Friends, nobles, countrymen, lend me your ears, I come to praise this forum, not to bury it!
In fact, we need to raise it out of the ground and douse it with holy water from preventing it from turning into the evil undead. Which is cool, but not in forum form. We've seen a few changes in the past year or so, many familiar faces gone, a few new faces have appeared, but rather than a spirit of growth, reconciliation and determination, much of the atmosphere of this place has become stagnation, division and despair. On a more serious note, the 'bad' posts, those of angst and hostility are beginning to outnumber those of a more upbeat tone. From a quickfire round on the QA thread last night, I've come to a few conclusions on what could possibly help the situation:
1. How about a new forum design? Any graphic artists left here who can have a go at it? We could put one together in the colour style and theme of the new 'Lost to Apathy' single cover, giving it a facelift and maybe attract a few more people. As it stands, the forum is as drab and grey as many of the other forums sharing the same colours.
2. Maybe we should have a DT sub-forum with archived material. All the threads that are becoming locked or maybe even all the current threads could be moved into the archive sub-forum, all readable so we don't lose the history, but have the forum proper fresh and ready for a new beginning?
3. We have the 'new user - post here', 'now playing - post here', 'i have returned - post here' threads, why not introduce a new one? 'Feel like ranting? - Post here'. That way, the people who want to do nothing but bitch and complain and talk about all the things pissing them off have somewhere to vent that doesn't take over and influence the feeling of threads such as the 'Now feeling', which in its early days used to be optimistic, or at least more neutral than it is now. Several people I've spoken to have said that they go to the 'Now feeling' thread these days to see whats upsetting or annoying people, such is the feeling there. Sure, if you are having a really bad day, and you want to talk about your feelings on the matter, post in a feeling thread, but if all your post comprises of is 'nf: pissed off
' or 'nf: ({)({)({)', then maybe a venting thread would be a better place to do it.
These are just a few suggestions, I know some others have a few others, and some I haven't spoken to may have a few more, but if you, like me, feel like a change, and one for the better, just add your voice to this thread, and if you have something you want to bring up, please do so.
In fact, we need to raise it out of the ground and douse it with holy water from preventing it from turning into the evil undead. Which is cool, but not in forum form. We've seen a few changes in the past year or so, many familiar faces gone, a few new faces have appeared, but rather than a spirit of growth, reconciliation and determination, much of the atmosphere of this place has become stagnation, division and despair. On a more serious note, the 'bad' posts, those of angst and hostility are beginning to outnumber those of a more upbeat tone. From a quickfire round on the QA thread last night, I've come to a few conclusions on what could possibly help the situation:
1. How about a new forum design? Any graphic artists left here who can have a go at it? We could put one together in the colour style and theme of the new 'Lost to Apathy' single cover, giving it a facelift and maybe attract a few more people. As it stands, the forum is as drab and grey as many of the other forums sharing the same colours.
2. Maybe we should have a DT sub-forum with archived material. All the threads that are becoming locked or maybe even all the current threads could be moved into the archive sub-forum, all readable so we don't lose the history, but have the forum proper fresh and ready for a new beginning?
3. We have the 'new user - post here', 'now playing - post here', 'i have returned - post here' threads, why not introduce a new one? 'Feel like ranting? - Post here'. That way, the people who want to do nothing but bitch and complain and talk about all the things pissing them off have somewhere to vent that doesn't take over and influence the feeling of threads such as the 'Now feeling', which in its early days used to be optimistic, or at least more neutral than it is now. Several people I've spoken to have said that they go to the 'Now feeling' thread these days to see whats upsetting or annoying people, such is the feeling there. Sure, if you are having a really bad day, and you want to talk about your feelings on the matter, post in a feeling thread, but if all your post comprises of is 'nf: pissed off
' or 'nf: ({)({)({)', then maybe a venting thread would be a better place to do it.These are just a few suggestions, I know some others have a few others, and some I haven't spoken to may have a few more, but if you, like me, feel like a change, and one for the better, just add your voice to this thread, and if you have something you want to bring up, please do so.
