New year, new forum...

[cHodAX]

If it was that easy to get banned howcome me and Bodhi are still here? Flawed. Yes throd is basically Moussssssilllllliiinnnnnniiii but he's a lovely version of him.

To be fair to the three of you, well you are a shower of bastards. Oh wait, I was supposed to be nice there.

Start again. You aren't that bad really, well unless it involves Sony and then all bets are off!

 

[Ch3tan]

Right, can we start this again without the elitism?

Firstly I see far more right wing politics on OT than on General. The Daily Fail is quoted and linked far to often on OT.

Zede, stop labelling people, it's very old now.

Merging is a scary though for lots, and that is exactly why it should be considered. The forum is stale, all of it. We don't attract new membership that sticks around. We are fragmented, and quite hostile. OT is the most active part of the forum, yet it is hidden away. It's not just a sub-forum, it's a sub-forum of a sub-forum.

Tierk - it is broken. That is why it needs fixing. Even OT is less active than it used to be. There are more posts about other games than DAOC in it, why can it not become off-topic for the entire forum?

Deebs: The poll is flawed. Chodax had a great suggestion. Move OT to the main index page for a year, the consider merging. This is the best move. OT on the front index makes the forum look more active, and encourages people to post in it that are put off by the stigma of DAOC. Rightly or wrongly there is a stigma attached to DAOC on these forums.

I'd post more, but I'm quite pissed and don't have the patience right now. This is something that needs to happen despite the quite vocal minority that will oppose it.

 

[Ch3tan]

id say no. theres nothing wrong with the way it is. No offence to General but OT and General have completely different attitudes, general is alot more serious and alot quieter than OT. Im sure General lot wouldnt want us all in there and may push them away.

So my vote is leave it well alone, it doesnt matter where it is as we all have it bookmarked anyway

Bollocks. Most of the General posters have left the community. That's why it's quieter. Those that are left are mainly people that have been with FH for a hell of a long time, most before DAOC. That's not a boast, it's just pointing out that these people have done all pointless spam etc, OT isn't the new, unique individual place some make it out to be.

If Deebs changed it tomorrow, would you all break away and stop posting? Or just carry on as normal and be forced to accept new people replying to your posts? I'd certainly feel that those that would stop posting because of such a reason should not be here in the first place.

 

[Ch3tan]

 

[Sparx]

Chet i love that your big thread with all the quotes to prove you point were basically you and one other person talking about it. Dont think you are voice of reason. Some of us like having 2 different places to post.

I know if they were merged i for one wouldnt post as much. That isnt a strop in anyway, its a fact as there is one less place to post. And i really do honestly think OT will lose that unique little thing it has

 

[cHodAX]

This is something that needs to happen despite the quite vocal minority that will oppose it.

Indeed, this is about the future and not the past. People considering leaving because it is no longer attached to DAoC makes zero sense and I honestly don't see it happening, people will at least give it a chance.

Now the stats. OT is by far the most active forum, 19,647 threads and 432,985 posts. It NEEDS to be on the first page of the forums as those numbers attract the eye and make it look like Freddyshouse is a very active place.

All the nay-sayers I ask you to consider that last point, Freddyshouse has become at best stagnant numbers-wise and I honestly feel part of it is because people come to the forums and don't initially see alot going on. A forum based community like this only survives as long as it stays active and attracts new people to replace those who drop away. You should all consider the future of the forums as well as your own desires. OT in the main board changes nothing for the current members apart from making it more visable and which should make it more active.

We are not talking merge now, this is all about a move away from DAoC.

 

[Sparx]

Bollocks. Most of the General posters have left the community. That's why it's quieter. Those that are left are mainly people that have been with FH for a hell of a long time, most before DAOC. That's not a boast, it's just pointing out that these people have done all pointless spam etc, OT isn't the new, unique individual place some make it out to be.

If Deebs changed it tomorrow, would you all break away and stop posting? Or just carry on as normal and be forced to accept new people replying to your posts? I'd certainly feel that those that would stop posting because of such a reason should not be here in the first place.

And why should an entire forum be moved to accomodate 4 or 5 new people who probably wont post there anyway?

 

[cHodAX]

Chet i love that your big thread with all the quotes to prove you point were basically you and one other person talking about it. Dont think you are voice of reason. Some of us like having 2 different places to post.

