Trollheart

I would have agreed a few years back, but I'd have to say that now things are a lot more... mellow? I used to have knock-down fights with people here, but I guess I've become a little more thick-skinned now, and that drama as such doesn't really happen much, if at all. I would have to say that some of this improvement has to be lain at the feet of Marie Monday, who has in quite a short time become a legend among mods, and can really keep people in line while not being a spoilsport.

For me though, the real cause of the slow death of the forum is a lack of participation and/or interest. It's hard to keep making threads nobody cares about (ie all of mine) and attempt to keep a sense of fun and contribution going when nobody responds. The feeling is definitely, to me anyway, of a lot of people sitting back in armchairs watching the forum, but not ready to haul their asses out of those chairs and take part. That's fine if it's what people want to do, but if so, then nobody should be surprised we're going down. Of course, I've said this before, but maybe it needs to be reiterated. To a great extent, the sense of, if you will, community is gone, and it's more like a clubhouse where people used to meet and have fun, but which now is only occasionally visited by people who pop in to read the free newspapers.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

rubber soul

We do seem to have an upswing in new membership though and at least some of them are staying (Ayn Marx, Music collector, to name a couple) so I wouldn't count us out quite yet.

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Trollheart

All I want to know is, did the admins provide enough lifeboats, because if not, I'm dressing as a woman!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

adidasss

Yep, I noticed this in 2018 when I rejoined, the atmosphere was quite toxic and I did my best to point it out. It has gotten better because the principal offenders have either left or have started posting a lot less.

There's also the major gripe I had/have about a certain toxic person who unfortunately has their name in bold. That situation is apparently irreversible and has caused at least one potentially very interesting poster to bail.

But hey, whattayougonnado...

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“Think of what a paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise.” - Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle.

Last.fm

Marie Monday

thank you trolls but you give me much more credit than I deserve. I agree that more participation is actually what makes the forum active, which relates both to features like guybrush suggests (such as plug/discord voice chat) and to initiatives like you mention (you do the 6pack thread for instance and YorkeDaddy had some good ideas a while back when he was more active). I doubt that moving to another place would help with that though. We have a forum that's very easy to find, a discord for the voice chat stuff, and the means for all these initiatives and opportunities in our hands. It's mostly just passivity, of which I'm guilty too.

I think there is an aspect to the decline in activity of this forum that's hard and maybe pointless to fight. Forums are outdated so we don't attract many younger people (and we're insular which doesn't help) and the older people often seem to become less active exactly because they're getting older. We're busy, lives change. And I think switching to a medium that attracts a young crowd might defeat the purpose of this place.

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The Batlord

I would imagine a lot of involvement dropped when people started posting more from phones. I mean even social media based around phones is based around short posts that probably don't even qualify as paragraphs.

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SGR

Unless you're a boomer using Facebook mobile posting a novella about your day on your wall

Marie Monday

Ye I notice that too in my own case. If I'm busy and quickly check mb on my phone during breakfast I'm less inclined to contribute more than a ****post and a banned spammer

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Trollheart

You can get the internet on your phone now??

When you're such a long-winded poster as me, writing on your phone is right out. I have no reason to do so; I could (but I don't) check in while downstairs if something was important, but I'd be just as likely, were a reply to be needed, to leg it up the stairs and bash at my keyboard. I bloody hate writing on my phone, including texts and whatsapps.

When I started this thread it was merely to inform everyone that I had a lifeboat waiting in case the ship went down; it quickly metamorphosed into a "let's sink the ship" or "let's threaten to sink the ship" or even "let's abandon the ship", none of which was my intention. For now, I think we accept our - in some cases metaphorical, in others literal - middle age and settle down to do what we do and not worry too much about the future. Putin will probably sort it all out for us anyway. Let's just enjoy what time we got.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

ribbons

Thanks everyone for your comments and I do agree with all of you to a great extent. Apologies if my post seemed overly negative (this is why I don't banter much, because I'm not very good at bantering!). I actually have mixed emotions about this whole discussion. My point was that there was quite a corrosive atmosphere here for many years - and I think once that problem took root and was allowed to fester for so long, members bolted and we became the much smaller community existing here today.

No he doesn't. I also noticed a positive turn when you became a Mod, Marie. You keep things in line without being a spoilsport, as TH said. And you are honest and fair and an extremely decent person (which I've been the lucky beneficiary of more than a few times in the past).