Have the forums changed?

[cirleen]

There's 3 kinds of chat, nearby, group, and private. The threads that last the longest seem to bridge the gap by encouraging people to express publicly what they might otherwise share only in private. People share what they're doing and get to know each other like a simulation of group chat. But a connection in a forum never truly happens, we always feel at least a little left out, we're not personally involved & few want to hear private conversations in public. Some say the forums have changed over the years. Maybe it used to be where people shared talent and now it's where people search for a sense of belonging. I haven't been in the forums for long and wonder if and how the forums have changed. How did things used to be?

[Quistess Alpha]

After the lab banned "off topic discussion" (see the pinned thread at the top of basically every section) the forums have gradually gotten less lively. Arguably that's a good thing; the forums aren't for finding belonging, that's what being ~in Secondlife is for. I dunno if I subscribe 100% to that argument, but things are what they are.

[Gabriele Graves]

I think the forums have always had those personal discussions.  If anything they're are much less than they used to be.  There has also always been and continues to be a sharing of talent as well.  I think it's just that for the most part the forums are much quieter due to less people participating on a daily basis that there used to be a long time ago.  Though people do come back now and then even if they are not participating regularly.

In addition a lot of the battles on hot button topics have been fought many times and people are probably mostly over them in a big way.

@Quistess Alpha is right in that new rules were introduced.  This brought a change of atmosphere and participation here and not one for the better.  Moderation is generally a better balance now than it was when those new rules were introduced though.

[Randall Ahren]

Have the forums changed?

Yes, people are meaner.

Edit: Well, maybe not meaner, but definitely angrier.

Edited July 28, 2023 by Randall Ahren

[Arielle Popstar]

52 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

After the lab banned "off topic discussion" (see the pinned thread at the top of basically every section) the forums have gradually gotten less lively. Arguably that's a good thing; the forums aren't for finding belonging, that's what being ~in Secondlife is for. I dunno if I subscribe 100% to that argument, but things are what they are.

Very arguable as I feel the new restrictions and the enhanced moderation policies did a lot to kill the community that existed in the Forums and by extension bleeding to the rest of the platform, though that is happening at a slower pace. Perhaps the drop of the inworld concurrency is due to the summer months but that the Lab after so many years felt it necessary to do some work to the onboarding process at the Welcome region, makes me suspect that things are not going in a good direction.

[LittleMe Jewell]

7 minutes ago, Randall Ahren said:

Have the forums changed?

Yes, people are meaner.

No, that is the world in general these days.

 

Yes, the forums are different after the latest rules that LL laid down.  While it does minimize some of the drama, it always diminishes a lot of the comradery that happened here.  IMO, the forums are not better for it.  I don't visit near as often and don't pay attention to very many threads at all anymore.

[cirleen]

When threads go off topic, it can be horrid but sometimes an off-topic viewpoint is brilliant. By their nature, even jokes are at least half off-topic. Maybe the decreased participation is partly due to people resenting being censored. Imho, the mods act appropriately. Were they more harsh in the past?

Edited July 28, 2023 by cirleen

[Istelathis]

The forums are more so like Bellisseria now, whereas before the change it was mostly like the mainland 😋

[Gabriele Graves]

8 minutes ago, cirleen said:

Maybe the decreased participation is partly due to people resenting being censored.

From the conversations at the time, I would say that this is a certainty.

8 minutes ago, cirleen said:

Imho, the mods act appropriately. Maybe they were more harsh in the past.

There have definitely been harsher times in the recent past.  It's a difficult job to get right.  There were better times before that and it's reasonable at the moment in my opinion.

[Gabriele Graves]

1 minute ago, Istelathis said:

The forums are more so like Bellisseria now, whereas before the change it was mostly like the mainland 😋

Hah! You should witness some of the Bellisserian dramas before coming to that conclusion.

[cirleen]

24 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

the Lab after so many years felt it necessary to do some work to the onboarding process at the Welcome region, makes me suspect that things are not going in a good direction.

I'm new to the forums but have been inworld on and off since 2005, deleting accounts and creating new ones years later upon returning. I didn't need & skipped the onboarding process when returning. It seems about the same on the surface. How is onboarding different now?

[Orfeu Miles]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

No, that is the world in general these days.

 

Yes, the forums are different after the latest rules that LL laid down.  While it does minimize some of the drama, it always diminishes a lot of the comradery that happened here.  IMO, the forums are not better for it.  I don't visit near as often and don't pay attention to very many threads at all anymore.

Couldn't agree more Lil.

Drama is down yes... but so is the excitement and engagement.

