Challenge suggestion

[Liz]

So I had a thought to maybe draw some more votes to our next creative challenge. What if the person coming up with the challenge offered a small prize as a giveaway that we could give to a voter. It was just a thought.

[Julie - RedBerryCrochet]

I see where you're coming from with this idea, but the truth is that our team participation has tanked. We only had 181 votes on this Challenge. Our team consists of 312 members! Our previous Challenge had 297 votes, and the one prior to that had 284 votes. Even the Etsy thread was down in posts, only 47 this challenge and previous ones were 134 and 125.

Sad to say, but I for one am not crazy about the idea of having the winner spend money on shipping an item that they could otherwise sell. Especially when our own team members don't vote.

It really does come down to participation and team spirit, which seems to be lacking :(

[Nora of Noradora & NoradoraMora]

Well said Julie! I am totally disappointed in our team participation...to the point that I am ready to quit the team. I just don't understand why people join a team and then never participate. It is the same maybe 10 of us to post at all.

Personally, I think that anyone who has not participated in the last month (and I don't mean by adding pictures) should be deleted from the team and memberships should never be open. It should be if someone wants to join they must contact a member and ask them to sponsor them. I mean we had a resignup last year and oh so many wanted to be members...but yet we never saw them even though they were allowed to stay as members. Kick out the dead beats .....Thats my 2 cents worth!
Nora

[merigreenleaf]

I know I'm guilty of not being around much- I try to catch up but a lot of the time my health just doesn't let me be as active as I'd like to be with my teams, so I'm often lurking and reading posts a good deal later than they're being posted (it doesn't help that Ning makes it *very* hard to catch up on long threads like the chat one since new replies can be anywhere in the pages and not just at the end, and I can never remember where I left off). I completely missed the voting on this challenge or else I would have voted (I'm trying to figure out why it never showed up on the site I use to RSS feed blogs- I know I'm following the team blog). I know I'm rambling (and probably sound whiny), but I kinda wanted to explain why I missed the boat here. I know how annoying non active members can be on a team, so I hate being such a deadbeat about this. :( Hopefully I'll be feeling better and have more energy soon!

I'm trying to think of ideas to encourage more votes. That's a neat idea, but to give away something they could sell might not be a good idea. Unless the giveaway was for something small? Maybe a random winner could win a place being advertised on the blog? Unless the winner doesn't have a shop... Hmm... I dunno, just trying to think of free but useful kinds of things.

[Liz]

You all make some good points. I've just seen another team that has something as a give away when they do a vote on something and was just throwing it out there.

Nora, I think that's a good suggestion about a sponser if you want to join the team. I know when I do a treasury (few and far between) that I try to use hookers that I've seen posting on threads and stuff.

Is is possible that this was just bad timing for this challenge?

[Diane Schweinhagen]

I am new and I have to navigate thru everything to figure what is going on. It is hard to do challenges, just for the fun of it especially when you are working on so many things for Christmas. I will say that I saw the post for recycle but I do not do that and maybe alot of other hookers do not so they did not participate this time. I did not know about a vote and I did see in the threads about a vote is that what you are talking about? See it just said time to vote, maybe someone should put EH in the title, I hit the threads that are associated with the teams or my shop mostly. Just something to think about.

[Julie - RedBerryCrochet]

The thread that you are talking about was here on our Ning forums, which is the Etsyhookers team network and it was posted under the "EtsyHookers News" category. It is team related so putting "EtsyHookers" in the title is redundant.

I sent out a broadcast email to all team members about the Challenge, and there was a thread posted on Etsy:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6328650

and the voting information was also posted in our daily promo, our team blog, and on Twitter. Oh yeah, and also on the main page here.

I'm really tired of doing all this work to promote, promote, promote, and I get responses like "I didn't know". What more am I suppose to do?

Sorry Diane, my rant is not aimed at you, I am really frustrated with this team.

[Sally]

Julie, your frustration is understandable.

Liz, although offering a prize to a voter is a nice idea...how would we keep track? Voters do not need to register, it's all anonymous.
I agree with what Julie said about team participation. I have made a few Hooker treasuries in the past, and honestly, I had a hard time. I do like to promote fellow hookers, but a lot of the names that were coming up were names I don't remember ever seeing on Ning, or especially in the promotions thread.
I'm not talking about those that do post, but just once in a while--heck, I sometimes go for a few days without popping in. I mean the ones that sign up, tag with Etsyhookers Team, then they seem to disappear. I've been in Yahoogroups that wound up deleting people if they didn't post once a month. To be fair, since this is business-oriented, I don't think it's much to ask to pop in a little more often than once a month. Especially if you're online already checking in on your Etsy shop.

[Nora of Noradora & NoradoraMora]

Hey Sally ...it is good to know there are more than 2 of us who are frustrated with the particiapation. I have welcomed every hooker that has joined and I have not had a response from 24 of them...that right there tells me they are not interested.