I know if they were merged i for one wouldnt post as much. That isnt a strop in anyway, its a fact as there is one less place to post. And i really do honestly think OT will lose that unique little thing it has

You are not losing the option of two places to post if OT is moved directly onto the main forum page. What we all gain from the move is new people or old people returning seeing a very active forum and being tempted into contributing to our community.

 

[cHodAX]

And why should an entire forum be moved to accomodate 4 or 5 new people who probably wont post there anyway?

You are making an assumption when you don't have numbers, I don't either but Deebs is already looking for ideas to bring new people in and this sort of falls under that anyway. You put your best parts on show, not hide them away behind a game dead on it's arse for half a decade.

 

[Wonk]

I don't think there's anything unique or charming about having the forum hidden to be honest. I haven't played daoc for a million years, and i'm sure 90% of the people who posts there haven't either.

I don't see the point of not posting just because it moves location. It's the same forum with a bit more activity. I'm sure those who doesn't like OT won't move their arse out of general, and the same goes for us.

At the end of the day, FH needs something to attract new people. I bet the last time the site had more than 7 registered people the same day, was when somebody made a flamewar with a US forum. I'd say let Aada review ps3 games, and get them linked to metacritic/gamerankings etc!

 

[cHodAX]

You know, I still haven't heard one decent arguement against yet. It has all been about keeping OT 'unique and quirky' (moving doesn't change that, a merge might). As for hidden away, all that does is increase the chance of OT dying a slow death because we don't pull in new members, it smacks of 'this is a local pub for locals. Then we have the people who don't like general forum members, well we have ignore for that and it works very well. If enough people complain about abuse Deebs and the mods will act, not matter how long the offender has been a part of the FH/BW community.

All I have seen so is fear of change, even if that means a slow death for OT and Freddyshouse.

I urge you all to consider this before you decide, there is nothing wrong with seeing reason and changing your mind or being prepared to take a risk.

 

[SheepCow]

 

[GReaper]

Interesting comments from both sides of the fence, I am not sure it would be a worthwhile excercise but what would be good is how we can bring new blood to the forums... Ideas anyone?

The forum needs something more than a General Discussion and Off Topic.

FreddysHouse inherited the BarrysWorld users, the Prydwen/Excalibur DAoC users, and then failed to get that many WAR users as everyone was already at Warhammer Alliance (and the game failed shortly after that). Occasionally a few new people have come here from other things, but FreddysHouse hasn't really offered anything anything new for ages.

Moving Off Topic to the front page isn't going to solve any problems at all. It'll make the front page look more active, but unless users are coming here for the quality of the General Discussion / Off Topic forums I seriously doubt new users will join.


If this is a site dedicated to gaming communities(?) - my suggestion would be to start running more.

Find the next upcoming game people are likely to play, get a cheap dedicated server, run enough game servers for that game to get a FH community going for that game, try and convince people to donate to cover the running costs. Effort will be required to get the users coming though, throwing up a server with "FreddysHouse" in the name isn't a guarantee for getting users to join - especially as pretty much anyone can do the same these days.

I realise this might turn FreddysHouse into a mini-BarrysWorld, and possibly something that you've not got the time or interest in!

 

[Ch3tan]

Chet i love that your big thread with all the quotes to prove you point were basically you and one other person talking about it. Dont think you are voice of reason. Some of us like having 2 different places to post.

I know if they were merged i for one wouldnt post as much. That isnt a strop in anyway, its a fact as there is one less place to post. And i really do honestly think OT will lose that unique little thing it has

Cho called for a merger in the long run, not me. I said that OT should not be hidden away. It should be on the main page. However, Cho's idea of merging in a year or so make sense. I don't see General being any more active and OT would become the general forum in time.

And why should an entire forum be moved to accomodate 4 or 5 new people who probably wont post there anyway?

Why should it not be to accommodate 4 or 5 people who don't like change? The forums are stale and need change. If you have a better idea to improve things then present one. You've not made one argument as to why it's a bad idea rather than "I don't want OT merged" and "OT is unique". If you think a move to the main index or a merge will kill OT, then you've got a low opinion of it in the first place. If General only has 4 or 5 active posters, how would they in anyway be able to affect OT anyway?

