Hey everyone!

Ive been developing a website for over a year now called Savage Gamers and I wanted to get some input from you. 

Basically what I am intending my site to be is a Gaming Community specifically geared towards Hardcore Gamers. So this means anyone that plays shooters, fighting, violent sports,  hack and slash (you get the idea) And once we get our video/article content going it is going to be related to the same type of genera's. 

The Networking aspect of it has your typical social functions such as your own profile, sharing media, using forums etc.

My questions are the following:

1. How to I create a good balance between displaying and advertising new articles, as well as having a social aspect? Some users that come to the site may not be interested in reading news or watching videos so how can I advertise or notify these users so they atleast know there is content they might be interested in?

2. My other question is a little touchy - "Girl Gamers"..During on the this sites development, I have researched a few other online gaming communities where females were being stalked, harassed and in some cases the females were exposing a little too much just for attention. I am trying to shy away from this and make a community where gamers of both genders can chill without being asked on a date. But I am finding it very difficult to market to them. Any advice? or is this just kinda a luck of the draw?

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

I'm not sure (or rather, could only give opinions and guesses, not talk from experience) about those two points, but I wonder if Gavin Divers, or Jennifer Taylor may be good people to speak to?

Gavin runs Xbox Live Gamer Hub (XBLGamerHub) - a social media site for Xbox fans, that also do content...
http://www.gameleon.net/Manjo/
...while Jennifer runs TheGameJar which has social media functions running alongside what initially looks like a normal videogames content-orientated site....
http://www.gameleon.net/littlejuicebox/

In 2012, I went to The Publishing Expo, and The Huffington Post's UK Editor (now Editor-in-chief) Carla Buzasi, talked about how they got more females involved in contributing content to the site. When they first launched in the UK, only males posted. Later they got this to 52% male, 48% female. Men were the early adopters. The more that they posted female authored content to the front page however, the more other females began to get involved, and contribute articles too.

Obviously, you're looking for readers, not necessarily article contributors - but I assume The Huffington Post's highlighting of female posts on the front page, helped the site look like a good (and safe?) place for females, and not exclusively male dominated (even though at launch only males posted).

Hi Vanessa :D

The stigma in gaming has been completely blown out the water in my opinion. Outsiders with no real understanding of gaming think we are still holding on to our virginities.

In reality everyone games.

But regarding balancing user content and site content. It's something I have wrestled with for years. With trying to cram everything in the homepage. But I think the answer is all in usability of the site. users are smart folks, if the features are there, they will be used. Other than that appeasing all types gamers is what creates a really good community.

Girl gamers comes back to the stigma of gaming, We've all grown up and we're cool lol, Your community will contain all walks of life, guiding the community to how to respect people by setting the right example is the way.

But your moderators need to be present and approachable obviously. So if any problems do arise it's dealt with. The responsibility of a community runner is to encourage members to respect each other and become friends. Setting the tone yourselves and being approachable really sets you out as a good example of how people should be as a standard.

Roll with the punches and embrace the panic haha

I hope my opinions have been of some use :)


Gavin

Thank you both for such valuable advice!! Yes I also thought the direct approach to balancing user and site content was also to cram it into the home page..but I cant fathom the idea of it being overly crowded with content...Im hoping I can encourage my users to give me their two cents as well.

Vanessa

There's nothing that will strengthen a community more than giving your members a voice to make a difference.