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(Warning: Long-ass post. Obviously. Also, I'm not sure if this really belongs in Beef or not, so sorry if it should have been somewhere else :V)

So over the past few months it has come to my attention that TSC needs a little help. Maybe more than a little help, I don't know. This is something I've been meaning to write for a  while, but I had been putting it off for I wasn't really sure how to get a coherent message across; I also just didn't have the energy. After a private conversation last night with a friend of mine who is very involved with the site, my interest in the topic was sparked up again and I think I'm finally able to make sense of what the site is in need of. I'll try to keep this more organized than a colossal mish-mash of opinions so that hopefully some of you will understand it and add your own insights into the matter. (Also, I am aware that topic have been made before, but not since a year and a half back at least.)

Now, perhaps I'm not the best person to present this analysis as I have only been around since September of last year, but I've gathered quite a bit of info about what TSC was once like just by looking at old forum topics alone. The key difference I noticed between old TSC and, say, post-2009 TSC was that old TSC had more of a community feel to it. Not only were the forums significantly more active with a lot of authority figures around, it seemed like more of a social thing. There were a lot of different forum topics in the past: topics about Sonic, about friend codes, about other games...heck, even those random nonsense Wikkity topics were fun. There were even leagues and tournaments scattered about to coincide with the competition. This is all stuff you'd expect to see in a community-driven forum, and it seemed like people were very outgoing and the site was bustling.

Nowadays, we barely even have a forum. The only activity we seem to get is Race Night topics and ATTN topics. The social presence in pretty much the entire site is all but gone, excluding the aforementioned Race Nights (which is a completely different beast with its own set of issues that I'd rather leave up to Hyper and FF to address at some other time), and even those don't see as much activity anymore. Even the IRC doesn't seem to be as active anymore from what I've heard. Granted, there are a few TSC related Skype groups with relatively involved members that tend to partake in typical fun conversations. The actual site, however, lacks any of this, and I think the lack of socialization/community interest is a key factor in why TSC is sort of going downhill. Even our social skills are getting worse; quite a few instances of drama have occurred due to simple misunderstandings.

Even so, the lack of a social scene isn't something that I can enforce to be changed; I can't just start forcing people to make forum topics.  The inactivity of the forum compared to what it once was is merely an observation that I think would help TSC if it were to change. An even bigger problem with TSC nowadays that DOES need a lot of attention is that virtually nobody is running the place. Every single admin on this site more or less no longer cares about it and only pops in occasionally to lurk and/or deal with certain things. I haven't seen any admin besides Thorn do anything related to the site  in ages. To be fair, I don't even KNOW any of the admins besides Thorn, but I do know that some have considered stepping down if they haven't already done so or are just plain inactive. This isn't necessarily their fault, though. I completely understand that people have lives and attending to a gaming forum is not a priority, so the point of this is not to get old admins to come back. The point of this subject is to draw attention to the fact that people are desperately needed right now (I'll elaborate more on this down the line). Thorn does not seem to have much interest besides taking care of a few things in the background, and I know he has his reasons, but I won't delve into that. We'll come back to the forum admin issue in a short while, but for now I'd like to remind you all that a key issue here is the distinct lack of a site developer. GerbilSoft, as far as I know, cannot constantly attend to the site and it usually takes a bit of effort to get him to work on something. I have never spoken to him besides a few times a couple years back in the Sonic Retro IRC (though I doubt he remembers me) so I do not know this for a fact, but either way, we could certainly use a more active programmer. Many parts of the site are outdated and could use a bit of tidying up, like the Time Machine and some site layout related stuff. The issue is that I and at least everyone I've talked to has no idea who could fill this role. There is no clear solution to this at the moment, but I at least would like to make you all aware in case anyone has an idea.

