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A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?


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Offline Kirbymon30

(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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Offline Brutus

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2014, 02:28:35 pm »
Three words: sex it up.

Offline bertin

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2014, 03:58:07 pm »
A lot of games nowadays got leaderboards on them so theres no need for a site like this like it used to be back in its prime (2005-2007), Lots of people have moved on to SS runs instead of doing ILs on these sites and most of the people around in it's prime have moved on to other things. It's been 10 years, and a nice run, but it's time to put this doggy down

Offline TheRealShadnic

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2014, 04:06:44 pm »
I agree, the site needs more revival.. I've also been reading old topics and seen so much of the old active type of TSC :/ I agree that we should at least get FF some more friends to work with, so many people here are trusted and cool, so that would be nicer for everyone (FF, thanks for the marathon making, it's a huge favor you done and to think about all you've been through!) I'm nowadays hanging around the site a lot, mostly couple times a day, so if I could program and do etc moderation stuff, I'd be happy to help, though going through High School finals takes the next 8 months of my life D: Someone sign up for this!!

Also, it would be nice getting to know you people better, as it's pretty hard to do in Twitch compared to TSC chat or fun forum posts and just hanging out with more people on skype etc.. Someday.. :)

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Offline SpinDashMaster

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2014, 09:24:32 pm »
Forum posting is simply a thing of the past. You want to read what a specific few people have to say -- you use twitter. You want to hear them, you use skype.

You want to come post a wall of text, it better be big news or we'll TL;DR it. That's why forums are dead. The social aspects of it and the IRC chat have all but been obsoleted by faster forms of media.

No amount of effort is going to save this forum. The more appropriate course of action in order for TSC to even have a flicker of hope is to jump platforms.

News posts? BS calls? Bug Reports? Fine, leave this up for that. Everything else -- take it to twitter. The uninteresting topics will die the way it should and not creep up forum space only to get necromanced by the next SusanExpress bot.

Follow people you want to hear from and ignore those you don't. (And watch how fast mine will get ignored by half the TSCers because of my controversial stances.)

New Record! -- get that off IRC and make it a TWEET. At least then we can be updated with records from our phones.

Jut a random mishmash of thoughts I had. Not articulated as well as it should be, but that's my honesty -- unedited.

#TSC

Also, not gonna lie, I have to take credit for several activity spikes TSC has had over the years. Every time I did something outrageous, people got more active.

Sonic Olympics '05 anyone? Emerald Challenges '06-'12? SCD/TSS alleged double agentry? Sonic Generations chart flub? My disappearance in 2012 which got me kicked (even though it was a major family crisis)? Emulation debate 2014?

Like it or not, you'll come here for the drama.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2014, 10:06:23 pm by SpinDashMaster »

Offline Combo

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2014, 10:19:02 pm »
I remember the Top 10 topic being a thing.  Forums can still be cool.
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Offline DGF

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2014, 12:04:24 am »
It would great to see some interesting forum topics being discussed more on TSC
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Offline Etch

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #7 on: August 16, 2014, 03:38:53 pm »
Most strats are available on video so you don't have to exactly ask around unless it's to learn more complicated techniques.

The forum is also a bit gigantic and could probably get by with just 1 board containing important stickies.  You still need people competing to have discussions but at least everything would be viewable on 1 page.  That would certainly increase topic views and potentially replies.

While you can't force people to socialize, you can submit stats and I admire your zeal Kirbymon.  Things may appear quiet but a good lot of us care about this place and the body of work the charts represent.  After all, it's a labor of love on behalf of the admins and having the time to do the job right isn't easy.

Time trials is an extremely narrow focus and there are only a handful that even take the time to complete strong sheets.  Restarting thousands of times isn't everyone's cup of tea.  All considered, this place is more active than other sites for specific games.

Offline SB737

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #8 on: August 30, 2014, 03:58:30 pm »
I've waited a little while before posting in this topic to see what others have said, but as this topics gone kinda dead, I'll post my thoughts now.

TSC is a site that is loved by many users, but many have moved on due to outside lives or wanting to do other things. The way the sonic franchise has gone in general doesn't help either. The lack of an admin posting here saying what could be done shows that point, they just don't have time to fulfil whatever they say, and that's perfectly understandable.

I think the idea of at least one new active admin, could help.. But then what would they do, that the current admins don't? Thorn is capable of handling site issues like BS calls and other forum issues, they can't really do anything to liven up the site unless other people are willing to help, rather than 90% of people ignoring the idea, mainly because they have more important obligations to do. I definitely feel that an active leader is needed on the site, one that can make the final call, I've had plenty of chart requests ignored by the community, so they just get swept under the carpet. Having someone there to at least say, "unless this gets a lot more interest, it's not gonna happen".

A site programmer: Gerbilsoft doesn't have time to work on the site now, that's understandable, we need a new programmer for sure, and yet there are plenty of little things that anyone with a relatively basic knowledge of HTML could do, I would personally volunteer to programme the site, I can't do big things like major site changes, but little amendments and updates that are missing, to at least make the site look updated.

Twitter: The way everything's going now social networking is the way forward. Codegirl was great when irc was popular around here, however now IRC is full of OPs and members, whom I've never even seen say anything in the channel, and a lot of TSC members are a heck of a lot more active on twitter than on IRC and indeed the sonic Center site itself. So I think the TSC tweeting new records (and possibly new videos), as well as forum posts would be much more useful. You also wouldn't have to be online to get updates, with IRC, you need to be online. So I think moving what's possible to social networking is important.

Whilst TSC may seem dead, there is definitely a community out there, the marathon was proof of that. And we got about 400 followers in the build up and throughout that marathon. I think keeping the stream page link up is a good idea.

Revisiting the coding idea, when the whole site improvement idea was brought to the table, and that it could be done, and was likely to happen, that seemed to spark new life into the site.

Skype: Whilst I am aware that there are TSC related Skype groups out there, the chill groups and the race night group (and other smaller ones), I feel that an official one, that is made public to anyone to join (people could post in a topic on the forum requesting being added). That could help the community, as perhaps more popular members in the community are already in these Skype groups, newer members in the community, could get a chance to talk to others in the community in a popular messaging service. I know there have been TSC Skype groups in the past that have gone inactive, however adding the opportunity to join on the forums may help, I can't say for sure, but if we don't try we will never find out.