 

[Will]

Yes, make it a subforum of FH General

I think it should actually be the other way around, and FH General should be a sub-forum of OT. The grumpy old fart's lounge or something.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

For a laugh, swap the forum names round for a few weeks, just to see who foams at the mouth

 

[TdC]

I think it should actually be the other way around, and FH General should be a sub-forum of OT. The grumpy old fart's lounge or something.

who you calling old

For a laugh, swap the forum names round for a few weeks, just to see who foams at the mouth

haha awesome

 

[rynnor]

I realise this might turn FreddysHouse into a mini-BarrysWorld, and possibly something that you've not got the time or interest in!

It worked in the past but I cant really see that working now - still might be worth a try if its cheap.

The other large chunk of the community came in via Daoc and being an official forum - perhaps we could find some new decent game?

Another idea that comes to mind is pimping our tech forum - there really is an enormous amount of very good advice available on there?

 

[xomer]

sparx sparx +1.

 

[Zede]

If it was that easy to get banned howcome me and Bodhi are still here? Flawed. Yes throd is basically Moussssssilllllliiinnnnnniiii but he's a lovely version of him.

cause my expletives to chipper would get me banned.

 

[MYstIC G]

Interesting comments from both sides of the fence, I am not sure it would be a worthwhile excercise but what would be good is how we can bring new blood to the forums... Ideas anyone?

Content. We have none. We need some.

Moving the forums around won't change the fact that there's fuck all here to read. I'd rather read 100 old miss typed miss spelt factually inaccurate yaka news articles than another "oh look at this link from (BBC News/Daily Mail)" threads.

 

[MYstIC G]

Now the stats. OT is by far the most active forum, 19,647 threads and 432,985 posts. It NEEDS to be on the first page of the forums as those numbers attract the eye and make it look like Freddyshouse is a very active place.

Not that I disagree but by this logic my years old request to move the "Console Forums" up the ladder should have been done and never was because of people going "boo hiss". Logic is unlikely to win the day here imho!

 

[rynnor]

Content. We have none. We need some.

Thats a symptom rather than the problem - when the forum was busy there were plenty of useful stickies etc for different games but as its gotten quieter less content is produced.

Still perhaps it might be a solution - we could make an effort and produce some guides to whatever we are playing now?

 

[MYstIC G]

Perhaps Rynnor.

However imho it's the point at which a viscous cycle can be broken, i.e. as I see it things go:

Less content -> Nothing to hold interest -> No point visiting -> Lost user -> Less content.

As for guides I think SAS would be very pleased to see a renewed interest in guides given the work he's put into getting the guides site back up and running.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

I think we should focus on increasing userbase, thread and post counts, rather than providing guides for games that you can get anywhere. Or bringing in another user base of gamers a lá DAoC that don't want to contribute to anyone but their favourite playpartner. Most of us don't even play the same game any more - it's no like it's the year 2000 and there's only 2 or 3 good, 'big' community games. The whole gaming thing has split massively and this forums' focus should be about being a forum, rather than any half-arsed content driven site.

(This is in no way an indicment of anyone who's gone to the trouble of providing such content at all btw.)

 

[Wazzerphuk]

cause my expletives to chipper would get me banned.

Swear all you fucking want, no-one gives a flying fuck. You ****.

 

[MYstIC G]

Pfft, by that logic you're over 1000 posts off my pace you dirty slacker.

 

[Sparx]

If the forum were to be moved we would have to have our continued relaxed modding thats why OT is so successful we mod ourselves and are allowed more freedom, will that same freedom be there if its moved onto the front page? Being more in the forefront in my opinion means we'd have to be checked more.

 

[SheepCow]

Relaxed modding? The mods are relaxed everywhere

Also, there is no them and us!

 

[TdC]

If the forum were to be moved we would have to have our continued relaxed modding thats why OT is so successful we mod ourselves and are allowed more freedom, will that same freedom be there if its moved onto the front page? Being more in the forefront in my opinion means we'd have to be checked more.

FH enjoys a somewhat more relaxed form of moderation I guess, compared to other forums. I don't really see that changing unless we're forced into it.
As to being checked, whatever that may be...sounds like something a vet would do tbh, but anyway...you don't know how often you are checked now. What are you counting? A mod getting in gear and actually doing something? How many times have you noticed that happening?


proposed rule change: Sparx gets banned whenever someone does something bad