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Is this place deader than ever?
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2,619 posts in this topic

13 hours ago, TheFifthHorseman said:

We're all people with opinions other than just comic books. That brings us all here for a common reason, but doesn't unite us.

Indeed. Keep plugging away TFH. There's an air to your posts that I like (thumbsu

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7 minutes ago, Marwood & I said:

I just read your post Sharon. I see some apologies in it, and they are always welcome when heartfelt. It would have been nice if you had read some of my threads, rather than just dismiss them due to a general disinterest in variants. I put a lot more into them than just that.

Also sorry to see you bring up what are, for me at least, old hurtful inaccuracies, i.e. that I am / was a former member, a shill, etc. And my second (third?) FDQE was clearly a send up, if you didn't pick up on that. I don't really get why some of you are so troubled by threats to leave to be honest. People do that all the time in life, when they get riled.  They rarely mean it, and to hold them to it is childish and unforgiving. A few of the guys were giving a fellow board member a kicking a few weeks back and I tried to help him by saying something along the lines that you are only remembered for the bad you do in life, even though it may be far outweighed by good. You have proven that point here with your response to me, dredging up a blinkered view of my time here.

So in answer to your question, we can be done with it yes. Consider this post as us done. I would have sent it by PM, but wanted to respond to the inaccurate points you made about me, for the further consideration of the hundreds of people you know would have read them.

 

Marwood i have read many of your great threads and posts , you, in my opinion are the most active and positive new member we have and many of the threads you have started are BRILLIANT !!  your Spider-man variant and your Pence threads are some of the best these boards have ever known... please realize that there are many of us here who appreciate all your contributions ....

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On 16/02/2018 at 12:58 AM, Architecht said:

I'm always interested in how I can help the community grow, either by leading, following or getting out of the way.

Oh, and by the way - like limits raised a bit.

Thanks Arch, every little helps.

I wonder sometimes what it must be like for you in your role. You've been doing it from the start and many things must seem old hat to you, as you've clearly seen it all before. It must be hard to react positively, and without complacency, when you know you've already responded to similar things many times over in the past.

I suppose that's one of the things that comes with the role though, the need to have to respond to and manage similar complaints regularly, as each new wave of members joins and feels comfortable enough to start speaking up. The thread is now 43 pages in, and full of suggestions, gripes and expressions of dissatisfaction. It does appear that there are many things that could be done to improve matters, some easy / cosmetic, some not so easy. There is a tangible love for the place though, which I share, and people have joined in large numbers here because there is a sense that it could all be lost. It's become an uncommonly popular thread, as the stats show. So I'm sure at some point you'll want to give a more fuller response to how you plan to react to the things that have been said so far, and the many suggestions made. To do otherwise could come across as you not caring, and would make the accusations RMA made against you seem fairly, if depressingly, accurate.

You're in charge. Lead us into the light :foryou:

 

 

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31 minutes ago, 1950's war comics said:

 

Marwood i have read many of your great threads and posts , you, in my opinion are the most active and positive new member we have and many of the threads you have started are BRILLIANT !!  your Spider-man variant and your Pence threads are some of the best these boards have ever known... please realize that there are many of us here who appreciate all your contributions ....

Thank you Craig. Now settle down man :foryou:

23 minutes ago, jsilverjanet said:

And then there of many of us who don’t :D 

I'm one of them Janector. Marwood is a cretin :foryou:

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4 minutes ago, Marwood & I said:
On 16/02/2018 at 12:58 AM, Architecht said:

I'm always interested in how I can help the community grow, either by leading, following or getting out of the way.

Oh, and by the way - like limits raised a bit.

 

You're in charge. Lead us into the light :foryou:

Oh, and why are you posting on a weekend? You never post on a weekend :baiting:

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8 minutes ago, joeypost said:

What I have observed is that it has nothing to do with the amount of time you have been posting here. There are long time members who I ignore because all they like to do is stir the pot, have little to offer or defend their position (right or wrong) ad nauseam. And there are collectors who are new to the boards that I consider close friends and enjoy conversing with them here as well as at shows. It really boils down to the type of person you are, not how long you have been here. 

 

With that said, may be time to put a few more people on ignore. 

 You would never ignore me. But I agree with everything you said. some of the "old guard" are absolute jerks, and some noobs are pretty solid. If you think your post count gets you respect, think again. It's how you interact in the community.

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3 hours ago, Marwood & I said:

Thanks Arch, every little helps.

I wonder sometimes what it must be like for you in your role. You've been doing it from the start and many things must seem old hat to you, as you've clearly seen it all before. It must be hard to react positively, and without complacency, when you know you've already responded to similar things many times over in the past.

I suppose that's one of the things that comes with the role though, the need to have to respond to and manage similar complaints regularly, as each new wave of members joins and feels comfortable enough to start speaking up. The thread is now 43 pages in, and full of suggestions, gripes and expressions of dissatisfaction. It does appear that there are many things that could be done to improve matters, some easy / cosmetic, some not so easy. There is a tangible love for the place though, which I share, and people have joined in large numbers here because there is a sense that it could all be lost. It's become an uncommonly popular thread, as the stats show. So I'm sure at some point you'll want to give a more fuller response to how you plan to react to the things that have been said so far, and the many suggestions made. To do otherwise could come across as you not caring, and would make the accusations RMA made against you seem fairly, if depressingly, accurate.

