Appeal and discussion for "How Can We Get More Players on Our Server?"

Question

This is a Meta discussion for the following question, which is getting somewhat of uneasy looks as well as repeated flags.

https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/22543/how-can-we-get-more-players-on-our-server#question

A friend of mine runs a Minecraft server, but so far we haven't been getting a lot of traffic. The few that DO show up, have commented on how much they like the server, but wish we had more players. I agree with this sentiment.

What can we do to generate more traffic to our server?

This discussion is more about the specific question, as I don't think there's much more of this class other than sheer variants. A general "How to get more players" question probably solves that issue, and to our benefit the accepted and highest voted answer is mostly neutral in terms of game and handles the general question at heart.

The opposition seems to come largely from this appearing to be something of a rallying effort moreso than a question, as well as perhaps being "subjective and argumentative".

Without further ado, the Dark Court is now in session. Aye or nay for this question, and why?

Answer 1

Resorath touched on the reason I voted to close: it's not really a gaming question except in a very loose sense. It's similar to the problem we have on Programmers.SE, where someone asks a question that would be off-topic, but makes it on-topic by adding (as a programmer) to the question title.

In this case, it's like asking "How do I generate more traffic for my service (as a gamer)?" and it winds up being a chatty, soft question. Everyone has ideas or opinions about increasing traffic for a service. Not very many people on a Gaming site are going to have expert answers on it.

That's because marketing, promotion, and what-have-you aren't really subjects gamers are experts in by virtue of being a gamer. The answers cover mostly superficial aspects of promotion and don't really provide any expert insight into how to promote a service, certainly not the type of insights you'd expect from a site devoted to marketing and promotion (which of course, Gaming is not).

That is, if Gaming isn't in a position to be providing the best answer to a question, it's not a question that should be asked of it.

Answer 2

The problem with this question is it acted as a "bounty-sponsored advertisement" (before it was edited by badp two days ago). Those seeing the question now probably wouldn't have a problem with it - as the offending text is removed. Although I never reported it, I wasn't a fan of this style of advertising.

Basically, it was a popular question (which many people would want to know) tacked on with a bounty to make it featured. However the big problem is, it has a link to the server itself with full intent to make the server more popular by means of the question.

I don't think this was the original intent of the question, as a comment to the question prompted the original poster to edit the question with a link to the server, and I think that is where things became hairy.

May I promote products or websites I am affiliated with here?

Be careful, because the community frowns on overt self-promotion and tends to vote it down and flag it as spam. Post good, relevant answers, and if they happen to be about your product or website, so be it. However, you must disclose your affiliation in your answers. Also, if a huge percentage of your posts include a mention of your product or website, you're probably here for the wrong reasons. Our advertising rates are quite reasonable; contact our ad sales team for details. We also offer free vote-based advertising for open source projects.

I would file this under "overt self-promotion" according to the FAQ. Since he disclosed his affiliation with the server, it is within the bounds of the site, but certainly frowned upon by some users.

edit: The offending text I'm referring to was the IP address of the server that the original poster was struggling to make popular.

Answer 3

I repeatedly vote to close this question because I think that marketing and promotion should be not discussed on Gaming SE, even if the topic is a game website or a game server. I think that majority of Gaming SE users are not interested in these topics.

If we allow people ask this kind of questions we risk to be flooded by "How can I get more player or my XYZ server?" (where XYZ = Brink, TF2, COD, CSS, etc.).

Answer 4

I don't really see this as "subjective and argumentative". The main part of the question is asking how he can get more people on his server. The answers are also quite consistent, with 3 answers out of 4 recommending to put it in a server list.

However, the main block of text, even though it is somehow "subjective and argumentative" - it has little or no effect on the question, and users who answer still answer to "What can we do to generate more traffic to our server?".

Answer 5

Well, the closest analog I can think of for Stack Overflow would be

How can I get more contributors to my open source software project?

Which is arguably almost on-topic there if programmers.se didn't exist.

Since gaming has no "concrete / subjective" divide, I would argue this question is on topic here, and would be useful to future visitors, provided it is sufficiently generalized.

(sounds like the initial version of this question had some problems which may have contributed to its chilly reception.)