What's happening in here?

[Vendetta21]

Sorry if that's tangential I just wish these forums were better.

[Vendetta21]

Overall though, if you are going to change the forums please for the love of god review the database and find the people who are still posting more than anyone else and talk to them about it. Don't simply talk to people who aren't posting much about the forums that is a garunteed way to get obtuse advice from people with ivory tower personal preferences bleeding into their judgment.

[V-Ormix]

[Vendetta21]

Originally Posted by V-Ormix

Goodbye FFR this is my last post ever ever ever. Right now. This post.

[Vendetta21]

Also TRD would make a really good moderator, imo.

[V-Ormix]

In a world of individuals of egotistical perception lies
the contageous cancer of meme lord cliques and sarcasm of
disney level proportion.

How can we defeat such evil?

Suggestion: We should focus on fostering originality and
creativity like FFR use to do more of. Whatever happened
to the simfile database? rhetorical question.

[Vendetta21]

Originally Posted by V-Ormix

In a world of individuals of egotistical perception lies
the contageous cancer of meme lord cliques and sarcasm of
disney level proportion.

How can we defeat such evil?

There are a few ways to do this. Most of them are somewhat simple in concept but just need people who care.

One way to generate people who care is to create sectional forum mods on a temporary basis. Each of them is the sectional mod for a short duration and their express job is to foster discussion in that section. They sticky, lock, and move threads whereas a global mod does the actual bans when necessary. The point of the sectional mod is to curate their little section of the forum and because it's always temporary there are always people who want to try their hand for a spell, and are usually motivated for their short tenure. This is stolen vis-a-via from SA and it's the most effective method of forum administration I've seen.

Another way to defeat crappy discussion environments is to create discussions that give people a sense that they are included in something. Stuff like you laugh you lose, TWG, post your picture all do this somewhat but there are ways to do that on a more intermittent basis rather than just having a few mega threads and a subforum. FFR Idol did this somewhat, forum awards do this somewhat. But forums community threads/projects like this can be distilled so they aren't quite as time intensive for the host but still have as much interest and engagement from the community, if not more. There don't even need prizes or anything of that nature they just need to be fun. People are typically more motivated by intrinsic values than extrinsic ones. We used to do a lot more of these sort of inclusive events but it has fallen by the wayside over time.

Another thing a forum community does besides just talking about our common interests is it allows us to follow discussions that help us generate new interests. The TGB dota thread has gotten people into DotA and facilitates a place for people to play together, as has the TGB fantasy football league generated an interest in fantasy football for players who have barely played it before. I am not trying to use TGB as an example excessively but I am probably one of the top 5 most active posters on the site in the last year and the vast majority of my posts are in TGB, but really the point stands that people don't just come to forums to talk about what they already like they also come to them to find new things to like. Variety is the spice of life.

Most things about getting people to share new shared interests is about establishing an environment and tone where people feel like sharing their avocations and discussing them. Tone-setting is a hard thing to do but not an impossible one, but one thing is for certain is that almost entirely impossible if the leadership isn't engaged in trying to foster that tone. And from my experience nearly every human loves discussing their interests and passions, it's simply about establishing an environment where people feel it's okay to share and that others will be responsive. That's tone, that's atmosphere. That stuff doesn't happen spontaneously without leadership who is engaged.

[Vendetta21]

Like simply getting rid of most of the stickied and saying "if you make a really good thread that fosters interesting discussion and is inclusive WE WILL sticky it" is enough of a small motivator for people. People like having their threads stickied, seeing stickied good threads and knowing this rule psychologically primes people to think about posting good threads.

[V-Ormix]

I like a *few* people perhaps wouldn't be relevant if we didn't sought after TGB? Can this "TGB" offer some thing to the mainstream interest of FFR?

I'll be honest and say I don't even know what TGB stands for.

edit: well that didn't take me long...

http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/...42&postcount=1

funny thing is, a group only makes it more attractive, but why would a place that evades its own forum rules be so popular? This is like a sanctuary city huh? I remember contemplating posting things in the garbage bin before from being bored but admittedly I just wanted attention...

edit: we conclude full circle on rules... maybe FFR *should* be a little bit more reserved as a community even while we work on more things to offer o:

[Vendetta21]

Originally Posted by V-Ormix

I like a *few* people perhaps wouldn't be relevant if we didn't sought after TGB? Can this "TGB" offer some thing to the mainstream interest of FFR?

