It's not mine.Sapphire wrote:No, it's mine.darcie wrote:It's my fault.
WHY IS THIS PLACE SO DEAD!?
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Whitty Whit
- Whittier than you
- Posts: 5985
- Joined: June 2010
- Location: Somewhere
@OP:
Because you came back.
Because you came back.
1x admin, 2x moderator. 3-26-11, 5-25-12
#FOREVERKITTYJehoshaphat wrote:I mean every election is basically just choosing what type of government we want.
Relevant.
True but sad.
"I still see Marvin as a newbie that is just as cool as an oldie." --snubs
Most Sarcastic Poster | Most Likely To Be Eaten By a Dinosaur and Smote by God |
Biggest Joker and Grammar Nazi | Best Writer
Most Sarcastic Poster | Most Likely To Be Eaten By a Dinosaur and Smote by God |
Biggest Joker and Grammar Nazi | Best Writer
On the plus side, this thread does seem to attract traffic from people who don't post very often. 
It's because people aren't posting.
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Looking beyond that admittedly brilliant and deeply insightful remark , the main reason why the forum is quiet is because it primarily consists of older (I mean in physical age) members who are busy doing other things. This is not new; it has been true for a long time. An Adventures in Odyssey-based community that consists only of adults is going to be either very serious or very dead.
The deeper question of why the community consists primarily of adults has a more complex answer.
The first thing to take into account is that the ToO isn't well-known. You have to go out of your way to look for an online community, probably on Google but maybe on the AIOWiki, before you find it. That takes a lot of work when someone could just join a Facebook group. That said, although the forum could probably be advertised better, I've come to recognize that this isn't the underlying reason, but more of a symptom of the real reason.
To get to the real reason, we have to consider the kind of people that this community was aimed towards. Because the focus is ostensibly Adventures in Odyssey, and also roleplaying Town aspects, that means you should primarily expect preteen/teenage conservative Christians who are AIO fans. I don't think it'd be a big leap to say that this was what the site's original audience tended to be like, or that most of the site's members over the past 18 years have more or less have fit into this group, at least when they signed up.
But the way conservative Christian families handle Internet usage is different nowadays. A few years ago, it wasn't so uncommon to let kids explore the Web freely or semi-freely. That has changed as the Web and the world have gotten darker. These days, parents are more aware of the risks, and prefer sites that have content that has been screened or filtered in advance by people they trust; a random internet message board doesn't qualify for this. Besides, the ToO's actual membership has shifted from its original base to be significantly older and more left-leaning, so that if anyone who fit in the original target group did show up, there would be a culture shock when they realized that a fair percentage of the semi-active members not only disagree with most of their beliefs, but are actually opposed to Focus on the Family.
It has been my suspicion for some time that if you want a thriving Adventures in Odyssey message board these days, it needs two things:
1) Official or semi-official recognition, so that people who visit the main Odyssey website are likely to find it.
2) A guarantee that all content will be safe and in line with the worldview of Focus on the Family and Adventures in Odyssey (and their many fans and supporters).
You have to have 2) to get 1). I've floated the idea before that the ToO could be transformed to fit this mold, but nobody has ever seemed interested in making these sacrifices, because it would involve dismantling most of the current experience and history of the site. But now, even if people were willing to go along with this for the sake of the site's activity levels, the opportunity has passed.
Some time ago, the official Odyssey and Club websites were redesigned. I'm not presently a member of the Club, so I can't give a detailed analysis of how it works or what it looks like (@snubs or @Bren would have a better idea), but my sources suggest that it now includes at least semi-organized discussion sections. As with the comment sections before the redesign, the board is fully moderated, so parents feel that this is a safe place for their youth to go to.
That fits my first and second criteria perfectly. Their activity is booming.
I try to be an optimist when I look at the future of things I've been involved with, but the statistical reality is that the ToO (and also the Soda Shop) are probably not going to be especially 'happening' places again. We might continue to get a few members here and there, particularly older teens, college students, or nostalgic adults who have some background with Odyssey, and we might see some peaks or spikes in activity sometimes (like during the B Team's term time last year, or when the Rydell Revelations came out and everyone commented on and criticized them), but if you want to see consistent activity and energy on an AIO fan site, you have to go where the kids are. That means that the thing to do is to put down your money for a Club subscription and accept that your posts are going to be pre-screened. This is the state of the AIO online community, and it is unlikely to change, for the foreseeable future.
_____________________________
Looking beyond that admittedly brilliant and deeply insightful remark
, the main reason why the forum is quiet is because it primarily consists of older (I mean in physical age) members who are busy doing other things. This is not new; it has been true for a long time. An Adventures in Odyssey-based community that consists only of adults is going to be either very serious or very dead.The deeper question of why the community consists primarily of adults has a more complex answer.
The first thing to take into account is that the ToO isn't well-known. You have to go out of your way to look for an online community, probably on Google but maybe on the AIOWiki, before you find it. That takes a lot of work when someone could just join a Facebook group. That said, although the forum could probably be advertised better, I've come to recognize that this isn't the underlying reason, but more of a symptom of the real reason.
