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My Thoughts on the "Reload" Fri May 31, 2013 7:15 pm
Niko327
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Reputation : 7This might be short, might be long, iunno. I'm just gonna ramble with poopy grammar and any words that come to my head relating the reload. I want to take the time to give my thoughts on all these "changes" that are being made and the reasons for activity or inactivity in general. Please no flamming, I do not intend to offend anyone and will not say any of this in an angry manner for it isn't intended that way.
Hopefully I can bring some warming thoughts and morale to this community of ours by the end of this.
The "Reload" or blackout or whatever you wanna call it was unnecessary in my opinion. I'm unsure what the admins were thinking it would accomplish. Since my time here, we've been switching staff, attempting tourneys and failing at all attempts to raise activity. This Reload will not keep activity up. Maybe for a week or so, but it won't last long.
I noticed Dex mentioned in the reload topic that forums are mainly a community of people with the same interest. To simplify it even more, forums are a community. For one to live and survive, we can't be simply recruiting a bunch of strangers and newcomers all the time and expect the place to remain stable. a Community can only function if the members of the community want it to continue functioning. Bringing in new members who quit after a few weeks does nothing. What we should strive for is to gain the interest in others to communicate here, their want and desire to come back here because it's a fun place and somewhere they know they can come to and have fun while visiting the site.
I want to quote a good man from WDA (from whom I got the idea to post such an article here) with many wise words in hopes that his perspective of the ygo forum may be imposed on you:
If people don't want to do something, they're simply not going to do it. I know we have had plenty of people sign up saying they are so excited for this new tournament idea and sign up saying they wouldnt miss it for anything, then do. This, however, in my opinion, is due to the lack of our core community. We force upon these new members to be here for these events and to get them done asap, but that isn't the way we should go about treating new members. Events like tournaments should be saved for when we have a stronger core community base, with active members who come daily just to chat, simply because they want to talk with the other members here. It doesn't always have to be about ygo, nor should it.
If we have a community that has members who are friends and know one another more than just what deck they like to play, we have a community that will stick and survive even through dry spells of inactive dueling and events. It gives the members a better sense of purpose, makes them feel like they belong and have a place to come to when they don't have any responsibilities to fulfill.
Finally, if people don't want to do something, then they aren't going to do it. A better approach to tournaments in my opinion should be live ones, or in other words spontaneous ones. Tournaments that start in the chatbox because we have 8 people in the chat just talking and someone brings up "hey, while we're all online, do you guys want to have a tourney?" and then if enough people want to do it, an admin can host a tourney. After activity is a bit more stable, then maybe we can throw members tourneys done in the traditional way by posting and expecting rounds to be done by a certain date. However, until the members show that they want those tourneys and will come back for them because they enjoy tournaments and us as a community enough to be active when signing up, I think we should hold off for a bit.
One more quote:
This is to mention the roles and responsibility of admins and regular members. I don't care how we do it compared to WDA, nor is it necessary for us to follow in their footsteps on how they play their roles, but the equality idea should be more of a known thing in my opinion around the forum. Admins and members alike should be encouraged to post topics, events, articles, graphics and competitions, etc. The "burden" of creating events and regulating duels to be completed shouldn't be on the admins alone, but also on the members themselves.
That is all. I hate to drool all over WDA like I seem to do when I post my ideas on this forum, but they are one of the most successful academies I've ever been in, and they were actually the first one I ever joined when I first began dueling online ygo. They were the first out of at least 5 different forums, and they are the only one that still exists besides this one, which TWA is the last academy I've ever joined.
I will be around more often, but I can't guarantee daily activity because like I said above, as a person, I'm going to do what I want to do, and I have many friends and family I like to keep in touch with. I also hold 2 jobs for the summer in hopes to make enough for rent in the fall semester of school. I have a lot more time to be around here now that classes are out, but I'm still very busy.
I'll also mention that I really do enjoy being here, that's why I wanted to post these ideas and share them with you all. I don't want to see this place die. I want it to be more active and much more entertain rather, and I'm sick of seeing people coming in and then leaving after a few weeks.
On a side note, should I post the link to Al-Bhed's topic on activity in the forums to this thread? I didn't want to bother giving the whole thread since some didn't really pertain to us, but if any are interested in reading I'll post it. Or if any admin needs me to for copyright reasons.
Hopefully I can bring some warming thoughts and morale to this community of ours by the end of this.
The "Reload" or blackout or whatever you wanna call it was unnecessary in my opinion. I'm unsure what the admins were thinking it would accomplish. Since my time here, we've been switching staff, attempting tourneys and failing at all attempts to raise activity. This Reload will not keep activity up. Maybe for a week or so, but it won't last long.
