Senior Otaku

[CaNz]

I think this probably had a lot to do with people leaving, and stuff. At one point, everyone was trying so damn hard, and the rulers of the boards were all over 18, with near-perfect spelling, and inclined to write 5 paragraph posts. Allamorph would have fit right in, if he didn't have such bad spelling. At this point there was a stronger contrast between hyper-quality-führers and snarky trolls (hello.) than ever, and the worst people were the people who would mix these features, and come out as spiteful essayposters. 

 

It didn't help that, with most things, cliques were formed (based on the above) - worst of all, the ones consisting of mainly moderators. Though for many it adds just another good element of community, for many it just creates a lot of us-vs-you mentality.

The more you guys talk about it, the less fun the old glory days sound. I like talking about anime as much as the next guy, but if I wanted to just be scoffed at and berated each anime usually has a large dedicated forum filled with stubborn zealots. 

 

Even when I got here some cliques were very visable, and its quite hard for a new member to try to jump into a conversation with mods that have been doing this for years (fortunatly I have a very inflated sense of self-worth for some reason.)  That being said typicly there was very little animosity towards people who were new, and I was never banned from anything based on who I talked with. Cliques in my opinion are not a bad thing unless people are not able to join.

 

This reminds me of a story about my highschool clique. Feel free to skip it.

[SPOILER]We had a tight group that new eachother from 8th grade, but half way through 10th grade Orcus introduced an 11th grader to our group. He simply introduced Brady and then told him to hang out with us. Orcus then left and went back to doing whatever it is popular people do in highschool.  For the first few weeks it was pretty weird with him around. He was very mellow and slow compaired to the rest of us, and since we all had history together he had trouble relating at times.

 

We never excluded him though, and when we invited him to hang out off school grounds we got to see his good qualities. He wasn't that funny, but he laughed easy. He was always willing to do the activities that the group wanted, and he was always a good sport when he lost. Brady is probably most known for being generous to a fault. We tried not to take advantage of him, and no one asked him for stuff, but when we were broke, and he wanted Ice cream or food or to go to the movies... he would gladly cover them just so they could enjoy it with him. I learned a lot about being a good friend from him, and to this day our group calls paying for another friends meal "the Brady Treatment".

 

We found out later that Brady had come from a group full of heavy drug users and they did general bad influence stuff. They weren't great friends to him, and he didn't wanna stay... but they were his only friends. upon hearing this Orcus interviened.[/SPOILER]  Moral of this story is that cliques that allow newcomers in can keep their old friends close, but can also make new friends. It just takes a little work from both sides.

[Allamorph]

Haha, sorry, CaNz, it seems like your thread has been hijacked. Who knew the topic that could draw the most posts is a discussion about why nobody posts anymore, eh? =P

Anyway, James touched on (and Shy and TrollBoo expanded on them a little) essentially everything I was thinking about, but I think everyone keeps missing another major point. I totally agree that social media was and is a huge factor in the decline of message boards in general, mostly because it caters to the quick, stream-of-consciousness style postings that, let's be honest, don't require a whole lot of effort input for a whole lot of potential positive feedback.

Of course, this is me speaking from my vast, extensive knowledge of .... uh ... three separate message boards, so, you know, take that as you will.

Mostly I just couldn't get into any others, to be honest. Ironically, it was that "excessive" quality of effort that drew me in here, since I found an outlet for more straightforward, thoughtful and thought-provoking discussions with people who actually understood their opinions. I still think James and I could get into a fairly good debate if we set our minds to it, haha. I think it was a rarity for us to ever agree on anything, and I definitely remember nitpicking the crap out of him on just, you know, a regular basis, but I could always count on him to make stellar points.

Usually. Heh.

I've also noticed that, as I've bopped around the internet, I really haven't seen any other boards with as pleasant a design as OB. I still half-consciously judge boards I look at against this one. We've gone through, what, five different iterations, and that's just since I started lurking back in Fall '07. I didn't even join until '08, I don't think.

