Will we die out?

Jay_Dee said:

This website is about socialisation, too. Or it wouldn't have the forums or the T&C at all.
Sites can have multiple focuses, believe it or not.

You know, at first I thought you said this website is about "socialism."

Joining video game contests would not be a bad idea, and it would definitely bring more advertising to the site, but I don't know how well it would work to bring people to the forums. What if we had some text on the Cheats/Hints/Questions pages that said something along the lines of, "Can't find what you're looking for, try visiting our Forums!" With a link to the forum for that particular game. Of course, that would require having a forum for most new games that come out, which we don't currently.

Well, there is the 'Latest Forum Posts' section on basically every single page, but it would definitely be an improvement to have links directly to the game's forum.
Better advertising of the forums, in general, would be nice.
Hell... may as well go for a better site layout. xD

Why don't new forums get created for new games? It can't take more then a few minutes to do, can it?

It probably doesn't take that long, and there is a topic in S&P where you can suggest new forums, however seeing how inactive the Video Game Boards are, they probably wouldn't get much activity, so the Roots probably don't see much use in adding new forums.

« Last edited by Keyblade21 on Mar 14th 2012 »

How I see it is, if you get people to stick around, you'll get more out of them. Forums help people stick around. If they come in and find a community of people, they'll be more likely to stick around. People who stick around are more likely to make more submissions. The more submissions that are made, the more people come to the site. The more people come to the site, the more people come to the forums, and the snake bites its tail.

I think the forums should be highlighted much more than they are now. There are still those who wish to be part of a forum community, no matter what you say about Twitter or Facebook or what have you.

Well there is that, but there are so many games, think about how many forums there would be. More game forums would attract more members, but there would be so many games that it would be hard to find a specific one.

We'd only -really- need forums for the games that are played, and that members want to talk about. There are some forums on this site that have been around since '08, and have about... zero posts in them.

Obviously not contributing much.

If the forums were highlighted more, we'd get more users.
Those users would not only post in current forums, but may also suggest more forums - and forums that would -actually- be posted in.
Server runs out of space? Oh, look. The entire T&C bored can be removed. Half of the completely dead forums can be removed (though, considering (again) that some have zero posts in them, that wouldn't free much space up).

It's as simple as that. :p

Yeah, your right.

T&C is one of the few places that is still active, so i think it should stay. I mean if worst comes to worst it can be removed, yeah. But that will probably either make most of the T&C people leave, or they will get on less and less.

Well I think that soon there will be an option for any game to be commented on which can start any sort of discussion. I would love to be able to chat to people about Persona and Dragon Quest or Suikoden but no one talks about them here at all.

I don't mean the T&C section, Seth. Insanely, insanely terrible idea to remove that. haha.
I mean the old Forum Boards, that can't be posted in anymore.

Nikki, yeah. I think I remember that being suggested somewhere... it'd be very nice. Maybe have forums automatically created when someone comments on a game or something.
I think Emeraldrafael, from T&C, is into the Persona series. I feel as if you've talked to him before, but maybe not about that. New conversation topics with him, maybe? :p

Ah yeah, well that would make more sense Julian.

I thought you had lost it when you said remove T&C.

No. Despite some of the things I say, I -do- have common sense. xD

I'll believe that when i see it.
/tellingthetruthnomatterwhatthecost

Okay, sounds good.

Random idea: perhaps every major system should just have a forum that all game discussion goes in. Instead of having a whole forum to discuss something like Grandia and something else like Crash Bandicoot, just have a PS1 forum and have different threads made for different games. These threads would be much more active and could be for "general" purpose: talking about the game, asking questions, fangirling, and so on. Very popular series could have forums to themselves, as has already happened.

I'm not quite clear on how the new game commenting system is going to work, but if it's better than that, I'm for it.

NEVER!
We still got a good crowd here, maybe not what it was like back earlier but still pretty good. And I think that as far as the nice little bar at the top of this site goes it is pretty well layed out. The best anyone could do is tell their friends about this place and stuff. But with facebook and twitter and all that up I really don't think this site is ever going to be as big as it was before. We will still get a goood amount of people here and activity but not so much.

And video games are still insanely popular so any gaming site is pretty good. Supercheats is a good name and most people should assume it isn't just about cheats on their first visit here.

idk two people posting a lot of crap in multiple topics =/= activity

^This one aint too bad XD


« Last edited by balthiersbit on Mar 19th 2012 »

dark_wolf_33 said:

Random idea: perhaps every major system should just have a forum that all game discussion goes in. Instead of having a whole forum to discuss something like Grandia and something else like Crash Bandicoot, just have a PS1 forum and have different threads made for different games. These threads would be much more active and could be for "general" purpose: talking about the game, asking questions, fangirling, and so on. Very popular series could have forums to themselves, as has already happened.

I'm not quite clear on how the new game commenting system is going to work, but if it's better than that, I'm for it.

