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A fractured community

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ano0maly
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A fractured community

Post by ano0maly »

A conversation I have read recently has reminded me of a concern I’ve been having about the talkhaus community. Since about a year ago, I’ve thought that it seems rather fractured.
  • Two big camps

    The two big camps in talkhaus demographics are let's play and gazebo. Most people in talkhaus seem to spend the majority of their time here in one of these forums. (Another big set, the collaboration extravaganza, will be discussed later.)

    There are overlaps between the two camps, of course. But sometimes there are more extreme examples. Some people tend to only post updates in twitter thread or talk about themselves or fool around, no longer having much interest in raocow or let's play stuff. And then there are those, despite having been in the forums for years, post only in raocow's LP threads or their own playthroughs and don't spend time hanging out with talkhausers or partaking in other topics; they're essentially limited to leaving youtube comments on LPs.

    So is there something we can do to promote raocow and such to those that lurk in other places and not come to let's play so they are more aware of what's happening? Is there a way to show the LP mongers how to engage with the community outside talking about those videos? Basically we could use more interaction between the two quasi-distinct camps, so they know each other.

    Late last year, I suggested having a "joke announcement" - we get those from time to time, remember cats vs dogs - that helps bring these camps together to meet each other. Maybe we could have something like "let's play VS gazebo" poll in the announcements, with each team having its own flag design.
  • The collabs

    This is a big one. Ever since new, non-A2MT collab works were started, the collaboration section gained a big boost in activity, because many people showed up to contribute. But some of them don't see the board past those collabs. Even in A2MT days, there were those that only came because raocow mentioned on youtube that there's a collab happening here; they would submit levels and then leave. But worse is when they become regulars that entrench themselves in a collab work and yet they don't set a foot outside.

    Over a year ago, Argumentable posted a notice in the A2MBXT forum for this reason, encouraging participants to hang out in other forums, but I don't know how effective it was. It almost feels like we're "leasing" a part of the forums to outsiders for their projects. As Argue noted, when the projects do come out and raocow plays them, the viewers don't really know who some of the contributors are. Then the collabs feel less like talkhaus productions.
  • Other single-interest visitors

    People that
    1) Come just to advertise a game or game engine one worked on
    2) Come just to promote one's let's play videos
    3) Come only because one's game is being played right now
    They're not paying attention to talkhaus beyond their own presentations. There are cases where they didn't even bother to introduce themselves and jump right to the topic, expecting others to figure out who they are.

    Now, I'm aware that per individual case, there's not much we can do about this. They're technically members and there's nothing rule-breaking about posting in the correct places, even if the trend can be a bit annoying. But at large, there might be something we can do about this trend. Maybe we can make the introduction thread mandatory or at least actively encouraged?
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Falky
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Falky »

I don't see a big problem. Surely that sort of thing happens on most forums. For example, some goons will tend to stick to the LP subforum, some will almost exclusively post in GBS. It's just what happens, people stick to the places that interest them.
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Jesuiscontent
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Jesuiscontent »

You can't just force people to change their preferences, like, yeah, some people are more interested in raocow's videos and some are only here anymore because of the community, but they aren't going to start participating in what they don't like.

I don't think it's a visibility problem, I mean everything on the frontpage is straightforward enough, and from time to time people that tend to only post in LP participate in a few gazebo threads that they like, and vice-versa

Also most of the active members actually post in every subforum from what I can tell

However I strongly agree on the collab part. It's pretty dumb that so many people have like 95% of their posts in collab only, some of them don't even go to the let's play subforum it seems. I agree that they "don't feel like talkhaus productions" because nobody knows who even are the people who made it. Like, at this point the A2BMXTSMP subforum could be hosted on an entirely different website that noone would even notice
Again though, I don't think there's much else anyone can do to change that, if they only care about raocow and not the actual community, forcing them to do so is probably going to have the opposite of the intended effect

I'm genuinely interested as to why the collab people never go out of the collab forums though, if they even have an actual reason

Also let me redirect you to an in-depth study of the cracker-barrel viewtopic.php?f=42&t=4737
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sedron
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Re: A fractured community

Post by sedron »

I'm gonna agree with Falky here. Every forum has different subsections with different frequent visitors. It's just a matter of what you want to talk about.

There's also the fact that just because you are interested in a topic doesn't mean that you have anything to contribute. I'll use myself as an example. I actually follow a lot of threads around the Talkhaus, despite a modest post count that's mostly been in Forum Games as of late. I usually get to check raocow's LP threads after most everything's been said, though. In cases where I want to go on a level design rant I don't always have the time and energy to put enough thought into it. So, while I watch those videos and check the thread near-daily, I don't actually post there a lot right now.

The effect of different subforums might seem a bit drastic here because it's such a small community to begin with? I don't really know.