But the point I think people miss is that we all just grew up. College took some of us away, but really the workforce took the rest of us, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed "man, I can get so much more done when I'm not sitting there glued to my F5 key waiting for someone to respond to my post". Being a student in the Navy for two years and a nonqual for the last year has usually left me with around three to four hours of free time per day, including transit to and from base, shopping for stuff, and, you know, general life necessities other than goofing off, which was much easier to do in college when I had a cafeteria and a living space I didn't have to pay for.

That, or families. It's not exactly simple raising a kid and maintaining a highly active internet social life. I'm pretty sure that's where Indi went to, and I think a few others hit that milestone as well.

...the worst people were the people who would mix these features, and come out as spiteful essayposters.

I think this really applies to me, to be honest. It wasn't always intentional, but I can't deny I have a tendency to deliver certain of my points in a stark, brutal fashion. Edited February 6, 2015 by Allamorph

[Boo]

I actually meant Brazil and Mitch more than anyone else, but I guess I could see you post shirtless pics to make a point.

[Allamorph]

Oh man, Mitch. I remember specifically targetting him at one point. He had a great wit and a great mind, but that kid was way too proud of knowing All The Words. There's no need to deliberately obfuscate everything in creation to make yourself feel superior.

It's so much more fun to let other people do that work for you Hey, do we have any options for redacting parts of posts anymore, or did the spoiler function swap to that depressing hidey-box thing permanently and that's all we got?

[James]

Mostly I just couldn't get into any others, to be honest. Ironically, it was that "excessive" quality of effort that drew me in here, since I found an outlet for more straightforward, thoughtful and thought-provoking discussions with people who actually understood their opinions. I still think James and I could get into a fairly good debate if we set our minds to it, haha. I think it was a rarity for us to ever agree on anything, and I definitely remember nitpicking the crap out of him on just, you know, a regular basis, but I could always count on him to make stellar points.

I did like the quality, but once we achieved a certain level, I was making some conscious efforts to ease restrictions and tone down our moderation. I do feel like that started happening a bit too late. And, other than making people moderators, we didn't really have a good way of rewarding high-quality posts. The only major progression indicator was post count, which is kind of a bad message to send really.

I think we needed a proper reputation system much earlier on, or something like that.

And yeah, I'm sure we could probably still have some good debates! I remember some really specific ones, haha. Probably the most persistent debater I faced was Alex. We had some really fierce debates early on, and then we ended up playing Guild Wars regularly together. I wonder how he's doing now.
 

I've also noticed that, as I've bopped around the internet, I really haven't seen any other boards with as pleasant a design as OB. I still half-consciously judge boards I look at against this one. We've gone through, what, five different iterations, and that's just since I started lurking back in Fall '07. I didn't even join until '08, I don't think.

That is a really big compliment. We used to go to a lot of effort to design OB layouts. I remember each new version being a big event, and being more about the design/layout/forums than the underlying vB version we were on. It's funny to think about how excited people were when we did those launches.

What's interesting is that a massive amount of work went into each one. Originally it was Justin and I, and then Des and I, and then Des and Petie were both involved - it was a dream team. ~_^

This IPB layout is slightly custom from memory (kind of), but it's still probably our worst design. And the logo quality is nerfed. Oh well. I think that was eventually going to happen when things sort of ground to a halt.

I still think about OB occasionally...those exciting launches, the big debates, the dramas, the friendships, and the awesome chats and RPGs. We really did have some fun here.

Edit: Oh, yes...Brazil/Alex and Mitch...I felt like we spent a lot of time keeping them from verbally killing each other. Haha.

[Allamorph]

I did like the quality, but once we achieved a certain level, I was making some conscious efforts to ease restrictions and tone down our moderation.

