Nation Threads and Their Role in the Forums: A Critique

[Spade]

The Nation threads are far more positive for the forum then negative. If you take Xbox Empire for example before Xbox Empire took off, what was the Xbox community like here on VGC? I probably can’t answer this as I wasn’t around pre-2013. What I remember lurking was that it was Nsanity posting news, which got less than a handful of replies unless it was negative. And the news that was presented was met with downplay. You can say that “Xbox people don’t like positive news.” But most Xbox people that are currently around were not around back in pre 2013. If you are a fan of Xbox, who wants to be a part of that? The Nintendo and Sony communities far outweigh the Xbox community on here, so you are able to have more threads and more positive reception; since more time has allowed more fans to become apart of this site.

As a result a lot of Xbox members decided to stay in Empire. And I honestly don’t even see the issue with users staying in one thread. Unless members are bashing other consoles, I honestly do not see the issue. PS Vita Nation members and I’m sure the other two have them as well. What about the amount of people who joined up to this site because of Vita Nation, or because of Xbox Nation. Ryuu96, myself, Kinisking, Linchpin, DexinDaJungle, Versus Evil and a few others started coming to this website because of Xbox Empire. And that’s just Xbox Empire as I’m sure members joined this site because of Vita Nation, and Nintendomination.

When members of Empire decide to make threads, there is basically no traffic, depending on the nature of the thread if negative, a huge shit storm. Now while number three may be true, it isn’t true for all cases and instances. I remember back when Halo got some news about “Aim Down Sight?” You had part of the group dismissing it, while another part were against it. This lead to a healthy debate within a community for and against both arguments presented.

If some of the main issues is “monopolizing news.” I can go half way. If I see news that Ryuu posts, I’ll make a forum post to help regulate “healthy discussion” in the Microsoft forum. That part I can agree on. And that’s something I can at least attempt to rectify.

Overall, Nation threads have far more positives that outweigh the negatives. They help foster positive and healthy discussion, they create a welcoming environment in a forum that’s slowly deteriorating, and bring in new members. I’m not saying you are choosing to get rid of them, as this piece seems more of a critique, but if you WERE to get rid of Nation threads, I feel a majority of people will not be happy and a lot of people (including myself) will leave the forum.