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If I want to draw people's attention to a post on a child meta site, how can I do that? I want to get people involved in a discussion over at Area 51 to see what they think of the idea, because it requires opinions from the community. However, posts on the discussion zone of Area 51 rarely get activity, so it seems like I'm out of luck, unless something is changed. And from the sounds of How can we get people to participate on Meta sites?, it seems like this is a problem on all child metas.

That post is similar, but while it talks about increasing activity in general, I am talking about how to raise participation to an individual post; the equivalent of a bounty

I can't use bounties because reputation is the same.

Could there be another way of drawing attention to individual posts?

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  • @raam86 There are no bounties (or reputation) on per site Metas. MSO is special.
    – yannis
    Jul 15, 2013 at 7:54
  • Thanks @Yannis did NOT know that. I did know MSO is "special"25.media.tumblr.com/lrduZcNdYm7pm6vmb5F0UGmso1_500.jpg
    – raam86
    Jul 15, 2013 at 7:59
  • Share it on Facebook/Twitter/other social networks? Jul 15, 2013 at 8:13
  • @doubleDown When you aren't popular on social media networks, it won't do a big deal Jul 16, 2013 at 16:48
  • Hope that the chat room is busy, and promote the Question there :)
    – tshepang
    Nov 3, 2014 at 19:39

2 Answers 2

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Because you cannot start a bounty on a child meta, you will be limited in your ability to draw attention to that post. If it's an old post and you own it and/or have enough rep on the main site (2,000 for a graduated site, 1,000 for a beta, iirc), you can edit the post to bump it to the top of the active tab, so long as you're actually improving the post.

Other than that, I'd try posting it in chat, and asking people there for opinions. Depending on the meta post, I've also asked moderators to add the tag to the post, so it will show up on the sidebar of the main site. That often brings quite a few views, even if not the attention you want.

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    "Edit the post to bump it to the top of the active tab" - I think it may be considered to be misuse of edit function.
    – nicael
    Nov 8, 2014 at 19:16
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    @nicael How will it cause a problem? If the post is really in need of attention, I think it's a good use of the editing function, and you can make your post more clear while you're at it...
    – Frank
    Nov 8, 2014 at 19:19
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    If you'll improve it, it is good. Editing just to bump isn't good.
    – nicael
    Nov 8, 2014 at 19:20
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    @nicael Yes, and it seems that well formatted, well written posts get more attention on child metas. It's almost always possible to improve your post.
    – Frank
    Nov 8, 2014 at 19:21
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The key is writing good interesting posts with titles that will interest users to read it. Revise the post and add details, screenshots, good formatting and a humorous style of writing. Length matters, so focus on writing a shorter and more descriptive post that users will feel interested to read.

On child metas, writing skills matter more than ever, because that's all you have to bring attention to your posts.

Shog9's advice for getting more attention on child metas:

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