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[Milchjon]

In the seven years I've spent here (FML), GAF has grown constantly. Which is rather great, since no matter what you wanna talk about, you'll always find someone who shares the interest.

But at the same time, it seems like GAF is gradually breaking up into subcommunities (countries, sports leagues, genres, games, ...) that often make it harder to jump into discussions, and where pieces of news that could be interesting get swallowed up in huge OTs. Which is a bit sad, because I always loved the serendipitous aspect of GAF. The recent split of the OT Community is just one symptom of this development.

Am I the only one who feels ambivalent about this? Or should I just sit back in the rocking chair on the front porch and stop worrying about the good ol' times?

 

[Canis lupus]

Been a long time lurker but, I like how there are only 4 subforums, makes everything easy accessible and active.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

Sub-communities are fine so long as they are easily accessible and don't halt the creation of new threads that everyone can participate in.
Like the Wii U threads in community, it kinda served the purpose of discussing various Wii U rumours and only created new threads for the more legit rumours.

 

[Dennis]

I rarely even bother pressing the two Community tabs.

Once a game goes to Community it may as well be dead to me.

 

[Dali]

I rarely even bother pressing the two Community tabs.

Once a game goes to Community it may as well be dead to me.

Same here. The community tabs were one of the worst things to happen here. Used to randomly comment and see what's new in the anime thread. Since its gone community it may as well not exist anymore. And that's just a thread that I know I've missed since going community. There may be more that I've forgotten about since it doesn't float to the top of regular ot anymore. Just hope arts and farts and the indie game thread never goes to the community graveyard.

 

[Jokab]

I rarely even bother pressing the two Community tabs.

Once a game goes to Community it may as well be dead to me.

That's how I feel aswell. I play and watch a ton of Starcraft 2 but I never visit the community thread.

 

[Canis lupus]

The anime and football thread in community are fairly active. Anime thread is moving faster than Vita thread in Gaming. Please never move Vita from Gaming.

 

[Horse Armour]

Been a long time lurker but, I like how there are only 4 subforums, makes everything easy accessible and active.

TurkishEmperor
Join Date: 05-10-2012
Total Posts: 5,156 (42.33 posts per day)

0_o

 

[i_am_ben]

I rarely even bother pressing the two Community tabs.

Once a game goes to Community it may as well be dead to me.

.

Same thing but with Poligaf.

 

[Brazil]

Sub-communities are the best part of GAF.

When you're tired of all the bullshit, you can just go back to your reliable buddies in one of the Community threads and have a good time there without worrying about fanboy wars, mindless hating, legitimate rape discussions and spider threads.

 

[JB1981]

I rarely even bother pressing the two Community tabs.

Once a game goes to Community it may as well be dead to me.

Weird I know but same for me

 

[saveweyard]

I've only recently started to use the community/off-topic tabs. They're nice when you just want to have some not-so-serious discussions (or super-serious ones depending).

Really though, that gaming tab is the main attraction for me still.

 

[Anteater]

It seems that discussions usually dies down or die completely once an OT gets moved unless it's a popular game, I keep them in subscription and check back from time to time, so I still visit them, but only for 1 or 2 games I usually am still playing, for the rest they may as well be dead to me, lol.

I do understand why it's done that way but we got a lot of list threads anyway in place of them. (I do post in them though!)

 

[samus i am]

Ambivalent means you don't give enough of a shit either way. Which is how I feel.

 

[Ovid]

Join Date: 05-10-2012
Posts
Total Posts: 5,156 (42.33 posts per day)

0_o

Dude has more posts than me.

 

[mxgt]

TurkishEmperor
Join Date: 05-10-2012
Posts
Total Posts: 5,156 (42.33 posts per day)

0_o

and I thought I posted a lot

 

[bluehat9]

I never go to community tabs either. Sometimes I lurk in the NHL thread though when I need a laugh. Other than that, I don't have any idea what else is in community for gaming or ot and I guess I don't care.

 

[Dali]

Ambivalent means you don't give enough of a shit either way. Which is how I feel.

Actually ambivalent is just the opposite. You give a shit both ways making you torn on your overall feelings on something. I think you mean indifferent.

