# Encouraging User Participation - Some Ideas, More welcome **URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/encouraging-user-participation-some-ideas-more-welcome/42511 **Category:** Community Building **Created:** [13 april 2016 om 16:37 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/encouraging-user-participation-some-ideas-more-welcome/42511 "2016-04-13T16:37:23Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 77
### Author: ![purldator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@purldator](https://meta.discourse.org/u/purldator) #### Post date: [8 mei 2016 om 19:33 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/encouraging-user-participation-some-ideas-more-welcome/42511/77 "2016-05-08T19:33:17Z")
> [@Overmind](#): > > This isn’t always bad, so long as it doesn’t just become nothing but spam. If it’s good discussions then it can bring members closer and make them more loyal to the site. I’ve seen this time and time again on larger forums, they have places to unwind that are off-topic for the site’s niche, the relationships made there greatly increase engagement. A relevant tangent was discussed a bit ago, with using trust levels to “reward” users who post to particular categories, or not reward at all when posting to other categories. [https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-categories-topic-from-the-user-statistics/34717/6?u=purldator](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-categories-topic-from-the-user-statistics/34717/6) General discussion boards and participating on them would offer no in-system incentive with this idea of mine. But these off-topic boards do offer a needed _psychological-related outlet_; one I feel every niche discussion community _should_ have if it wants to survive for very long. > [@Overmind](#): > > **When users make friends on the site** they tend to spike up to the top 1% of active community members, coming on often and **becoming better contributors overall**. This may be part of a sound remuneration strategy: _“Why should I post on-topic and offer free original content for google to attribute to your website. Give me incentive to stay. Oh? I can make friends who be as passionate as I on this same niche topic, and talk off-topic on other subjects to mix things up a bit? I’m game.”_ --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/encouraging-user-participation-some-ideas-more-welcome/42511)._