WHY ARE THESE FORUMS RELATIVELY INACTIVE?

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Particularly when *web seems to be restrict all registrations. 5 days, still waiting. O.o
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I don't have access to the stats to see where, or how, the userbase interacts with the site. What I do question is what you mean by restricting registrations, and this reference to "5 days, still waiting". Waiting for what, exactly?

*Edit: If this waiting time concerns a submission to the site, it can take about a week for submissions to be looked over. This approximation can vary, based on how busy the submission managers are with matters outside of RMN. My personal rule of thumb is, that after two weeks, if there is still no word of the submission being accepted/denied, that might be when one starts to consider sending a PM to Liberty.
No, I mean, waiting for an account to be 'approved' on that other site that ends with 'web', not here. 5 days since I registered, but still can't post. I was then just wondering how people can use that site more, when this one is saner with registrations.
We also have restrictions here for new members in order to make sure that bots don't descend apon us like the horde they are. Sometimes it's not what you'd think, in those regards. XDDD

I'd imagine they get a LOT more spam accounts than we do and we get about 100 per day (with one or two slipping through), so it's understandable why they'd want to have more stringent protections in place.
Not sure waiting 5+ days and likely more, if ever, is merely 'stringent', though (here there was what, just a captcha?)

It's just surprising that there's even a lot of active posters, one would think that if they take forever to approve accounts that they'd have no one. I've registered on a few other forums that require approval before, and I've forgotten about them soon after.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
I don't intend to be rude, but I'm going to be rude at some point.

This is a game development site. If you ask a question, you'll usually get an answer unless we just don't know and will therefore not waste your time. After all, you've asked a question and two people quickly responded to you in this very thread. Now a third. One is the admin and one is a moderator. You can tell because their names are different colors from ours.

Here's the part where I'm probably going to be rude, but don't intend to be:

Should we let our security down and allow spambots to flood our site with thousands of messages per day because you're going to forget about this forum after a while?
As I said, this isn't about this site, I was merely wondering why there's no more people in comparison, as a balance would be useful.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
Okay, the main reason is because of the Discord server RMN has. Everyone's there. We use the main site for tutorials, articles, assistance, job requests, events and such, but most actual conversation and even a lot of coordination is going on in the RMN Discord server.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
RPG Maker Web is the official English site for the RPG Maker series of engines. So, yes, they are going to have more stringent rules and regulations for allowing new members than a more niche site like this one. My best advise, as far as RMW's registration is concerned, is to be patient.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

Because all of us got old..............

Honestly, I just blame Discord since that's where most people chat/hang out these days (myself included). Forums are gradually becoming more and more of a relic of the internet's past. They'll always be around, but they're a lot less crucial and relevant than they used to be, and services such as Discord have largely replaced them as the top way for sites to build and grow a community.
I feel like it's more reddit has replaced the need for specialized forums because why go through the hassle of setting up a phpbb when you can just make a subreddit(and then a discord) where people that have accounts already can post. There's still a use for a passive/archiveable social space, it's just that now the internet consists of like 3 websites.

I find discords kind of noisy and I'm inactive most of the time anyway because I'm old.
author=Darken
I find discords kind of noisy


You're 100% right !

In Discord, the relevant information quickly get lost in long thread.

In the forums, the many topics with appropriate titles make it easy to find and interact in the topics that are relevant to you.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
Irog
Darken
I find discords kind of noisy
You're 100% right !

In Discord, the relevant information quickly get lost in long thread.

In the forums, the many topics with appropriate titles make it easy to find and interact in the topics that are relevant to you.


It's why I think it's really important to keep the help forums right here on the main site. It really does get messy on Discord. Discord works great for direct interaction and organizing events and such, and it's a great alternative to potentially super slow forum games, but for stuff that people would actually want to be able to reference, Discord just doesn't cut it.
iddalai
RPG Maker 2k/2k3 for life, baby!!
1194
author=UPRC
Forums are gradually becoming more and more of a relic of the internet's past. They'll always be around .


No they wont. Forums will go the way of the Floppy, CD, Guest-Book, Response Videos, Flash and other stuff people thought would be around forever.

In all those instances, it was said none of that stuff was going anywhere. But now they're gone and in a lot of cases replaced with inferior stuff.
author=iddalai
author=UPRC
Forums are gradually becoming more and more of a relic of the internet's past. They'll always be around .
No they wont. Forums will go the way of the Floppy, CD, Guest-Book, Response Videos, Flash and other stuff people thought would be around forever.

In all those instances, it was said none of that stuff was going anywhere. But now they're gone and in a lot of cases replaced with inferior stuff.


