Community Division - What's the deal with all the little guys?

[___]

So every once in a while I succumb to curiosity and follow a sig link to some other site that wants to be the next big new thing in RPG maker forums.  Inevitably they have a handful of members, are nearly empty and only active in the vaguest of senses.  I understand there are issues like drama and taste that drive people to want to split away and create their own communities, but it seems so counterproductive.  Especially when it's a very small group, many of whom still participate in the parent group (RMXP in this case), and mostly intend to expand their community by siphoning off an existing one.  Mind you I'm not talking about a major schism which will happen from time to time in any community of a significant size where a large portion of the group packs up their bags and says "fuck you, we're leaving!"  I'm talking about the groups who just want to do basically the exact same things for the exact same reasons but slap their own brand name on it.

In an environment where a community benefits most from having a single common ground to work from, rather than a bunch of little isolated compartments, is this the best for everyone, or anyone?  Personally I'm sick of registering on a bazillion 90% empty forums that are pretty much identical to RMXP to see and do things that could be done just as well here, and further it pains me somewhat to see something good buried in a hole somewhere when a whole lot more people could benefit from it over here in an active and vibrant forum.

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Anyway, that's not an appeal, it's an invitation for discussion.  What do individuals and the community of RPG maker geeks in general benefit from this division, and what do they lose? 

(And no, I don't think this is serious or controversial enough for the symposium, personally :D)

 

[Despain]

yeah there are little rmxp.org clone forums everywhere. it's usually an invisionfree forum or something with like 3 members and they're all members here anyway.

they really don't serve any purpose but hey, people like to think they have power so i guess being the administrator of a forum with with their friends is enough for them

 

[Venetia]

Yeah ... I don't see much point in all these little communities all over the place, but if people feel like admin'ing their own dealies then I doubt it's detrimental in any real way. In fact, their learning the ropes, admin'ing little forums, could be good for them as members. They'll realize, on a small scale, how stupidly obnoxious seemingly little problems can be (like spambots, n00bs, waaambulances, etc).

Is it a waste of time/effort? Yeah. But hey, isn't doing anything on the interweb (outside investing or buying/selling) kind of a waste anyway?

 

[Kagetsu Tohya]

Personally I'm sick of registering on a bazillion 90% empty forums that are pretty much identical to RMXP to see and do things that could be done just as well here, and further it pains me somewhat to see something good buried in a hole somewhere when a whole lot more people could benefit from it over here in an active and vibrant forum.

If you're sick of your own decisions, then common sense dictates to stop making those decisions.

No one's holding a gun to the back of your head and forcing you to register on "Inactive Forum X," especially when viewing the forums unregistered (as a guest) is available as an option. Furthermore, the forums that require you to register to even let you look at the forum usually aren't worth it.

Such a situation is like beating your head against a wall, and blaming the wall.

 

[Venetia]

Maybe he's just trying to be nice to his interweb friends? Lord knows I'm not >_>;;;;;;;

 

[djzalzer]

I am an owner of a teensy rmxp.org clone (well not exactly but it's similar).  Yeah, pretty much it's worthless, but it's a lot of fun.  I guess it's as much a waste of time as anything. :|

 

[Bael]

Yes, let's not have any ".org" clones! We want a monopoly! There can only be one! If there are any more, they automatically suck and should be spat upon!

Really, who cares? So what if another community that has the same interest as you shows up? If they last, they last.  That by no means that they are worse than you because they don't use money.  It's all in the community! People are attracted to more communities than abusive ones and ones that maybe cater to new people.  Some people like this mean grittiness.  But really, nothing hurts to have more of a variety.  But that's my 2 cents.  I also disapprove of monopolies, if you didn't detect my sarcasm.

 

[Despain]

what nobody said anything about monopolies. guess what: it's an internet forum

 

[Venetia]

I guess we're a little strict, but if anyone thinks this place is mean and gritty (this is not directed at Bael), I recommend they take a lil tour around the interweb sometime to some of the other medium-big players. Sad fact: the bigger the community, the higher chance for n00b invasion. The more n00bs, the more strict the management becomes. Fact of net life

 

[___]

@Tohya:  The reason we must register on these obnoxious little mini-nothings is to get access to one obscure resource or other that we would like to look at.  It's sometimes, not always but sometimes, worth the effort, but the effort is nonetheless needless considering the resource has been found by... that's right, reading about it in this forum.  It just hasn't been posted here, as incentive to go and do a one-off registration to buff the theoretical user count of some non-community's non-forum.

@Bael:  The concept of monopoly is completely inapplicable here as RMXP.org does not stand to profit in any way.  It's not a business, it can't hold a monopoly.  It's sort of like me saying, "Why have 16 pot lucks in 16 different little corner-parks across the city and bounce between them when we can all get together and have one big pot luck in central park and all get to taste a wider variety of food that way and meet more people, and generally have tons more fun?" and you going, "oh sure, just try to monopolize all the food for yourself you fascist".  You're missing the point

In any case the harm they do, in my opinion, is actually to their members themselves who are interested in contributing to a community or to gain benefit of the contributions of others.  They must either maintain activity and memberships in several sites in obscure places across the web and post and view resources in all of them or necessary limit their audience/access. 

Now, if there was a really well done completely democratic central repository for resources which we could all contribute to, and keep the discussion and ensuing drama in separate forums of more generally compartmentalized cliques, that might be the best of both worlds.

 

[holloway]

If you follow a link and have to register to view the forum, chances are it's shit as the admin has no fucking web experience.

 

[Justice]

I go to different communities for different atmospheres and reasons.

