Quote:
Originally Posted by tore
This is very off-topic - and in my own thread - but..
Having been a forum user for almost 20 years now, I've seen forums come and go. They are certainly under pressure from disruptive forces, both internal and external. Even without the pressures from other social media platforms, many communities tend to become internal and closed in over time unless they are properly moderated and and have a decent influx / turnover of members. Once you get a sort of exclusive culture going (rather than an inclusive one), you get a negative feedback loop where everyone who finds that culture disagreeable eventually leaves, making the culture even stronger, which then further isolates the community from new, potential members.
It's happened to MB, but even before I came here I saw the exact same thing happen to another board where I was a moderator. So many members resist the kind of efforts and changes needed to keep a forum healthy because they're short-sighted, generally just want freedom and don't see the inner workings of the community on a bigger scale. I always tried to see the bigger picture and promote the kind of things that I thought were necessary to keep a community thriving, but the people who would generally agree with me left over time. I think that when MB needed those efforts/changes the most, there wasn't enough support among its users anymore. So for an online community to thrive, it seems important to have systems in place early on to prevent the kind of culture that will make it closed in and less relevant/attractive from the outside.
But of course that's not MB's only problem. It's still running on vbulletin from 2004 which is even more impractical now that people use smart phones. A forum isn't attractive to the outside world when it is so obviously forgotten by its owners. Without their support, any effort to improve the community would be a constant uphill battle.
I'd recommend those who are left here that they migrate, either to an existing forum or to a new one paid for and owned by one of you guys (it's cheap and easy) where at least one would have some control over the forum software. Getting there might be like trying to herd cats, though.  |
I have to say, having been away for some 3 years now, and not really posting much since 2010, I can't really see that much of a difference in activity between then and now? Maybe this place had it's heyday somewhere in between but what I found most surprising nowadays is that it, somehow, improbably, still has members and is actually quite active.
I haven't tried other forums so I don't know how much a new and improved software enhances the experience, but I think this method of communicating really doesn't require much more than what we've already got here (I really don't mind not being able to scroll through this place on my smartphone).
What I would be most sad about actually in case of this idea of moving, is that a large part of my online history would be gone with it. That's something that happened to me on another forum, which didn't bother keeping old archives, and I still haven't gotten over it since I shared some really important moments of my past there that I would have liked to revisit.
What I've found, actually, is that people (apparently, and I'm obviously one of them), despite of a slew of new social media options,
still have a need to have more in depth conversations with other people and to form communities, and I think the best way to do that still is via online forums.
So, hopefully musicbanter will keep going for the next 50 years, even if it's in this format forever and ever, at some point, it'll probably become retro or at the least a curio, a blast from the bast, to see something like this still existing (and hopefully functioning). I'd love to come here in 20 years time and go through my old posts and remind myself of all those things that my poor old brain was too small to remember...
Here's to musicbanter, still existing, in whichever form, for a long time to come...
P.s. Nice to see you again...