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The movie night was somewhat a flop regarding participants. We had a lot of fun, but it was only me and Riker who were present at the time.

I‘ll maybe compile some chat logs later, but as we were only two, there is going to be a certain bias to it.

What I am wondering: 13 users who voted for Galaxy Quest did not attend the movie night. Was this because the date was not advertised enough? What are steps we could take in the future to make sure participation is higher?

I‘m open to any kind of constructive criticism or feedback.

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  • About the chat logs - you can browse the bookmarked conversations. I've already added a bookmark for this film night.
    – Gallifreyan
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 18:45
  • @Gallifreyan Thanks, I saw that. But there’s not really much to preserve regarding the chat
    – Narusan
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 18:58
  • 5
    FWIW I had no idea this was happening until I saw it in the community bulletin just now. Granted, I am not a regular poster on this site but I do browse frequently.
    – David Z
    Commented Oct 11, 2017 at 0:55
  • @DavidZ - See below. That was one of the main issues I highlighted regarding a lack of site publicity.
    – Valorum
    Commented Oct 11, 2017 at 13:14
  • 2
    I simply completely forgot about it...
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Oct 11, 2017 at 14:46
  • @FuzzyBoots - In the old chatroom, I used to mention it daily until the event.
    – Valorum
    Commented Oct 11, 2017 at 20:45
  • @FuzzyBoots same with me. I always have great intentions to join the movie night then I just end up forgetting, or life intervenes. I always regretted not attending because they seemed like a real fun time. Based on the turn out for this one I'm probably not going to be as jazzed in the future. Part of what I looked forward to was the fun and energy of a group of people (who I know only from reading their contributions to the main site) sharing a movie. If it is just going to be a small handful of people who I don't know at all it'll lose a lot of appeal.
    – Erik
    Commented Oct 20, 2017 at 21:25

1 Answer 1

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Things you did wrong.

  • You didn't create a new Meta to advertise the event.

  • You didn't ask a moderator to "Feature" the movie night meta until very late, just a few days before, and then only with prompting from me.

  • A moderator didn't create a chat event, nor did they pin it until I prompted you to ask them, by which time it was too late to get any decent traction.

  • You didn't pester those who voted into attending via comments.

  • You set the event on a Friday, typically quite a poor night as far as turnout is concerned

  • You set the event far too late for UK viewers to watch it.

  • You had the time on the Meta in GMT when it's currently BST. You also didn't translate that into American time (ET/EST) so our American friends might have struggled to know what time it was.

Things that weren't your fault

The elephant in the room here is that the (old) main chatroom got murdered and almost all of the higher rep users who used to use chat have now migrated over to the (offsite) Slack channel. The new TREU chatroom is poorly trafficked and sometimes goes for entire days without anyone posting anything. A lot of the participants from the previous events were those that got buttonholed in chat and made to promise to attend.

You also received a (surprising) lack of support from the site's moderation team, none of whom seem to have taken the slightest interest in the event until far far too late to be of any real use.

Sorry to be so blunt.

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  • 1
    No need to feel sorry for that criticism. It’s been my first time and I‘ll take note your points. This also helps anyone in the future setting the event up.
    – Narusan
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 10:47
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    @Narusan - To be honest, my advice to anyone thinking about setting one up would be for them to think long and hard about whether it's worth doing, at least with chat in its current state.
    – Valorum
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 10:51
  • You set the event far too late for UK viewers to watch it. I did shoot myself in the foot there, I‘m at GMT+2, so it was even later for me
    – Narusan
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 13:12
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    @Narusan "You set the event on a Friday, typically quite a poor night as far as turnout is concerned" -> I was planning to attend but this point got me. (busy with real life things)
    – Z. Cochrane
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 15:23
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    @zabeus For the future: I think such feedback is best provided before the movie night, the date is never set in stone. I asked in TREU and someone said Fridays usually work.
    – Narusan
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 15:24
  • 3
    @Narusan as noted most users who use to attend these things no longer go into TREU, I'm in there sometimes (more often recently) but I didn't really know when it was happening till that night, when I wasn't able to make it because of real life things
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 15:53
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    You also didn't translate that into American time (ET/EST) so our American friends might have struggled to know what time it was. - are you suggesting that Americans can't add up? :-o
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 21:02
  • 1
    @Randal'Thor - edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/index.html - mic drop
    – Valorum
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 21:27
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    You've hit the nail on the head. Movie nights are chatroom events, and the chatroom is currently not very active.
    – Möoz
    Commented Oct 10, 2017 at 4:35
  • Regarding the chatroom: Is this something we can - and should - improve?
    – Narusan
    Commented Oct 10, 2017 at 16:31
  • 1
    @Narusan - You can't just make a community happen, especially when the main players are already happily chatting elsewhere.
    – Valorum
    Commented Oct 10, 2017 at 16:34
  • On top of which, there's zero mod presence in the current chatroom. As far as I'm aware, only one (two) of the mods have ever spoken in there, so one of its key uses has gone.
    – Valorum
    Commented Oct 10, 2017 at 16:35
  • @Valorum Yes, I’ve made that experience too. But should we try to encourage main players to come back, or is that not an option? Because until then, I doubt there‘ll be another movie night. // And part of what I loved and love about SFF was the strong community before the nuke from orbit.
    – Narusan
    Commented Oct 10, 2017 at 16:36
  • 2
    @Narusan - I can't speak for the others, but they seem happier chatting elsewhere.
    – Valorum
    Commented Oct 10, 2017 at 16:41
  • 5
    @Narusan As Valorum said, I can't speak for the others, but I am certainly happier chatting elsewhere. I used to attend movie nights in the old chat room when it was far more active. As far as I can tell, the users who frequent the new chat room have said that they are happier with the way things are now. If that's the case, then there really should be no reason why movie nights aren't more successful. Good luck and kudos to you for your efforts :)
    – steelersquirrel
    Commented Oct 10, 2017 at 18:11

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