Decline in OT activity

[madviking]

Almost entirely due to posting group shots of sorority girls in the babe thread.

cuz bc i like em doesn't mean i'm part of em

 

[Seraiel]

And this is, why I normally don't visit the OT forums. There arw just too many posters who's posts are not worthy to even invest the time on reading them. Thx for ruining a thread that started with a lot of quality.

 

[madviking]

my pleasure

 

[Hygro]

And this is, why I normally don't visit the OT forums. There arw just too many posters who's posts are not worthy to even invest the time on reading them. Thx for ruining a thread that started with a lot of quality.

1a) [discussion of what makes off topic not so good]

1b) "What makes off topic good is community"

2a) [super short community building posts that take all of three minutes to read]

2b) "You guys are ruining the thread!"


Did I read this correctly?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I agree that forums have a tighter community, but that also usually then presents a bigger hurdle for new users, since it's easy to feel "left out" and not acclimated with the regulars and the typical behavior.

As anywhere else, the hurdle just is what it is. For some people it is an insurmountable obstacle and others are saying "there was a hurdle?" Joining a forum, like any other community, involves reaching a point where your confidence is matched appropriately with your abilities.

The beauty of a forum is that you can, should you feel the need, lurk for as long as necessary to know as much as you need to know regarding the regulars and the expected behavior. In a real world community standing around observing is creepy.

 

[Bootstoots]

And this is, why I normally don't visit the OT forums. There arw just too many posters who's posts are not worthy to even invest the time on reading them. Thx for ruining a thread that started with a lot of quality.

This thread hasn't been ruined just because the last couple pages featured some spammy banter. If it gets completely overrun to the extent that serious discussion becomes impossible, then somebody would have to step in and guide it back on topic. But occasional silly digressions are allowed in non-RD threads, and they don't generally make it difficult for serious discussion to resume.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Indeed, occasionally silly asides help to break up highly opinionated debates and relieve some tension. Just like in real life...

 

[Traitorfish]

There are definitely posters who make it their business to ruin threads, though. Almost every time a thread drifts onto social or cultural issue, it gets dragged down to first principles by children who need to have it explained to them on an apparently daily basis that other people exist, that actions have consequences, and that you're not allowed to piss in the sand-pit.

The problem isn't a lack of serious:silly conversation, it's that so much of the serious conversation is vacuous and repetitive. Just because an exchange is conducted in stern tones doesn't mean there's anything worth reading.

 

[Zack]

And this is, why I normally don't visit the OT forums. There arw just too many posters who's posts are not worthy to even invest the time on reading them. Thx for ruining a thread that started with a lot of quality.

Link to video.

 

[Cutlass]

Wait, are you guys... sober when posting?

Define 'sober'.

 

[downtown]

Already did.

And that's why I woke up to a strange woman in my house asking me to make her a burrito at 3 AM.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

And that's why I woke up to a strange woman in my house asking me to make her a burrito at 3 AM.

What was so strange about wanting a burrito?

 

[Narz]

I would also be curious to know if the average age of the posters on here has changed significantly over the last ~10 years. I don't believe the younger generation frequents forums like "we" did.

Probably not & why would they, there are so many more interesting/colorful options now. Facebook for instance is as much of a time-sink as CFC, perhaps more, but its people you actually know, not random weirdos you'll never meet (I wouldn't mind meeting more CFCers but doesn't seem to be very many in the NYC area). I like FB because people invite me to events & I get to know the inner workings of people I already know (if they post something cool I'm more likely to hang with them, if they post some odd/unpleasant stuff less likely).

The payoff to input ratio was once pretty high when I was younger & curious & the place was more fast paced & you got 20 serious & 20 silly replies to every thread. Then, around '03-'05 a bunch of posters started there only little forum (which became dry & boring even 4-5 years ago but we still had a very active forum. This was damaged quite a bit by the fellow mentioned on page 1 & his band of loser trolls but the momentum didn't really start turning down until about six months before the forum split I'd say.

There's no way I could get sucked up into forum culture again. Frankly I'm kind of embarrassed I ever was able to.

I'm sure there will always be forums but they do feel a bit archaic, and yeah CFC looks & feels almost exactly the same as it did 13 years ago when I joined. Which is somewhat comforting I suppose in this world of such rapid change but its not going to be very alluring to the smartphone generation.