I go to rmxp.org to leech off the resources (on the rarity I actually work on my game) and look at the new projects coming in.
I go to RPG Town to talk to Holloway about British Sea Power :3 Also because people know what I'm talking about there when I say Jeremy Beadle is dead and make me giggle.

Most people on these other websites have an account here because it's the "hub" of the English speaking RM community anyway. And seems all these places have a common interest in game making, it's obviously easy (and practical) to have an account at the centre of all these resources and scripts whilst making friends and generally chatting in a smaller community.

 

[Calibre]

Why are you still talking about Jeremy Beadle?

 

[Justice]

Because he was my idol ;_;

 

[Calibre]

I don't know who my idol is...

Personally I hate all the different communities, I'd rather one far more active community, and I don't have to justify that.

 

[khmp]

I don't consider that a true division because like you and Despain said. Most of those users have accounts other places. It may be out of necessity but these people are shared across a network of forums. Though whether or not they share knowledge across it, is entirely up to them.

Regarding the start up of another community. I don't think they are created necessarily for the reason of a power trip as Despain said. I mean, a lot of good can come from starting your own community. Aside from resource thievery, and low activity. The things you would learn from managing, interacting, and designing a forum are big things. As I imagine the owner of this site experienced when it first began.

Do these sites hurt or help the community as a whole? If its true that you only register to obtain a unique resource at said site. Then this is almost the same argument you witness when pitting Wal-Mart against smaller specialty stores. And I don't wish to reiterate the pros and cons.

Sincerely khmp,

 

[___]

I don't think an analogy to business works though, because competition does not really drive innovation or, obviously, price, in an environment like this.  It doesn't benefit the customer, e.g. user, because he has to do more work to get the exact same benefit, and it doesn't benefit the business owner, e.g. forum admin, because he does extra work for no gain.

While running a website and/or forum is definitely a positive experience, that experience could be gleaned from running a forum and website that offers something unique that RMXP doesn't do or isn't capable of just as well as it could by trying to duplicate it in every significant way. 

For instance, these little sub-forums could be built for specific creative teams (Gaydads forums, HKCP, etc), or to a greater degree of specialty (only RTP ABS sprites, only Breeze resources, etc), or to one game universe (Final Fantasy fan games, Master of the Winds, my Scraps universe) for a collaborative and focused effort, or something to that effect, thereby offering the members and other people who stop in something markedly unique and different instead of trying to one-up a site that's already doing a fine job of being a general 2d RPG creation site.

If anything your analogy to Wal-Mart would be more effective if you compared these other sites to K-Mart and Target vs. Wal-Mart, because specialty stores they aren't.  Except once again there is no positive benefit to the user from dividing a free, creative community as opposed to dividing business for the sake of competition to the benefit of the consumer.

Note there are some sites that link from here that *are* doing something positive, the RPG Manager site for instance, that do offer something new and different and they're great, that's not what I'm bringing into question.

 

[khmp]

I think my comparison to Wal-Mart vs. Small Business works because you are shopping, in this case, registering at the Small Business to get one thing that Wal-Mart doesn't offer. I didn't mean to say they didn't cover other things. Cost to benefit covers more things than money. Which is why business models can be applied to this discussion. Just because this site undoubtedly does not reward TREG/Cersecuro(sp?) monetarily they must gain some benefit from it.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say in that third paragraph though. So forgive me if my assumption is incorrect. Are you trying to say that if the Resource Forum were split into sub-forums of resource expertise it would be better off? I think that if it were designed that way there might be situations of frivolous forum creation. Maybe if the vision was broader than what you suggested. Faceart/Sprites/Backgrounds(Titles/Endings)/Misc. But I don't really know much about the Resources here so there is more or less than that. Another proposal perhaps might be a thread that organizes and links the most important resource material together under categories. Providing a somewhat faster way than searching through the Resources. Similar to the one inside Submitted Scripts section.

I would also like to thank you for using the word "gleaned" in your second paragraph. I actually had to look it up.

 

[___]

Er you're welcome for the vocabulary.  What I was suggesting in the third paragraph is that the people who do want to administer their own off-site forums would to better to choose to cover either a particular specialty or a subject entirely untouched and unapproachable in RMXP as a way to facilitate deeper discussion than is practical or possible here.

For example, taking my own project since I'm familiar with it.  I'm working on my own tilesets and templates which are not only of a different scale than RTP but also of a different genre - post-apocalyptic - and set in their own specific universe.  If I were to go create a new forum where other people working on Scraps resources or interested in developing the backstory, etc., of the Scraps universe, I could do something that RMXP wasn't able to effectively provide and thus offer something new to people.  We'd have to go to the extra effort of posting resources here in RMXP for them to get attention and be useful to the larger community but in exchange we'd have much more "space" and a better set of central organization for a specific subject.

This is as opposed to many of the forums I follow links to that basically look just like RMXP; there's a big list of subforums that looks something like, Tutorials, Scripts, Resources, Support, a big list of general topics, etc.  but offer absolutely nothing different or unique except a color scheme and some slightly different category choices.

Yeah, taking it to an extreme probably would be frivolous.  I'm not even saying it's the best choice or would actually be more efficient in most cases, but at least they'd all be geniune attempts at expansion and contribution to the larger community rather than needless division and compartmentalization.  They would otherwise also give the same benefits to their administrators, or more realistically, even more since they might get some traffic.

 

[khmp]

That paints a much clearer picture for me. Thanks for that. I thought the comments were aimed at this site's organization. So you are suggesting sister sites or unaffiliated sites which specialize in a particular craft of game creation, rather than unpopular clone sites?