First, thank you to everyone who has contributed to the site to this point. 57 people have made and verified their accounts. There is a slow trickle of posts - I hope we continue to get new members, and new members contribute to the discussions. It's a bit of a self-perpetuating cycle. If a few people post and share ideas, more people will feel like it is valuable to participate and discuss, which will lead to the next new users doing the same.
So, if you are interested in Average Actuary being successful, please join the discussion and make a post! I'm particularly curious what people think about this thread: https://averageactuary.com/d/23-soa-something-big-is-coming. Will it actually be exciting or is this just a marketing gimmick?
I've been spending time here and there improving the site:
- Developed tag/category structure. We now have sections for various professional topics, preliminary exams, SOA exams, CAS exams, and a "Banter Box".
- Added private messaging. Click "Private Discussions", or go to a user's profile
- Added ability to create a profile with information about yourself
- Added ability to create drafts of posts and save them for later, including the ability to schedule them for posting
- Added Night Mode option
- Added ability to create polls (you'll see a button next to where you put categories when making a new thread)
- Added ability to mark a reply as the "Best Answer" if you ask a question
- Did some work to make the site more visible to search engines
I've also been trying to grow the user base, which has been somewhat successful. I made a post on LinkedIn which has been driving a good amount of traffic to the site.
Here's my current to-do list:
- Get more users on the site, and try to get people to post!
- Add a landing page
- Post something about site rules/moderation
- Consider improving the color scheme of the tags
That's all for now. If you've read this far - thank you for your interest in the project! I hope you stick around, contribute, and help Average Actuary grow by posting.