 

[Nevasleep]

I think that moving sports to communities has led to fewer 'casuals' posting in them.

 

[Aguirre]

I rarely even bother pressing the two Community tabs.

Once a game goes to Community it may as well be dead to me.

one could note that it is exactly this thought process that helps filter out the undesirables from the the main forums to their community counterparts.

 

[Forkball]

The prophecies state that one user will unite GAF after a great war. But that may only be a legend.

 

[alr1ght]

Community threads are where we go to complain about regular gaf.

 

[GrotesqueBeauty]

No problems with the growth, but I strongly dislike the way official topics tend to quickly get shifted towards community, and I'm also not a fan of how rigid megathread enforcement has gotten. It makes general discussion about everything less organic imo.

 

[Tedesco!]

I think that moving sports to communities has led to fewer 'casuals' posting in them.

I've rarely ventured into the NFL/MLB threads because of the move. Sometimes I just don't remember they exist. They used to be the first threads I would click on, but now I'm lucky if I remember they're there.

 

[Horseticuffs]

Fragmentation is better than the alternative. I used to treat the Something Awful Forums like I now do Gaf. I've been a member there for over 11 years now, but stopped going there completely once my Gaf account got authorized.

On SA it's almost impossible to keep up with things because every little thing can get you banned, and since you paid for your membership, you really don't want that to happen.

Now, tight moderation can be a saving grace for a forum, but they used to make up strange rules like "no posting between 9:14pm and 10:00pm on Sundays" and put them in sticky threads and in the thread body, so unless you checked the "forum rules" thread each time you logged in, you were fucked.

That and everyone was so scared of getting banned that they wouldn't post new threads but put everything in sprawling mega-threads which moved so quickly they were almost impossible to keep up with.

It just became like a second job to hang out there and that shit was cool when I was younger but just seems ridiculous now.

Gaf is a refreshing oasis. Tightly enforced "New thread for new news" policy, friendly and helpful mods, drama free. If it stayed like this forever, it would be heaven.

 

[neoism]

nope


halogaf <3

Batgaf <3

Lostgaf <3


About the growth... I do wish evil would stop with the juniors for a while....

 

[StalkerUKCG]

As someone who virtually lives in the community forum and considers themselves part of multiple community I feel the people against that side of GAF are in the wrong with no real reason to have those feelings.

Each Community is welcoming and devoted to its topic, If you want news or updates about any game that has a community thread 90% of the time its as easy as saying "what's new guys?"

It can get a bit fanboy circle jerky at times but that's expected.

 

[El_Victor]

The recent split of the OT Community is just one symptom of this development.

What; I didn't even know GAF had sub-forums! Completely missed the memo. Just the other day I wondered why I never saw The Metal thread pop up as often as it used to (basically, never). Now I know why. Imagine that.

 

[neoism]

TurkishEmperor
Join Date: 05-10-2012
Total Posts: 5,156 (42.33 posts per day)

0_o

wtf damn..... guy needs to sloww down lol

 

[VistraNorrez]

I use the subscriptions more than anything. Gaming, off topic, community, it all looks the same to me.

Community forums do seem like a better way to look at topics of the past and see if people are still active with them.

 

[GitarooMan]

Same here. The community tabs were one of the worst things to happen here.

I agree, I thought it was a big mistake at the time and I think it hasn't worked. The sports threads have become more insular than ever and I don't see how that's a good thing. Same with the gaming OTs. I never understood the compulsion to remove OTs from the main page.

 

[The Librarian]

I like it more this way. I feel like I'm getting more out of the website if I am easily able to interact with a group of people regularly.

I'm curious: For those that don't visit threads after they're moved to Community because you don't go there often, do you use subscriptions? That should solve your problems.

 

[ScreenSplitter]

It's not fragmentation, it's just focused discussion for people who want to talk about niche subjects. I'm glad SportsGAF can talk about sports elsewhere, I don't want to discuss it.

 

[shanshan310]

We all come together for gaming and OT though, even if we spend time in sub-communities.

 

[Canis lupus]

TurkishEmperor
Join Date: 05-10-2012
Total Posts: 5,156 (42.33 posts per day)

0_o

Haha, gaf=life. It will go down next month when college starts.