I think that's all I can think of, I'm starting to get bored of TSC, but I would love to help the site as much as possible, but for things to work, everyone has to help, forums are an obsoleted thing compared to social media etc. so TSC needs to move and adapt to this.

I'd really appreciate an admin posting in this topic, to at least let the community know what's going to happen from here.
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Offline InferSaime

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #9 on: August 30, 2014, 04:51:13 pm »
Before I start I want to say, sorry if I offend you.

Anyway like SonicBoom I wanted to wait to post in here and I think now is a good time.
I think the biggest problem in my opinion is that the admins aren't that active anymore. Of course they have better things to do but I haven't seen any admin post in this which is for me a sign that they don't care anymore. Also with that a lot of things are outdated on tsc. These two things are kind of a bad look on the outside. I mean why should someone join a site where the admins don't look active? Nor the forum in itself is active a lot of people don't post in the forum which I find a shame because from older threads the people who were on the site back then posted quite a lot.
What I think needs to change is the staff, some new admins aswell as more global moderators that are willing to look after the forum and do general mod stuff on the site aswell. Aswell as some site designers that could help update the site.
In general I do think a site revamp would help as the site looks quite old fashioned.
Also updating/revamping the site might spark some motivation for old members to come back as in my opinion the site not being updated is quite demotivating to stay checking on the site.

Offline Thorn

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #10 on: August 30, 2014, 05:05:38 pm »
I've refrained from posting because my opinion is not going to be a popular one, but since everybody insists, here it is. I would rather see the site die with pieces of its past awesomeness intact than morph into something different from its roots. Maybe that seems selfish, but I think it's a fine opinion to have; I respect many sites and webcomics that have similar opinions. Yes, we could change our media platform and attract a brand new community, but what makes that different from being another site with its own community? That, and some of you overestimate the impact of social media; the only marathon advertising I saw was on Twitter with the exception of GerbilSoft and Zeupar getting us promoted on Sonic Retro and speedrun.com, respectively. As it stands, we are very much being swept away by the new livestreaming culture of speedrunning, as I said when I stepped away from the site for a bit in February. TSC can livestream, yes, but my one condition when I let flying fox organize the marathon in TSC's name was that it represent the TSC culture that was respected in the past; "Kappa" had no place in the commentary. For the most part, this was followed, and I appreciate it greatly.

Speaking of the marathon, flying fox did a wonderful job organizing things largely alone. The number of people that volunteered to help but caused more problems than benefits was astounding, though, and is part of why I don't feel driven to change the site around for the "new" TSC crowd. I feel as if the current vocal members of TSC have big ambitions and little drive, which may sound rude but is a conclusion drawn from observations. If somebody is around to do the work for them, little assistance will be given, and as soon as nothing exciting is going on, portions of this crowd flake away. For example, I can name somebody who asked me last year to deactivate his TSC account when the site fell quiet, came back for some activity this year, and is now thinking of leaving again and wiping most of his TSC contacts off of his Skype account. This isn't friendship and this isn't how a community works. There are some quiet and loyal people who I would trust with things if they would only be, well, less quiet. The outcry when I left in February largely came from these quiet people who had no idea that my concerns were even things in the community.

As mentioned, there's a serious problem with administration in that our only coder is largely inactive while the most active administrators know less and less about speedrunning. I'll openly admit that I've decided to do things for TSC and then lost motivation, largely due to the aforementioned nasty parts of the community killing my motivation to provide things. However, I could give admin powers to every member of the site, but without the ability to edit the codebase, TSC's core won't change.

Lastly, we have a problem in that the site has split into factions. There's the quiet crowd that does most of its talk in #soniccenter (read: no talk), there's the Race Night crowd that gathers for Race Nights HyperSonic7701, and there's the MetroidHunters crowd. The inter-crowd talk is basically nonexistent, and each group has its own quirks that get exaggerated because its members only have each other. Despite all the talk about the quiet administration being the biggest problem (and I do take some blame), I think the biggest problem is that the community doesn't want to interact with itself as a whole. I refuse to play a faction-pleasing game where I pray that helping one doesn't aggravate the other, and this also makes adding extra staff hard as any new staffer is likely to cater to its own crowd.

Feel free to comment on anything I just said, be it understanding or hate. That said, if you intend to argue that the character of the community isn't what I think it is, show proof or give examples. We're past the point of empty promises mending wounds.
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Offline Don

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #11 on: August 30, 2014, 05:30:13 pm »
I agree with Thorn on most of his points, but I will clarify exactly what I think:

1) Community.

There is no real "TSC Community", that's because TSC has a couple of (small?) groups/factions that I have no idea why they exist. That's mostly because my arrival here was a little late to see why it happened. We have the MHC, Hyper's folks, the couple people on twitter and SRL that share their interest in both live speedrunning and these leaderboards. Which is what the biggest problem here is; TSC is a site that hosts LEADERBOARDS. It's not like a huge pool of people just went in together, made a site called "The Sonic Crew" and made it a happy place. This place is all kinds of different things, but not a place to amass and host a crowd and have happy times.

I'd hate to call out people here, but there's a lot of angry comments here and there in leaderboards, some of which lead to some conflict of my own, too.


2) Administration

I don't really feel like appointing more and active admins is going to REVIVE TSC (see no.1). What we would need to do is either completely change the site so that we have a better live communication (something other than various skype groups). That being said, I do not think the factioning will be broken, since the MHC has become big on twitch and speedrunning, and has long since become a bigger influence e.g. on twitch that still holds it's roots here.

Long story short, more and newer and more motivated admins wont change the coding, it won't change the fact that these are leaderboards, and it won't actually let them CHANGE anything, other than maybe flinging their new acquired power at other people.

3) Get your damn game on

You have to bring other reasons than the admins as to why this site sucks.

LIVE COMPETITION: Barely any there, and since this site is mostly leaderboards, if we want an active community, we need more ACTIVE SPEEDRUNNERS THAT ACTUALLY COMPETE ON THIS SITE. I myself consider myself guilty of not pledging my entire life to speedrunning; It's not a passion of mine, it's a hobby. Of course there's some competition, but rarely will you see people trying to trump each other on a certain game or so. There is no actual activity going on, sitepoints are worthless because like 90% of the people in the "side ranking" are inactive.

