I'm not quite sure what you mean. If you want feedback about your site, post in our Site-Specific Questions forum:

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/forum51.html

You know, contests really worked for me. I should have mentioned that in the other topic you have on traffic-building.

Anyway, I did a bounty -- $1 per magazine entered into my database. I ended up paying out hundreds. People really went for it. Then I did a few contests, and people really went for that, too. For me, each contest drew in maybe 50 members. I kept the payouts for each contest down to $150 or so. I usually tried to spread the wealth -- $100 grand prize, and $10 to each of 5 runners-up.

I plan to do an art contest on one of my sites in January. I expect that to bring in only maybe 10 to 30 artists, but I'll be happy to have them.

I think get-togethers are a great option, but only really viable when a community gets about as big as DaniWeb. My sites are still small enough that only a person or three would show up.

I find certain moderators can dramatically improve or destroy a community, and quickly.

-Tony

Even at our size, get togethers are really hard. I'm trying to get one together and so far have only 10 people on a "probably will come" list, despite having the poll up in the Geek's lounge for the loooongest time.

I have contest. Official ones (the ones I start and offer something: last time it was a 2 months posting contest with a domain name and hosting as prize) and unofficial - my members have credits won for posting and they can donate some to the winners. They can start their own contest. These are mostly for fun, but in the end I want to make my people feel relaxed too.

We are also having a "Say hello" forum (as this community and many others) so that people can feel welcomed and the off-topic. My members can also open threads in the "journal" section and post there what's going on in their lives.

Overall people are nice. The spammers who wanted to shamelessly promote found out that my community is not a market place (they need to post 20 messages before being allowed access to the "market place" contest area or reviewing). I have a lot of informative topics since I seem to be quite talented to get ideas, and my members came with others too. So no one can tell me 20 posts is the end of the world. Still this has discouraged people who came JUST to promote. Those who stood for those 20 posts found out they like the community and are still active.

My way of doing this is not OK if I wanted to have many members. It's not something "friendly". The community is smallish, but at the moment that's what I can afford and I don't want a huge community just yet. We're not talking about the sour grapes here, but simply about the fact that I am still learning and I need time to adjust to everything.

I make constant modding and upgrades and the commuities are eating my entire spare time. I have nothing else I do when home but mod and create new topics.

The fact a community is still small provides people with a sense of community. Having hundreds of new people daily is a sign of great success and accomplishment, but the community feeling will diminish since it's hard handling thousands of members.

I am trying to give stuff away. I run a Reality TV fan community (called Must See TV) and I am having a contest where people vote on who will be kicked off the island on this weeks survivor.

Here is how I figure this is a good thing...
1. If they come back weekly to the site to vote....that is good.
2. It will create a little competition and fun.
3. Hopefully will keep the forum kicking and growing.
4. Save money on other costs (Google Adwords) since they will be active members.

Who knows....

PS: the contest is open to anyone....feel free to guess and try to win the ipod!

Peace,

DJ Bill