It seems you have done much to encourage everyone to support this Just-1-Click. Not sure why the cause seems less compelling to the community than others, but it seems it is. We will see what else we can do from our end to help.

Please know that your thoughts and opinions are certainly taken into consideration. We also listen to the voices that are reflected in feedback emails for the site, so the pool of requests and opinions is larger than the voices on the Boards.

And, we will continue to make decisions as we feel they are appropriate. The Youth Advisory Board is organized to help address the issues that this community raises. But their voices are few in number at this time. Our efforts to grow the message board user base have been fruitless.
Many newcomers have been isolated and insulted. Today very few people participate on the boards whereas many more participate in the blogs and debates on the site which appear to be a safer venue for newcomers.

So, we are sorry that you feel you are not heard. We hear, but we make decisions based upon the larger community of YouthNoise that exists beyond the message boards as well as on the message boards. Several ideas and thoughts have been incorporated into our work from postings to the message boards, just not all of them.

Please email me with any further thoughts you might have. You can reach me at ginger@youthnoise.org.

Thanks for your participation.

Ginger

What we, collectively, have done in order to complete J1C (Given so you know how hard we've been trying):

• E-mailed/Messaged through blogs/myspace every YN member who no longer frequents the site.
  
• Posted a message about J1C on the YN myspace group.
  
• Sent a message to every member of the facebook group.
  
• Sent an e-mail to the citijo list, asking them to click.
  
• Posted a thread about it on YN and requested it be made Board of the Day.
  
• Made a Cause about it, urging people to click.
  
• Posted J1C info on the CS forums.
  
• Left a link to the J1C on the facebook group wall in order to link people not part of the group.
  
• Sent out a message to friends on Bebo.
  
• Maxed out multiple accounts of our own with clicking.
  

This is what a bunch of us have been doing (that I know of and can remember.) As you can see, though we've been trying, it's a feat. We've given the message out to as many people as possible, but we can't force people to click or not.

quote:

Question: Why don't you do YN and J1C ads anymore?

I came here because of a commercial about YN. It had ripples of sound. I remember it quite well.

Question: Why don't you do YN and J1C ads anymore?

It may cost, but it could get your numbers up. I know that's how I heard about YN, and I know it's the same for a couple others, as well.

quote:

I will see what options are. It may take a few days to get back as we have some on vacation this week.

We'll be talking to Ginger and a few others on Thursday.

quote:

but you know that we'll do what we can.

No, I don't. I only know that you, personally, will do what you can.

Sorry if we seem annoying lately, Lisa, but it just gets annoying to us when the Staff talks about how important the voices of youth are today, but never seems to give us a voice in how the site is run. It just seems so... hypocritical. We should have been told about it at the beginning of the month, explained why it is this way, and given an option to voice our opinions over how we feel about it. We've sent emails out-- to every YNer we could think of. We've all exhausted numerous accounts, yet it's not even a quarter of the way done. I'm tired, Lisa, as I know others are, of the rest of the staff telling us such-and-such will happen if we do such-and-such a thing, which is usually impossible though we try as hard as we can. We're teenagers, most of us. We go to school, we have jobs, friends, relationships, problems, etc. We don't have time all the time to do everything to get what we want on YN.

I know, personally, that the reason I do not tell people about YN is I need a place I can go that others in my real life don't know about, where I can talk about things that I care about that I cannot talk in real life for various reasons. If my friends were to come on here, it wouldn't work for me anymore, it wouldn't be the safe haven it is anymore. I'm sorry, but I can't help you recruit people that I know. I can try to get people from Old YN back on (Which we did a little of), but that's about it.

This is not aimed towards you at all, Lisa, because you have been wonderful towards us. You have always been on the same level as us, which is what we, as teens and twenty year-olds need. We don't want to be looked down upon, and we want to be heard. Besides, why get people who want to be heard to come here when it feels so hypocritical since we don't have a say in certain things like a cap on the J1C, especially since it was never explained to us as to why it was necessary?

I don't have access to that kind of data but you know that we'll do what we can. I will see what options are. It may take a few days to get back as we have some on vacation this week.

quote:

I say this with all due respect. I am very displeased with the new 300 clicking limit. It's eating at me! Must...click... Frown

*bangs head on keyboard*

I feel the same way.

In the words of Kharybdis: "hah. cute, YN. set an unrealistic goal to give the illusion of caring without having to put your money where your mouth is. almost like The Producers, but with more illiterate children"

I hate to say it, but Khary has a point. I know you care about getting members up because of your funders, but it still remains that we, your current ACTIVE members, are key. If we're not happy, we can leave. If we're happy, we can talk and recruit. Either way, a lot of your traffic does fall on our hands.