But there's the thing, really. I don't remember any moderators going specifically out of their way to hammer down on sub-perfect-quality discussion posts. The occassional atrocious one, sure, but the real oppressive atmosphere came from basically all the more grammatically-conscious members continuously nitpicking everyone else's spelling and punctuation and so on and so forth.

I actually made it a point to limit grammatical badgering to people I was already friends with, to try and keep it to a sort of friendly ribbing thing and discourage the idea that you had to be 100% on top of your game all the time to even have a chance of being heard, but I don't think everyone else held that same kind of philosophy. I mean, if I actually wanted to rid the Boards of sub-perfect posters, I probably would have given people like Conrad and ... whatever the Aberinkula/Premonition/ForgotteÃ? HerÃ? dude's name was a whole lot more direct grief. (I think I started calling him Flava (of the month) behind closed boards.)

That and the Size=1 clique. Yeesh. I can barely go back and read old threads right now because it's so goddamned tiny. And I even tried it once. It's just entirely awful.

[James]

But there's the thing, really. I don't remember any moderators going specifically out of their way to hammer down on sub-perfect-quality discussion posts. The occassional atrocious one, sure, but the real oppressive atmosphere came from basically all the more grammatically-conscious members continuously nitpicking everyone else's spelling and punctuation and so on and so forth.

Oh, I can think of a lot of instances where we were just too harsh from a moderation perspective. A lot of closed topics, a lot of corrections to posts, and a lot of deleted posts. It's true that we were mostly dealing with the more severe issues, but in retrospect, I think the approach wasn't right. That's definitely something I have to take responsibility for.
 

That and the Size=1 clique. Yeesh. I can barely go back and read old threads right now because it's so goddamned tiny. And I even tried it once. It's just entirely awful.

Haha, yeah the whole size 1 thing became really significant over time. It's funny how some font styles actually make me think of specific members here!

One thing I'm a bit sad about is how the updated IPB has trashed our old formatting; it can't be helped, I know, but some of those old RPGs had really elaborate designs/layouts.

[Magus]

But the point I think people miss is that we all just grew up. College took some of us away, but really the workforce took the rest of us, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed "man, I can get so much more done when I'm not sitting there glued to my F5 key waiting for someone to respond to my post". Being a student in the Navy for two years and a nonqual for the last year has usually left me with around three to four hours of free time per day, including transit to and from base, shopping for stuff, and, you know, general life necessities other than goofing off, which was much easier to do in college when I had a cafeteria and a living space I didn't have to pay for.

 

 

This pretty much sums it up for me. I know I resigned from moderation when I moved to Arizona in 07-ish (08?) and when I moved back to Detroit I know I posted quite frequently, but at the same time I went straight to ITT immediately. I didn't find it hard to do homework and post here because my homework always had something to do with drawing something on AutoCAD/Inventor. Always had explorer going.

 

It wasn't until I got my job in 2011 when I started popping up less frequent and that's more or less because of me just being physically drained and never feel like being bothered to type much of anything. I think when I was doing 12 hr shifts was when I'd really just pop online for about 10 minutes and pop back off. Then came the trolling. Granted, I get that that's the time we are in now, but at the time I was too tired to even deal with any of it (Not to mention, my sense of humor was/is practically non existent) . Ran into trolls at 2 other forms and saw foolishness on Facebook as well so for the most part I stopped doing forums altogether. Till this day I mainly visit here (post in the game thread on weekends or whenever I'm not feeling too tired) and lurk Shoryuken. Stopped going to Facebook altogether.

 

As for "Senior Otaku", before the switch was it 1500 or 2000 post until you received that title?

Edited February 6, 2015 by Magus

[CaNz]

Who knew the topic that could draw the most posts is a discussion about why nobody posts anymore, eh? =P

But the point I think people miss is that we all just grew up.

Well this happens when I throw around misdirected accusations and fail to set up guidelines. Everything I said was heard and now I initiated a conversation that apparently everyone has a lot to say about. I wish I had more knowladge on the topic or solutions, but I am just some guy who likes talking. What I can do is give a perspective that is different from most of you here. Weither or not that perspective is useful or not is debatable.

