Since we've started work on a proper build order, I figure it's time to tackle the more difficult half of the problem: humans. Most towns run on some sort of ad-hoc system where 2 or 3 people who think they know the system tell people "Build x now!".
This is clearly a suboptimal strategy since it relies on a certain number of people ignoring that advice and scavenging and at least a certain number of people forgoing scavenging (arguably the "fun" part of the day's activities) and spending AP on construction projects.
How can you organize your fellow citizens to do the right tasks at the right time? Keep in mind that a certain percentage of people will do whatever they want.
Best Answer
Be Active!
One of the best things you can do is to make everything as simple as possible for the rest of the town. One of the easiest ways to do this is to make sure the stickied threads stay on-topic. One of the easiest ways to do this is to start off by making a bunch of other threads for specific purposes. Here are some examples to get you started:
An Expeditions thread, to be updated daily. Here, your town can organize its expeditions each day.
A Daily Summary thread, where you or others can post a brief summary of the previous day each morning, for those who might have not had a real chance to get involved the day before, and want to know what took place (i.e. what was built, found, important descisions, etc).
A Town Ranking thread with a link to the Leaderboards. Here your townsfolk can compare your own strategies with those of other towns.
Discussion Threads for Construction, Town Upgrades, and Workshop threads. By separating the discussion, you can leave the Stickied threads for simple instructions based on what is decided in the discussion threads. Less active players may find that much more useful than sorting through pages of discussion on the main thread to find out what they are supposed to be doing.
A Water Discussion thread. This one is very useful.
A Resources: Current Priorites thread, to discuss what items townsfolk should be choosing over others when scavenging.
A Gate Duty thread, for townsfolk to decide who will close the gates each night. To be used daily.
A General Chat thread. This allows your townsfolk to get to know one another, and also keeps this chatting out of more important threads, like the Bank, for instance.
A Complaint thread. Yes, this one is important as well! Each banished citizen is a waste of a minimum of 12 ap every day. Banishments should be avoided if they can. This thread can be used for citizens to work out their differences, or explain actions that may have caused other residents some annoyance.
Remember, the earlier you set this up, the better, as doing so will avoid a greater confusion of inane threads towards the beginning of the game. Try to get some of the more influential townsfolk to use the threads you create, and encourage them to create their own general threads like these, and (mostly) everyone else will follow suit eventually.
Another important thing to remember is to clearly state in each of these threads, that they should be used as stickied threads, daily. It makes much more sense to have one gate duty thread used every day than to flood the boards with 2 or 3 new ones every day.
This will obviously not work for every town out there, but I have been in towns where others have done similar things, and I've tried to do something of the sort in my current town, and the results are good enough to warrant giving it a try, I think. The trick is to make everyone else think you know exactly what you are doing, and they will tend to fall into step behind you.
Also, make use of external applications!
This Map is particularly useful, because it lets you list exactly which items have been left at each place on the map, as well as listing the number of zombies, and townsfolk at each space, among other things.