It's a lot better than it used to be with the hubs, but yeah. If we removed everything except the active hubs and the general boards (merged the old topics into the general topics if you wanted to keep site history) then it'd be ok.

lol of course we'll die out. like any site, it won't last forever unless incredible changes are made.

of course, we could use the "it's more active in the summer" excuse.

This site is dry. The rules are becoming too stringent, and with that lack of freedom comes a lack of willing to actually want to stay on a forum that is becoming more and more oppressive.

It seems you can barely post an opinion around here any more without a over zealous and under qualified super moderator swooping in to tell you how one tiny part of your post was against rule #240,395.

Excitement and enthusiasm is drying up as are the quality members. Out of every forum I've ever seen, this is easily the most oppressive out of them all. In a day and age where Facebook now rules supreme for socializing, the word censors and rules for just about everything on this site are killing its already thinning chances of survival. Why would they come on here to talk to a bunch of people they don't know with all these conditions when they could curse and swear the night away about anything they want to, to people that they actually do know on Facebook? Can't think of an answer? That's because there isn't one.

This site needs to loosen up and learn to live a little. Yeah yeah I know I'll get some sort of "blah blah family friendly we need to have these censors", but that's complete and utter bull shite. These days swearing is about as common as breathing. It's not that big of a deal to be honest. Censoring minimal-offence swear words is part of what I'm talking about when I talk about this site being too stringent. You're grooming these forums for an audience aged around 10-11, which is so stupid beyond comprehension. Your target audience should be around 16-20, as they're the ones who actually have computer literacy, have money to buy games, and are actually more likely to come online to seek help be it on the main site, or forums.

And for that target audience, you need to abolish these rules regarding discussion topics. We live in a world where opinions are becoming more and more widely noticed, and everyone has one. Censoring sensitive topics is being ignorant of the problem, and it's only by accepting them and allowing them to be discussed that problems get resolved. This goes for sex, religion, death and killing etc. The target audience you SHOULD be targeting will likely have opinions on these matters, and that can only be good for the activity of the site. However I'm sure they're afraid of sharing any opinion without having their comments deleted, warned, and told to cut the crap before they're banned. This site exists (or rather should exist) as a place for good discussion, and what this good discussion is should be up to those who discuss it, not to those who decide maybe it's not appropriate for a select few members.This place seems more and more like a politically correct parental filter, only allowing the nice and wonderful things through. The world is harsh, and censoring the bad parts of it doesn't make them go away.

If you continue to market and groom this site for 10 and 11 year old's, it's just a matter of time before it sinks into oblivion. And I say this not as there being a chance of it happening, because there is no chance for this site to survive on it's current path. Here's the bottom line, harsh as it may be;

The forums/site are/is going to die soon.

Oh but Benji how can we stop this? Loosen up. Simple as that. Here's what needs to be done.

- Get rid of the pedantic word filters. I mean honestly, they're a joke.
- Get rid of incompetent authority gluttonous staff. They're deleting posts or warning members for seemingly every post these days. They're needlessly ban-happy. I'm not mentioning names here, but I know who they are, and a lot of others here know who they are too.
- Get rid of the "family friendly" image you're trying to portray. It's the complete wrong way of doing things. (I'd like to point out the most successful and popular games (eg, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Crysis etc.) these days are addressed and rated for mature audiences, so this focus on pre-pubescent kids is glaringly stupid. They can't play those games, therefore they are not going to contribute to conversation, and what conversation they will contribute will be rubbish, because they're 11 and 12 for gods sake).
- There are a lot of rules that could probably be majorly annotated or abolished. And by a lot, I mean nearly all of them. They're just going to far, and are relating back to staff who are choking from their greed of authority and power and wanting to be influential and feared.

These points aren't too much work. Take it from a marketing major, you're addressing the wrong target audience and you're suffering from it. It's showing. I've been here longer than most of the members, and the drop in activity has been alarming to say the least. What this forum achieves activity wise in the space of a month, the 2005-2007 Supercheats achieved in a day easily.

I don't expect any of my points to be taken note of. The valued and active members have been screaming these points I'm highlighting for years and they've simply been ignored. Partially that lack of consideration and value for their opinion, grouped with the over zealous moderation/moderators, add in a little bit of overkill rules and you've got a recipe for any self respecting member to up and leave - and they have. That's why I am never here any more unless there is something important I'd like to share my opinion on. I don't know why I'm bothering to highlight these points again, perhaps I just have a false glimmer of hope that maybe this time around the points I'm arising may actually be taken heed of. I'm not getting my hopes up at all though.

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if this post was deleted. Or if by some miracle my opinion is allowed to stand, it'll potentially be moved to the staff forum so that the very staff that I'm saying are incompetent can ponder over it and likely dismiss it because they're incapable of accepting valid points. There's a cruel and depressing irony to all of this, if it were in fact to happen.

Rich, for gods sake I've tried for years to have you hear the points I'm bringing up. I want the best for this site as much as anyone, and others have pulled the wool over your eyes for years as to what truly is best. Please just read what I am saying and think about it for a while. A post in this thread to confirm you've read what I've said would be a nice gesture.