I guess that comes with a legacy worth of 10 years or so.




LONG STORY SHORT: There is no "core" TSC community, most of those actually left TSC behind. There's oldies, there's factions, there's newbies. TSC = leaderboards; They host leaderboards for people willing to bring in their times. They don't host an evening soirée where everyone makes friends, I'm afraid.

Offline SpinDashMaster

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #12 on: August 30, 2014, 05:59:31 pm »
^This is why I pretty much blow up on new cats who come at me with newfangled and flawed logic. Can't stand that 2012 wave of dimwits.

Anyway, there is a huge misconception that TSC ever was a hopping mad community. I've been here for about 8 years and I can squarely confirm this never happened. A decline in activity? Sure. A glitz-endowed sparkling utopia with flying cars full of smiley-faced citizenry? Absolutely NOT.

In 2006 the chat primarily sparked because you had Rolken and CherryMay who pretty much bantered on about upcoming game releases and politics, with GerbilSoft chiming in on the latest episode of Deal or No Deal. Oh and there was that one time chat sparked up because I was actually in chat the night my house was broken into in the middle of speedrunning, and TSC chat kind of helped calm me down after talking to police. Other than that it was pretty much just as quiet.

The "faction split" is as Thorn described it, and it happened roughly over the course of 2009-2010. I wouldn't use those words to describe the subgroup back then, rather it was a channel in which we could still socialize with banned users (Most of my interaction there was getting in contact with werster for various strats, as well as running my UnoBot script). I wouldn't see them as a group with a difference of motive.

In essence, we're as dead as we always have been since 2010. It's not anyone's fault for the lack of activity, because it never existed in the first place.

I've generated activity spikes through several projects within this site, like Emerald Challenges (Which were a smash hit which successfully revived SCD and TSC), broad rulings strokes (See Rules revisions forum. I lit that place up during my administration), and even TSC Race Night (which most don't actually know I was involved in near its origination).

Say what you want about me -- I'm not really going to care at this point what TSCers think about me. But all you have to really do to get activity back, is just start the next big attraction to the site. No matter how hated I was, just launching an artistic and skillful presentation always got the cold blood flowing again.

There's no reason that tactic won't work for anyone else here today.

But if you should need me to lend another hand in that direction, you know where to find me, if you look hard enough.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2014, 06:07:22 pm by SpinDashMaster »

Offline Pokemonmaster888

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #13 on: August 30, 2014, 07:37:21 pm »
First off, I stated what I thought TSC needed to do to evolve and advance in the big emulator debate topic back earlier this year. When I saw this topic, over the past couple of weeks, I started to come up with more ideas that I thought would potentially help TSC. However, a number of other members have already stated similar ideas already, but it can't hurt to add more support/another opinion for these ideas as well. My ideas/opinions come from what I have seen in the public on TSC, and what I have seen from talking to people about these issues.

Now, I wanted to get this thought out early in my post: I thought what I had to say would definitely help out TSC more, but after seeing Thorn's first post in this topic, I understand that no new coder(s), no new admins/moderators, and no new features will help the site to be stable and thrive in the long run if the community is split into factions, and does not come together as a whole. If the core and community of a site is dead/split, then you have a big problem. Sadly, at the moment I am not quite sure what we could do to unite these factions of the community and try to revive the core of TSC somehow, it will take some thinking into the matter. I think though that if any of us are willing to work together on that issue, we can find a solution.

Here are some of the ideas I had which could help the site out in some way. I'm putting them here for reference, and just to get some general ideas out in the public so at one point if/when the time is right, these can be considered/implemented. As I said before, some of these ideas if not all were already said, just wanted to give my support for them too.

1. Twitter integration, where you can see new guides/videos/submissions from TSC all delivered to your tablet, computer, or phone. New forum posts, news updates, and general member-written updates could be delivered via Twitter also.

2. The new features that are planned to be implemented as stated by the Administration in the past, like separation of platforms for the charts, a proof system, etc. As Zeupar has suggested, a medal table and member-country system to provide more ways to compare the competition for TSC would be a cool thing to have too.

3. Another level of staff on the site. A group of people, "moderators" would take the load off of the Administrators, and do work around the site while the Administrators could focus on work more suited to that position. I know this has been planned as well, based on what has been said in news posts earlier this year. I know Thorn said in his first post that no new staff would help the site at all if the community was split, but if that problem was to be fixed and these new features were implemented that needed a lot more work to be done, establishing a moderator team to do that work would be a good idea. Also, as you see old members leave the site, you would have an established group of trusted people to pick from quickly to take over the site's Administration if an Administrator were to go inactive. It is a succession system sort of idea that would come with assembling this team of people. However, as Thorn has said, this doesn't seem to be possible at this time, but maybe in the future it would be a tangible thing to do.

4. Bring in some new people to code the site. I know GerbilSoft is busy with his own life at the moment, and doesn't have time to code the site as he would like to have. Bringing in at least 2 people and maybe having a back-up coder as well to code these new features and to regulate the site would be a good idea, I would think. If your site isn't being updated as it could be, and your userbase is getting the idea that the Administration/Developers aren't doing their job, then all efforts should be made towards getting help. Websites and technology are constantly changing entities, and need to have people working on them regularly to be successful. I know it may be difficult to find people who will want to code, but efforts definitely should be made to do so.

5. I think full game speedrun leaderboards on TSC would be a good idea to have. Now, we all know that full game speedruns and speedruns in general are very popular across the internet right now, and I'm not sure when/if that will craze will die down anytime soon. I think that it could be feasible for TSC to update itself and adapt to the changing times by implementing a system for full game Sonic speedruns, but it may not be what the Administration wants. As Thorn said, he would rather see the site "die" rather than have it change into something different from it's roots. I don't think that full game speedruns would be what TSC's roots are about, and I agree with Thorn's statement to some extent. However, with most things in life, you have to constantly re-invent yourself and adapt to the times in order to be successful (even if you don't like it), and it would be a shame to see the site die when it could have been saved by some in-depth planning and implementation of features that have been shown to be successful in other forms on the internet. I know that many members would be mad and upset if the choice was to have TSC die when it could have been saved, even if the process of saving it was controversial over the decisions to save it and what would be changed. I also don't think the idea that, "other sites do full game speedruns so well, they'd most likely do it better than us" is a good way of thinking to have at all. If you see websites doing well with this system, try to take parts of what made them successful, put your own spin on it and make it your own. Not pursuing a tried and tested idea yourself due to possible failures/bumps in the road just doesn't seem to be the right way to go to me.

