to me I feel like there are far less casual/social topics recently on board 8 than in the past. I have a few ideas about this myself, although maybe this is just an issue of my perspective.
still, it seems like almost every topic on the board right now is either related to some contest (Save My, Rate The, Best _____, Rate The, VGM etc.), an ongoing project (playthrough, so and so watches such and such, podcast, etc.), or some sort of long-running discussion topic (contest stats topic, various anime topics, iconsience, transience video game topic)
when it comes to the latter, a lot of them feel pretty stagnant to me. I can't speak definitively on all of the long-running discussion topics on the board because I only frequent a few of them and don't follow all of them, but that's the impression I've been getting. worse, people seem to focus their time and energy posting in specific topics on the board but we rarely see anyone just making random casual social topics these days. the only people who ever post that kind of stuff now are like Ayuyu, Anagram, etc. the kind of people who no one wants to talk to.
and like I'm not even talking about the 'glory days' or whatever that Smurf and other caricatures still yearn for. I just mean as recently as like 2-3 years ago the amount of regular social activity on the board seemed to be much higher.
I dunno. is it just me? or am I onto something here?
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there's a place beyond that gate, a place where you can get away http://i.imgur.com/2HInn.jpg
Only social discussion i have on the board these days is about wrestling
yeah wrestling topic is another good example of one very narrow, specific discussion topic that a small and generally fixed group of people still post in. but like, how often do you see those people make general topics or posts outside of the wrestling topics, you know? I guess that illustrates my point
From: JeffreyRaze | #004
Hm. I need to start posting more >_>
I think everyone needs to start posting more again. we've all become a board full of lurkers as of late it seems.
From: Karrablast | #008
I think most of us have just started casually talking to board 8ers off the board now.
this is part of the cause of the issue in my opinion. a lot of the casual/social discussion has moved off of the board onto aim or into chats and so people just interact with each other that way instead of making topics. PMs probably don't help either (though I don't know if anyone uses them a lot) since they eliminate the need for even ATTN topics.
and like I was saying before in response to TimJab, a lot of the discussion that was left behind is basically fragmented into specific social groups that don't interact with the general board populace much anymore
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there's a place beyond that gate, a place where you can get away http://i.imgur.com/2HInn.jpg
From: Karrablast | #008 I think most of us have just started casually talking to board 8ers off the board now. Eh, b8chat's been around for a long time now.
Well, the fact that there are fewer people here nowadays probably has something to do with it, but yeah, I agree.
to be fair I don't blame people at all. I mean, imagine leaving the board for a while and then coming back to find social activity at the low levels it's at now. there's basically no reason for them (the ones who have left) to come back and start posting again.
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there's a place beyond that gate, a place where you can get away http://i.imgur.com/2HInn.jpg
I think most of us have just started casually talking to board 8ers off the board now.
Can't speak for people in general, but I know this is true of me over the past couple years. If I want to randomly socialize with board 8ers I'll usually do it in chat. The board itself is more a contests/projects thing for me.
-- another place and time, without a great divide, and we could be flying deadly high
A number of the topics you mentioned do have a social aspect to them, though. The people who follow a project or participate in contests daily tend to talk to each other in those topics. It's not entirely the same thing, but it's still something.
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http://i50.tinypic.com/23qx00.jpg "First time I got punched in the face, I was like "oh no", then I was like "this is a story"."
I would post more, but most of the things I think of feel unimportant at best
heh, well in a way you have the rare gift to recognize that at least. imagine if you made a topic about every stupid thing that happened to you or every dumb thought that popped into your head and turned into a regular Ayuyu, you know? I mean, I don't think it's the responsibility of every poster to be able to make interesting topics and generate discussion ALL the time. my major complaint is that the board as a whole has just totally fallen off in this regard.
From: GANON1025 | #015
more like bored 8
LOL
From: mnkboy907 | #017
A number of the topics you mentioned do have a social aspect to them, though. The people who follow a project or participate in contests daily tend to talk to each other in those topics. It's not entirely the same thing, but it's still something.
yes I know they do but I'm specifically talking about just random topics made by users that don't have a specific purpose to them. someone just has an interesting talking point or a thought they want to discuss, or something interesting happens to them and they share said thought or story with the board. those kinds of topics are the main reason I was interested in board 8 in the first place but now it seems like that aspect of the board has faded away.
like, people prefer to JUST post in SMFFFC topics and talk about SMFFFC now instead of fraternizing with the entire board 8
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there's a place beyond that gate, a place where you can get away http://i.imgur.com/2HInn.jpg
There was a large social uptick in the last 1-2 years usually dealing with sex and conquests (or lack thereof) with women. Those were fun to read through and topics always got heated, but it seems like just another phase that has passed. I don't see those topics as much anymore and they rarely generate as much debate.
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Yoblazer: http://i44.tinypic.com/5nw45i.jpg Watch and you'll see... someday I'll be... part of your world!