You're in charge. Lead us into the light :foryou:

 

 

Stop sucking up :sumo: 

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6 hours ago, Marwood & I said:

It must be hard to react positively, and without complacency

I think it's pretty common for me to react to requests for changes and make them. I generally look for consensus / broad support for change requests though, but it's not a one dimensional decision like "Hey, if it's popular, do it!". It depends on these factors:

  1. How broadly supported is it?
  2. Is there a strong segment of members opposing it or simply remaining silent (indicating it's not beneficial to them)?
  3. Is it a self-evident win with no appreciable downside? What's the ratio?
  4. How costly / time consuming is the change?
  5. Where does its benefit/cost ratio fall in relation to other improvements being worked on? (remember, this area covers far more than changes to the boards)

There are usually some passionate members around with a few ideas that they are convinced are clear wins - but they don't always consider the broader picture of all of the above factors.  Or if they do, they weigh them differently than I do and/or than the CCG folks who actually set budget and priorities do. That can make the lack of reaction to a "sure fire win" (in one person's opinion) feel like complacency.

If a bunch of people request is, there's no notable downside, few people are in opposition, and it's cheap and easy to do (making it not very competitive with other planned improvements) - those are easy. But most requests aren't that clearly a win. 

I would say between you and me, for example, that you can sometimes get pretty enthusiastic about some ideas that are mostly championed by you, and maybe endorsed by a couple of other people. When you don't see that self-evident improvement acted on quickly, it feels pretty bad. From my point of view, I read them, put them through the above set of considerations - and often just wait to see if they gain momentum. It doesn't mean they aren't good ideas. I mean, someone has to think of it first - lack of popularity doesn't mean it's bad - but it does effect priority.

For example, on the likes system - many people at first didn't even want likes and wanted them removed. Should I have acted on that feedback? No. It wasn't universal. Over time, others came out and said they enjoyed the feature - and even more telling was the fact that many people were using them.

We put like limits in place because they were being actively abused by some - both fake accounts, and people trying to treat it like a competition that they could/should rig. A few people noted it was restrictive. Also, I after watching the system for a while, it seemed that despite the competition rigging, the most popular posts would probably rise to the top despite the shenanigans to exchange likes. So we raised them and took advantage of an easy tweak to provide even more to long time / highly active members because it was an easy way to raise limits without incurring abuses from fake accounts.

After that, many folks got quiet about it and seemed to not be hitting the limits much.

In this thread, as the usage and popularity of the like system continued to grow, it seems that more people were legitimately hitting the like limits again. So I raised it again. (shrug) It's just based on "watchful waiting" - which is a concept used in medicine because often it's better to see how the condition evolves than to do something more active and risk incurring more harm than good.

It's like that for most product development / product management. You can't make all of the people happy all of the time. But you can keep improving within the boundaries of budget / priority you're given.

 

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6 hours ago, Marwood & I said:

Oh, and why are you posting on a weekend? You never post on a weekend :baiting:

In the office working on a big project. I also tend to contribute more when I'm tracking a thread where the community is actively giving good feedback / reflecting on the state of the boards, etc.. So once I'm engaged, I kind of track it through until it dies down a bit and people move on to other things.

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2 minutes ago, Architecht said:

In the office working on a big project. I also tend to contribute more when I'm tracking a thread where the community is actively giving good feedback / reflecting on the state of the boards, etc.. So once I'm engaged, I kind of track it through until it dies down a bit and people move on to other things.

such as teat milking lol

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I’m on Page 7 and have a lot of catching up to do and don’t even know if I’m jumping in the middle of a big back and forth, but here goes...

To me, this place is dead. Meaning, it’s not my go to place anymore. I rarely even log in these days and it’s mainly to see if friends have PMed me (instead of just texting) and I need to respond. And I don’t say that without having a heavy heart. I miss this place. A lot. 

I found this place doing a Google search for a DD #254 9.8 and finding a long dead sales thread and jumping in with a total noob move and throwing out a :takeit: I also started WTB threads in Comics General. It was bad. But I took my lumps, lurked and watched and learned as best I could how the place ticked and what was what. It was easier because the old timers kept noobs in check and kept this place running smoothly. I feel like they’re all gone now for the most part.

The only analogy I can come up with is that this place was a fun hang out or bar like Cheers. The old-timers had been in this place for a long time. They all knew each other. You could “trust” them in that if they were loons, would they really be around all that time without being chased away? They all had their seat at the bar and you wanted to be part of it and their conversation. It was worth investing time and energy getting to know people because they’d be there next month. It was like moving to a small town and getting to know your neighbor: the good, the bad, and the future HOS member. But you knew who you were talking to for the most part or someone did. It wasn’t ALL just based on money.

But I feel like things started to change even before the “New Boards”. I don’t know if it was CBCS and the splintering of the Boards into the Comic Book Forum, CBCS Or Ditch’s Forum. But all of those old, familiar “faces” were disappearing more and more and being replaced by the latest “Joined: January 18, 2018” who was just trying to sell you his latest Variant cover and had no interest in really seeing how his place ticked.

So, what was once the comfortable local watering hole where people knew each other became the hotel bar where you didn’t know if the guy sitting next to you was going to try to scam you or had dead hookers in his trunk. You also didn’t know if that fellow patron would be there in a month so why bother. We used to have Friday night threads, pernts, Locked Thread Points Challenge and comedic epic meltdowns. Then bums got hurt so those all went away.

I honestly do miss this place a lot, but what was already starting to feel less and less like “Home” really felt like they tore down “Cheers” and put in an TJI Friday’s instead. The place was loud, busy and never felt right and you had to ask the hostess where the bathroom was because everything was different. Gone were familiar faces and replaced by the latest noob standing on top of a chair with his shirt off making an of himself for attention and then crying when he didn’t get the attention he wanted. That made it easier to adjust to life without the Boards. 

I’m not going to throw any sort of “I’m done with this place” because I don’t think I can ever fully walk away. But never really checking out has changed in to checking in very sporadically. 

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