6. An official TSC Skype group would be a good thing to have, as Skype is a very popular media program right now. We know that past groups have died out and now there are multiple split faction groups running, but for the group to succeed, careful planning will have to be thought of. Maybe having 2 owners of the group that are totally dedicated to TSC as shown in the past and present running it would work. To make the group the official TSC Skype Group, maybe they could organize activities, hold events, just have things in the group that none of the other groups would have, to make it different. This is one topic I'm not too sure about and what could work, but in general I would just like to see an official TSC Skype group survive and flourish.

I wanted to give my viewpoints of how I have seen the site evolve over time. I joined in May of 2007, and at that time through at least 2009 the TSC IRC channel was hugely popular. A bunch of things were going on, multiple get togethers and events were hosted in the channel, and the channel itself was flourishing. However, technology evolves, and now Twitter and related faster forms of social media have taken the lead in the popular ways of communication, which is why I really think TSC should take up one of those new media platforms. Correct me if I am wrong, but you can still have the current crowd and also attract new people to the site by integrating functionality with Twitter or related websites. Even if you aren't competing, you can still be very active on the site by watching videos, forum interaction, guide reading, stat research, etc. Nowadays I see the site mildly active in competition terms, the forum is ok I guess in activity level, just the more in-depth interaction between member to member is what is not happening, as Thorn has stated already. The IRC channel is not active due to people having moved to other media platforms, but I am not quite totally sure why the community has split into factions itself. Again, I do believe though that this problem can be fixed, it just needs hard work put into it.

I also wanted to bring up the idea of leaderboards and how they can survive in the current day. I do think that even though a lot Sonic games have their own in-game leaderboards now, there are many things that can be done to make sites like this a unique and different experience while also having leaderboards/charts for Sonic games too. I'd rather see a site develop and change, while also holding true it's founding qualities, then dying out. Sites like these that assemble all sorts of records and submissions for a host of games can still be viable in this day; they just need something more than just having leaderboards, and TSC already has this. It's not just only a site with leaderboards. It has references for all people to look at, and a community as well, even if that community has fallen on some hard times lately.

There are probably a few other ideas for TSC that I haven't mentioned that I'm still thinking of. It seems like a lot of people have ideas, so talking to each other to try to further the idea process is a good idea. I'm researching more things about this topic at hand now, and hopefully I'll find more suggestions/answers to some of these problems that TSC is facing at the moment.

In the end, I'd like for TSC to change and advance with the times. I definitely would not like to see a site like this stay the same or die out when there are so many things that can be done to evolve TSC, and make the site a better experience for the members, guests, and staff alike. I believe that TSC can advance while keeping at least some if not all of its founding beliefs/qualities intact. I see a lot of people willing to help the site and that do care about the site; we just need to work together to get these problems solved.
     

Offline Gpro

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #14 on: August 30, 2014, 09:16:38 pm »
Unfortunately, I don't really have THAT much to say, but integration with speedrun.com might be the better choice than actually integrating full game into the charts (in whichever way would be deemed appropriate; a bit tired as I type this). I respect Thorn's views in regards to keeping this site where it's intended, but it's true that single segment is now the new thing, and I've been wanting to TRY to get things together all in one place, whether it be community, Leaderboards, or just a network. Everything's been scattered and there's little connections if you aren't already in one of the site's little factions.
Tl;dr, I agree with PM888's points of twitter integration and bringing in new coders as well as thinking Single Segment integration should be implemented, but indirectly, somehow. I dunno, maybe it's stupid, maybe it's not, doesn't matter. These are my thoughts :P

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #15 on: August 31, 2014, 12:17:14 am »
My comment was not meant to decry single-segment speedrunning as the last two posts imply. By saying I'd never want to see the site become some radically different, I'm referring to the small fragments of old TSC "culture" remaining. I have nothing against individual level or full game speedruns.
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Offline SpinDashMaster

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #16 on: August 31, 2014, 09:31:31 am »
Also if you feel that way about factions, you could bring someone in who is not involved in any of the three:

Hi.

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #17 on: August 31, 2014, 03:56:45 pm »
There is no real "TSC Community", that's because TSC has a couple of (small?) groups/factions that I have no idea why they exist.

That's normal.
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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #18 on: September 01, 2014, 01:34:00 am »
Lastly, we have a problem in that the site has split into factions. There's the quiet crowd that does most of its talk in #soniccenter (read: no talk), there's the Race Night crowd that gathers for Race Nights HyperSonic7701, and there's the MetroidHunters crowd. The inter-crowd talk is basically nonexistent, and each group has its own quirks that get exaggerated because its members only have each other. Despite all the talk about the quiet administration being the biggest problem (and I do take some blame), I think the biggest problem is that the community doesn't want to interact with itself as a whole. I refuse to play a faction-pleasing game where I pray that helping one doesn't aggravate the other, and this also makes adding extra staff hard as any new staffer is likely to cater to its own crowd.

Are you trying to imply that there is beef between these "factions"? It sounds to me that you are still upset over the Metroidhunters skype group. I know you didn't like the fact the skype group was made and that we started doing most of our talking in there and kept to ourselves most of the time in the skype group but really skype is just way more convenient because we talk in the call way more than typing like in irc. It's just better to us than irc and posting in forums. I would also like to bring up the fact that you didn't like the group was made and you made it out to be some resistance group that didn't want anything to do with TSC. How can you be against groups/cliques but at the same time you and amongst others did the same thing with the TSC race night group? that #soniccenter chat room has no one talking in there and I know you all moved to the TSC Race Night skype group to talk about everything. Hmmm the exact the thing we are being blamed for doing? Oh, and having groups within communities such as this is nothing out of the ordinary. Go to any other website with a decent amount of people. You don't have to post on forums all the time to have an active community. People still compete here, records still get broken here and people still have a good time here. I don't see anything wrong with this that needs a thread. That's all I gotta say.