Finally, I know you have over 40,000 "members," but how many of those are active? If I were to estimate, I'd put it at less than 200. Please, if you have data on it, let me know.

I say this with all due respect. I am very displeased with the new 300 clicking limit. It's eating at me! Must...click...

*bangs head on keyboard*

quote:

That means we need to get 334 members to click 300 times in order to hit our 100,000. To be completely frank, there are just not enough active members to get all of the clicks in.

Only 299 members need to click 300 times...

At least we got 35 members to exhaust accounts...

I'm just perturbed that YN is choosing to take something that a lot of YNers were using to feel as though we were making some sort of difference, in order to make some sort of statement about site traffic.

I can't help but feel that we're being used because YN is now realizing that they need to increase their membership and retention, and they think that taking something important away from us will motivate us to do their dirty work for them.

What really bothers me is that we are always bringing up different things that we would like to see changed, our ideas are frequently shot down, and YN blames it all on their need to attract new members...when they are failing to listen to the members they have already.

I think they are failing to understand that if they would actually listen to the youth on this site, they may find that the changes would actually increase the youth friendliness of the site and make the site more attractive for other potential new site users.

I do understand the point Lisa was making about the other organizations' click campaigns, but based on the ones I have seen, there is one fundamental difference. The YN J1C only donates the money if 100,000 clicks are met, other sites donate money based on how many clicks are received. The other organizations have made it possible for the charities to receive money, where YN has not.

If YN continues to not listen to their youth, they will probably find that their members will dwindle in numbers. I know I am really starting to feel like this site couldn't care less about my presence...and I am sure I am not alone in feeling this way.



*Thank you for helping us clear up what was happening Lisa. It's not that we didn't know about the 300 limit that I am annoyed about, it's that the staff felt it necessary to enact it in the first place.

Finding out about the limitations of the J1C tool was my fault. I had heard it might happen but I didn't realize it would happen on this campaign. In fact I need to remove the text about the automatic clickers since having them wouldn't help anyhow.

Please also understand we do appreciate very much all the time that you have spent clicking on these campaigns...but the plain and simple fact is we are a nonprofit and we have to do whatever we can to increase our traffic as well so while it's important to click, it's also important to spread the word...and get new members.

I think YN is a site that is very generous with their clicks, even with 300 clicks per user per campaign. I encourage you to visit a few orgs to find out how they work. If you find we're not, let us know how we compare.

I think something that the YN staff doesn't understand is how easy it is to click 300 times. If you've got fast fingers, there is no reason it should take longer than 5 minutes to completely max out your account on clicks for the entire MONTH.

If you want Youth Noise to be a place where youth can "be heard." you NEED to hear us out on this one.

Lisa-

Please tell them all that A. They inform us next time. B. We should be allowed to vote on policy that affects us. And C. Expect a bunch of "new" members.

I have reasons for not telling my friends. I'm not adding that banner because I don't want a lot of them on here.

Also, I've wanted to click for this campaign. I was excited it won. Why limit those who want to click?

And about automatic clickers: Was there anything in the rules before this one?

Also, the one click per day ones? If I remember correctly, weren't those how many clicks you could get in? We didn't have a target to meet in order for money to be donated...

Here's a banner I threw together...just link it to:
http://www.youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=2335

This is why we (me included) all need add links to your MySpaces, Facebooks, invite your friends to click etc. This isn't a punishment, there have been a few early campaigns that only allowed one click per day. If this doesn't work we may have to work something else out but you know we'll do what we can to make sure the organization has a chance to get the funds. Don't stress cause you can't only get 300 clicks....spread the word!!!

...and of course I will pass along these concerns.

Only 300?!

There is no way we will ever reach our goal for the month then. That means we need to get 334 members to click 300 times in order to hit our 100,000. To be completely frank, there are just not enough active members to get all of the clicks in.

I have about 150,000 clicks to date, and I never once did anything that would fall outside of the clicking rules. I never even held down the enter key to glean clicks, and yet now it seems like a lack of trust in the YNers is what has brought about this new change.

We are finally clicking for the books campaign, and they won't be getting any money from us. I'm very disappointed with this recent development.

Only 300 clicks per campaign?! But that's nothing compared to what some of us usually click.

And I think I've reached mine, the counter wont go up even though I've been clicking. I don't like this...

I found out last night that counter has been set so each user can get 300 clicks per campaign and are working on a notification that will reflect this when you reach your max number of clicks for that campaign.

quote:

What do you think? Cool

OOH! OOH! I wanna guess a thought! I guess I think... Yes! We should do it!

quote:

Originally posted by YouthVoice:
You mean...we shouldn't do that?

What do you think?