 

[Hygro]

And that's why I woke up to a strange woman in my house asking me to make her a burrito at 3 AM.

Last interact with her was within the past year.
Her: "Let's skype!"
Me: "Ok"
Her: "Let's talk at 8ish tonight"
Me: "Ok"
Me on skype from 7:30-10pm waiting: "hey im here"

Her 3 months later: "hey whats up? lets catch up sometime!"
Me:

Spoiler :

What was so strange about wanting a burrito?

Her.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I'm sure there will always be forums but they do feel a bit archaic, and yeah CFC looks & feels almost exactly the same as it did 13 years ago when I joined. Which is somewhat comforting I suppose in this world of such rapid change but its not going to be very alluring to the smartphone generation.

In a way I have to agree. There is something comforting in the fact that CFC is still kind of the same. I mean, there's still some of the same people who've been here for years that I've come to know, like antilogic and madviking, or Owen who I consider to be the last relatively active member who was a protege/comrade of Dachs. Actually, where the heck is Dachs these days?

 

[sophie]

In a way I have to agree. There is something comforting in the fact that CFC is still kind of the same. I mean, there's still some of the same people who've been here for years that I've come to know, like antilogic and madviking, or Owen who I consider to be the last relatively active member who was a protege/comrade of Dachs. Actually, where the heck is Dachs these days?

As I said before: there's not a whole lot keeping people here other than inertia and/or postcount. For the last few years before Dachs quit it was mostly just postcount and the community. Once he breached 30k pc stopped being interesting. CFC was mostly him just copypasta'ing the same history posts over and over again, so discussion-wise cfc ceased to be interesting. #nes was pretty much the only thing left and shenanigans in #nes severed that tie. He moved on to TOR and never looked back.

also inb4 madviking "I have Dachs' phone number/text him on occasion" post.

 

[madviking]

i don't actually text him regularly at all

 

[cybrxkhan]

Hmm. If I remember correctly didn't Dachs take a hiatus when he had to take care of his sick grandmother or mother or something? I gues then that makes sense; it's knid of hard to come back if you're not after interested after a hiatus like that.

 

[Bootstoots]

Looking through the thread, I see a fair number of suggestions that would require significant staff cooperation on, some of which I’ll be suggesting (or have already suggested) in the staff forum to see if we can get anywhere. There are also structural problems that we can’t do much about, such as the rise of reddit and other very large sites, declining popularity of the Civ series and of forums, and the aging of the current members.

However, I see a couple of common complaints that can be dealt with more or less immediately. The biggest one is that OT has fewer interesting thread topics than it used to and that a variety of the “serious” ones, mostly political issues, have been done to death.

Nothing is currently preventing people from branching out and creating topics on almost anything they find interesting. Don’t think that your threads have to be especially serious or have to relate to the restricted set of political issues that we tend to discuss ad nauseum. If, for example...

Just off the top of my head, people may be interested in discussing fashion, art, philosophy, pets, sports, interior design, movies, table top role playing games, urban planning, heraldry, gnostic religions, humor, theater, food, tourism, relationships, childrearing, archaeology, dance, poetry, or genealogy.

...are interesting to you, post threads about them!

Rules on spam, threadjacking, and general banter are already pretty relaxed in non-RD threads. A thread that is total drivel with nothing whatsoever to talk about might be closed, as will threads that go too far into content we consider inappropriate, like the dick pic thread. But even if you’re not sure about whether something is a good idea, going ahead and posting the thread will probably not result in terribly negative consequences. It might be closed, but I’m personally going to go as light as I can on infractions for boundary-pushing content that is made to liven up OT. Something that’s totally inappropriate or repeatedly posted still could see an infraction, but generally I don’t want people to have to worry about that.

Also, any thread ideas from other sites that don’t blatantly break our rules should be tried out too. I think we can liven this place up substantially.

For now I’m going to try to push some ideas and revive some old discussions in the staff forum about upgrading vBulletin, actually fixing our email system, adding a “like” button or something similar, rewarding content creation, and maybe relaxing some of the more nitpicky rules we have. There are no promises but hopefully some positive changes will come of this. Keep the ideas flowing!

 

[sophie]

Just as long as the thread isn't about dick pics, I guess.