Offline Thorn

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #19 on: September 01, 2014, 02:12:54 am »
Also if you feel that way about factions, you could bring someone in who is not involved in any of the three:

Hi.

No.

Are you trying to imply that there is beef between these "factions"?

No. They simply don't interact with each other; that doesn't mean there's beef.

It sounds to me that you are still upset over the Metroidhunters skype group.

No, this was years ago. If I was upset, I wouldn't have waited nine hours for you at AGDQ 2013; I'd've just went somewhere with the other TSC people. After I didn't get to see you guys, I just stopped associating altogether.

I would also like to bring up the fact that you didn't like the group was made and you made it out to be some resistance group that didn't want anything to do with TSC.

I did, yes, as did many of the other admins. At this point, though, I haven't heard a peep out of you guys in ages and haven't brought you up in ages besides the mention that you are your own group. This and my previous quote kind of seem like dredging up the past for the sake of it, because I haven't given a shit about these things in over a year.

How can you be against groups/cliques but at the same time you and amongst others did the same thing with the TSC race night group? that #soniccenter chat room has no one talking in there and I know you all moved to the TSC Race Night skype group to talk about everything. Hmmm the exact the thing we are being blamed for doing?

I did not organize the TSC Race Night group and left it about a year ago because it was filling up to the point where its members couldn't hold calls; I wasn't an active racer, so I left. I'm not entirely sure how I can be talking about everything in a group of which I'm not a member. However, I do constantly get fed news and complaints about the group. I largely use Skype to talk to people who are not in IRC such as sonikkusama and Don.

Oh, and having groups within communities such as this is nothing out of the ordinary. Go to any other website with a decent amount of people. You don't have to post on forums all the time to have an active community. People still compete here, records still get broken here and people still have a good time here. I don't see anything wrong with this that needs a thread. That's all I gotta say.

That's perfectly fine! I think this is a totally valid point of view and I actually stayed out of this topic for a long time precisely because some people were privately sending me such an opinion. However, when people start saying "the admins don't care because they haven't posted here", I have to speak up and say why I think they're perceiving a lack of activity and why I have not been motivated to be a community manager instead of just an administrator.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2014, 02:37:10 am by Thorn »
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Offline TimpZ

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #20 on: September 01, 2014, 07:33:19 am »
I don't feel like this community is dying. Compared to when I joined in early 2012 I think the activity seems to be at just about the same level with some few spikes in activity here and there whenever there's an actual topic to discuss like rule changes, marathon organisation or race night planning. The problem with this is that, like others have said, forums like these for other purpouses than organisation are largely obsolete.

Is the competition on the site dying? Well while not all games may have records breaking every week, which is perfectly understandable, we still have multiple stats submitted every day and if you think otherwise, take a look at the new stats page every once in a while: http://www.soniccenter.org/rankings/new. Fresh games get leaderboards reasonably fast considering everything that needs to be agreed upon and they proceed to get filled with legitimately good stats within just a few months.

I see people bring up the fact that groups emerge. Look at SRL, it's too big to fit everyone so people divide into the zelda people, mario people, blind racing people, SRG, NES, Mega Man, Sega, flash games, TSC, whatever. This is not a sign that the community is dying, it tells us that TSC is too large and active to hold every member in a tight group, which is positive because it gives diversity enough that everyone can feel welcome.

When it comes to actual improvements, I feel like a lot of people are willing to discuss proposed ideas, but fewer are comfortable with bringing them up in the first place. It's important to newer members to feel like they can make a difference with sound logic, that they can bring up a topic without feeling like they are going to be excommunicated for it. There is no anynomous suggestion box so every one have their good name on the line when complaining about something.


Since this is a topic discussing changes that could benefit TSC, I'm going to put forward a few thoughts regarding improvements:

Prestigue in stats: Whenever I get a full-game time I'm proud of or a really good stat I want to submit, I feel good. I remember when Cronikeys started her leaderboard-type thing with twitter announcements and it was always a joy to know that the news of my achievement would be spread to everyone who was interested. I felt that being on the "new stats" tab or looking at the "records" tab in my own window, or just seeing my name on the "Record holder" tab in the rankings was a great feeling. Any changes to make this a bigger part of submitting stats has my vote on it, including twitter integration.

Full game runs: This is something I've brought up before and also seen plenty of others bring up as well. Integrating full game runs into the stats or even to a subsidary site would be nothing but benefitial to the site as a whole in my opinion. That is the most popular category among speedrunners today and there's no reason that I can see that would prevent TSC from introducing it in one way or another. If you look at the Mega Man center hosted by TSC, you can see that there's no submitted stats since, from what I can tell, december 2013. But it's still online for competitive use. No matter the implementation, I feel like full game runs are a long overdue natural progression for the site without any real complications either for the spirit of the site or the site as a whole.

Fan games and hacks: There is a scene for hacked Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, Megaman and Sonic games. There is also a small scene for home-made fan-games of these like Rosenkreuzstilette. I've heard that the reason for the demise of the unofficial sonic center is the lack of final releases and consistency between versions but I feel like this could be remidied with proper moderation.

Online events and integration: I've always felt like there's a lot of untapped potential in the TSC stream. The best possible outcome I can see from this is having a sociable host that have a monthly program of sorts or at least hosts races or practise/run sessions of members that submit. Twitter integration with the TSC twitter seems like a great idea, especially for record stats. The marathons I've been involved with have been good and the only thing I'm lacking is more of this off-season.

Aestethically I think this site is great and while confusing at first, most of the things on this site makes sense and you will eventually find what you're looking for. Having an introductionary video of sorts or at least some form of document could be helpful but something this site needs more of is visible administration and planning. People are more than willing to participate in various events and such and this could be exploited more.

Offline SpinDashMaster

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #21 on: September 01, 2014, 08:43:40 am »
TimpZ has hit the nail on the head here.

I kind of touched on using the stream more in another thread, but you have definitely shown some powerful uses for it.

Heck, even the ACS donate button could stay there while y'all do those sort of things through the stream.


Offline Gpro

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #22 on: September 01, 2014, 11:11:25 am »

When it comes to actual improvements, I feel like a lot of people are willing to discuss proposed ideas, but fewer are comfortable with bringing them up in the first place. It's important to newer members to feel like they can make a difference with sound logic, that they can bring up a topic without feeling like they are going to be excommunicated for it. There is no anynomous suggestion box so every one have their good name on the line when complaining about something.




