I have been around Net forums from the early 1990s onwards - long enough to see, at every stage, patterns which commonly repeat - and there is unfortunately no doubt that both the EN and US Forums are now in the mid-stage of devolving into 'ghost town' near-irrelevance - partly because Elvenar & Inno are now 'mobile-first', and forums are far more of a PC/Console game environment, but also particularly because (in general, not person-specific, terms) of the way in which their Admins
have behaved in the past - and their communities
are now behaving.
The initial cause of this decline, as long-term commentators will probably recall, was a sudden burst of censorship some time ago, followed by a now-declining insistence that any 'non-positive' commentary about the game or Inno themselves was not welcome or even tolerated. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in only a few players continuing to comment regularly, in many cases with exaggerated caution - a standard consequence of what was, essentially, an attempt to limit Free Speech (my Forum Signature refers)... and this is a Net-wide problem which is far from unique to this or indeed any particular online forum.
We shall see whether my openly stating the above, rather than adopting this Forum's users' now-typical habit of using euphemisms and hints
to refer to their own fear of censorship, will result in... more censorship. If so - so be it. 'Beating about the bush' rarely achieves any useful result.
HOWEVER - and be that as it may - once any Net forum (or any Human society) starts to evidence exclusionary behaviour
on the part of its members, as is creeping into this Forum, then external censorship, although often the route to such an outcome, is no longer even required in order for discourse to effectively cripple itself, with predictable outcomes - nor is any type of imposed censorship as effective as the
self-destructive behaviour of the group which so often sets in as one its consequences; it is a type of self-censorship - which can take many forms.
On the US Forum, there has been - for different reasons - a descent into what amounts to an exclusive 'Old Boys' Club', a well-known modern form of tribalism, with many initially discursive conversations devolving either into obscure asides or even into [friendly or even implicitly hostile] partisan behaviour, organised behind unofficial 'leading figures', which are relevant to - or even comprehended by - only a few long-term contributors. There is also now a degree of entirely irrelevant 'personality politics' and/or mutual back-slapping in evidence, together with a degree of passive aggression and/or sentimentality, a prevalence of personal complimentary remarks even though most forum contributors, anywhere online, don't actually know each other, and/or 'in-jokes' extending far beyond the type of humorous aside one will always find in any online [or other] discussion - complete with 'food gifts' being 'shared' between commentators in the form of posted images. This extension of natural humour and friendship into the territory of overly prevalent and/or exclusionary 'specifics' is always damaging to any online forum, even a broadly healthy one.
The US Forum Admins have even started to assign 'special titles' [some of them unique to individuals] to
only some Community members, which is one of the final signs of a closed and inward-looking micro-society arising. While this can be amusing - and/or confusing, according to some of the US Forum commentators themselves - for at least some of those involved, this sort of 'special treatment' (which is far from uncommon online) is extremely off-putting for any new and/or less vocal individuals, who often become at that point unlikely even to
try to 'break into' what has unintentionally become an exclusive group, whether or not their contributions to the discussion may be of useful note.
While it is obvious why this was done - it was an attempt to create more engagement - I hope that the same mistake won't be repeated here.
As far as the EN Forum goes, with its broader International rather than US-specific Community, I can only say that there are already few enough people now posting comments of any description at all, inclusively phrased/directed or otherwise, to the point where our own Forum Community, too, is now so heavily in decline that it is usually possible both to predict the commentators' names [and viewpoints] in any given thread AND to count them on the fingers of one hand... even without frankly unhelpful inter-personal exchanges
like this one taking place.
Please note that this isn't a subject which I intend to pursue or debate in any depth, even assuming that anyone wished to do so -
precisely because it IS so unhelpful when ANY open forum, online or not, begins to focus too much on any given speakers/listeners; but I also feel that NOT making my current point(s) would be even less helpful, in the long run - and 'taking it private' (as can sometimes be appropriate) doesn't solve a problem which is not only
occurring on the open forum, but which also
affects the entire forum community, too.
I have always regarded Net forums - or indeed any other locus of communication - as a place of mutual information exchange and open dialogue, and the fact that this particular Forum now has so very few and/or infrequent readers/commentators - and almost none who are new - is indicative, to me, of its decline into what can only be described as irrelevance, as already stated... and I am sure that none of us wants that?
In short, and
@Silly Bubbles in particular : the level of 'personal sniping' is getting silly - and while I cannot, and would not attempt to, influence your opinion of me, to which you are fully entitled, of course, perhaps you might care to consider that posting comments such as you've directed towards me above is hardly in the interests either of us two personally, nor yet of the Forum Community at large, especially because this kind of thing is always so discouraging for any
new contributors this Forum may yet - one hopes - attract?
Incidentally - and this goes out to any Forum Admins who might (?) be reading this - it is always possible, by means of (a) advertisement of the Forum, and (b)
even-handed management and promotion of genuinely
open debate, to reverse the decline of any Net Forum which enters the 'internecine death spiral' from which both EN and US Forums, each in their different ways, are now suffering, but pending such an effort possibly being made - and this time @nobody in particular - can we, the Community ourselves, please stop the mutually destructive in-fighting?