Can someone tell me why you would join a team and not particiapate? To me it is like being on a baseball/football team and never showing up to practice or even for a game....geeezzz...why join???? We all have to know how much work it is to manage a team and coordinate things and just the small list of rules we have ..one being putting the team tag RIGHT in your listings...and so many have it wrong or have never complied with adding it at all. As for posting on ning...go through last months Chat thread and you will see who the REAL TEAM MEMBERS ARE! They come by regularly and post something...doesn't have to be much .

Julie ...I SO UNDERSTAND your frustration...I still say boot those that have not participated and close membership...or disband the team. I wonder Julie....has anyone jumped up to take over the team???? disbanding may be what we have to do ....just like the promo thread...how many post in it...and it is for US ....OUR SHOPS!! Go figure!

Sally, I too would never promote a hooker member that has not participated....

[Diane Schweinhagen]

I am sorry, especially to Julie, I know you are just venting. I guess I was just trying to figure out some reasons for people, I basically come into the forums or blogs, I remember seeing the team challenge but not a vote, so sorry. Everyone was nice enough to help me when I started.

[Gillian Jackson]

Hiya,
I find this an interesting discussion
When I joined I didn't say anything for ages and ages and ages, I was getting to grips with doing the etsy thing, I was learning how to promote, and one point I read said 'join a team' so I did. I guess I wasn't sure exactly what being in a team actually did for me, I was ticking the box, like doing twitter and posting on the forums.
Maybe there are team members out there that are unsure how being in a team can help them?
The first time I joined in was becasue I thought I could take advantage of the time difference and keep us up in the etsy promo threads for the sale - so I guess I felt more useful....

Could you give the non participants one more chance before you kicked them out or decided the team wasn't working??
Maybe a "did you know what the team can do for you" thing, and "you are taking up a space that someone else desperately wants..... we had 120 requests to join this team and we chose you" (I dunno, you know sometimes a bit of guilt and ego stroking works a treat!)

I do agree that it's a bit slack not to say an occasional hi or post sometimes pop on the promo thread.
I personnally don't join in the chat thread only because I know I'll get caught up in it and never get anything else done :-)
I'm in two minds about the free gift thing. I've only really seen one team do it. However if you want a test subject to see if it works I'd be happy to put up my hand.

Anyway, blah blah blah blah......to summarise all of that stuff up there...........
I'm am of the opinion that there are a lot of us lots out there that are genuinely interested in being team members they/we just don't quite know how to do it properly

[Nora of Noradora & NoradoraMora]

Hi Gillian, I really understand what your saying about giving them another chance...BUT... I have been a member from the beginning of this group and last year when we had over 400 members we did a resign up to see who really wanted to keep being a member....WELL we had about 200 who said they still wanted to be a member and out of that 200 it was still the same 20 who did any posting ...so it doesn't work! You cannot hold their hand. When I came to etsy ...I had been on ebay for several years and knew nothing about how it worked. I had to find out everything myself...because I wanted to sell my items. Noone held my hand...and when this group lost its leader in the beginning and Julie took over ....I enjoyed it so much ...I jumped in to help do whatever I could.

I really think to drop in once a week and say hi and tell us what is going on in their life or shop or anything...plus a post to promote their shop in the promo link ...is NOT TOO MUCH TO ASK. I don't think it will be any different no matter what we do. That is why I think we should boot those that don't participate and keep membership closed and only let new members come in who are sponsored by a member and if they don't participate...boot them too.

We are all busy so can you imagine how frustrating it is for Julie to have all this tracking on top of all the other things happening in her life. I mean....some can't post a 1 liner once a week and yet expect to have someone lead them to everything to do to make their shop successful whoa!!! We are not children! I don't think anyone has a clue to what it takes to run a team. I can say just volunteering for the few things that I do...that it is frustrating when you have to beg people to help!

Julie asked for someone to help with the Etsy Hookers Blog when Laura couldn't do it any longer....did anyone jump to volunteer... NO. I asked for someone to help set up a Facebook Page ...did anyone jump to voluneer... NO! How to be a member is clearly defined under TeamInfoFAQ....yet I wonder how many have even read it!

If you want to see something interesting ...go to the members page and click on each members name and on the left hand side of their page...look and see how many discussions they have participated in. Ya Right...the first 100 members ....you won't see many. We have so many members and I used to know each one ...now I don't recognize them as they NEVER participate!

This whole discussion is in the wrong forum....it should be a forum post of its own. So who is going to jump in there and be our leader?????

Same old, Same old.....

[Gillian Jackson]

Good points!
I will put up my hand and apply.
And as I have no idea what I'm doing and I've got my fingers crossed that that the 20 usual suspects would still be around to keep up morale until the others get weeded out or start to participate :-)