MIA Craziness

[Troutzor]

Yikes.

I'm not sure exactly what went down over the last 24 hours or why for that matter, but yeesh.

You know, I think that the MIA Facebook page suffers a lot from the social media knee-jerk tendencies of that form of media. Realtime posting and responses really can create a lot of emotional turbulence. This isn't just something unique to the MIA page, its all of Facebook. Realtime social media is a blessing and a curse. On one hand its a great way to communicate, get news and updates in realtime, faster than any news media outlet can. On the other it can be crazy reactionary, and as some might put it; dramatic. Hey, we know that drama isn't new to this community, but I think this may be where the forums can shine.

Since good communication, good english, and grammar are an important part of what is expected here, I think it makes posting here a more thoughtful endeavor. Rather than shitposting and throwing shade, just to make an emotional statement, many of us take a few minutes to really post something of quality with some decency and respect.

I know this place is not free of the politics that are happening "out there", but at the moment its quiet and peaceful here.  Out there people I know and have played with, shaken their hands, and respected as real people and individuals, are exchanging blows are tearing each other down. All this amidst a moment where it seems like there is a vested interest by some of regrowing something here. Its sad and disturbing.

Again, I'll take a moment and write something with poise and reason. Thank you to all who make this place possible.

-Troutzor

[luke213]

Completely agree. Sorry I didn't see this yesterday with everything going on. I think you're right though that forums are longer form and require a little more thought going into posts and that changes things.

I'm going to be making some changes to Ideally make it easier for guys to be able to use the forums. But one of the big issues here or Facebook is mobile. On mobile it's allot more difficult to make long and easy to read posts. So guys are more prone to writing a short statement, which isn't a problem in most cases. But without voice inflection I think you end up with more disagreement and conflict because of the way it may come off to the people reading it. The problem then becomes what type of input would be faster and more natural for the phone and I don't have a good answer there. Maybe voice transcription might do it, but that's about the only way I see it being faster and more natural.

Another thing that I think comes with that is that my train of thought moves the same speed as I type. So on a phone oftentimes my mind isn't keeping with where my fingers are typing;) So by the time I type one thing I've lost the flow of what I'm saying in the larger sense.

Certainly some challenges with communication as a whole over the internet but I think forums have a place going forward. Facebook I think does also I don't think at least at this point it's going anywhere today. But I have made mention that it is loosing some younger guys because it's not the "cool" place which doesn't bode well long term. But I think as we stand here today it's replacement hasn't been made yet. But in 5 years Facebook could become this tech cycles MySpace as well. All it takes is someone fixing their problems and getting enough people on board. I don't really care much if Facebook gets replaced over time it's just the way of the tech world and even though I don't do that stuff daily anymore I still have seen allot come and go over the years

Either way appreciate your point of view and coming here to share it.

Take care

Luke

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[darcness]

It is pretty quiet and laid back here.  Honestly too quiet.   

I do wish more people would be open to using the forums, but it's definitely feeling like fighting a losing battle.  People want to complain and tell you this or that about how the forums will never be a thing again.  When the true bottom line is about laziness.  Too many people simply don't want to take the time to post a thought out reply with some punctuation and real constructive input.  It's much easier to put a simple fragment into FB and call it a day.  Instead of actually making a change and putting in the effort, it's easier just to let the forums die.  Unfortunately I think that's where the community is as a whole today and likely moving forward.  Again this is based on the conversations I've had and witnessed on FB. 

Ask me if I think this kind of lackadaisical attitude has something to do with the current state of affairs of MIA; my answer will be ABSOLUTELY.

[luke213]

Well I've got a new guy looking into some of the tech issues as well, so we may be making some additional changes to the forums to make them more usable and a tighter integration with Facebook as well. I don't think it will be a fast process, so I wouldn't expect anything really quickly. But I hope that it's going to not only improve the forums but the community as a whole.

On the traffic thing I think part of that is purely that allot of us are completely worn out on communicating after this last week;) I certainly am;)

So maybe take a few days for things to return to their normal pace here but we'll see. And with those changes it could change things as well so we'll just have to wait and see what can be figured out that will work best.

Luke

[luke213]

Just a note, I changed the title of this thread as to not confuse guys. Canto(John's) event series Firestorm was the following thread and I kept seeing this title thinking it was related rather than being about this whole situation so rather than to confuse guys further I went ahead and changed the name to craziness rather than firestorm:)

Hope that makes sense, didn't want it tied to a current running game series now or even in the future when it comes up on google;)

Luke