How come all the new members just lurk for the most part?
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:36 pm
??? There really isnt much to this, just curious. back when this started out, there were more posts and less people now its the opposite.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. To tell the truth it's been driving me a little crazy. Sometimes i'll stare at the main forum index for ten minutes, simply baffled.
Check it out, we've got nearly fifty members but well over 80% of the posts are owed to ten people. Going by recent activity, at the moment we only seem to have around seven regulars. However in the past two weeks alone, i've had Mike Z thank me in person for installing the forum, had omni tell me that ChoiBoy loved the Trivia Challenge, and had eKiN say "just so you know, your quiz is dope as fuck." None of these people have posted in months! How can appreciation and participation be so far removed from one another??
But all of this second-guessing going on in my head needs to stop so i'm gonna share my thoughts and then i'ma accept it for what it is. We have a lot of lurkers here and the reasons for that are diverse, but in my view they fall into two categories:
Understandable Reasons for Inactivity
1. We have a quiet community. Respecting that was one of my main initial goals for this forum, cuz i hella don't want to make busy people feel pressured to jump through hoops and check yet another forum every day.
2. We only have "nice people" on the forums, as jchensor puts it, and "nice people are too content to just read." If we had DSP posting, we'd get way more responses. That maybe may be cool for SRK, but who wants that here?
3. Everyone is modest and respectful. As competitive as the fighting game community can get, it's certainly nice that nobody is aggressively trying to make a name for themselves here. Personally i don't have a problem with light-hearted shit talking as long as it's not vulgar or too personal. The problem is that it's difficult to gauge people's individual thresholds and it's a hassle to deal with heated situations once they get out of hand.
Disappointing Reasons for Inactivity
1. People are lazy. The obvious problem is that it's really difficult to separate the quietness of our community from sheer laziness. Even laziness is fine most of the time, but sometimes it's like ... throw me a bone, please! This doesn't happen that often but sometimes it's like, if this one specific guy made one post in this one thread, it would help so much. Those are the instances where laziness really hurts.
2. People are shy. Since everyone here is an "expert" in one game or another, i get the feeling maybe some people feel insecure participating in open discussions. That totally sucks, because i don't have that image of this forum at all. I mean, the few heated arguments we've ever had weren't about skill or knowledge, but rather about community policies enacted by Capcom and SRK. Has anyone ever posted a video they've made and gotten criticized? Has anyone ever asked a question and gotten mocked for it? (That is, mocked by anyone other than Magnetro, haha.) I don't don't remember this kinda stuff ever happening. So why the apprehension?
3. Not enough people understand a certain game. Whenever we get away from the SRK staples, it gets much harder to maintain a discussion. The only thing i can do is encourage anyone who's interested in delving into obscure games to find combo video makers with an expertise in that area and recommend them for an invitation. It sucks to see someone put a ton of effort into an oddball project and there's nobody here to appreciate it.
4. Too many strangers on the memberlist make it difficult to share secret projects. Unfortunately, there's nothing i can do about this. The memberlist will continue to grow at a slow, relatively steady pace. Of course that translates into higher risk of secret videos being leaked, but i like to stay optimistic when it comes to trusting people i respect. Even if you are paranoid, i don't think it would hurt to preview your nearly-completed video a week before release. The video editing feedback alone is worth the risk. Apart from that, well, we'll just have to adapt by focusing more on public game engine discussions and combo video reviews. Besides, you can't blame people like NKI for believing that a finished video has a more satisfying impact than preview clips posted one by one.
And that's that. I've actually got no problem whatsoever with lurking. All i'm hoping is that the majority of users check the forum on a regular basis, even if that means once a month. Two things concern me: the notion that people simply forget sh/f exists and the possibility that some people are dissatisfied with the way i do things but don't tell me.
Look, i may have installed the forum and named the sections, but that doesn't make me the owner. I don't think it's possible to "own" a community. Everyone here are people i respect. If you ask me, i'm more like the janitor.
