2010-07-07, 12:39 PM
Fiel Wrote:I think part of what transpired last year was because SP was exciting, fresh, and new. KoC brought a huge influx of members to the site while the culture of the site was being developed by influential forum members. These two waves collided into the Southperry that you remember.
Fiel, I’ve only been involved with the social section of this forum board since its inception, so you can take this with a grain of salt. I feel that the community has been shaped and supported by the 2008 userbase. Most of the 2009 and the 2010 users, excluding notable individuals like BombsAway (and maybe Tobias), have not really supported Southperry and have stashed themselves away in the Funhouse. Granted, I am oblivious to contributions such as Maple Story guides and other logs which you and a couple of other users such as Takebacker have contributed. It is more than likely that Southperry wouldn’t have a social board if it wasn’t for the hard work of the Maple Story players who gave back to the community. Yet when it comes to shaping an actual entity, the swear filter was implemented by administration back in June or July of 2008 and users such as ClawofBeta who was one of the first members to join was the person who attempted to put together the pieces and introduce catch-phrases for the community. If you choose to refer to this as "culture," then it was really shaped by the old guard. The new members didn't really add much and just supported something that was already a part of the forum board.
Fiel Wrote:Another area which has greatly changed over the past year is the R&R. Because there was so much drama and such on the forums, it was a constant step up month to month as these rules had to be changed time and time again. Each reiteration brought more stability to the forums until we have this today - a very stable forum board with respectable rules (though I'm sure there are those who will disagree with that). One side effect of stability is that there's very little craziness. And due to little amounts of craziness or drama, there's not much culture. Most big names become smaller and less infamous, and so forth. So did the rules kill the culture of SP? No, I think it rooted out a lot of the drama, but not the culture. The culture is still here, but less prominent.
I believe that the rules do have a factor in serving as a deterrent for erratic behavior, but I don’t believe that it is the reason why the forum board has become subdued. Most of the people who were opinionated or contributed have left or stopped posting and the new users that have replaced them simply don’t bring anything new or ingenuitive to the table. Perhaps the greatest collective interest has been in transformice which of course was posted in the Funhouse. Yet transformice is hardly a game that is unique to Southperry and was posted in almost every other forum board that I frequent from time to time. The reason that Southperry simply isn’t as fascinating as it was in the past is because the new users don’t attempt to really redefine or object when interesting things occur on the forum board. Using this thread alone, look at the responses. They don’t really assert a sentimental feeling or an earnest emotion for anything on this board. Do you really believe new rules could really kill a community to this extent?
Fiel Wrote:If there's anything I would worry about if I were you, it's not the new administration, it's all the doom and gloomers that have been around recently since my announcement. Yeah, it's bad news. But people that just predict doom and gloom do nothing to help the site and destroy it more than any new administration could. This is why I'm not giving out any more dates or timelines for people to latch on to as it would only increase the doom and gloom as time marches onward toward the date. I can't have that, and I don't want it. If you want to kill the culture of Southperry, tell all your friends about the impending doom. Tell them that Southperry sucks and will never live up to how it did this last year. Tell them that all of the "good members" no longer post on the site. Make sure to tell them about the admin's announcement and how bad the new administration will be. All of these things will kill everything. Do it.
Fiel, “doom and gloomers” wouldn’t matter if people knew they wanted to remain a member on this community. The fact that the site could possibly close down is just a catalyst that acts on base feelings of regret that have been there long before news of the site possibly going down half a month ago. No one wants to contribute something to a forum board that will be gone next week or make friends with people that they will never see again. It is simply illogical to make social small talk and pretend that things are going to be fine when there is a chance that it won’t work out for the better. Southperry always sucked, but still remained better than other forum boards.