 

Anyways growing up happens to all of us, but I think you make it sound like you are responsible for the site tanking when you took time off. Being busy is an inevitability. We shouldn't rely on people like Shy to come back and spur activity. Essentialy the problem lies with new members not being in position to or not motivated to take over. Maybe it was still your fault... but not growing up would be an unreasonable solution.

 

Its actually more my fault when you look at it like that. I was able to be here and wasn't... and some new members would come here primarily for me, and that trend may have continued if I stayed.

 

I actually made it a point to limit grammatical badgering to people I was already friends with, to try and keep it to a sort of friendly ribbing thing and discourage the idea that you had to be 100% on top of your game all the time to even have a chance of being heard,

I don't remember grammer badgering here, but that still didn't stop me from thinking I had to be on my A-game to post something you couldn't instantly shred. Maybe 50% to you was my 110% but thats just how it felt. This feeling wasn't exclusive to you... BeTh and Kei were the same... you just had a general negative aftertaste at the end of your replys that I would do anything to avoid. Then there were also people like (San)GoMe that I found impossible to please no matter what I did. 

 

Unfortunatly changing who you are or even the habits you have can be a diservice. I have no intentions of becoming friends with an Allamorph that just looks the other way when I post a falacy ridden opinion in capslock. You also probably don't want to be forced to remain silent just to prevent your idiot friend from getting his feelings hurt. I like the semi-friendly relationship we have now though, and I hope you can at least stomach it.
 

Instead of changing members and the boards, there probably should have been rewards as James said. There especially should have been short term rewards for new members. Its hard to drive people used to low quality posts to preform to OBs standards for nothing but a title in 2,000 posts. That brings up another set of questions though... what could you give them, and what is worth rewarding?

Edited February 6, 2015 by CaNz

[James]

I think whatever you do has to be simple. So, again, coming back to something like Reddit which basically has a thumbs up/down system (as many sites do) - I think that's probably enough.

If you're accumulating anything on a web forum, it should surely be "likes" or "thumbs up" for great posts that people enjoy, rather than post counts. I remember we were looking at the reputation system in vB, but I didn't think it was implemented well; it was going to be difficult to really make it workable here.

I actually don't think it's possible to revive OtakuBoards, but it would be an interesting experiment.

[Allamorph]

I almost forgot.

And yeah, I'm sure we could probably still have some good debates! I remember some really specific ones, haha.

Oh, really! Which ones, if you don't mind me asking?


And, I'm sorry, but I have to break character for this.

Weither

'weither' omglol

this is possibly the best thing i have ever seen hahahaha

*ahem*

I don't remember grammer badgering here, but that still didn't stop me from thinking I had to be on my A-game to post something you couldn't instantly shred. Maybe 50% to you was my 110% but thats just how it felt. This feeling wasn't exclusive to you... BeTh and Kei were the same... you just had a general negative aftertaste at the end of your replys that I would do anything to avoid. Then there were also people like (San)GoMe that I found impossible to please no matter what I did.

This paragraph amused me greatly until I got to the very last sentence, and then I just started laughing. Ahh, irony.

I've been told this before, actually. I think it's because the way I present myself intimates an incredibly high standard, when in all actuality I legitimately talk like this. I may stop and start a touch more, since my brain works significantly faster than my mouth and often words get sort of jumbled up when they all try to come out at the same time, but the format is generally the same. But at the same time, I'm not really trying to adhere to any sort of rules. I just think this way. I also find writing like I do makes it easier to communicate what I want to say, so in the long run it's just easier for me.

But obviously I'm not above abandoning "proper structure".

I have no intentions of becoming friends with an Allamorph that just looks the other way when I post a falacy ridden opinion in capslock. You also probably don't want to be forced to remain silent just to prevent your idiot friend from getting his feelings hurt. I like the semi-friendly relationship we have now though, and I hope you can at least stomach it.

