State of the Forum
Cross Posted to Twilight of Heroes
Let’s talk seriously.
This community has been around for ten years now. For ten years we’ve watched the faces in our community change, and we’ve watched each other change. We’ve been together while the world around us changed. We’ve grown up, and lived our lives together. So after a decade, where are we, where would we like to be, and how are we going to get there?
I don’t have any absolute answers, but I have some thoughts, and I’d like to lead you through them, so you can tell me what you think. And I think the best way for me to begin working through these ideas is to talk about where this community has been in the past, and what we aimed for in the past.
When I joined the community, it was based on The Sacred Realm forums, attached to Zelda Central HQ, Ashleigh's Zelda fan site. Ashleigh's goal at the time, as I recall, was to foster the best Zelda themed community he could, attached to a forward thinking and professional looking zelda website. While things never reached the heights Ashleigh was attempting, the community flourished.
Ashleigh's goals shifted slightly over the years, but maintained the core philosophy which stressed attracting new people to the community, and building the forums into something large. Sometimes this worked out quite well. I certainly never would have found the forums if not for Ashleigh's attempts to publicize their existence. Nor would many of the others who are core to what this community is. Sometimes it did not work out nearly as well, such as when the Final Fantasy Republic forums shut down, and we suddenly found ourselves a minority among the influx of FFR members, something which we largely resented.
After The Year Without a Forum, and the return of TSR, Ashleigh largely dropped the idea of connecting the forum to a website. A site was "in the works," but never actually online. This period was, in my opinion, one of the best in our community's history. But activity died down due to unknown factors. And, exasperated with the work involved, Ashleigh shut TSR down for good.
When I started ToH, I had a very different vision of things. I had no desire to make the community grow. Quite the opposite, I preferred to keep the community small. To rely on the "in crowd," that had evolved over the last few years. These were the people I wanted to spend time with, and I really didn't want that interrupted by new people, throwing off our dynamic.
ToH has had a lot of good and bad times over the roughly four years that our community has used this designation. And while it has never been our focus, we've successfully integrated a few new members into our community. Sid, Morrie, Jiro, and Amaya come to mind. Dressing the old forums up for our personal holidays, starting the community projects forum, these were good times.
Despite any periods of prosperity ToH may have had, however, we've been dying for a long time now. Dying slowly, certainly, but dying none the less, Every so often someone will go on a big posting spree, and activity will be up for a bit. But after every period of the forums being dead, another member never comes back. When was the last time Huxley posted? Or Sid? Or Amaya?
My isolationist forum management philosophy has failed, and I think we need to abandon it.
Like anything that exists, to survive we must diversify. I think we need to start making an effort to bring new people into this community.
I also suggest that before we do so, we establish a "veteran member" class (which can be invisible if we want) which will allow us to maintain forums that only the older members can view. That way we don’t completely need to give up our private space.
Your thoughts?
Let’s talk seriously.
This community has been around for ten years now. For ten years we’ve watched the faces in our community change, and we’ve watched each other change. We’ve been together while the world around us changed. We’ve grown up, and lived our lives together. So after a decade, where are we, where would we like to be, and how are we going to get there?
I don’t have any absolute answers, but I have some thoughts, and I’d like to lead you through them, so you can tell me what you think. And I think the best way for me to begin working through these ideas is to talk about where this community has been in the past, and what we aimed for in the past.
When I joined the community, it was based on The Sacred Realm forums, attached to Zelda Central HQ, Ashleigh's Zelda fan site. Ashleigh's goal at the time, as I recall, was to foster the best Zelda themed community he could, attached to a forward thinking and professional looking zelda website. While things never reached the heights Ashleigh was attempting, the community flourished.
Ashleigh's goals shifted slightly over the years, but maintained the core philosophy which stressed attracting new people to the community, and building the forums into something large. Sometimes this worked out quite well. I certainly never would have found the forums if not for Ashleigh's attempts to publicize their existence. Nor would many of the others who are core to what this community is. Sometimes it did not work out nearly as well, such as when the Final Fantasy Republic forums shut down, and we suddenly found ourselves a minority among the influx of FFR members, something which we largely resented.
After The Year Without a Forum, and the return of TSR, Ashleigh largely dropped the idea of connecting the forum to a website. A site was "in the works," but never actually online. This period was, in my opinion, one of the best in our community's history. But activity died down due to unknown factors. And, exasperated with the work involved, Ashleigh shut TSR down for good.
When I started ToH, I had a very different vision of things. I had no desire to make the community grow. Quite the opposite, I preferred to keep the community small. To rely on the "in crowd," that had evolved over the last few years. These were the people I wanted to spend time with, and I really didn't want that interrupted by new people, throwing off our dynamic.
ToH has had a lot of good and bad times over the roughly four years that our community has used this designation. And while it has never been our focus, we've successfully integrated a few new members into our community. Sid, Morrie, Jiro, and Amaya come to mind. Dressing the old forums up for our personal holidays, starting the community projects forum, these were good times.
Despite any periods of prosperity ToH may have had, however, we've been dying for a long time now. Dying slowly, certainly, but dying none the less, Every so often someone will go on a big posting spree, and activity will be up for a bit. But after every period of the forums being dead, another member never comes back. When was the last time Huxley posted? Or Sid? Or Amaya?
My isolationist forum management philosophy has failed, and I think we need to abandon it.
Like anything that exists, to survive we must diversify. I think we need to start making an effort to bring new people into this community.
I also suggest that before we do so, we establish a "veteran member" class (which can be invisible if we want) which will allow us to maintain forums that only the older members can view. That way we don’t completely need to give up our private space.
Your thoughts?