As for the collabs section, I think the main reason measures were taken to introduce those members to the rest of the community was because they were coming solely to take part in those collabs. I don't think anyone is joining specifically to use the Twitter thread, or to post their thoughts on raocow's videos and nothing else.
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Dan
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Dan »

ano0maly wrote:
Ecclesiastes 1:9 wrote:What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Dan »

who the fuck is jacques
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Re: A fractured community

Post by KobaBeach »

Dan wrote:who the fuck is jacques
T H E W O R L D M A Y N E V E R K N O W
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Grounder »

Dan wrote:who the fuck is jacques
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I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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Re: A fractured community

Post by Ditocoaf »

Some people are just here to talk about the LPs, not to ~join a community~. Nothin wrong with that. (I was one of those for a long time. It's already plenty obvious that there's a wider community, welcoming to anyone who wants to venture out of the LP forum.)

Some people are here because they wanna keep talking to the people they've been talking to, and hanging out with the people they've been hanging out with, but they aren't really interested in Rao's LPs anymore. That's fine. (though we can still evangelize at them when a particularly good LP happens.)

But yeah, I agree with Jesuiscontent that it's pretty weird that "talkhaus collabs" are by a lot of people who don't seem to talk with the rest of the haus, or even watch raocow anymore.
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Re: A fractured community

Post by KobaBeach »

Grounder wrote:image
J O N T R O N H A S N O T H I N G T O D O
W I T H O U R J A C Q U E S

n uo ɟ ǝɥʇ op llᴉʍ ǝɥ ɹoɟ ɟlǝsɹnoʎ ǝɹɐdǝɹd ㄣƖ0ᄅ ɥʇㄣƖ ɹǝqɯǝʇdǝs
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Ashan »

Meh, I don't see much of an issue.
I joined cause of raocow who I don't really watch any more, but I like the community here so I stuck around. I don't even watch Let's Plays any more period and I don't have much of an interest in collaborations so I just stick to the gazebo and cartridge mostly because they're places that I can talk about video games and other dumb things with a community where I vaguely know who the people are.

I mean, sure. I think joke global announcements and stuff to get more people interacting is fine, but I don't really see an issue of people only posting in certain sub forums if they're the only sub forums that interest them.
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Re: A fractured community

Post by BeatBoxingBoo »

Ditocoaf wrote: or even watch raocow anymore.
or literally don't know who he is
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Re: A fractured community

Post by cats-on-ice »

In all seriousness I would totally be up for the flag design thing and would love to see an elaboration on that.
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Unaniem »

EDIT: I shouldn't be typing shit up this late at night.
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Doctor Shemp
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Doctor Shemp »

It's very possible that some people don't post in many threads because they have nothing worthwhile to say there. They may still be reading them. Not everyone on the Talkhaus feels a necessity to post in every thread they read regardless of whether it actually contributes anything or not, like everyone here with a post count >1000 obviously does, myself included. Some may have previous experience in a forum where posting something that doesn't add anything of value would get you punished, like Something Awful for example. If you went through most threads and deleted every post that didn't add something of value, then probably quite a few of the people who post everywhere, that you're holding up as examples, would have very few total posts at all.
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Re: A fractured community

Post by 128-Up »

Doctor Shemp wrote:It's very possible that some people don't post in many threads because they have nothing worthwhile to say there. They may still be reading them. Not everyone on the Talkhaus feels a necessity to post in every thread they read regardless of whether it actually contributes anything or not, like everyone here with a post count >1000 obviously does, myself included. Some may have previous experience in a forum where posting something that doesn't add anything of value would get you punished, like Something Awful for example. If you went through most threads and deleted every post that didn't add something of value, then probably quite a few of the people who post everywhere, that you're holding up as examples, would have very few total posts at all.
I know I haven't been here very long, but this is basically how I feel. I don't want to inadvertently cause problems via "random" posting. (On my previous forum, randomness had its own entire sub-forum, so it feels slightly weird having randomness mixed in with... well... the entire forum.)
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Leet »

some of these examples are more relevant than others.

collabs, yeah, its nice to encourage it so that people dont just spend their time in collabs

but for example "3) Come only because one's game is being played right now" like um if somebody was playing my vidya game id join their forum to talk about it with them for sure, but thered be no reason for me to stay if i didnt want to

thats

thats normal
Well it is a decent hack but sometime its just too repetitif there no level that actually pop in your face and your like oh yeah that level they all ressemble themselves and just monster along the way.
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

Curse you people for having different interests!

Sebby, start making levels. Kobabeach, make your own let's plays. Alice, start drawing sprites. Me, start doing relataphone.

I've often wondered way some of the gazebo and LP folks don't participate in the collabs. Everything is open on the talkhaus and if someone is not participating then it's their own business. You can't really control behavior and it's as good as it's going to get. Most people who spend time in one of these forums do spread out already. I don't see a problem.
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Jesuiscontent »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote: I've often wondered way some of the gazebo and LP folks don't participate in the collabs.
By trying too hard to be clever you end up sounding like an idiot

Think for a few seconds and you'll find out why participating in a collab is on a completely different scale than participating in a conversation
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Bwarch »

Although I have a passing interest in SMW/SMBX level design more often than not I just get flustered when trying to figure out the software.