This is an extremely important thing. While I have nothing to add about this, I'd like to say my piece: I've seen some heavy criticism, in the form of personal attacks even, in these forums when the person was merely giving their idea, opinion, etc. Maybe it's just some of the more recent topics, but this is something that needs to be dealt with

Offline Fivavoa

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #23 on: September 08, 2014, 12:58:27 pm »
EDIT: I'M A DUMBASS THAT'S SO HYPED UP ON COFFEE I FORGOT A LOT OF IMPORTANT THINGS I WANTED TO SAY SO IF YOU WANT REREAD OR SOMETHING PLS DO AAAA

I spent some time reading the first half of this thread and skimmed through the other half because I was getting impatient.

I don't usually bother spouting my opinion often, but I guess if it's for the benefit of a site I frequent often for a reason that isn't mentioned in this tread, I may as well spout something to contribute or w/e.
I'm not going to pretend to know everything and anything about the history of this website, I haven't done research prior, so these are all observations, so everything I'm going to say I know for a fact I'm not sure if they're right or not. They're just what I think is right by my own logic.

First off, I'm not certain where this misconception that "There are no admins/leaders! That's why TSC is dead!" came from.
I'm sure I saw someone mention this, but keeping a community active isn't the job of those keeping order. Having more admins changes nothing because giving the option to kick/ban people to active members in this community will NOT change a thing. Being an admin doesn't mean anything besides that you're the authority and it's not their job to keep their community active. That's the community's job.

For instance, if I was an old admin in this site, and I see that the community either is dead without me, or isn't doing anything without my consent, of course I'd get bored of coming here. They're forcing responsibility of their actions on me, that isn't fun.
Being a community means that everyone has their job, their responsibility to keep activeness and sustainability. If the community itself can't be self-sustained, there's little incentive for anyone to change that. I mean, look at what's happening here. Besides this niche group of members, there's only a lot of talk of "change" without actually doing anything besides noting the flaws, and then there's the group who stopped caring, for the sole reason that the niche group is thinking but NOT acting, and that's just boring to watch. It's the same group of people at the same issue again, what else has changed? They're fully aware of what's going on here themselves, so why should I be here? I don't compete anymore, and the niche group is keeping themselves sustained, so there's little need for authority here especially when everyone pretty much understands each other on a personal level. I mean, having a leader to direct someone is fine, and is pretty essential to something like a group effort, but without the group, the leader has nothing to fall back on.

You may be thinking, "Fiva! FF's solo organization on the marathon is proof that we need more admins!"
Which I respond to: Her being an admin has nothing to do with her "administrating" the marathon. She may have more authority over most users, but users have every ability and right to come together to help out. Admins aren't the only people that make things happen, they have and always should be "advocators" or "speakers". They are the businessmen of the group organization, THEY are the good people that represents the good and the passionate about said organization, but the organization in it's entirety should be the one responsible for making it happen, not just the head honchos. This isn't to say something like this didn't happen, but as a community, we should organize this event together despite it only really concerning a group of members that are sociable and active that require it to properly function. AND besides, the point is to have an activity to get the entirety community together, whether they're participating by being a main part of it, or supporting it by being there. Activities that brings every faction of the community together by participating in their own way.
------------
Branching off this "admins" point, I'd like to ask, what's the main purpose of this website? What has been and still is the main intent and the main area where activity has been consistent?
The competition I would think, right?

As a "horrible member of the post 2012 TSC community", the forums are NOT a part of my priority when coming to this site. By experience, the only time I came here is to introduce myself before I dedicate myself to the competition so the community that is more sociable can be aware that I just didn't come from nowhere. (despite actually asking a few questions, but nothing else beyond that)
But I would like to ask; What exactly is the point of having a forums in the first place?
In a website that focuses on competition (by advertisement), interactions should just be an added factor that contributes to the integrity of the website as a whole. It's not a necessary thing because I'm here to show off.
Subjectively, a lot of people could disagree with me on this, but the way TSC is advertised to the public (like how I was personally introduced to it) says otherwise. I came here to compete.
This is a good factor I'll discuss in detail later, on how since this exists in this community, there's a large dissonance between members that's been around for a while vs newcomers just grasping the idea of this website's intentions.

Anyway, why is all I mentioned above a problem?
Well, it's just like I said. What's the point of forums? Why should I bother coming here? I'm competing often, providing proof, and getting incredible stats. In the face of the community, I don't need to be bothered with despite my good times, because of proof I provide.
And that's good for me! I'm not that sociable of a person (despite me wanting to be), people are aware of my existence and my skill, and that's all I need in order to feel justified and satisfied with my current place in the competitive community. I feel a thrill when I see my name so high up in the ranks, I just want to see more of that! The lust for competition is thrilling, just seeing a record I set just to be beaten by a few frames? AMAZING! A constant back and forth like a battle of the gods, as those below just watch in splendor. It's like an intense game of hot potato.

But despite all that, point is everyone isn't like me. When people come here, they come to learn about their Sonic speedgame so they can get the thrill of competition. For instance, I learned how to speedrun by observing other's runs and applying it to my own run.
Now, while you think that's easy to do by concept, A LOT of people lack the thorough understanding or the reflexive ability to pull off a 1:1 replica of the WR time.
And although I sound like I'm on a high horse, you may ask why do I even bring this up?

Well, let's take into consideration our lovely competitive side. A lot of people that I never even heard of that aren't part of the sociable niche I came to recognize on this website provide stats here on a near daily basis.
Most of these people are just like me. They came here for the competition, and want to take part to see how they rank in terms of skill. It's why I came, and it's most likely why others have come here as well.
Now, I bring the point that they aren't like me not as a way to inflate my ego, but most people can't speedrun at the same level of skill as I do simply by just observation by others runs. If that were the case, being sociable is OUTRIGHT POINTLESS and everyone's times here would be WR or at the very least very close to it. Observation is just a key factor into understanding speedrunning but I'm sure you're all aware of that. But if that's the case, then why is it the only thing most people rely on?
And this is important to note because thinking about it, there IS an active community at the competitive side of things, but they aren't sociable, and because of that, they lack in the thorough understanding of the game they're speedrunning despite their best efforts into seeing what the top dogs do.
I know this is a generalization but speaking in these terms help smooth out my point: The newbies that are attracted here don't try to approach the elitists. (i honestly can't think of better words right now so bear with me, there is no hidden message behind the way i worded things here)
As a newbie, I came here because I personally used to speedrun Sonic games for fun right? SO IN TURN, I just show up, submit stats, and call it a day because after all, the main reason I came to this competition website is to see where I lie in a competitive level compared to others who are competing in the same.