I'll be honest and say I don't even know what TGB stands for.

TGB is the rules-lite shitposting forum and it stands for The Garbage Bin. Anyone can join but you have to request access as it is rated M for mature. And it's active because it's basically the forums version of an isolated Skype group and most people who have migrated there only post there. It's not something sought after, really, as most people who don't post there disregard it and think it's garbage. I'm just pulling it as an example because I am familiar with it and I make a lot of posts there. I sometimes post elsewhere in the forums but other than the video games subforum there really isn't any good hot spots for having a discussion about much.

TGB does offer stuff of mainstream interest to FFR it is the most active and actively browsed forum so likely 1/4 to 1/3 of the people who post here are also posting in TGB. It's a shitposting forum so you can expect shitposts but people are always trying to start new discussion. The first two pages of threads have been posted in in the last week. Chit Chat has more stickied and the first page quickly tapers to more than two week old last posts, to give a sense of activity. About 3 to 6 times more active than chit-chat.

Why does TGB do better where chit-chat fails? That's a relevant question.

[Vendetta21]

Like 95% of the threads in TGB aren't substantially more or less content worthy than the ones in chit chat and actually most of them could be considered chit chat threads if you compare the quality of the two. What is the shitty little subforum doing right that the well moderated forums with more potential posters isn't doing right?

[V-Ormix]

Maybe its just the psychological principal of not feeling your being policed at any given moment due to "TGB's" nature... sounds more inviting tbh, I'd take the opportunity to shit post over regular forums myself because I love posts of improv for entertainment.

edit: and why would forum rules be a bad thing? why would being policed matter if we were an honest enough of a community? could it be the history of policing done by the wrong people or for wrong reasons in the past that turned more seasoned posters off?

[_Zenith_]

Ahh don't you remember when TGB got closed for what, a day?

Though, V is bringing up excellent points in the TGB v Chit Chat forums, or in general the overall presentation of the Forums. I am not a part of the TGB community (even though I have access), however Chit Chat threads imho as of late have less topic content than what TGB does. TGB whilst avoiding forum rules has handfuls of topics that are more interesting/open for discussion than Chit Chat does.

There were a few specifically in TGB I thought about posting in but my perception of TGB community might be skewed, but usually when a Chit Chat topic appears it's closed within the week, or just forgotten by the end of the day where the TGB community comes back to their threads and continues discussion.

[-JiZ53-]

I think the answer is that there is less moderation(aka-basically none) and that the group of people who post there are more willing to create content. I mostly post in TGB because I would get banned if I posted similarly in other sub-forums.

[Vendetta21]

Originally Posted by V-Ormix

Maybe its just the psychological principal of not feeling your being policed at any given moment due to "TGB's" nature... sounds more inviting tbh, I'd take the opportunity to shit post over regular forums myself because I love posts of improv for entertainment.

edit: and why would forum rules be a bad thing? why would being policed matter if we were an honest enough of a community? could it be the history of policing done by the wrong people or for wrong reasons in the past that turned more seasoned posters off?

My friend, we will welcome you with (mostly) open arms into the bin.

I would say it's inviting because except for like 3 or 4 assholes that we all just tolerate everyone is pretty damn inclusive and friendly and willing to roll with the jokes. The key word is inclusive, making an effort to make people feel included.

TWG actually shares this quality. Correlation does not mean causation but I'm willing to theorize.

[V-Ormix]

I feel so welcomed :') *request sent*

[_Zenith_]

Originally Posted by V-Ormix

I feel so welcomed :') *request sent*

Gonna have to get an admin to approve because A2P is nonexistent.

[Vendetta21]

Originally Posted by _Zenith_

Gonna have to get an admin to approve because A2P is nonexistent.

Nah I will text him

[V-Ormix]

Originally Posted by Vendetta21

Nah I will text him

https://soundcloud.com/ormix/score-ja-ja-ja

[Vendetta21]

Originally Posted by _Zenith_

Gonna have to get an admin to approve because A2P is nonexistent.

Also man I know this isn't the place but can someone give manti the ability to approve TGB group requests?? It's fucking impossible to get the attention of admins around here I had to be annoying and persistent for like 2 months to get Manti as a mod.