Oh, trust me, remaining silent is totally my decision. No one forces me, haha. I'm sure a few other members could vouch for the truth of that.

Then came the trolling.

Which stuff? Edited February 6, 2015 by Allamorph

[CaNz]

 

 Then came the trolling. Granted, I get that that's the time we are in now, but at the time I was too tired to even deal with any of it (Not to mention, my sense of humor was/is practically non existent) . Ran into trolls at 2 other forms and saw foolishness on Facebook as well so for the most part I stopped doing forums altogether. Till this day I mainly visit here (post in the game thread on weekends or whenever I'm not feeling too tired) and lurk Shoryuken. Stopped going to Facebook altogether.

 

As for "Senior Otaku", before the switch was it 1500 or 2000 post until you received that title?

This is another reason why you can't sacrifice too much on quality. Trolling can be fun (and a pain to stop) but it can be difficult to know how it effects people. I think the report system probably could have helped back then though.

 

I know at the begining of 2012 I had 2000 posts and still was just a member, but their were older members with the title, some less than 1500. I think Des was right and there was a time qualification.

I think whatever you do has to be simple. So, again, coming back to something like Reddit which basically has a thumbs up/down system (as many sites do) - I think that's probably enough.

I actually don't think it's possible to revive OtakuBoards, but it would be an interesting experiment.

I disagree. In my opinion, the reason why likes or karma work as a motivator is because they grant recognition over a large scale. A person who has a bunch of upvotes looks good because no one knows how they got them, and in general they are given out in mass by people of similar opinions. in a discusion board like this we have a small and diverse user group that seeks to reward good forum manners and participation, not a mimed opinion. Also in order for new members to catch up they have to immediatly start posting great things that all old members deem worthy. I could see new people being frusterated that their post gets less likes than Peties. Maybe his posts are better... but I think popularity and total veiws will give people an edge.

 

I think rewards should be more visable. Maybe give people icons for doing things (achievment style) and have mods pass them out to new members. Complete an RP? unlock this, Made a 5 page discussion on GD? unlock that.

With this method, time spent can be focused or wide spread, and you can have members constantly working towards a goal that will make them "equal" not "less likes than old/popular people but more than new/innactive people"

 

'weither' omglol

this is possibly the best thing i have ever seen hahahaha

*ahem*
 

This paragraph amused me greatly until I got to the very last sentence, and then I just started laughing. Ahh, irony.
 

Oh, trust me, remaining silent is totally my decision. No one forces me, haha. I'm sure a few other members could vouch for the truth of that.

I think I must have a gift for spelling errors. Most people seem ticked off when they catch them in other peoples posts... but everyone gets a kick out of mine. Whether happens to be one of the many words my brain has pathed wrong for some reason. If I just write or type it out I always mispell it first then realize its one of my words and fix it.  The worst of them is sign. I have no idea how many times I have had to delete  'h' and replace it with 'n'.

 

The Irony is lost on me, but I mean't no offense to GoMe. She may never have liked me, but there is nothing wrong with that.

 

So.... do you consider me your idiot friend that you hold back on account of my feelings? or do you just not feel its worth the time to argue with me?  I could see the latter happening, but doesn't it feel better to make me regretably agree with you than get gratification from your peers by speaking your mind only to them? I just don't see how holding back helps things.

[Petie]

That is a really big compliment. We used to go to a lot of effort to design OB layouts. I remember each new version being a big event, and being more about the design/layout/forums than the underlying vB version we were on. It's funny to think about how excited people were when we did those launches.

What's interesting is that a massive amount of work went into each one. Originally it was Justin and I, and then Des and I, and then Des and Petie were both involved - it was a dream team. ~_^

This IPB layout is slightly custom from memory (kind of), but it's still probably our worst design. And the logo quality is nerfed. Oh well. I think that was eventually going to happen when things sort of ground to a halt.

