Random Acts of Kindness

While not an external outreach, making one feel welcome within the LT community is also a good deed done.

So, here's my suggestion. Go to the LT zeitgeist page and randomly check out a few users who have entered books recently. If he/she is a new member send them a little note of welcome, compliment them on their library, note the books you have in common, or invite them to a discussion group if such an invitation is appropriate. Start a conversation! I also check through the list of users with my books looking for new names and do the same thing.

Anyone have other suggestions for random LT acts of kindness?

avaland, that's certainly the kind of thing this group is for - some very good ideas there :)

A very well run bulletin board I frequent has a feature that permits sorting threads so that those with zero replies (one post and no answers) come to the top. This encourages moderators and others to make sure everyone posting something gets an answer of some kind, to set the tone for the place. Might be a nice feature here.

Yes, rjohara, it might. :)

Avaland, I haven't done enough of that in quite some time. Thanks for reminding me. It's highly appropriate, a pleasure, and might help with perceptions among newer users that we are, um, less than gracious...:D

Of course, sometimes I lapse for days or weeks and leave things unanswered, which is another pitfall... but we can deal with that when we come to it!

> sorting threads so that those with zero replies come to the top

I posted this in Recommend... - crediting rjohara ;-)

I understand your reasoning about the threads, not sure if I entirely agree. Hmmm. I think it's good to pleasantly redirect users to more appropriate places to post some of their ideas (when appropriate to do). LT users seem to be pretty good at this. I, for one, just cannot keep up with the threads that appear on Book Talk, it can be overwhelming, so I pick and choose. I often ignore many threads at the top as it is now.

I just realized that one can check the "recent" users with one's books and do the same thing suggested in >1 avaland:. I can't believe it took me this long to figure that out (perhaps I was just so mesmerized by the weighted list...).

Invite people to groups! fresh voices are always needed! We are all in groups so when we see someone who might be a good fit for one of those groups (at least the more active ones), we should invite them.