But because of this, I don't see a reason to go to the forums. I don't feel like going to those who know what they're doing, because I already have access to their videos. I don't need to ask anything if everything I need to know is there, right?
And that's where the problem lies.
This community isn't dead because the niche group isn't trying hard enough, it's because the newcomers aren't taking advantage of what they have at their disposal by knowledge standards. Sure, logically it's more useful to ASK and PARTICIPATE in the expansion of their speedgame, but it requires much more effort than to just depend on a video and call it a day.
There's nothing in this website that can provide me any incentive to go visit the forums at all. Because if I REALLY wanted to know how the speedrunners did exactly what they did in their video, I'd discuss it with them directly by PM, by their social media site, or by e-mail.
Doing something as obtuse as creating a thread seems utterly pointless and would require too much effort unless the person I see the speedrun in question isn't active on YouTube anymore.

Now, at the same time, this idea can be a double-edged sword.
We can blame the laziness of the newbies all we want, but it's also the fault of the elitists for not attempting to reach out to the newbies and help them out when they first enter this domain, diversify themselves in this little slice of this world of competition, and get a thorough understanding of it. This may sound like the newbies should be entitled to not take any action and wait for elitists to do everything for them, but no, both parties aren't taking action to change anything.

The elitists are staying in their niche group unless a newbie goes to pursue them which of course they'd gladly accept and help out due to their eagerness, BUT the newbies are staying by themselves despite the elitist's existence because doing so requires more time and effort into accomplishing what they want from here, which is to better their skill. So why waste time on a forum if I can talk to the runners directly?

Doesn't that seem a bit opposite?
Shouldn't the elitists, desperate for more members and activities, for more social interactions and expansions to the website that they love so dear try to attract the newbies as much as possible? Get more people to compete so we can have a consecutive understanding of the essence of competition? Pursue sonicgamemaster230485723 and tell them "Hey, I noticed your stat the other day. Looks like you understand the fundamentals but lack the proper deeper understanding. Maybe if you want, I can help you out there buddy, you'll get a better time for sure with our help~!"
After all, I'd like to be good at a game I enjoy speedrunning. I'd like to get a better time and show off my skills to these guys, right? That's why I'm here, isn't it? I'm here to share my skill and competition with this community, if I wasn't, then why bother coming?
At the same time, as a newbie, it should be my responsibility to seek for help when I need it. The forums are here right? If the world record holders are accounted for in this website, of course I'd look for them here, it simply makes sense right? There's a chatroom if I want an instantaneous answer. People should have social media links if I prefer that. Accessibility is fairly diverse in this website, so it isn't hard to get in contact with somebody.

Why is this not the case?
"But Fiva!" you beckon, "I have a TSC link in my stream bio to attract more users! Shouldn't that be enough?"
Well, you attract people here, but what should the newbies instinctively do next? There's nothing here to direct them besides the "Site Info", and when they get a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of this website, then where else do they really need to go from there? Nowhere right? Besides the submissions being the main aspect of why people would and could come here, there's nothing else convincing them to go anywhere else. In my experiences, I'd look for the world-record time here, see how they did it, and attempt it myself. There's a forum here, but is there something they can provide here for me if I'm not that sociable? Or not that investigative? Of course not! I already know how to execute what I came here to do, so there's no need for the extra stuff. After all, they are extra, right?
---------------------
All this ties together as to where this "admin" misconception may have came from. The elitists don't need to know stuff they're already aware of, and the newbies don't need the elitists to tell them when they have other ways of learning what they want, in addition to what they want to learn is laid out to them in a simplistic manner. SO, instead of considering "MORE ADMINS!", consider that because of this behavior is possibly the reason as to WHY there are so many inactive admins in the first place?
WHAT REASON OR INCENTIVE DO THEY HAVE TO BE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!?

Honestly, what's going on here is that there are two VERY CLEAR factions of people that exist within this website.
And neither party are concerned with their own affairs without considering the fault of their own, or affiliating with the other party. (at least, that's how I interpret it)
Nobody from the elitist is making it a priority to make this website have an incentive for newcomers to be part of their community. Why should I? I'm only here for competition afterall.
And because of this newbies are neglecting the heart of competition by not interacting with their frienemies, getting to expand their knowledge, because they don't see a reason to. Nothing flashy or interesting besides a sociable dedicated group of people is attracting them to do so. That's what creates this dissonance.
For example, if I wasn't capable of learning the games I speedrun by myself, nobody here would even know who I was, or care about my stats. I'm barely sociable with anyone (besides Joshua) despite knowing everybody in the niche group. Yet, people still know me, and I barely talk to them. Why is it this way?

Anyway, if that were to change, incentive for the nonsocial people would exist, they'd be active with everyone as a whole because there'd be reason to beyond just "learning stuff for muh game" It wouldn't just feel like a ONE THING deal with those who know what they're doing. They can approach people as people, not as alleged top dogs, they'd have more relation with them and will be more willing to speak with them beyond the "business talk" for strats and such. And those that are sociable and have more experience would have less reason to get bored of seeing the same people. Get to experience more generations of TSC members and continue to push it beyond what it already is. A feeling to experience actual GROWTH as a community and as a knowledgeable group of friends. It'd be an ACTUAL COMMUNITY instead of a CLUB WANTING TO BE ONE.
And before you think it, no, I'm not basing this off what I want from TSC. I already have everything I want from here, I don't need elitists to come for me because despite my non-social approach, I'm still sociable when people interact with me. I'm mostly basing this on what I see, and all I ever see are the niche group, which is the Race Night group. I barely see anyone from MHC take any interaction here with.. ANYTHING besides DsS, and I always forget that the IRC group even exists.

