[serious] Off Topic Moderation Input - Part 2

[The Mad Monk]

Ah, well. Worth a shot.

[The Mad Monk]

Is Dinner banned? He's currently on Counterglow and we don't know why.

[Ming]

Nope... He last posted in late May.

[Broken_Erika]

Why is there still an option for GameSpy ID in user settings?
It's been dead since February 21, 2013

[Provost Harrison]

Why is there still an option for GameSpy ID in user settings?
It's been dead since February 21, 2013

Nostalgia

[Dominikos]

Ming, when did Apolyton start suffering from low traffic? I'm genuinely curious. Did CivFanatics come out to dominate? For example, when looking at the Civ7 forums on both Poly and CivFanatics, they have thousands of posts, whereas Poly has just a few.

~ Dominikos ~

[The Mad Monk]

Very few of the regulars left still play the recent Civ games, including myself. CivIV Forevah!

[Lorizael]

Poly's been going downhill for most of its existence now, I believe. I think its peak was the Civ3/Civ4 days.

[Lorizael]

But mostly it's just that nobody uses forums anymore. CFC at least has some activity, yeah, and way more than us, but I think most community activity is on reddit, discord, and youtube.

[Broken_Erika]

Wasn't there some problem with the auto-backup resulting in several months of posts being lost?

[self biased]

Wasn't there some problem with the auto-backup resulting in several months of posts being lost?

It was that, and there was some issue with the file upload hosting. I think that when that ended up being corrupted, the modding community left in droves for CFC who had a more stable platform.

[Dominikos]

but I think most community activity is on reddit, discord, and youtube.

Interesting. I get what you're saying, but I actually find that these have a poor sense of "community". I mean, you go on YouTube, and you're going to say "hey" to your longtime discussion pals on there, build friendships, etc? Not really. The alternatives are compartmentalized; there is a plethora of them, so you have to hunt around for information. Places like Poly or CivFanatics had everything in one place. I remember that in the very late 90s and early 2000s, going to Poly was like going to your favorite local coffee shop. The regulars would be there. People knew each other. People built friendships and had long discussions. All kinds of side projects came out of it. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't exactly feel a sense of community on Reddit or YouTube. I just can't get the same experience. Some niche FB groups do replicate it a bit, but again, there is often a lack of continuity and regularity. There is no investment in getting to know people. And hell, I actually majored in the sociology of technology in university, and I feel like this.

Discussion boards built community, whereas the alternatives are fleeting interactions. Then again, we're dealing with a few generations of Civ players now, so once discussion boards dropped in popularity, younger cohorts couldn't even relate to what was lost because they didn't experience the previous communities. There is a bit of a discussion board renaissance, as people "rediscover" what was lost in community building.

I just don't feel the love when it comes to the future...

~ Dominikos ~

[Lorizael]

I don't disagree, but maybe we're just old.

[EPW]

Discord "communities" suck. Impossible to search, dominated by sociopathic mods, mostly spam. Wait a minute .. .

[Thoth]

I find Discord to be awful. It seems to have more in common with a group chat than a discussion forum.