Dried out creek...

[Izzy*dot]

There are 2 members and 6 guests browsing the forums. Record: 758 users on 24.07.2005, 17:55.  


You know people...I\'m wondering. I really can\'t imagine 758 people online at the same time at all.
I\'m really wondering...what is happening? I think I remember a time where these forums where busting with activity. At every time of the day, every time of the year...
But...Nothing much at all is happening right now. You know, I\'m studying on this computer and from time to time I\'m checking the forums. But, for example, today, nearly nothing happened. What? Maybe 5 new posts since 9am, which for me is already 5 hours ago.

Most know that I\'ve been gone for quite a while, and I\'ve been back since a couple of weeks...but there\'s something lacking. Something that used to be here, but is gone now. Another time that I was here, april 2004, there was something going on with the mods that were MUCH more severe than they used to be, and it scared the hell out of me. They banned Kiern, Link and a couple of other persons and it made me wonder too.
Nowadays, things in that area have calmed down it seems, but...everything is pretty dead? O.o

Anyway, I just wanted to get this off my mind. What has happened that this jewel of a community has gone from a mighty river of people to a dried out little creek somewhere in the middle of nowhere? Or am I mistaken?
I think I can pretty well compare things, perhaps better even than the people who stayed here all the time, because everytime I come back I instantly see the changes. Now, ofcourse I can be wrong, but this is how I saw it, this is how I think of it.

Now tell me...

[Draklar]

The forums were ever more active?

That 758 is probably filled with bots or whatever too and doesn\'t count as a real user count :P

Edit: Oh yeah, we had Cabal..

[Izzy*dot]

They were, Drak, they were...

I mean...during the time of the Three Word Story for example, I think you can remember that People were flooding these forums, there was a posts boom and so on. Three Word Story was growing as hell, all other threads too. That was one of those times.

And we had Cabal...

[Draklar]

Yeah, personally I prefer if forums are slow, but of high quality... Or at least medium quality when we talk about PS ones :P
I wouldn\'t exchange that for high activity if it meant returning of Savions, Axsyruses and whatever else :P

[Izzy*dot]

Isn\'t fast AND high quality an option then?

If one desires to go OT, or make a non planeshift or even utter retarded thread, let them go Hydlaa Plaza, it\'s made for that purpose. I, for one, don\'t see the purpose of deleting posts in Hydlaa Plaza because they are OT. That\'s like, throwing someone out of a pub because he\'s drinking beer.

It IS really possible to get a much more frequented forum, WITH high quality planeshift related posts. The way the mods tried to solve the quality problem in april 2004, well I don\'t know but I personally didn\'t think it was that good. I hardly ever have deleted posts, and all my count of 6 all come from that period...one week of posting in that period gave me 6 deleteds, some of then not deserved at all. But Venge just said \"I don\'t wish to give reasons for every post we delete\" and that was that, they were the mods and they deleted because they thought it was needed. But that was too severe, man.

By the way, I don\'t think we can complain about the quality in the majority of posts, can we?

[Draklar]

Retarded threads don\'t belong to Hydlaa Plaza. It isn\'t  an \"as long as it\'s off-topic, it\'ll do\" section. Check its description :P

And yeah, I know what you mean. Most of my 42 unfortunate posts were deleted in that period :P
(the rest was deleted when suddenly Moogie decided to change rules of faces thread)

I am a member in certain active and high quality forums, but yeah... They had such sections as General Discussions (off-topic chat) and Junkyard (the retarded threads :P), but eventually they removed the latter.

To have both high quality and active forums, you have to atract mature and reasonable people. To do that it isn\'t advised to put up with such things as \"retarded threads\" :P

[Izzy*dot]

Bah, you know what I mean with retarded

Off-topic chat board. Please do all your chit-chatting here. Moderators will delete obvious spam, overly hateful flames, and cussing but otherwise you have free reign to sink as low as you want.

Obvious spam, right? Well, when is something obvious spam? Off-Topic is off topic right? Anyway, I didn\'t start this to question the action of mods and the rulesystem of these boards
Oh and uhm about the attracting mature and reasonable people...You always have to cope with the weirdos, I know I\'m a complete weirdo and immature..thing sometimes, but hey...
It IS possible
What I meant is that something\'s gone...This place was once bursting with life.

[Draklar]

Off-topic doesn\'t mean stupid threads. Off-topic in this case means anything unrelated to Planeshift :P
It should be as strict on spam-hunting as in any other section.

Anyway, I believe the reason why the activity went somewhat down is that there\'s actually something to do inside of the actual game :P
MB was... just a 3D chat program with a crystal hunt function, so it gave enough time to browse forums as well :P

[Bereror]

Originally posted by Izzy*dot
What I meant is that something\'s gone...This place was once bursting with life.

Here are some facts that seem to support you:
79250 posts last year --> 217 posts/day
39114 posts last 6 months --> 214 posts/day
18494 posts last 3 months --> 203 posts/day
5216 posts last month --> 173 posts/day
1017 posts last week --> 145 posts/day

[Draklar]

Last month was december... That means preparations for holidays and exams for some people. It should be expected for number of posts made to decrease.

Last week was the period between Christmas and new year.

All this supports nothing :P

[Bereror]

Originally posted by Draklar
All this supports nothing

Of course it doesn\'t It was just my humble attempt to bring some life to the forums by saying something that can be easily proved wrong :] In a fact, there are almost identical number of posts made during the first and second half of the last year.

[Draklar]

Yeah, with the fact being second half of the year has a reduced post count due to containing December :P

[Drey]

7/2005... sounds like server down time between an update

[Kiern]

Disregarding new releases the forums have pretty much always been like this, so I really don\'t see what you\'re talking about Izzy.  And I much prefer this slow part to the new releases with the influx of people making repetitive posts to the point anymore making good posts stop coming here.

Well, ok, there is a lot less forum \"regulars\" or personalities then usual I guess.  There are the older people who pop in every now and then and then the in-game people who do the same.  But this is probably because the game is slowly becoming more and more playable.  I can imagine it won\'t get any better then it currently is here.

Originally posted by Izzy*dot
Another time that I was here, april 2004, there was something going on with the mods that were MUCH more severe than they used to be, and it scared the hell out of me. They banned Kiern, Link and a couple of other persons and it made me wonder too.

Oddly enough, this was the most entertained I\'ve been on the forums (not counting pre-MB).  At least at the beginning because it gave me something to do, I wasn\'t around for the latter half of it (which is probably how I avoided getting a high deletion count, these almost all came afterwards in one thread really).  We lost Alucard then, however.

The Cabal were fun but they eventually got repetitive.

[Izzy*dot]

Oh well...

I don\'t know exactly where this feeling of mine is coming from, Kiern...Perhaps indeed it\'s just because we have a lot less regulars...It is possible that these forums are still as frequented as they used to be, but I don\'t feel it.
But you and some others have made a point that I hadn\'t thought about. The game is indeed becoming more playable, there\'s more to do, there are more people I guess.. So yeah, indeed, if there\'s the choice between hanging around ingame or hanging around here, the choice is mostly clear I guess.

Oh and I can believe you had fun in 2004 Venge said you were repeatedly attacking one mod personally or something, and ignoring the warnings This being the reason for you not being around the second half of this fun period where many posts died in battle...
But we lost a fair amount of people