I noticed Dex mentioned in the reload topic that forums are mainly a community of people with the same interest. To simplify it even more, forums are a community. For one to live and survive, we can't be simply recruiting a bunch of strangers and newcomers all the time and expect the place to remain stable. a Community can only function if the members of the community want it to continue functioning. Bringing in new members who quit after a few weeks does nothing. What we should strive for is to gain the interest in others to communicate here, their want and desire to come back here because it's a fun place and somewhere they know they can come to and have fun while visiting the site.
I want to quote a good man from WDA (from whom I got the idea to post such an article here) with many wise words in hopes that his perspective of the ygo forum may be imposed on you:
- Spoiler:
"The need to randomly, generally and consistently do official academy duels. I'll be frank. You can tell people to finish the tournament they signed up for, you can tell people to be active on the event they wanted, you may even tell people to have activity in general, but telling them to randomly and generally have official duels with no reason other than wanting to see duels done, is bullshit. Certainly it is not bullshit the staff just came up with. It was forced on us, at the time, and on them now, by certain people with the arguement 'we are a ygo forum, so we have to have inner duels'."
If people don't want to do something, they're simply not going to do it. I know we have had plenty of people sign up saying they are so excited for this new tournament idea and sign up saying they wouldnt miss it for anything, then do. This, however, in my opinion, is due to the lack of our core community. We force upon these new members to be here for these events and to get them done asap, but that isn't the way we should go about treating new members. Events like tournaments should be saved for when we have a stronger core community base, with active members who come daily just to chat, simply because they want to talk with the other members here. It doesn't always have to be about ygo, nor should it.
If we have a community that has members who are friends and know one another more than just what deck they like to play, we have a community that will stick and survive even through dry spells of inactive dueling and events. It gives the members a better sense of purpose, makes them feel like they belong and have a place to come to when they don't have any responsibilities to fulfill.
Finally, if people don't want to do something, then they aren't going to do it. A better approach to tournaments in my opinion should be live ones, or in other words spontaneous ones. Tournaments that start in the chatbox because we have 8 people in the chat just talking and someone brings up "hey, while we're all online, do you guys want to have a tourney?" and then if enough people want to do it, an admin can host a tourney. After activity is a bit more stable, then maybe we can throw members tourneys done in the traditional way by posting and expecting rounds to be done by a certain date. However, until the members show that they want those tourneys and will come back for them because they enjoy tournaments and us as a community enough to be active when signing up, I think we should hold off for a bit.
One more quote:
- Spoiler:
"One last thing. I mentioned yesterday a staff member is not to do more than what another member would do in that position, and mentioned joint responsibility. That is a concept of equality. It is the WDA member that also becomes staff and acts like the WDA member that makes decisions. In a sense, for the community to be sustained by its members, that person still needs to be an equal WDA member and act like one would, however at the same time that this member that is staff, due to that equality, needs to do no more than the equal WDA member, it also needs to not ask of others to do what he/she would not do, and not ask of others to have fun with something they would not find fun themselves.
Sorry but doing duels is nobody's work."
This is to mention the roles and responsibility of admins and regular members. I don't care how we do it compared to WDA, nor is it necessary for us to follow in their footsteps on how they play their roles, but the equality idea should be more of a known thing in my opinion around the forum. Admins and members alike should be encouraged to post topics, events, articles, graphics and competitions, etc. The "burden" of creating events and regulating duels to be completed shouldn't be on the admins alone, but also on the members themselves.
That is all. I hate to drool all over WDA like I seem to do when I post my ideas on this forum, but they are one of the most successful academies I've ever been in, and they were actually the first one I ever joined when I first began dueling online ygo. They were the first out of at least 5 different forums, and they are the only one that still exists besides this one, which TWA is the last academy I've ever joined.
I will be around more often, but I can't guarantee daily activity because like I said above, as a person, I'm going to do what I want to do, and I have many friends and family I like to keep in touch with. I also hold 2 jobs for the summer in hopes to make enough for rent in the fall semester of school. I have a lot more time to be around here now that classes are out, but I'm still very busy.
I'll also mention that I really do enjoy being here, that's why I wanted to post these ideas and share them with you all. I don't want to see this place die. I want it to be more active and much more entertain rather, and I'm sick of seeing people coming in and then leaving after a few weeks.
On a side note, should I post the link to Al-Bhed's topic on activity in the forums to this thread? I didn't want to bother giving the whole thread since some didn't really pertain to us, but if any are interested in reading I'll post it. Or if any admin needs me to for copyright reasons.
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