With the programming issue aside, though, what about potential forum admins? As I said before, the current ones have lost most interest besides stepping in to stop some drama from time to time. This leads our current global mod Flying Fox to take care of most everything, and as a lot of us can see from the marathon preparations, it's taken a toll on her, not to mention she has many more personal matters to attend to. With that being said--and this returns to the point I was making in the previous paragraph--some room needs to be made for new people to step up and moderate the forum. The most obvious choices would be those in the Broseidon  group, though few of those are actually around, which severely limits our options here. That being said, there are a few people outside that group that I think would make good admins, but I'm not going to list people off. Either way, I can name a few people from both groups that are dedicated enough to the site to moderate it, but the problem is that I don't think any of the current admins would promote them. I have my reasons for believing this, but I'm not going to announce them publicly, though I'd be glad if an admin were to step in to prove me wrong.

The bottom line here is that TSC is changing and I believe the admins should take into consideration that some new admins should be added, or if that's too much, at least give a select few people the global mod position. I know there are a few people on this site--"purists", if you will--that don't approve the direction the site is taking, the way newer members act, the way situations are handled, etc. To that, I say you have two options. Either the current admins need to put in some more effort on the site and stop just lurking around, or roll with the way the community is changing and give those members who are more active nowadays the ability to make authoritative decisions. I believe the second option is more viable, as it is probably rude to plead the current admins who have their own lives to provide for the site when there are quite a few others who are active and dedicated. However, if the current team of admins does not at least formally address this situation themselves, nothing much is going to happen. This is the main reason I am creating this clusterfuck of a topic in the first place, to perhaps shed some light on the issue in order to get some people a bit more motivated to make a little difference.

To be perfectly frank, though, a lot of this stuff is completely out of my control. I am but a young girl who still hasn't even found her place here, but if there's one thing I do have, it's ambition. I like this site and I like the people I've gotten to know here a lot, and I don't want to see the site slowly die off when I've barely even been here. I mean, there are still enough people interested in the competition even though it's not as active as it used be. There have also been ideas for tournaments and other assorted ideas for the site sprinkled around, so there IS a drive to sort of revive the site, but apparently majority of the general userbase hasn't responded enough to take action. My hopes are that this topic will at least get people to speak out in order to help the site and open up to fresh ideas that come about. As I said before, I have no control over what people decide, and I can't force people to come up with ideas or help out. I can only encourage those that still care about the site to brainstorm a bit or at least let us know that they have a desire to see the site keep going. We might not be able to get the site to live up to its early 2000's glory, but as long as our members are willing to put some time and thoughts in, there's a chance that we could at least up the activity level a bit and maybe even go back to being more of a connected community.

Am I trying to start a revolution here? Not really. I don't want to come off like I'm angry at the current team of admins for not doing much, but rather would like to see them pass on their duties to some others (emphasis on SOME, I don't think pushing it all on to one person is a good idea right now) if they aren't interested anymore. I also want other members to respond to this topic with their input/opinions on the matter, perhaps some ideas for the site, or maybe inform us of someone they know who can program for the site.

This post is becoming more and more discombobulated, isn't it? I tend to ramble and derail things sometimes. I'm going to wrap this up shortly as I don't have much more to say; hopefully this has provided a bit of insight for you all into the state of the site and what you could potentially do to help it back to its feet. I know for a fact that those of you who care are out there, and hopefully the upcoming marathon will attract some new faces, too. And please, to both the admins and the general userbase, try to be as tolerant as you can of the attitude of members and ideas that circulate around here from now on. A lot of arguments have been caused from intolerance of some peoples' approaches to things in the recent past, and any of that from now on is not going to help us.

With all of that (hopefully sensical) stuff being said, I will leave the rest of you to decide where the site goes next. What are your ideas for the site, and how can we fix the problems I've presented? Every opinion counts!

(And as a final note, if you need something I've written here clarified, don't be afraid to ask what the hell I'm talking about.  I can be a bit of a flabbergasted dumbass at times when it comes to this sort of stuff :V)

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Hiya Folks / Better load the Kappa Cannon.
« on: September 20, 2013, 08:23:17 pm »
Hehehe, I bet those of you who know me are triple facepalming right now, aren't you?

I'm not going to introduce myself, since I've done that in my bio, but I will say with pride that I have absolutely no idea what I'm getting myself into :P

So yeah, expect insanity. 'Cause I am just raring to go.

And fail. Epicly.

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