I saw in your status update Mark that you mentioned several new members. Is there any kind of New Member Welcome area on the site? (I think this has already been brought up, but I couldn't find it. Doing a new member search in community help didn't bring up much.) Certainly the The Ex Cafe EX Cafe incorporates that kind of camaraderie, and I see invitations being put out in various areas for links to it, which is great! On Elgg we used to be able to go to a new member's profile page and give a "Hello, glad you joined us" type of greeting. The only way to do that now would be to send them a personal message and that seems a bit forward as some people would NOT want to be initially contacted in such a fashion. I did a search for new members, and I looked in groups, and there's a Newbies Group but no way to sort other than by name. If it could also be sorted by date joined, we'd be able - no, you'd still have to contact them through a PM. What about a New Member's badge that we could give. Like the other badges you'd get the opportunity to say a little something when you send it. Just an idea. But then again, maybe we just have to wait until they make their presence known by communicating in some way with the group. Any ideas community?
New members who recently joined are at the bottom right corner of the HOME page. I've been reaching out to them with a standard welcome and an invitation to come to the Cafe and introduce themselves.
BUT-----these may not be people who ever participate....they may just be "ships passing in the night". Remember all the "new members" joining every day on our old site. Only about 1 in 50 of them would ever actually materialize as an actual member. But---I don't know of any other way to seek out the new people.....so this is what I am doing in my little corner of the world.