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On 23/04/16 11:51, Kathy Reid wrote:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:571AD50F.5060200@kathyreid.id.au" type="cite">
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...<br>
The Membership Team Website Survey 2016 opened on 27th March and
was available until 22nd April. There were 55 responses. <br>
...<br>
<span><span class="Apple-converted-space"></span></span><span>From
the survey, it's very clear the most Linux Australia members who
visit the website do so very infrequently. This is likely due to
the site not featuring content that members want prominently,
such as upcoming events. A key goal of the Membership Platform
and website redevelopment project is to provide content that
members are looking for, thus increasing the frequency at which
Linux Australia members view the site.<br>
</span></blockquote>
<br>
Hi Kathy & team,<br>
<br>
Firstly, thanks for your efforts on the survey. Secondly, this may
have been covered elsewhere, so please point me at that elsewhere if
it has.<br>
<br>
There is a significant preconception at work here which doesn't seem
to have been discussed on the list (at least not that I can
recall). The preconception is: increasing the number of hits on the
Linux Australia web site is an important goal. (Or perhaps more
accurately: increasing the frequency at which members use the
site.) The purpose of my email is to question whether that is an
important goal, and, if the answer is affirmative, understand and
quantify/qualify why.<br>
<p>My main reason for questioning this is: I don't like seeing good
people invest substantial effort on a commendable project and then
feel frustrated when they didn't make the impact they had hoped.
We're a volunteer organisation, and I value the time that all our
volunteers contribute.<br>
</p>
Here are a few questions to flesh out what I'm getting at:<br>
<ul>
<li>What end does increasing the frequency of member views on the
site serve?</li>
<li>Would the content provided by a new LA web site fill a gap
that is not already well-served by other sites?</li>
<li>If so, what sort of content would that be?</li>
<li>Would this be sufficiently appealing/useful to members to
increase the frequency of their visits?</li>
<li>Are there other ways to engage LA members which might be more
effective/efficient in terms of money, time, and effort?</li>
<li>What does member engagement of a successful software freedom
lobbying/support organisation look like?<br>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Speaking for myself, there are a few reasons why I don't visit
the site regularly:<br>
</p>
<ol>
<li>LCA and elections only happen once a year, and I know the
general time of year when that will happen, so I don't really
need the site much between February & September (...ish).</li>
<li>There's no obvious RSS feed - at least, there's no reference
to "feed", "atom", or "rss" on the front page.</li>
<li>I already have too much information coming into my life,
through email, IRC, RSS, Twitter, etc., and if it were just
general Linux news and aggregation of people's blogs, I probably
wouldn't find a reason to add the site to my list of monitored
feeds. I'm a busy person, employed by a Linux company with a
broad reach, and reasonably well-informed about the industry.
From my perspective, it takes a fairly special web site to get
me to come back regularly. Thinking about various other
organisations which I support (financially or otherwise),
endorse, or appreciate, I don't visit their web sites very much
at all, and I don't necessarily see this as a big problem.<br>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Fixing #2 is probably the only one which would increase the
frequency at which I visit the site, and it may not do so for very
long.<br>
</p>
<p>If creating a new web site is something our volunteers want to do
anyway, then go for it! But I think there may be other
possibilities we should be exploring (at least in parallel) given
the investment which this effort will require.</p>
<p>Paul<br>
<br>
</p>
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