Nobody goes there anymore - it's too crowded
So, finally detached the last remaining tie I had to The Escapist, ironically, right at the year anniversary. It's always consumed a lot of time, but it gave me a lot of fun in return. Now, however, it's just turned into a big time and energy suck.
I like conversation with people who are different from myself but who share common interests, and a bunch of 15-19 year old guys who love video games fit the bill pretty nicely for that. But there are two things in play, based on my experience of internet communities.
A community that cracks 100 active members starts to collapse under it's own weight. It's like a pub where you go because it's always busy, and the atmosphere is friendly, and you know you will be able to strike up a good converstaion with someone you know, or even with someone you don't. However, at some point, the place becomes too noisy and too crowded with people who are there for the exact same reason you are, but now everyone is having to shout over the din, conversation becomes uncomfortable, if not impossible, and eventually a certain aggressive edge develops because peope are constantly getting their feet stepped on or getting their drinks knocked into their laps.
6
I saw that happen way back in 1996-7 when alt.support.depression went to hell, and its spinoff attempt at salvation, already infected with the acrimony of the parent, took a purgatorial turn as well. I saw it happen again in 2001-2002 when the Terminator2 mailing list underwent its population explosion. In both cases, It was at the 100 active user mark. I'm sure there is a certain critical mass for fandoms as well, where they collapse into BNF factions, OTP wars, and toxic levels of batshittery.
I've got to say that I am a bit disappointed in the management of The Escapist. I think initially, they fewed their forums as a community of readers and expected them to behave like good citizens. As the site grew, however, citizenship fell by the wayside and instead, a simple absense of poo-flinging became the measurement of acceptable behavior. Which is really too bad. I think one of the nice things about the site when I came on board was that they paid the guys who went there the respect of expecting more from them than most forums. They expected them to listen to other people and reply in a moderately well-thought-out manner. I feel like that isn't much expected of young men these days, and that's sad. Such low expectation betray the belief that they aren't capable of anything better than sullen compliance and unarticulated hostility.
But I think the real issue is this: as the website grew, they stopped viewing it as a real community and started looking at it as a profit center. Instead of forumites being members of a community, they we page-hits and ad-views, at which point there is very little impetus to do more than minimally manage behavior. And I don't blame the mods. If anything, I think the site's failure to bolster their numbers (they are volunteers, so it's not as though it was a budgetary issue) speaks to that. They have enough to do to keep poo-flinging under control, and don't much have time for anything beyond that.
The above is all to be taken with a certain degree of salt, the bitter rantings of a BNF flouncing out of her fandome, more or less, but still, I'm both sad and relieved to be going.
I like conversation with people who are different from myself but who share common interests, and a bunch of 15-19 year old guys who love video games fit the bill pretty nicely for that. But there are two things in play, based on my experience of internet communities.
A community that cracks 100 active members starts to collapse under it's own weight. It's like a pub where you go because it's always busy, and the atmosphere is friendly, and you know you will be able to strike up a good converstaion with someone you know, or even with someone you don't. However, at some point, the place becomes too noisy and too crowded with people who are there for the exact same reason you are, but now everyone is having to shout over the din, conversation becomes uncomfortable, if not impossible, and eventually a certain aggressive edge develops because peope are constantly getting their feet stepped on or getting their drinks knocked into their laps.
6
I saw that happen way back in 1996-7 when alt.support.depression went to hell, and its spinoff attempt at salvation, already infected with the acrimony of the parent, took a purgatorial turn as well. I saw it happen again in 2001-2002 when the Terminator2 mailing list underwent its population explosion. In both cases, It was at the 100 active user mark. I'm sure there is a certain critical mass for fandoms as well, where they collapse into BNF factions, OTP wars, and toxic levels of batshittery.
I've got to say that I am a bit disappointed in the management of The Escapist. I think initially, they fewed their forums as a community of readers and expected them to behave like good citizens. As the site grew, however, citizenship fell by the wayside and instead, a simple absense of poo-flinging became the measurement of acceptable behavior. Which is really too bad. I think one of the nice things about the site when I came on board was that they paid the guys who went there the respect of expecting more from them than most forums. They expected them to listen to other people and reply in a moderately well-thought-out manner. I feel like that isn't much expected of young men these days, and that's sad. Such low expectation betray the belief that they aren't capable of anything better than sullen compliance and unarticulated hostility.
But I think the real issue is this: as the website grew, they stopped viewing it as a real community and started looking at it as a profit center. Instead of forumites being members of a community, they we page-hits and ad-views, at which point there is very little impetus to do more than minimally manage behavior. And I don't blame the mods. If anything, I think the site's failure to bolster their numbers (they are volunteers, so it's not as though it was a budgetary issue) speaks to that. They have enough to do to keep poo-flinging under control, and don't much have time for anything beyond that.
The above is all to be taken with a certain degree of salt, the bitter rantings of a BNF flouncing out of her fandome, more or less, but still, I'm both sad and relieved to be going.