So conversation and LPs it is.
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Jesuiscontent
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Jesuiscontent »

128-Up wrote:
Doctor Shemp wrote:It's very possible that some people don't post in many threads because they have nothing worthwhile to say there. They may still be reading them. Not everyone on the Talkhaus feels a necessity to post in every thread they read regardless of whether it actually contributes anything or not, like everyone here with a post count >1000 obviously does, myself included. Some may have previous experience in a forum where posting something that doesn't add anything of value would get you punished, like Something Awful for example. If you went through most threads and deleted every post that didn't add something of value, then probably quite a few of the people who post everywhere, that you're holding up as examples, would have very few total posts at all.
I know I haven't been here very long, but this is basically how I feel. I don't want to inadvertently cause problems via "random" posting. (On my previous forum, randomness had its own entire sub-forum, so it feels slightly weird having randomness mixed in with... well... the entire forum.)
Yeah fair enough. It's not at all the sort of thing we punish though so you should stop feeling restrained for that here, haha
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Whimsical Calamari »

flags are super neato and helping make one for the gazebo would be extra super neato

that said, I'm a little apprehensive about inter-forum competition (which in my experience (limited to one large-scale forum, sure) can get bad quickly if the right controls aren't put in place), but, handled correctly, this could be a really interesting form of socialization. perhaps an art competition or level design competition like a collaborative magl or raocow drawing contest like someone mentioned earlier could do some good, but maybe it could only cause further divides i don't know?

I know that, personally, despite watching raocow's videos as a daily routine and still enjoying his videos, I've never really felt like I had anything worthwhile to say in a let's play thread, and I've never felt like I fit in that community. I would definitely agree that this sort of divide among the forums is really a normal thing.

if nothing else happens regarding this matter, switching forum names for the next april fools could be an amusing way to mix things up (aw yeah dumb long-range thinking)
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Re: A fractured community

Post by 128-Up »

Jesuiscontent wrote:
128-Up wrote:I know I haven't been here very long, but this is basically how I feel. I don't want to inadvertently cause problems via "random" posting. (On my previous forum, randomness had its own entire sub-forum, so it feels slightly weird having randomness mixed in with... well... the entire forum.)
Yeah fair enough. It's not at all the sort of thing we punish though so you should stop feeling restrained for that here, haha
Oh believe me, I'm trying. :V

Also I rejoined so I could remake that thread for that game I was making if anyone remembers that
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Re: A fractured community

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

Jesuiscontent wrote:
Septentrion Pleiades wrote: I've often wondered way some of the gazebo and LP folks don't participate in the collabs.
By trying too hard to be clever you end up sounding like an idiot

Think for a few seconds and you'll find out why participating in a collab is on a completely different scale than participating in a conversation
Often times, simply talking about something is a collaborating. Sometimes it's harder for some people to have conversations about things their aren't just interested in. This isn't as idiotic as you are so happy to point out in an otherwise civil thread.
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ano0maly
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Re: A fractured community

Post by ano0maly »

You guys are right, this is sort of natural phenomenon, and what we can do about it is limited (or, we can try doing stuff, but the impact would not be as big as we would like it to be). I also think that things have improved somewhat since I had these concerns a year ago. And actually, contrary to how some people felt around then, I would say that activities have gone up since a year and a half ago.

But I was drawn attention to this because this very day one of these concerns came up in another thread. And while I thought it was a bit harshly put, there was some correlation with what I've said here, and I thought this may be a good opportunity to bring it up.
Bartle wrote:In terms of getting the two sub-sections of the community to interact more I think work should be done to marry the concept of Proper, Endorsed Talkhaus Collab and the more relaxed and humourous contests and games in the various other subforums. I wouldn't really want to enter a MaGL, but I would be totally up for an official draw raocow contest with a video of raocow talking about entries while Left Bank Two plays in the background.
That's a very swell idea. Having raocow announce more community-side events like that in his channel may catch attention of both the LP camp and the hangout camp. And I like the "middle-of-the-road contest/game" description.
cats-on-ice wrote:In all seriousness I would totally be up for the flag design thing and would love to see an elaboration on that.
Last year talkhaus had an ongoing joke in the form of arguing about whether cats or dogs were better, and it became a fad for a while. Members were asked in an announcement thread to state which one they preferred and they were put into sides based on the answer; we even had our own forums for our sides (they're in the graveyard now).

That's kind of what I mean. If we have two camps, we can make a silly parody out of it by having a joke war between the factions, with each having its own banner and whatnot. And we could have an announcement thread where there's a poll or a small competition. It's a fun way for the two groups to meet in the same thread.

But if what you had in mind was more like a talkhaus flag design contest, that's an interesting thought too.
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