(04-22-2015, 06:54 PM)Aya Wrote:(04-22-2015, 06:53 PM)Kellach Woods Wrote:I think most of the regular users know who the other regular uses are and recognize a new person without any reference to a post count, yes :-X(04-22-2015, 06:43 PM)Aya Wrote: Really? Our community is so small that everyone knows everyone else, who is hiding those post counts supposed to fool?Everyone knows everyone else, really?
That I have to question. Same with the assumption that everyone's friends here.
I personally think we're barking up the wrong tree when it comes to post count/join date/rep. There's maybe a correlation between these things and being ignored, but there's no real causation, I've found. Many have a lower post count than I, but you can bet dollars to donuts that they'd easily get people to comment/interact/whatever else with their stuff compared to me.
And while that's an anecdote, I'd wager there's other such anecdotes out there to that completely blow this theory out of the water. Could probably even dig up another example using the Introduction forum but I don't have it in me to quantify it so I won't, but look at the disparity between received posts to each new person.
However, my question was more onto actually knowing each other rather than just saying we'd recognize a new person. Let's be real here - how many people actually know each other here? As in, interact fairly often on the forum and out of forum (in-game suffices)? I'd wager not as much as advertised. I can safely say I don't interact with around... 80% of the most well-known posters here. Could be because their characters don't grip me, our storylines never intertwine, etc. (at least for in-game), could be for any sorts of reason. Arguably, apparently some people avoid me like the plague as I've been told (but to quote gmcfosho - "AND I STILL GO HARD.")
I'd go right ahead and say that's a far bigger contributor to why there's been increased hostility around the forums and why people out there are hating on 'em. People just don't know each other, don't make an effort to remedy that either, putting the onus on the other person at all times. New, old, same difference. Someone quantified that the amount of posts in the new people forums has dwindled into essentially recruitment posts and scarcely anything, with the worst of it being in the summer of 2014 (coincidentally, around the time I joined - I remember my own thread having a grand total of 4 posts and 2 of them me). That's a problem we can actually do something about. Actually welcoming new people makes it so that, y'know, they know the forum is not only active but wants to see them around.
The biggest hurdle is that this problem is a conscious problem - It's not something you can just say "oh let's hide this, show that, be more strict and all will be fine." It's something that has to be worked on every day by every member of this community and the behavior exhibited recently, and I'd even go as far as to say since I joined, shows that this is nigh-impossible.
To finish this long-ass rant with a drama-filled, over-sensitive phrase because I totes can : Instead of "being excellent to one another", we have collectively said "fuck you I got mine".