Every "random topic" that generally gets made ends up with the TC getting trolled by the usual crowd so I'm not too surprised there's a lack of them. You can't complain about the community not being active if the community is hostile. Generally that deters people from wanting to have a general conversation.
And besides the threads you mentioned, every other topic is the daily troll by SephG, Sess or MWC so I'm not exactly sure what you expect.
I'd say 2 or MAYBE 3 years personally. we've probably been gradually moving in this direction but we're definitely at an all-time low that's not even comparable to what the board was like 4 years ago.
I'm pretty sure 4 years ago Palmer was still here and was well-liked, so yeah. think about that.
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there's a place beyond that gate, a place where you can get away http://i.imgur.com/2HInn.jpg
Every "random topic" that generally gets made ends up with the TC getting trolled by the usual crowd so I'm not too surprised there's a lack of them. You can't complain about the community not being active if the community is hostile. Generally that deters people from wanting to have a general conversation.
that's because almost all of them at this point are just made by the same few annoying people that no one wants to talk with. you don't see people trolling this topic, do you?
And besides the threads you mentioned, every other topic is the daily troll by SephG, Sess or MWC so I'm not exactly sure what you expect.
well I just ignore the random trolling topics for the most part. I know with a closed community like board 8 that's hard to do since so little goes on you can't just ignore the fact that SOMETHING mildly interesting is happening. for me though it's like, eh, it's not even worth it. those topics seriously bore me because it's always the same thing at this point.
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there's a place beyond that gate, a place where you can get away http://i.imgur.com/2HInn.jpg
Every "random topic" that generally gets made ends up with the TC getting trolled by the usual crowd so I'm not too surprised there's a lack of them. You can't complain about the community not being active if the community is hostile. Generally that deters people from wanting to have a general conversation.
And besides the threads you mentioned, every other topic is the daily troll by SephG, Sess or MWC so I'm not exactly sure what you expect.
Bulls***. If any topics get derailed by trolls, it's the ones that I make.
-- MRNICEWATCH - Somebody call the Brinks truck! I INVENTED POSTING - This fo' Trayvon...
Point was that the way those people are treated probably discourages anyone from wanting to talk about certain things on this board. You can't really write it off as those people being people "no one wants to talk to" because some people are just rude to almost everyone.
That's why I enjoy the contests I participate in as well as the occasional ranking topic. I know who to expect in the topics and those are the people I care to socialize with. Most of the time those I do not like simply do not enter the topics because they don't like them, so that works out pretty well for me. If I were to make some sort of general topic however, I would probably draw responses out of trolls.
Point was that the way those people are treated probably discourages anyone from wanting to talk about certain things on this board. You can't really write it off as those people being people "no one wants to talk to" because some people are just rude to almost everyone.
That's why I enjoy the contests I participate in as well as the occasional ranking topic. I know who to expect in the topics and those are the people I care to socialize with. Most of the time those I do not like simply do not enter the topics because they don't like them, so that works out pretty well for me. If I were to make some sort of general topic however, I would probably draw responses out of trolls.
it's unfortunate that you feel that way but honestly I really doubt that would happen and to be frank I seriously doubt that's the reason why people don't make as many social topics. that might be the reason for a few people such as yourself but I don't think most people on board 8 have a fear of being made fun of and harassed if they make a topic.
additionally, I think you could pretty easily just ignore people who are blatantly trying to troll you and only respond to the people who engage in interesting discussions anyway!
From: PartOfYourWorld | #021
There was a large social uptick in the last 1-2 years usually dealing with sex and conquests (or lack thereof) with women. Those were fun to read through and topics always got heated, but it seems like just another phase that has passed. I don't see those topics as much anymore and they rarely generate as much debate.
I don't remember this but I have very little interest in the sex life of people on board 8 so I might have just glossed over them to begin with. if you're talking about the phase when every topic on board 8 that had anything remotely to do with relationships turned into an alpha/beta argument, I'm glad that passed.
actually this reminds me though that recently there was a relationship advice topic (can't remember who made it now) and I was impressed by how it went considering how I'd come to expect board 8 to react to that kind of topic.
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there's a place beyond that gate, a place where you can get away http://i.imgur.com/2HInn.jpg
I was just talking about for me personally, thought I typed "for me" since I was thinking it in my head but whoops. A bunch of users I used to interact with on the board left around then (mainly GammA07 getting grounded from his mom for taking naked pictures of himself for B8, pikaness who left after obvious reasons, and Smurf who I don't know what happened but whatever). I also couldn't really interact with B8 for a while after the whole drama thing hit, so I really stopped socializing on B8 and started talking to zea and santa on AIM instead
Anyways, even when I was socially active on B8 there were still places off-site I'd frequent with B8ers, like Zachnorn's Stickam Room, and BE2/BE3.
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SegMlCassieIsAmazingjhsux~>[64T2jampXDpikaness is awesome!8forgaMike RSmurf is too!
