As some of you might remember, for a while now I've been with the Club Penguin community online, as that is really what got me into spending long amounts of time on the Internet back in '06 (I did CityCreator and Neopets from '03-'05 but that didn't really get me obsessed). The older fan base for Club Penguin has grown up, mostly, and numerous changes in the game have driven a way tons of users; not to mention the age demographic for the game changing so that it's designed for younger users (this is so they (Club Penguin) can make more money). The younger users aren't as interested in the whole community aspect of the game as most of us oldies were, and there are SO many of them that recreating what we had is near impossible.
A forum I have been on for over two years now recently, as in a month ago, made me a moderator. The forum's been dying slowly for the past few months (*) and I have had quite a few ideas and the true desire to help it, so when I was modded, I did my best to help out. But, in this past month I've realized that things with the staff are in just such a disarray, and the forum is doing so poorly, that with the point I mentioned earlier about Club Penguin's changes, and the new users replacing the old, the forum just cannot be helped anymore. So last night, I put away the badge.
Another forum that I was on for a good three years is going through the same problems (minus the staff disorganization and chaos). I had ideas to help the place and I am great friends with the admin, but he's an employee for Miniclip (who hosts the forum) and the company has neglected updating the board's software for these past three years, so there are various broken things and limitations, which in turn, limits what we can do. The guy's also in his last year of college and since the board is dying slowly, he's devoting more time to that and has kind of given up on the forum.
But I can't really push all the blame on Club Penguin, because the users that remain have mostly all turned to pure cancer, myself included. We've killed the forums without knowing it by scaring off new users with cliquey attitudes, spamming stupid, overused memes, and not really contributing anything; most of us just expected everyone else to do work for us and provide content. At one point in winter of last year, there was an attempted documentary project that involved the whole forum, but none of us really worked, and that is what made that project fail. We said we'd do something but didn't.
So, really, little bits of everything helped us reach our own demise. I'm pretty down about it all because this is what I grew up with, what inspired me to start learning how to program/code and run websites, what introduced me to many good friends online and off, and sparked a lot of imagination and ideas in me. All I really have left of the old days now are memories, bitter sweet ones.
*:
The number of users increases while the number of posts almost hits 0%, so allow me to restate my point that the new users are just not interested in this stuff.
A forum I have been on for over two years now recently, as in a month ago, made me a moderator. The forum's been dying slowly for the past few months (*) and I have had quite a few ideas and the true desire to help it, so when I was modded, I did my best to help out. But, in this past month I've realized that things with the staff are in just such a disarray, and the forum is doing so poorly, that with the point I mentioned earlier about Club Penguin's changes, and the new users replacing the old, the forum just cannot be helped anymore. So last night, I put away the badge.
Another forum that I was on for a good three years is going through the same problems (minus the staff disorganization and chaos). I had ideas to help the place and I am great friends with the admin, but he's an employee for Miniclip (who hosts the forum) and the company has neglected updating the board's software for these past three years, so there are various broken things and limitations, which in turn, limits what we can do. The guy's also in his last year of college and since the board is dying slowly, he's devoting more time to that and has kind of given up on the forum.
But I can't really push all the blame on Club Penguin, because the users that remain have mostly all turned to pure cancer, myself included. We've killed the forums without knowing it by scaring off new users with cliquey attitudes, spamming stupid, overused memes, and not really contributing anything; most of us just expected everyone else to do work for us and provide content. At one point in winter of last year, there was an attempted documentary project that involved the whole forum, but none of us really worked, and that is what made that project fail. We said we'd do something but didn't.
So, really, little bits of everything helped us reach our own demise. I'm pretty down about it all because this is what I grew up with, what inspired me to start learning how to program/code and run websites, what introduced me to many good friends online and off, and sparked a lot of imagination and ideas in me. All I really have left of the old days now are memories, bitter sweet ones.
*:
The number of users increases while the number of posts almost hits 0%, so allow me to restate my point that the new users are just not interested in this stuff.
