MontanaHatchet said:
okr said:
"Try to urge quality older members (those from 2007/2008) to come back to the site. If you're still in touch over AIM, Facebook, or some other form of communication, try to contact them and bring them back to the site. At the same time, we should be trying to bring brilliant new users and contributors to the site. I think a basic approval process (that is, new accounts are approved by the staff instead of instantly created) would help to weed out a lot of bad apples,"
For real? Urge lost "quality" members to come back? Approval process for new members? Strangest thoughts I've seen in a while on this site.
So, hm...welcome back...I guess. |
Thanks for the support.
I can understand if you're apprehensive about an account approval process, but I don't see how you can disagree with bringing older users back to the site. There are still people who post on NeoGAF (as an example) and signed up for the site over 10 years ago. Bringing back the older community will be an important step in increasing the quality of the forums and the level of discussion on the site. For those of you who don't love that I'm back, oh well.
"Account approval, okay. Whatever. I don't know or care anyway about most members, let alone alt accounts.
But trying to convince good ex-members to come back? Let's see: For me, this would include e.g. stof, fkusumot, Bodhesatva, rocketpig, noname2200 and Ghost of RubangB. Even if I knew how to contact these guys, I'd definitely not try to bring them back. I think they all had their different reasons to leave."
I'm not sure about everyone you listed, but Rocketpig and I were quite good friends and we sent DOZENS of PMs to each other complaining about the site and its community. If he left, it was because of his dissatisfaction with the direction of the site. I'm not expecting every great user of the past to flood back at once, but it's worth an attempt. There's no doubt that the exodus of these members played a huge part in the decline of the community.
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Rocketpig actually hasn't completely left the site, he posted a thread about his webcomic a few months back, but it seems he and other old members (like you) lost interest in the forums. I never cared as much about the VGC forums as others, I was always more interested in weekly numbers, that's the main reason why I'm still here. I've always been more of a forum reader than a poster. I'd also love to have some of the quality and (positive) madness back we had in the forums from 2007 to 2008, it was great fun to read most threads back then, but I can't see how you'd get back to that level by trying to bring back old members who left for different reasons.
You mentioned neogaf: I'm not a member or active supporter of neogaf, just an occasional reader, but imo their gaming specific discussions are miles ahead of VGC (e.g. their famous Why the DS rocks is one of the best threads I've ever seen on any gaming forum; the thread was supported and read for more than 4 years). It seems some old VGC members - if I'm not mistaken e.g. makingmusic476, Soriku - gradually left us for gaf's in-depth gaming discussions. Imagine: The gaf community adopt to industry changes and actually discuss e.g. iOS games instead of dissing them like some of the VGC console and/or handheld owners who seem to constantly fear the imminent downfall of their preferred company. They discuss PC games on neogaf too, even niche PC games, and yes, I think even MMOs. PC threads on VGC still die right after the OP (or after 5 posts if it's about Blizzard or Steam). I'm exaggerating, but you get my point.
During the past 5 years VGC never developed the same forum depth as neogaf. VGC still is 90% consoles, 9% handhelds, 1% rest of gaming platforms. Of the 90% console discussions, usually a good part are threads about the big games of the month (currently Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Skyward Sword, that yearly Activision shooter and again Skyrim). It's good that you want to improve on that and I wish you good luck, but I think you need a bit more than bringing back some old members. I just can't see this idea working, but I will be the first to congratulate you if I'm proven wrong.
By the way - there's one excellent poster from early VGC who doesn't post anymore (or very, very rarely) and is still a key member of the staff: Naznatips. I don't know if he has the time for more contributions but bringing him back to the forums would be a great start and probably easier than trying to convince old members who left for good.
