Strenght in numbers: Why ToS?

[Eltu]

I understand your concern, and I will try to reply to this post as good as I can.

First of all - the founding of ToS was not all about the layout change - FAR from it. The reasons that the feeling of community started to disappear was because of misunderstandings, of small, stupid things - Lon could have been more active and involved, but the main problem lied in misunderstandings.

But regardless the past, let's look at the situation we have right now. We have two forums that are drastically different. And I am NOT talking about looks now. ToS is a forum that is much smaller, and that is a GOOD thing in this case. Everyone knows everyone, and can share really deep things with each other.

"Strength in numbers" does not really apply here - when an internet community becomes too large, things might get worse, instead of better.

We have our strength in closeness and friendship - not numbers.


And the two forums are to drastically different for a "unification". Again, not talking about looks. The forums are run in two fully different ways, and again, ToS is much smaller. Members know each others really closely here, something that is not always possible in a community of 3000 active users.

Simply put - we could not simply merge AF with for example Naviblue. Why? Because the two communities are too different, a unification leads to nothing good. It is the same thing here - ToS is a smaller, closer community, and AF is a larger, broader and vaster community.

And here is my point - sometimes a split like this actually is NECESSARY when a community grows in size to the point where some members wants a smaller community. And that's what happened.

I hope you find this reply useful.

Eltu

[Dreaming Of Pandora]

Originally Posted by Eltu

I understand your concern, and I will try to reply to this post as good as I can.

First of all - the founding of ToS was not all about the layout change - FAR from it. The reasons that the feeling of community started to disappear was because of misunderstandings, of small, stupid things - Lon could have been more active and involved, but the main problem lied in misunderstandings.

But regardless the past, let's look at the situation we have right now. We have two forums that are drastically different. And I am NOT talking about looks now. ToS is a forum that is much smaller, and that is a GOOD thing in this case. Everyone knows everyone, and can share really deep things with each other.

"Strength in numbers" does not really apply here - when an internet community becomes too large, things might get worse, instead of better.

We have our strength in closeness and friendship - not numbers.


And the two forums are to drastically different for a "unification". Again, not talking about looks. The forums are run in two fully different ways, and again, ToS is much smaller. Members know each others really closely here, something that is not always possible in a community of 3000 active users.

Simply put - we could not simply merge AF with for example Naviblue. Why? Because the two communities are too different, a unification leads to nothing good. It is the same thing here - ToS is a smaller, closer community, and AF is a larger, broader and vaster community.

And here is my point - sometimes a split like this actually is NECESSARY when a community grows in size to the point where some members wants a smaller community. And that's what happened.

I hope you find this reply useful.

Eltu

Thanks for the reply

I understand that forums can get too big. I remember trying out Mass Effect forums and each contribution you make to a thread gets lost in a sea of posts.

Glad to know it's not about the forum skin that's the reason behind the split.

Thanks Eltu

[Sight Unseen]

Originally Posted by stdout

I think I joined AF too late in the day to feel any loyalty towards it, and when I take a look back at it I am struck by two things that make me prefer (and exclusively frequent) ToS:

1. The style- ToS is really elegant and clean by comparison. There isn't the visual noise, it's just one column, running down the centre of my screen, and I like that.

2. AF 'feels' impersonal when I look at it now. This could be down to my arriving there quite late, but I don't get any sense of belonging, as I do somewhat here.

I like the simple style of ToS much better as well. Mainly because ToS scales better to different screen resolutions. I go to ToS from my HDTV, my 1024x768 monitor, and my tablet. It's smooth, slick and simple. AF messed with their style sheets and templates a bit too much, now it looks bulky, gaudy and sunglasses-bright.

Originally Posted by Eltu

But regardless the past, let's look at the situation we have right now. We have two forums that are drastically different. And I am NOT talking about looks now. ToS is a forum that is much smaller, and that is a GOOD thing in this case. Everyone knows everyone, and can share really deep things with each other.

We have our strength in closeness and friendship - not numbers.

Oel ngati kameie. ToS is one of the few places (if not the only place) on the Internet that isn't about number of friends, it's about friendship.

[Boomachucka]

Originally Posted by Eltu

First of all - the founding of ToS was not all about the layout change - FAR from it. ...

..."Strength in numbers" does not really apply here - when an internet community becomes too large, things might get worse, instead of better....

We have our strength in closeness and friendship - not numbers.

Quoted for shared opinion.

I was a loyal member of AF for quite a while, but with time the community and feeling really went through some major changes which I didn't care for. I still go there to check up and see what's going on of course, but I find ToS is much closer and tighter knit. While moderately less active, I feel the quality (Not to generalize AF of course, there are some GREAT threads I still follow) of many of the posts and the deepness of some of the conversations makes it worth it.

Just my opinion of course, please don't take that in offense in any way. That's the trend I felt and the reasoning behind my moving over. That's how internet communities work though... It gets too big, there's a split, and everybody's still happy