Simple question; Is LucasForums dead in all but name?

[Zoom Rabbit]

You know all these freaking spam bots littering the forums?

 

Overwrite their programs with highly skilled coding that makes them serve the purposes of Lucasforums, then put them to use rebuilding the forums. They can be made to do the grunt work for us.

 

They seem to have enough time on their hands...

[Canderis]

Okay, so after reading through all this, I still have a big question burning: who do I need to harass? I want to get these forums and the sites to live again, but Lynk, you say we have to nag the "Admins" but who are they?

I'm a web-developer, and I want this place to live, and I need stuff to do in my free time that doesn't involve wasting time haha. I want to help, but to start we need to nag the mysterious people. Give us some profile links!

[Lynk Former]

http://www.lucasforums.com/showgroups.php

 

List of Administrators are listed here at the top. Which one should you harass? Why not ALL OF THEM? Everyone should be bugging them, not just the ones who have the time/skill/motivation to help.

[Darth Avlectus]

You know all these freaking spam bots littering the forums?

 

Overwrite their programs with highly skilled coding that makes them serve the purposes of Lucasforums, then put them to use rebuilding the forums. They can be made to do the grunt work for us.

 

They seem to have enough time on their hands...

 

Yeah and you know, while I'm not given to a chip on my shoulder, if I were a mod of the general forums areas then I would clean house. Even if the rest of it is archived, and nothing else comes of it, the tech area has most potential there.

[Prime]

This has been interesting reading.

 

Personally, I think archiving and consolidating is the way to go. The forums and site(s) need to be sized for the current population, and free to grow in whatever direction the community takes. The number of sites and the current organization of the forums are a product of the era and what was appropriate at that time to support of the volume of activity.

 

At this point keeping the forums as they are needlessly keeps the different parts of the community separate. Consolidating the forums I think would help get the site closer to a critical mass. As well that would allow the site to more easily grow in the directions then will be relevant in the future.

 

As for me. I just pop in every now and then to see what is going on and what old friends have done the same. The fact that a lot of us old guard still do that at least I think is a testament to how strong the community was back then. So I have an interest in trying to turn the site back into a growth direction, and I'm willing to invest some time in it if we can decide on the direction.

[Darth Avlectus]

Well Prime, as a "nostalgia-ac" or a "Legends hermit" I say so long as there is STILL a place for us oldbie forumers to come back and rejoice over KOTOR, SWTOR, Jedi Knight, TFU, X-wing, etc., I wouldn't bemoan that. Welcoming curious new blood to the old stuff. Perhaps I wouldn't mind even representing the old stuff in what is now "Legends" territory. Can't speak for others, but if I'm the only one present...others aren't here to object either.

[mattig89ch]

Personally, I agree with prime.

 

Right now, the forums look very segregated. I know it took a few weeks for someone to respond to a question I posted about rouge squadron.

 

I got the feeling that if I had posted the question in this forum it would have gotten answered much quicker.

 

Whoever has the power to do so, should see about shrinking down the forums to something that looks more linked together.

[Alexrd]

Let's doo eet, then! Doo eet nao!

 

/arnold

[Lynk Former]

lol... Yeah, people say that and then expect someone else to do it for them.

[Alexrd]

We're willing to help.

[Lynk Former]

http://www.lucasforums.com/member.php?u=8 Here's the person to bug then. He started a "let's doo eet!" thread in the admin forum and then went silent... as is tradition on LFN, apparently.

[Canderis]

I've sent him a PM. Though he hasn't been on since April so I do not have high hopes for a response.

[Carwil]

I've a bit of experience in reviving forums myself.

Used to mod and then admin on a fan forum for a friend of mine, and Former is right: the forum platform is growing outdated and more people are transitioning to the 4chan-esque image board format, which is regrettable. I've found that promotion and incentives tend to be ineffective, so perhaps going to the higher-ups is the best course? As was said, just expressing the desire to have something done is a good first step.

[R2-X2]

I've a bit of experience in reviving forums myself.

Used to mod and then admin on a fan forum for a friend of mine, and Former is right: the forum platform is growing outdated and more people are transitioning to the 4chan-esque image board format, which is regrettable. I've found that promotion and incentives tend to be ineffective, so perhaps going to the higher-ups is the best course? As was said, just expressing the desire to have something done is a good first step.

It's highly regrettable indeed, and therefore even more important to keep some of the "good old" forums for those people that don't follow that unfortunate trend.

[Carwil]

So, if I might ask, seeing as it's been some time since anything pertaining to the topic of the thread has been posted, what's the status of LucasForums looking like as of now? Is it pretty much dead, save for the few regulars who are online fairly often? It more or less seems that way to me.

[mattig89ch]

I've seen a few new folks come around asking for recommendations or mods.

 

But its no where near what it was many moons ago.

[Astor]

Hello Gentlebeings.

 

Glad to see there's still a few of the old ne'er do wells still hanging around. It's been too long.

 

I don't pop in as often as I should, or even post very much anymore (hell, my last post was over a year ago!). I guess it's the nature of life - we stay involved, but inevitably we have to prioritise - and sadly, for too many of us LF has fallen by the wayside.

 

For over a thousand generations, we've been the guardians of Star Wars games, before the Dark Times, before Disney...

 

It's quiet, yes, and as Lynk says, in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint.

 

This community has given me many fond memories, great laughs, and good friends over the years - I regret that we've grown apart slightly, but I don't think it's dead. With the new Trilogy, and the new games on their way, I see some hope.