To get to the real reason, we have to consider the kind of people that this community was aimed towards. Because the focus is ostensibly Adventures in Odyssey, and also roleplaying Town aspects, that means you should primarily expect preteen/teenage conservative Christians who are AIO fans. I don't think it'd be a big leap to say that this was what the site's original audience tended to be like, or that most of the site's members over the past 18 years have more or less have fit into this group, at least when they signed up.
But the way conservative Christian families handle Internet usage is different nowadays. A few years ago, it wasn't so uncommon to let kids explore the Web freely or semi-freely. That has changed as the Web and the world have gotten darker. These days, parents are more aware of the risks, and prefer sites that have content that has been screened or filtered in advance by people they trust; a random internet message board doesn't qualify for this. Besides, the ToO's actual membership has shifted from its original base to be significantly older and more left-leaning, so that if anyone who fit in the original target group did show up, there would be a culture shock when they realized that a fair percentage of the semi-active members not only disagree with most of their beliefs, but are actually opposed to Focus on the Family.
It has been my suspicion for some time that if you want a thriving Adventures in Odyssey message board these days, it needs two things:
1) Official or semi-official recognition, so that people who visit the main Odyssey website are likely to find it.
2) A guarantee that all content will be safe and in line with the worldview of Focus on the Family and Adventures in Odyssey (and their many fans and supporters).
You have to have 2) to get 1). I've floated the idea before that the ToO could be transformed to fit this mold, but nobody has ever seemed interested in making these sacrifices, because it would involve dismantling most of the current experience and history of the site. But now, even if people were willing to go along with this for the sake of the site's activity levels, the opportunity has passed.
Some time ago, the official Odyssey and Club websites were redesigned. I'm not presently a member of the Club, so I can't give a detailed analysis of how it works or what it looks like (@snubs or @Bren would have a better idea), but my sources suggest that it now includes at least semi-organized discussion sections. As with the comment sections before the redesign, the board is fully moderated, so parents feel that this is a safe place for their youth to go to.
That fits my first and second criteria perfectly. Their activity is booming.
I try to be an optimist when I look at the future of things I've been involved with, but the statistical reality is that the ToO (and also the Soda Shop) are probably not going to be especially 'happening' places again. We might continue to get a few members here and there, particularly older teens, college students, or nostalgic adults who have some background with Odyssey, and we might see some peaks or spikes in activity sometimes (like during the B Team's term time last year, or when the Rydell Revelations came out and everyone commented on and criticized them), but if you want to see consistent activity and energy on an AIO fan site, you have to go where the kids are. That means that the thing to do is to put down your money for a Club subscription and accept that your posts are going to be pre-screened. This is the state of the AIO online community, and it is unlikely to change, for the foreseeable future.
I think that's a pretty good assessment of some the reasons there's less posting on the ToO, Bob. I see the appeal for parents to have a fully moderated forum for their children, and that just isn't the ToO. I'm glad that is an option for those who want that, which wasn't the case back in the day as far as I recall. I think there's room for different kinds of boards, and I think people do keep dropping by the ToO (however sporadically) because this place continues to have meaning and good memories for a lot of people, but as adults with lives to live, that doesn't result in a lot of posting time for quite a few people. When I think of how much time I spent on this site the first years it existed, I could never do that now. To log on, make a post or two, and go on to the rest of my life is actually kind of nice. More activity would be nice too - but I could never keep up with stacks of new threads like I used to, and I suspect that's true of a lot of us who continue to drop by and enjoy what the ToO is now.
I'm a club member but have not used or participated in the forum in any way, just out of lack of time/interest.
I'm a club member but have not used or participated in the forum in any way, just out of lack of time/interest.
Haha, I love this summarization.
This is a really interesting point. When I joined this place at age 14, I was part of a wave of young newcomers; even then (fifteen years ago!) I remember feeling the presence of an "old guard" that felt a lot more grown up and edgy and not too happy that a bunch of kids were posting stuff that kids post (a.k.a whatever nonsense rocketed Marvin's post count up past 10k).Bob wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 12:35 pmBut the way conservative Christian families handle Internet usage is different nowadays. A few years ago, it wasn't so uncommon to let kids explore the Web freely or semi-freely. That has changed as the Web and the world have gotten darker. These days, parents are more aware of the risks, and prefer sites that have content that has been screened or filtered in advance by people they trust; a random internet message board doesn't qualify for this. Besides, the ToO's actual membership has shifted from its original base to be significantly older and more left-leaning, so that if anyone who fit in the original target group did show up, there would be a culture shock when they realized that a fair percentage of the semi-active members not only disagree with most of their beliefs, but are actually opposed to Focus on the Family.
I think the ToO has always had more of an "adult" vibe to it.It is wild to think that I was allowed to freely explore the [dial-up] internet as a kid, and you're probably right that that would never fly today. My parents didn't care until EK and xaio prank-called my home phone number in real life and suddenly my dad was like "Um... what is this website, exactly?"
Somehow I must have explained my way out of that one, though.
The ToO holds claim to more hours of attention during my lifetime than any other website.Fallacy of false continuum. // bookworm
Any cupcake can be made holy through being baptized in the name of the Butter, the Vanilla and the Powdered Sugar. // Kait
Any cupcake can be made holy through being baptized in the name of the Butter, the Vanilla and the Powdered Sugar. // Kait
After Biden bans TikTok he should go after Facebook next so we become more prominent!