Can't say I agree. People will always look for places to discuss things. In my opinion, forums are more popular than ever - the format is just different and they are relegated to the most popular websites. Reddit and Facebook Groups are essentially forums, even though they may not look like 2000s-style message boards. That being said, I do much prefer the older message board style format and long for forums like RMN to become as popular as they were 15-20 years ago.
iddalai
RPG Maker 2k/2k3 for life, baby!!
1194
author=dethmetal
author=iddalai
author=UPRC
Forums are gradually becoming more and more of a relic of the internet's past. They'll always be around .
No they wont. Forums will go the way of the Floppy, CD, Guest-Book, Response Videos, Flash and other stuff people thought would be around forever.

In all those instances, it was said none of that stuff was going anywhere. But now they're gone and in a lot of cases replaced with inferior stuff.
Can't say I agree. People will always look for places to discuss things. In my opinion, forums are more popular than ever - the format is just different and they are relegated to the most popular websites. Reddit and Facebook Groups are essentially forums, even though they may not look like 2000s-style message boards. That being said, I do much prefer the older message board style format and long for forums like RMN to become as popular as they were 15-20 years ago.


I wasn't clear enough, I don't mean to say that the concept of "forums" will disappear, new services similar to Discord will surely live on, but "forums" as we know them will disappear. My main concern is that old posts from years ago will be harder and harder to find due to the nature of the new Discord-like services.

I'm just waiting for Reddit to take the plunge into the new age and "modernize" their forums. It will happen as more and more people drop old style forums and look for the new Discord-like alternatives.

Facebook is only used by people from older generations, the new generations couldn't care less about it. This means that eventually it will need to adapt or die.

Note that I don't agree with any of this, I'm just pointing it out.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
That's the beauty of forums like this. They're easy to search. Not only that, but we've actually got this site organized into tutorials, resources, scripts, and all that good stuff. The good thing about Discord is that they don't delete old posts as Slack did, but they're still really difficult to search because there's no real way to index outside of channels.

Places like Discord may stifle forums like this a bit, but as long as they can't be used as a reliable archive, forums like this aren't going anywhere soon.
author=pianotm
That's the beauty of forums like this. They're easy to search. Not only that, but we've actually got this site organized into tutorials, resources, scripts, and all that good stuff. The good thing about Discord is that they don't delete old posts as Slack did, but they're still really difficult to search because there's no real way to index outside of channels.

Places like Discord may stifle forums like this a bit, but as long as they can't be used as a reliable archive, forums like this aren't going anywhere soon.


Agree, easily and friendly navigation that we need
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
Like folks have already said, a lot of these conversations have just moved to different places. "Fast" communication like IMs and IRC moved to Discord, Twitter, and Facebook. "Slow" communication moved to Reddit, YouTube... even Steam Discussion forums.

On one hand, it makes perfect sense - I remember the frustration of having to use four different instant messaging programs to catch up between different friend groups, and a dozen different forums means signing in with new accounts, setting up avatars, learning the UI, etc. etc.

On the other hand, there are a lot of dangers to centralizing all of your communication in just a couple of places (alongside thousands of other totally different groups). For one, the owners don't have the control to customize it to suit the users - RMN is a perfect example of a game archive + forum + event + developer help site that you just can't really do on Reddit or Facebook. Also, if the company who runs one of those aggregate sites (Discord, Reddit, etc.) happens to be garbage for some reason - bad moderation, shitty ethics, impossible to work with - there's sometimes nothing you can do about it. Like, YouTube is so useful for finding videos and it's become a huge boon to a lot of people, but every time they change how ads work or how their algorithms recommend things, it can upset people's expectations and also screw over the people trying to use it.

I've personally been torn on this issue for a while. I do kind of love Twitter as a way of keeping up with game developers and artists I like. I've heard of things I probably never would have on smaller, niche forums. I've met a ton of people I love talking to on there, and I've even gotten some opportunities to work with folks I never would have otherwise! On the flip, it's also absolutely exhausting, it creates FOMO by design, it's often incredibly poorly moderated, sometimes you have random encounters with angry assholes, and it's become such an engrained part of a developer's connection with their fans and peers that it can be really difficult to opt out of.

Meanwhile, there are some folks I've met on RMN that I genuinely love talking to..! At least, a few years ago, when I was more active... Long conversations about game design, writing, our goals that just don't happen as easily elsewhere (the most I do now is like, 20-tweet chains with Craze, which is still not the same). I can't tell if that's the natural effect of people getting older and busier with their lives, but regardless, it feels like mass/social/centralized media really hastened that change. That could just be a personal thing, too - I use Twitter as a method of sharing my work as a creator, and reach is limited on small forums.

... anyway, people have moved away from personal forums, but we lost something along the way and I think our new centralized media doesn't really suffice.

(It's probably not the long registration wait)
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