 

Back in the day when the Forum Cartel was formed, we fought like cat and dog here... met inworld and Hugged/Danced it out.
Shrugs... maybe it's the world that has changed. Folks are entitled to call us grumpy oldbies, I can live with that, but we gave up a lot to live in this new sanitised realty.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

The forums have gone through entire changes a few times over the years.  With every change a few people are lost and never return or rarely return.  New people do join but are generally treated pretty badly by a few long time forumites who may be suspicious that every new person is an alt with ulterior motives.  We are generally more suspicious and seem to judge negatively and to be shorter tempered and surlier than a decade ago. There were angry and mean people back then, too, though.  I'm talking about REALLY mean people.  At times moderation was nowhere to be seen so anything could be said.  Several people I knew got lifetime bans both in the forums and inworld for their behavior here.

I still miss having open forums where we could discuss and debate real world issues.  I learned so much from hearing diverse perspectives.  I am not sure it would be the same today with all the division and unwillingness many of us have to even listen to another view without feeling attacked in our own.  We, as a whole, have changed just as much as the forum and its rules have changed.

I am sure that Lindens and Moles are tired of babysitting adults who can't discuss anything without name calling and attacking each other.  There will always be sensitive people who take everything anyone says as a personal attack and there will always be bullies who enjoy baiting others and laughing when they get the reaction they knew they would get.  We are human.

Yes, it is different.  Whether they are better or worse might turn into the next debate with the same few people attacking each other for entertainment.  I give it 3 pages.

[Silent Mistwalker]

Compared to the early days (2003-2005/6) this place is tame.

[cirleen]

Thank you Cinnamon, that is so insightful. That happens in a lot of RL scenarios too.

[Istelathis]

For me, it is fun to go back into time for various forums, websites, and so on.  LL keeps the forums of yesteryear archived for us, the wayback machine probably has some as well.

https://forums-archive.secondlife.com/108/1.html

Here is general from 2006, well before my time.  It appears there must have been some hackers that got people's data, and it was all the main talk - it seems almost the same, there is a point of major topics that hit and people get more lively here for a time, then it dies down, and something new comes along.  I've only been with the forums since around 2020 so my time here is very limited.  

I don't see many familiar names from back then, I guess a lot of people have moved on since then.

Edited July 28, 2023 by Istelathis

[Ceka Cianci]

Since the new rules were put in, i think there is less fighting than before. people are a bit more restrained on the topics compared to before since they pretty much have to be SL related..

[Kathlen Onyx]

51 minutes ago, Orfeu Miles said:

Back in the day when the Forum Cartel was formed, we fought like cat and dog here... met inworld and Hugged/Danced it out.
 

That certainly was not the experience that I saw here. Any off topic thread disintegrated either into politics or religion and people were not nice about it. It bled into other threads as well.  I am glad the forum is the way it is now.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, cirleen said:

Maybe the decreased participation is partly due to people resenting being censored. Imho, the mods act appropriately. Were they more harsh in the past?

Without any question. At least one long-time forum perennial (and my best friend) no longer posts here at all because of the censorship and restrictions upon what we can discuss.

That's not actually due to the mods themselves, though, who I think may be the best we've ever had -- at least in the post-Residents Answers era. Rather, it's the rules that they've been tasked with enforcing. I don't think the moderation here is harsher at all: on the contrary, I think it's far more context-sensitive and rational. While I'm sure that there have been times when Dyna or Quartz wanted to kick my butt all the way to the cornfield, the fact is that every warning or suspension I've ever had here came from . . . a Linden.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

On the subject of the change to the rules about what we can discuss, though, I have to say that I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that we can, in fact, discuss politics, "social justice," and all manner of things seemingly forbidden -- so long as they are discussed within the context of SL.

So, talk about BLM in the real world? No. Which, ok . . . fine.

Talk about the fact that a "publisher" of a popular SL magazine has recently publicly trashed a creator for selling a pro-BLM tee? That would, I'm pretty confident, be allowable here.

[Arielle Popstar]

27 minutes ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

That certainly was not the experience that I saw here. Any off topic thread disintegrated either into politics or religion and people were not nice about it. It bled into other threads as well.  I am glad the forum is the way it is now.

Mmm but it seems to me you have been less actively involved since then.

[Kathlen Onyx]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Mmm but it seems to me you have been less actively involved since then.

I got a real job.

[Ceka Cianci]

The way I took the rule changes after a bit was,  and especially mainly this section, which came off as a hostile environment.. With new users dropping in, it wasn't giving off such a welcoming vibe to many new users..

In that sense of things with them looking for more answers on fixing new user retention, they felt the forums weren't helping in their current state.. So we got hit with the new rules..

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[cirleen]

11 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

every warning or suspension I've ever had here came from . . . a Linden.

I can't imagine you ever getting a suspension, I can't see anything that you would ever do be cause for suspension. You might just be about the wisest person in this entire forum. Ok. Tell me your shenanigans. 😄

[cirleen]

Idk, I see Sam around a lot. I guess we go to the same threads.