It is with a proud sadness that I see that the Rocky Mountain Pathfinders is abandoning the secret of its early success for a forum. This rant is not really directed at them, but at the industry in general.
What is it with people wanting to have their own forums everywhere?
I cannot state enough how much I hate forums. I hate them with a passion. Rather than being able to peacefully sort through the emails that I get, I now have to go to your website (usually have to endure the ads and other junk). And constantly troll your lists to make sure I miss nothing.
Not to mention the typical forum behavior:
- First 5 (I usually say first 2) replies on a thread are generally related before they degenerate into inane idiocies of inside jokes that run from thread to thread, usually by the same people.
- Any thread with more than 20 replies is usually completely useless (especially when the useful answer is at post 114, 3 pages further).
- I don't know why but every forums that is "cool" and "enjoyable" always has a transformation at one point where you don't want to participate. It is rarely attributable to a single event or person - such as "when Bob became admin" or "when they moved to the new version."
- Trolls.
Personal Code of Conduct
Personally, I chose to adopt the following code of conduct with regards to forums. These are loose guidelines I hold myself to.
- Don't use 'em if I don't have to.
- Never reply more than once on a thread, unless a question *I* asked warrants a response.
- Avoid any and all rules discussion
- Assume that anything important will be communicated some other way. No, Forum rulings are not binding unless you compile in a clear document.
- I cannot spend 5 hours a day looking at forums, so those that do not contact me through email I drift away from very quickly.
- To a company: If its not worth mentioning in the news section of your website, its really not that important!
- Don't use the forums.
I don't know how alone I am with this opinion, but seeing the amount of forums growing every day, I must say that I am in a minoritywho understands how to put an email filter.
Oh well... less information I get to delete from my inbox.
JP
Yeah forums are almost as badas personal blogs.... ;)
ReplyDeleteHave to say, forums are one very easy way to waste whole swathes of time and get absolutely nothing from them but a huge headache usually caused by inane arguments. I only really 'browse' through forum threads when I'm bored and have time to waste but can't really be arsed to do anything productive.
ReplyDeleteMy enjoyment of gaming as a hobby is inversely proportionate to the amount of time I spend on forums (especially certain forums). Last few months I've been too busy to have any free time to waste on forum browsing, and my enjoyment of this hobby dramatically improved! So yeah, I'm with you on this.
ReplyDeleteThinking of this, I found that I prefer to read blog post. Even posts whose opinions are contrary to mine. It forces me to do some introspection and reconsider my positions. Forums tho never seem to do that. They are just... well... random... Glad to see I'm not the only one who has issues with those...
ReplyDelete