 

[SillyEskimo]

When you're tired of all the bullshit, you can just go back to your reliable buddies in one of the Community threads and have a good time there without worrying about fanboy wars, mindless hating, legitimate rape discussions and spider threads.

There is truth and wisdom in this post.

 

[Blackace]

Same here. The community tabs were one of the worst things to happen here. Used to randomly comment and see what's new in the anime thread. Since its gone community it may as well not exist anymore. And that's just a thread that I know I've missed since going community. There may be more that I've forgotten about since it doesn't float to the top of regular ot anymore. Just hope arts and farts and the indie game thread never goes to the community graveyard.

Why?

 

[def sim]

I have the gaming and OT tabs on auto refresh every 30 minutes. I don't feel I need to do that for the community tabs so I use it less, but search leads me there for certain topics.

It's alright.

 

[Broder Salsa]

Completely stopped visiting threads like battlefield 3 OT after it moved to community which sucks. Only community thread I frequent is footballGAF, which half my posts are probably in.

 

[GCX]

I think people are slowly getting used to the whole community sub forum thing. It just takes some time.

 

[Milchjon]

Community threads are where we go to complain about regular gaf.

Haha, true.

And Community threads are some of the best threads on GAF.

But I seem to remember a time when GAF as a whole felt closer to what Community is now, where you know most people you interact with.

But at least we have more than two or three female posters now.

 

[jett]

I rarely even bother pressing the two Community tabs.

Once a game goes to Community it may as well be dead to me.

Same here. The community tabs were one of the worst things to happen here. Used to randomly comment and see what's new in the anime thread. Since its gone community it may as well not exist anymore. And that's just a thread that I know I've missed since going community. There may be more that I've forgotten about since it doesn't float to the top of regular ot anymore. Just hope arts and farts and the indie game thread never goes to the community graveyard.

Some of you fewls need to learn how to use subscriptions.

 

[Raonak]

I still don't understand what the community tab is for.
I always thought it was the archives, where you throw dead threads into, but apparently not

 

[Derrick01]

I rarely even bother pressing the two Community tabs.

Once a game goes to Community it may as well be dead to me.

Same and it seems like most feel that way. Threads seem to be on life support over there.

As for the threads that don't get moved over there, like the Steam thread, I rarely feel like a part of that "community" as they usually talk about some indie game I couldn't even pretend to have an interest in.

TurkishEmperor
Join Date: 05-10-2012
Total Posts: 5,156 (42.33 posts per day)

0_o

Dude makes me look like an average poster for a change

 

[Broder Salsa]

I still don't understand what the community tab is for.
I always thought it was the archives, where you throw dead threads into, but apparently not

Think the football threads are the quickest growing ones on GAF and they are in community. Go through like 12 of those in a year, with 20k posts.

Dude makes me look like an average poster for a change

I hope he keeps going too, makes yourself look a bit less insane.

 

[Milchjon]

Same and it seems like most feel that way. Threads seem to be on life support over there.

Not at all. Some of the sports threads get 5000-10000 posts per week. Same with PoliGAF, I think.

 

[I'm an expert]

I don't really see threads as a community.. they're just a thread with a specific topic on a forum. Any forum as a whole is a community, in this case a gaming community. Whether you post in the gaming forum or not, you're taking part of a gaming community's forum.

The community tabs are just set up to avoid certain threads from being on the front page all the time due to the frequent posts they receive, especially when they're things like sports and everyone is commenting on the same thing in real time. Nothing is "fragmented" because anyone can view and join any thread at any time.

 

[Derrick01]

Not at all. Some of the sports threads get 5000-10000 posts per week. Same with PoliGAF, I think.

Well yeah those will always be active. I was thinking of the gaming ones though, the few times I post in one it could take months to get a reply because no one goes to them once they get moved from regular gaming side.

 

[surly]

I still don't understand what the community tab is for.

Nor me.

 

[Deleted member 20920]

Now, tight moderation can be a saving grace for a forum, but they used to make up strange rules like "no posting between 9:14pm and 10:00pm on Sundays" and put them in sticky threads and in the thread body, so unless you checked the "forum rules" thread each time you logged in, you were fucked.

Why??? That's rather bewildering.