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The old community

KrakKrak New
edited April 2008 in Vanilla 1.0 Help
I signed in today and it took me a good couple of minutes to sift through all the recent postings to make sure I didn't miss anything of value. And all the postings are the same, day in, day out. They have all become support questions (and a good portion of them are constant repeats). It seems (to me) that the Lussumo community, which was once a place I came to hang out and BS with people, with an occasional support tid-bit tossed out or a question answered here and there, has now become a cesspool of Vanilla questions and "I want this or that..." discussions. Gone are the days of playful banter and posts about nothing in particular. Posts like this one don't even go noticed anymore... Most of the old school players don't even hang around much/anymore. I find myself missing the old Lussumo. :(

Comments

  • fysicsluvrfysicsluvr New
    edited April 2008
    image
    MORE COWBELL
  • ADMADM
    I 100% agree Krak, I find myself logged out and lurking more of the time now.
  • WandererWanderer
    OK guys, come back, you pick the topics!
  • MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    edited April 2008
    I think the issue is that as the software and community has grown it has become more and more support focussed naturally. At a guess we're getting about 5-10 new users a day and the majority of them come to ask questions not to answer them. I suppose it's inevitable really and I must say I've felt my own support response dropping off over the last few months - I'm still eyes and ears all round the forum keeping check on people but I'm losing the will to put fingers to keys and help out. That said there is definitely an increased amount of knowledge sharing going on and I still think there's a pretty effective turnover of answered support queries.....of course we could always set up a play forum on the side just for chit chat if a few people fancied it?
  • adrian.adrian. ✭
    I definitely don't come back as much as I used to. probably because of wanderer, because he's a cunt.
  • Andy KAndy K ✭
    I've not been much for hanging out and talking in all the time I've been here. But holy crap, this place has been great for community support and feedback, more than most tools I use. I've tried to help out other new folk when I can, but I only visit once a week or so (mostly checking for new issues, new ad-ons and the like). Anyone who has helped me, or helped anyone else: YOU ARE ROCK STARS.

    This is particularly relevant, as I've got yet another sticky issue on my forums which I might bring up here in a new thread today. :-)

    In short, I get my gaming talk from my gaming forums, my society talk from my society forums and blogs... I come here to talk shop. And I'm never disappointed.

    -Andy
  • AltyAlty New
    I'd echo both what Minisweeper and Andy say and also say that part of the problem might be how Vanilla functions (how it is designed to function, and I wouldn't want it changed at all). It's discussions based instead of forums based.

    I browse Vanilla how I think it was intended to be browsed, through the Discussions page. It feels normal and natural this way, it's brilliant. It comes at a price though, there's no real compartmentalization of topics. You get a mixed bag of all threads, and going back to Minisweeper more and more threads have become support-oriented so you're bound to see more of them.

    Disclaimer: I don't claim to be part of the old Lussumo or anything like that. I just think it's a shame that people are feeling disillusioned with what seems to me, as a relative newb, to be a great and supporting community.
  • VincentVincent
    man.... it really does look like we have kinda died....
  • WallPhoneWallPhone
    This community is definitely different. Vanilla is more popular now than ever, and all these new members don't know what it was like before.

    But really, it is what we make of it.

    This shouldn't be a typical boring support forum. So... lets just stop being all depressed about how its different now, and do our part to make it more like it was. Post a topic. Inspire yourself with by reading old threads. Bump one if necessary. These new users will see a fun bullshit atmosphere instead of the typical support board and follow suit.
  • loutreizeloutreize
    Soooo, I've been here for about a week and ya i do agree that it is mostly a support forum more than anything else, which is good but not what a community is supposed to be. You need to have that BS line to break away from all the serious business that goes on in here. So what do you do now? Continue addressing the issue? Naw, i'd follow what WallPhone said, start posting topics and bring back some oldies. It'll help ease up the place for sure. At the same time, you'll probably get some new users (myself included) interested and get them to stay in a little longer without demanding for something or asking for help. Hope this works out for most of you.
  • WandererWanderer
    I could start another Mac V PC thing?
    That would liven things up! image
  • miquelmiquel
    yet another one?? all of us know by far your position ;)
  • WandererWanderer
    Well people are complaining it's boring around here now, just a thought.
  • miquelmiquel
    just joking :P
  • WandererWanderer
    And you've only been a member since February 2008?

    Have you been reading old discussions?

    Did you see the one that got slammed shut in my face?

    Ever since then things got boring, let's re-open it?

    (I'm joking too mate but I love a good debate!)
  • fysicsluvrfysicsluvr New
    How about the infamous atheist vs religious debate! That ought to hit a nerve!
  • WandererWanderer
    Yup, Mac V PC, same discussion, both involve unwashed heathens! (smiling here!)
  • TomTesterTomTester New
    edited April 2008
    Though I'd love to think I was there when it was different, more than likely I just accelerated the downhill trend... :-) Anyhoo, I definitely recognize that the forums have changed. Also see many repeated questions, and as Alty seems to imply, this actually exposes the inherent *weakness* of Vanilla's discussion-based 'flow' model as a system for tech support-type question/answer forums. My suggestions that might help make this particular forum a BETTER tech support forum (and perhaps Vanilla a better product overall): #1 - Modified discussions overview page to show TOPIC START DATE in addition to the LAST COMMENT This has been a pet peeve of mine, but IMHO the TOPIC START DATE on a fast-flowing board like Vanilla is more important than the LAST ACTIVE date. I can deduce all kinds of things from the topic start date and the number of comments, e.g. whether it's a long ongoing topic (OLD and MANY COMMENTS) or a dead topic (OLD and FEW COMMENTS) or a very ACTIVE topic (NEW and MANY COMMENTS). The LAST ACTIVE date/time is really kinda moot for anything on the discussion overview page, as the last active thread is at the top, and a safe bet is that the last active date is TODAY... http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/4313/discussion-start-date-filter/ #2 - We need NEW & BETTER SEARCH CAPABILITIES For starters, let's allow single search across topics *and* comments (never understood why this combo isn't the default, it would be simpler from a UI perspective, plus most posters are not very precise in their topic definition so a topic-only search makes less sense. I'd also love to see better DATE/TIME filtering options, e.g. "last comment no more than xx days old" and/or "topic started no more than xx days ago" Finally, I'd kill for some FUZZY SEARCHING tools (even simple stemming would do, also see #3) #3 - We could definitely use some kind of RELATED TOPICS/THREADS add-on I love the Wordpress automated 'related posts' plugins. A similar add-on for Vanilla would kick ass too. Actually, I would be very much in favor if ANY new topic that's started would result in a best-guess 'related topics' list that a user could review before starting a whole new thread with the same old question all over again. http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/5718/extension-faqs-to-prevent-repeat-questions-and-retain-solutions/ http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/4377/related-posts-similar-discussions/ #4 - Finally, I'd like a TOPIC/COMMENT LINK PREVIEW feature Hover over a topic HREF in the same board and a floating window would show you the first couple of paragraphs of that topic or comment WITHOUT having to click to open the thread. Note that I'm not talking about screen shots ot thumbnails, but the pure text from the forum. http://lussumo.com/community/discussion/4227/intravanilla-link-preview/ TT (edits: changed links to comments above to link to topic titles instead)
  • NickENickE New
    o8++ ?
  • TomTesterTomTester New
    edited April 2008
    09 sir?
This discussion has been closed.