I also couldn't really interact with B8 for a while after the whole drama thing hit, so I really stopped socializing on B8 and started talking to zea and santa on AIM instead
Anyways, even when I was socially active on B8 there were still places off-site I'd frequent with B8ers, like Zachnorn's Stickam Room, and BE2/BE3.
I mostly socialize with people on aim lately as well. for the past 6+ months at the very least I have been rarely ever making topics. instead, if I have something to share I'll either post about it in some chat or IM someone to talk about it if none of the chats I frequent are active. but, like, I dunno. I want to start posting on the board more again and try to help inject some life into board 8. hopefully others will start doing the same!
From: Punnyz | #031
the board is less active in general
yes, it's pretty unfortunate.
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there's a place beyond that gate, a place where you can get away http://i.imgur.com/2HInn.jpg
I think as we get older as a group and we see less and less ne4w people circulate into the board it becomes very easy to just hang around the people we like. The board is just as social as it has always been when you account for the fact that the social activity is just split into fragments of smaller subsets of the community. The wrestling topic was one example but only one. The people in the different anime topics are social and talk about random stuff at times, as they do about the various games. In any culture, which oddly Board 8 can be kind of classified as one, such evolution is natural and I think healthy. We have learned what we like and stick to it. Without a lot of new users this is only fair.
I usually do most of my talking offsite now. Either through instant messaging or the Ventrilo server I have. I know just about everyone on the board so if I wish to speak to them I will do so on there the majority of the time. Further, personally speaking, I am just more comfortable speaking one on one with most people and there are few subjects that I would feel the need to talk to a large group of people about socially these days anyway.
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http://firsthour.net/screenshots/suikoden-2/suikoden-2-luca-blight.JPG The Cult of Personality.
I've been getting bored (well, I did leave AIM for like 2 years until recently), so lately I've kinda started trying to make social topics and I've been enjoying my time here again.
also agreeing with sant - I think this place has gotten a lot more vicious and killed off lots of areas of random discussion. There's certainly a few topics I thought of making, but decided to just talk about it with my AIM friends instead because I trust them and can talk about anything with them without it degrading to stupid little user-fights.
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SegMlCassieIsAmazingjhsux~>[64T2jampXDpikaness is awesome!8forgaMike RSmurf is too!
Yeah honestly I think the alpha/beta thing might have been one of the final daggers to this board. Girl topics used to be one of the most hilarious and fun things this board would do. Then after realo tried to act like his lack of self confidence was "alpha" in the cake topic, we had those guys that had sex once or twice like swift and biolizard acting like they knew everything about women. Suddenly any advice that wasn't "hit it and quit it" was spammed to hell by "XFD WHAT A BETA"
seriously, it's a shame that the community here is so small that people can't just ignore the blatant trolls. like, there's no way that anyone on this board legitimately enjoyed those discussions but they were SO prevalent for SO long it was absolutely crazy. I'm the kind of person with enough self control to just ignore that kind of idiocy but I guess for a lot of people on the board it's hard, and it really does just completely take over the topic and ruin them. when that happens enough times it does get pretty lame for sure.
From: Achromatic | #036
I think as we get older as a group and we see less and less ne4w people circulate into the board it becomes very easy to just hang around the people we like. The board is just as social as it has always been when you account for the fact that the social activity is just split into fragments of smaller subsets of the community. The wrestling topic was one example but only one. The people in the different anime topics are social and talk about random stuff at times, as they do about the various games. In any culture, which oddly Board 8 can be kind of classified as one, such evolution is natural and I think healthy. We have learned what we like and stick to it. Without a lot of new users this is only fair.
I usually do most of my talking offsite now. Either through instant messaging or the Ventrilo server I have. I know just about everyone on the board so if I wish to speak to them I will do so on there the majority of the time. Further, personally speaking, I am just more comfortable speaking one on one with most people and there are few subjects that I would feel the need to talk to a large group of people about socially these days anyway.
oh I'm not arguing that socialization isn't going on. I know it is. my argument is that the socialization between the board as a whole has been getting steadily killed off.
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there's a place beyond that gate, a place where you can get away http://i.imgur.com/2HInn.jpg
The board's still pretty fun if you can get a good discussion going with a bunch of different users participating. Like, there are some things I could talk about all day if people would talk about it with me. It's just not as common anymore, I guess.
The contests are what keep me here. I find those to be a lot more of a social community than the board itself. It's almost like a sanctuary for people with things in common to socialize and have something to do to get away from lame troll topics that dominate the board.
The reason I left for two years was because there wasn't anything much to do. I see I didn't miss anything since it seems to have been a bunch of alpha/beta garbage. The era prior to that with the UUL and other fun stuff truly was the glory days of the board. It felt like we all did things together back then.
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"THIS is how you make Nintendo win another generation. Good job, Sony and Microsoft, you're idiots." - Vlado