I'm sure that if there weren't factions like this (and no, I don't mean factions from within a faction like the differences between the participation between MHC and Race Night members) things would be a lot better. Maybe adding more modern social media can help, but despite that it isn't effecting the current state of the website as a whole.
People come here for stats, for competition. If something like Twitter would be integrated, the forums don't need to exist, and people have even less reasons to use this website for anything else besides just submitting times. It'd be more neglected than it is now because social media outlets, well, obsolete any need or use to coming here at ALL. We're trying to attract members, not distance them more right?

If any of that made any sense, then good I guess. This is just a big ramble of thoughts I literally came up with this off the top of my head today so I don't have any means of knowing ways to better this place or a clear concise explanation of what exactly I'm trying to portray here. (lolcoffee)
Sorry if I sounded mean or anything, there is no ill intent behind everything I said, it's just my thoughts on what I interpreted from the matter.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2014, 08:13:10 pm by Fivavoa »

Offline Kirbymon30

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #24 on: September 08, 2014, 07:42:57 pm »
Okay, this thread's been around for nearly a month now and I think it's time for me to get some things out of the way. I know those of you who are opposed to this thread's existence in the first place probably never want to here a word out of my mouth again, but I've been paying close attention to pretty much any response posted here and I've come to realize quite a bit. I'm not going to make this too horrendously long, so please bear with me.

First off, although I probably didn't do anything inherently wrong, I'd like to apologize. The argument I presented throughout the entire first post was not very well thought out and was the result of me suddenly being very vehement about a subject that's been in the back of my mind and trying to mush it all together at 12 in the morning. Not the smartest idea, but I can't remember the last time I've come up with even a slightly coherent idea. The "more admins" argument was a very ignorant one on my part, and I think a lot of you have done a better job presenting what I should have said better than I ever could. I think TimpZ and Fiva, among others, have pretty much hit the nail on the head as to some of the things that could be done here. Stuff like this is why I was hesitant to create this thread in the first place (and after its creation moaned about how retarded I was every time someone posted - I'm a whiny teenage bitch, I know. Sue me), but I didn't think anybody else was going to do it. As I mentioned before, some of you see no point to this thread being made, and in a way I see where you're coming from, but I felt like at least sparking up a discussion about the topic would help us all out just a little bit. I honestly am very satisfied that people even showed the slightest interest in this topic, and majority of your posts have been very enlightening, so I think it was worth embarrassing myself with my midnight ramble.

Also, I've come to the conclusion that, quite simply, you guys are absolutely correct in saying that the forum/social activity should not be the focus of our efforts and that TSC is primarily a competition site. Admittedly - and yeah, I won't blame anyone if you despise me after saying this - this whole topic might have been a result of my feeling left out of a proper community. I guess some wishful thinking about being involved in something big made me go a little too far. This sounds kinda conceited and attention seeking, I know, which is why I'm apologizing for it in the first place. It was wrong of me to think that I could get others to suddenly move their efforts to something that frankly doesn't matter that much anymore. I will, however, stand by my point that investing in a new developer is a wise option, but I'm positive I'm not the only one who thinks this.

tl;dr, I'm a fuckwad and I'm sorry I even made this topic, but I'm not sorry about the discussion it started, if that makes any sense. I think all of you have a better grasp of what TSC is and and needs than I do and ever will, which is why I'm going to step away from this discussion and probably never speak of it again outside of Skype or whatever. At first I was very tempted to lock the discussion early on in its existence, and I was actually going to until SB's post revived it again; now I think I should at least leave it up until one of the higher-ups decides to put it to rest. I'm glad all of you took time to share your opinions and enlightened not only me but hopefully some others as well.

~Sonic Lost World Top 10~
Primary Goal (as of 12/1/14): Dabble into some easy things. Mostly Sonic Chaos, might go back to CD11/Lost World at a later date but most likely not. I'm not that invested in this stuff anymore :V
Secondary Goal (as of 12/1/14): Smash is love, Smash is life

CS Bullshit:




 

Kirby number TooManyDamnKirbys. Just shy of TSC's youngest, but undoubtedly TSC's stupidest. In fact, I should probably heed this advice:

“Freedom of speech does not protect you from the consequences of saying stupid shit."
                  - Jim C. Hines

Offline Starlight_Glimmer

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #25 on: October 11, 2014, 10:28:48 pm »
*slams fist on desk* It's not over yet.

Let the seas rise, and let the earth tremble.

idc if its 30 days old, this is the most offensive topic I've ever had the pleasure of reading. If I could I'd so buy this site up in a heartbeat and anyone with half a brain would do the same. the name' the brand, "the soniccenter" has an enormous untapped potential base, that could be released "ready anytime."~

I wont even get into the discussion about streaming... I mean its not completely dead yet, there's room to grow a small group, but one mans booty can only get blasted/rektd/devastated so many times on air, and then its like.. we get it... enough. SRL will die

the funniest thing is, and even I've even been guilty of this myself(i still believe in stat control), is the armchair website runner. through the years bitching the site should be this, the site should be that. look at it, the site has stayed the same, for forever. take another step back and look how we are all about the same age. none of use are really old (anyone hit 30 yet?). now take one more step back. sonic boom is coming out, with a new animated series. along with it, there's your next generation. and the TSC fad will go full circle; the site unchanged, the new generation and us will unite.
We Shine Like Rainbows~ 

Offline SpinDashMaster

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #26 on: October 12, 2014, 09:37:08 am »
I think I was only able to make sense of your fifth paragraph.

The first two sound like an RPG, and the fourth sounds like you ARE RPG, what with the being tired of anal penetration and all. The third just sounds like a rip from Zoo Tycoon.

Anyway, you do make a lot of sense with your last remark. I concur that new generations will be rising within TSC's ranks (in fact they already are). If you really want this place to keep its competitive edge as these new folks flood in, you need an activity for them to train up and hone their skills.

Emerald Challenges and Race Nights did a great job with this. TSC needs something new now to fill that void.

Offline Ben

Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #27 on: October 13, 2014, 01:56:46 pm »
Did the TSC meetup ever happen?

Offline Thorn

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Re: A message to all — is our community dying? How can we help TSC?
« Reply #28 on: October 13, 2014, 01:59:58 pm »
^ There was no formal "TSC meetup", but TSCers have met in other places such as Games Done Quick marathons.
<RPGnutter> Well I think your reasoning was dumb, so you get sassed
<RPGnutter> Thats how it works

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