 

[JesusIsGonnaOwnSatan]

Reporting in for old-time nostalgia

 

At this point keeping the forums as they are needlessly keeps the different parts of the community separate. Consolidating the forums I think would help get the site closer to a critical mass. As well that would allow the site to more easily grow in the directions then will be relevant in the future.

 

^Agree

[Knight Of Honor]

I recently came back to LFN for the first time since 2011. The nostalgia factor is real. I feel like an old man who keeps visiting the grave of his late wife, while muttering a few solemn words about the good old days.

 

I had thought that the Star Wars renaissance might actually reinvigorate the LFN, but I've seen no evidence of that yet. I agree with what most people have said, that the new generation of kids will spend their time on a variety of social media platforms and mobile devices, while places like StarWars.com and Theforce.net probably attracts most of the fanbase.

 

The LFN reminds me more of a ghost town these days. Kind of sad. I don't know if I'll keep visiting these forums, but I might stop by from time to time.

[Sabretooth]

I feel like an old man who keeps visiting the grave of his late wife, while muttering a few solemn words about the good old days.

 

 

I miss being in a forum, any forum.

[Pho3nix]

 

The feels are real....

[Ctrl Alt Del]

I feel like I share Lynk's sentiment on the matter. It has been the subject of discussion with ex admins of a couple of forums I used to be a member of (now all but dead in fact and in law). In my experience, the worst dick-limping factor that curbs any enthusiasm to recreate a forum board is the general notion that there just isn't that many people interested on them. In itself, it's not a huge issue, as the plan ends up being a "nostalgic place for an old clique to hang out about", but then time constraints start being thrown in and we have a problem.

[Carwil]

Call me a cynic, but most old forums seem to age out the same way. I don't think they can actually be revived unless something major (such as perhaps the Star Wars renaissance) can bring one back into the limelight. For instance, your post was the first post in the Ahto Spaceport Cantina in four days (I lurk online every day and was counting).

[Adavardes]

Wow, I come back to soak in a little nostalgia and there's a thread on about some of this. I've always been keen on giving my two cents, right? Let's give it another go.

 

Well, it's my opinion that social media has just changed a lot on the past five years or so. Things got faster, more dynamic, easier to consume. We get on the internet and it's instant connectivity to damn near any piece of information you need. Shared passions tend to burn and fizzle on facebook comment threads or in skype chats. Groups exist, pages exist, but forums are no longer used as a wide-spread source of community. I think the reason boils down to two major factors:

 

1. Leadership. In forums, it was a closed community of people working on rules that were made up by admins and mods that helped keep the discussion nice and constructive. This was great, but also kind of a double-edged sword. You had a strong sense of community, but sometimes the admins were unreasonable, overly-sensitive or highly conservative. Sometimes they would block or ban people they didn't like and change rules just because they felt like it. With larger platforms, there are very few rules, and mods are barely present in any capacity except to make sure that no technical difficulties take place. It's a much less controlled environment, which makes it easier and less constrictive, even if the cost is that sense of family that you get from places like these.

 

2. Content and focus. In 2005, there were times that the only places you could find walkthroughs or tutorials or help with anything were forums. They were a community of peers that were generally informative and helpful, as well as friendly members of the same interest group as yourself. So, when you went there, it was usually for help, but you stayed to hang out. Now? Information is instant. With things like games and movies/tv shows, we have all the info we need in a snap. If we want to share an opinion, we post it to a facebook fan page and let the comments roll in. Not to mention that the topic of conversation for many of these forums is long since a distant memory, and not something we are continually involved in.

 

There are a few forums that are still successful, because their content centers around things that have no easy answers, where peer review and peer instruction is still a crucial part of the interest. Like model making. I'm a member of a gundam building forum that currently has 1000+ people surfing it right now. Why? Because gundams are still coming out, there are always people building them, and there are techniques, advice, and problems that still need communities to help with.

 

So, to answer your question, I would say that yes, this forum is all but dead. I think it was a forum about a set of games that are very old and no longer consistently played by most people, and that makes the shared interest all but absent, which no forum can exist without. Additionally, the games that are still popular have better and faster means of getting information and finding like minds than what a forum can provide, so the community aspect is all but without value.

 

Unfortunately, the age of the internet forum is over. I miss it, a lot, and often, but it's a different world on the internet now. They still have their purpose, but they will never be king again, I don't think. They're just an outdated form of software finding a good place to die.

[Lynk Former]

@ Adavardes: Without going into all of the asshattery in the past, the admins were never trying to be unreasonable... and let's not pretend some of the members who had a problem with the admins were being reasonable people. The ugly truth that no one wants to admit is that we were ALL being asshats and no one wanted to say that they were wrong, all they wanted to do was try to convince people that everyone else but them were being asshats.

 

What I'm trying to say in context to this discussion is that all of that occurred, not because people were being unreasonable, whether they admins, mods or members, it's because the culture of LF changed due to the change of its size and activity.

 

It went from being a metropolis of activity to a small town in a short amount of time. With that came a culture change in the way people conducted discussions on the forum. Discussions use to be frequent and so rapid firing that we didn't have time to rub each other the wrong way with our varied personalties.

 

However, once this place became a small town, suddenly, we got a little too personal with each other and discovered, we may not like each other all that much and that some of our personalities don't quite match up.

 

Don't go fooling yourself either. With larger platforms, there are more rules and more restrictive rules than anything we ever placed on LF. The reason why it feels less restrictive is they're just that... larger platforms. It only SEEMS like there are less rules because there is A LOT more activity.

 

When LF was still large and busy with tonnes of activity, we didn't seem as unreasonable back then simply because so much was going on that no one had the time to complain about anything since so much discussion was being had about a variety of different subjects. No one had time to get into petty arguments about nothing.