out you could? How could we have made it easier for you to discover it?

Well I guess now its easier, the organization of the first page is slightly better, but new users are still totally confused when visiting for the first time. I've recommended the site to a few friends of mine and the only thing they said after visiting is: "I just can't find my way around here" - I guess that's what you hear from most people. I hope the new design will correct this flaw.

I can tell you what some other websites have done, gsn has a program called "Oodles" whenever you play certain games or answer trivia questions you get points and those points can be redeemed for merchandise. I know that TV Rage hardly has the budget to start something like that but maybe our contribution points can be spendable. Perhaps on a daily or weekly or monthly sweepstakes. Of course the cash value of the sweepstakes should be pre-set and it can be whatever you think TV Rage could afford to give away.

I have no idea what I'm talking about on this next point but; maybe the suggested daily, weekly or monthly sweepstakes need not give away actual cash but gift cards. Doesn't this site have sponsors or advertisers maybe some of them will give TV Rage a deal on gift cards for there products or services on the condition that you promote the giveaway (and thereby promoting there product). The idea boils down to, maybe you can buy a 100 dollar gift card from some of them for 50 dollars and they give you that deal because the giveaway itself promotes there company.

As for the forums you could always make post count tie into my proposed system. For every 100 or 1000 or whatever posts you have you get a certain amount of contribution points which can be redeemed for those proposed sweepstakes... The problem with this idea is that it may encourage pointless, random spam posts and also from a social psychological stand-point; trying to reward people for things they like doing normally (socializing) takes away some of the fun of just doing it.

(I've never ran a website so I have no idea of how difficult it would actually be to make a points system like this, nor do I have any experience with promotions, I'm just an avid fan of sweepstakes, contests and rewards programs. Maybe you should have a staff member whose job is promotions, you give them a set budget that the website can afford and they create ways of promoting the site and encouraging contributions and forum posts. I can't say that I wouldn't love to take a job like that so know that this last suggestion is bias )

PS: A simple Idea I had was: you know that poll on the home page, maybe each time a new one is up you can also have a "Discuss" link, which can either just take you to the forums or can take you to a specifically created thread for the purpose of discussion of the poll topic.

I just stumbled onto this thread, and better late than never, I just thought I'd put my two cents in, seeing as I'm one of those non contributing members.

Although I can only speak for myself, I come here simply because I love the community and talking to people in the forums about anything, TV related or not. In fact, this is the only "online community" I belong to, so take that as you may.

Also, when I first registered for Rage, I remember trying to contribute to anything I possibly could. Even shows that I didn't even watch. But as time went on, it just got hard. I'm personally too busy to maintain a guide, as well as the other things I HAVE to maintain on a regular basis. And I don't want to take on a guide just to have it collecting dust for months. Not to mention, my computer is in HORRIBLE shape, so horrible, it won't even allow me to create a Facebook.

Again, that's just my perspective on it, but I'm sure a few members on here can relate to my reasoning.

I have to say, coming back onto this site after nearly a year, the forums seem like the aftermath of a nuclear bomb. Back in the day, the post parties would have hundreds of pages PER MONTH. The current post party has been sitting in the off topic forum since Christmas and only has 18 pages. Kinda something you have to question at some point. I know TVRage may not be dying, but I think sooner or later you're gonna have to ask yourselves why a huge chunk of longtime members aren't here anymore, and why you can't get a new chunk to replace them.

one thing that's putting me off from contributing more is difficult maintainers. there's been some instances where i submit something and get rejected without proper reasoning .. takes the fun out of it..