 

I actually really miss the old layout. In hindsight, part of me wishes that we just stayed on vB 4.x (or whatever version we were on when they decided t completely re-make their software). I don't even entirely remember how we came to the decision to switch. I do remember not liking something about the new vB (their licensing changes, possibly?) but why did that lead us to decide to move to a different platform entirely?

 

Don't get me wrong, IPB isn't bad but it lacks the essence of what really made OB stand out back then.

[Boo]

Summary:
- vB was best
- CaNz's spelling suffers from "positive" discrimination
- Alamoprh.
- I abused my legendary troll powers to troll trolls like GoMe

[Magus]

Which stuff?

Random game type stuff. I'll admit that I've never been a good person to debate with simply because I don't have the patience, especially when it comes to talk about games. I don't remember much of it too well, but I definitely know I stopped visiting much due to silly trolling over games.

[James]

I actually really miss the old layout. In hindsight, part of me wishes that we just stayed on vB 4.x (or whatever version we were on when they decided t completely re-make their software). I don't even entirely remember how we came to the decision to switch. I do remember not liking something about the new vB (their licensing changes, possibly?) but why did that lead us to decide to move to a different platform entirely?


Don't get me wrong, IPB isn't bad but it lacks the essence of what really made OB stand out back then.


Petie, I think it basically came down to funding/cost. I don't want to speak for Adam, but bear in mind that he's still paying to host theOtaku and OB even now. I doubt that his costs are being recouped through advertising revenue on theO.

I really find it amazing and impressive that these sites continue to remain online despite the cost.

[Petie]

Actually, I'm hosting OB and theOtaku's chat now ^_~ He does, of course, still pay for theOtaku's hosting as well as the license for IPB though.

 

But, even if that was the issue, bear in mind that staying on 4.x would have been free. Switching to IPB or 5.0 both had a price tag and I suppose IPB's was less.

[CaNz]

I'd click on an ad every day to get that carmelladancin theme back. The looks I would get whenever people caught a glimpse of it was priceless.

[James]

Actually, I'm hosting OB and theOtaku's chat now ^_~ He does, of course, still pay for theOtaku's hosting as well as the license for IPB though.

But, even if that was the issue, bear in mind that staying on 4.x would have been free. Switching to IPB or 5.0 both had a price tag and I suppose IPB's was less.

Ah - I'm a bit out of date then. But yes, you're right to say that there is an associated cost with these things. I'm stretching my memory, but I am sure that IPB must have been cheaper than moving on to the latest vB.

It's nice to know that you're hosting OB and theO Chat...in that case, you deserve lots of thanks as well for keeping the sites going. ^_^
Actually, there are quite a few people who still seem to be pretty committed and who have helped over the years. We're a very lucky community I think.

[Allamorph]

[FONT=Calibri]Yeah, I don't think the site would have survived without [color=#800000]Boo[/color].[/font]

[James]

Yeah, I don't think the site would have survived without Boo.

Boo, or Futer?

[CaNz]

I hope we start associating futer with Boo from now on. :]

Him and Korey really created the magic behind it anyways!

[James]

Well, whenever I heard Boo's voice on the podcast I just always thought "Futer".

[CaNz]

That is a fantastic thing to think! You must continue to think that way, I insist!

[Desbreko]

Wasn't there some technical reason we couldn't stay on vB 3.8 or whatever version it was we originally started work on? I seem to remember none of us were too eager to switch to IPB, but vB 4 would've cost more and we didn't especially like the looks of it either, and staying on vB 3.8 didn't seem like an option. Maybe security holes or spammer exploits or something that weren't going to be fixed?

I'd click on an ad every day to get that carmelladancin theme back. The looks I would get whenever people caught a glimpse of it was priceless.

It makes me happy to know people actually miss the Caramelldansen skin. I still have all the files for it, and every now and then I look through them and remember that week I spent furiously working on it.