Questions? Just Ask!

10 Species of creatures that call your
discussion forum: Home

(c) 2000 by Alwyn Botha

The better you understand the lurkies, ignoramies, askies and
moderaties that make your discussion forum their home, the
better you can cater for their needs - and get them to stay.

Unfortunately it is not possible to define these creatures
without referring to other creatures that are only defined
later in the article. Please read this article twice to get
around this inescapable situation.

A discussion forum is like an ecosystem: you must have a
balanced ecosystem by having representatives from all the
species discussed below ... too many askies and no experties
lead to a barren ecosystem (forum) very quickly.

So just what are askies, experties, ... ?

1) Askies

Definition: Askies ask questions on discussion forums.

Their food: Discussions where experties and moderaties
quickly and frequently answer questions.

Their poison: Discussions flooded with spammies where
askie questions do not even get noticed.

Implications to you: Keep your discussion forum clean from
spammies. Have lots of moderaties and experties to answer
askie questions.

2) Lurkies

Definition: A lurkie is someone that reads messages on a
discussion forum, but never posts a question or answer
themselves.

Their food: Lots of quality value content posted frequently.

Their poison: Having to read through lots of spammie junk
before finding practical, relevant, quality discussion
threads.

Implications to you: Give lurkies what they want, this
will cause them to spread the word about you.

3) Recruities

Definition: Recruities are a sub-species of lurkies, they
lurk specifically in order to find someone to recruit.

Their food: Discussions where lots of experties, moderaties
and Philantropies live. Here they can look for the best of
the best to recruit.

Their poison: Discussions full of spammies, ignoramies,
chatties and askies - all useless for recruiting purposes.

4) Rivalies

Definition: Rivalies use discussion forums to study their
rivals (competitors). They are also a sub-species of
lurkies. In some cases a rivalie will be so impressed by
you, that s/he turns into a recruitie.

Their food: Discussions where their rivals frequently post
questions and answers. Such forums are the best places to
learn about their rivals.

Their poison: Discussions full of spammies, ignoramies,
chatties and askies.

Implications to you: Realize that rivalies might read
everything you post on your forum as well as anything you
post on any other forum.

The good news however is that you can be a rivalie too -
visit rival discussion forums to learn about them!

5) Chatties

Definition: A chatty is someone that posts small talk on a
discussion forum, eg: how are you, have you seen this on
TV, etc.

Their food: Other chatties that just want to chat.
Their poison: Discussion forums that do not allow 'worthless'
chatties.

Implications to you: Do not ban chatties - they have evolved
from being a pre-historic lurkie into a chatty.

Have patience in giving them the opportunity to evolve into
the next level of species: the experties.

You can always try and draw them into more value-adding
discussions.

6) Ignoramies

Definition: An ignoramie has never posted on a discussion
forum. There are millions of adorable ignoramies in the
world.

Their food: Discussions where experties and moderaties
are very helpful towards them.

Their poison: Discussions that are unfriendly towards
them. Discussions where spammies take advantage of their
ignorance.

Implications to you: Keep your discussion forum open for
ignoramies. You have a golden opportunity to keep ignoramies
on your forum if you care for them and feed them properly.
You need them to generate work for experties.

7) Philantropies

Definition: Philantropies help askies without
posting a link back to their website. Philantropies want to
help just for the sake of helping. They do not want to be
paid (have their website visited just because they helped
someone).

Their food: A discussion swarming with askies and
ignoramies.

Their poison: A discussion with many spammies.

Implications to you: Be nice to them - they are nice (and
valuable to have around).

8) Experties

Definition: A expertie is someone who answers the questions
of askies and sometimes post good tips, without askies
asking for it.

Their food: A discussion with lots of askies, lurkies and
ignoramies where they can show their expertise.

Their poison: A discussion with many spammies.

Implications to you: Make your discussion forum the preferred
habitat for many experties. This species is just one level of
evolution from the top of the discussion forum food chain:
the moderaties ...

9) Moderaties

Definition: Moderaties are the most evolved species of
discussion forum creatures. Their years of experience in
discussion forum jungles qualifies them for their tasks:

- Moderaties keep discussion forums clear from spammies
- Moderaties answer questions from askies
- Moderaties often post useful tips, just like experties
- Moderaties thank philantropies for their contributions
- Moderaties try drawing chatties into more value-
adding discussions.
- Moderaties sometimes post a message asking lurkies to
join the discussion

Their food: A discussion swarming with askies, lurkies,
experties, philantropies, chatties and ignoramies.

Their poison: A deserted discussion forum.

Implications to you: Have many moderaties if you have a
thriving discussion forum.

10) Spammies

Definition: Spammies use discussion forums exclusively to
get other discussion forum users to buy their products, NOW.
Their posts add no value to anything. Quite possibly their
products also have no value!

Their food: A discussion without moderaties. Spammies like
to take advantage of ignoramies.

Their poison: Moderaties. Everyone. (Everyone hates spammies)

Implications to you: Have lots of moderaties to frequently
delete spammies junk. Delete spammie excrement - it stinks
and also attracts other spammies.

Discussion forum food all these species LOVE

Practical ideas, contributions, answers, worthwhile links,
suggestions, relevant to their needs.

Philantropies, Moderaties, Experties all add value to
discussions.

Ignoramies, Lurkies, Askies, Chatties all get value from
the discussions.

Spammies mess up discussions (to put it very nicely).

Clearly there are many species that add value or get value
from a discussion forum.

Feed the discussion forum creatures that add value or
get value with their favourite food.

Feed the creatures you hate with their poison. Help them
along their evolutionary path to extinction - on your forum
at least.

Evolution of discussion forum species:

Lurkie -> Ignoramies -> Askies ->
Lurkie -> Chatties -> Askies ->

Askies -> Experties -> Moderaties
Askies -> Philantropies -> Moderaties

Lurkie sub-species:

- Recruities
- Rivalies

Species with no predecessor species:

- Spammies

Spammies evolved from stinking, disgusting mud.

Spammies have great difficulty in evolving into any useful
species. It just goes against their spam, spam, spam
'beliefs'.

It is not possible to give you the full, scientific name
of spammies, because they already used up all the
exclamation marks in the world ;-)

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Article by Alwyn Botha of http://www.leveragedsuccess.com
Leveraged = your maximum, exponential Internet success
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