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lzrman
Member
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# Posted: 1 May 2007 12:28
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Have you noticed how dead the forums are becoming, its like theres less then 3 posts per day some days theres a influx of 6 but other days there is none.
Can we throw ideas around to help make this project busy again?
Maybe revamping sections? subdividing sections by teams or departments?
Lzrman
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anth
Member
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# Posted: 1 May 2007 16:12
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Ok, here goes. A rant....
To be honest, a large part of the forums stopped interesting me long ago. Especially general chatter. It seemed to me, as somebody outside looking in to be a bit of a closed circle, and a lot of repeated "in jokes" and other stuff i had no interest in at all. That's me talking, let alone some potential newcomer to the site who does not understand. Maybe i had a head start, and now every body else is bored with all that too?
Compared to other vibrant, interesting, and lively places, it just does not stack up.
Is it just the forums? Or the whole site? The whole place looks, and feels stale and very dull. The so called "headlines" that greet you on the front page should be re named "ancient history" 
I do not want to sound disloyal. But something has to be done here. Somehow things like tech stuff, and computer games which are hugely popular everywhere the whole world over and every where else online are just dead here. Even Trek and Star Wars forums do not generate any interest at all! I can post on a space forum site and get 500 views in a day, i am lucky to get 5 in a week here. I posted probably the most amazing space news in history last week. An Earthlike planet discovered in an alien solar system. 8 views in a week! *LOL*
I accept people here are not that interested in space. So i have moved on, and kind of let my posts dwindle in the space forum. I do not see the point in working on something that is not being looked at. But, having said that. Thankyou to all those who did read it, and thankyou for your kind words over the years. 
I have always tried to contribute here. Much of it well outside any dept. So, therefore well outside any kind of work that would see me rewarded with promo's etc. I was lucky, and got a couple of officer of the months for it. I have done lots of things outside the box as it were. From otf voice mails to actualy putting out a rallying call here, and making a sci fi film with OTF'ers.
In recent times, i have been careful to work on things that i control and can put out there myself. So people can actualy see it here. rather than doing it through depts, and it vanishing into a black hole. Although i did drop my guard and do work for the Tribune. 2 issues in about a year! Oh well. Possibly that kind of thing is hindering input, and creativity?
I really feel we need an injection of fresh faces. Fresh ideas. Plus the means to get those ideas and activity's out there is the way to breathe new life into OTF. I admit i do not visit chat rooms here very often, so i cannot comment on them. I am too busy in real life, and i have my own projects on the go when i sit at the PC. But, half the time the chats look under attended too.
I know we are hindered by no Trek, and no Star Wars. If we are not budging from those core interests fair enough. Then look at how we can get new people using those as hooks. Is it really wise to ignore things like Dr Who, Stargate, BSG, Lost, and Heroes though? Having said that, there has never really been much here to do with trek or Star Wars anyway. It was just a place for those that followed it to get together.
I stick by my beliefs. Youtube and those other crappy sites, like Myspace are really making the net a very dumbed down affair. How can you make a site compare to the wonders of a blog on Myspace which start with "i went out saturday, and got absolutely hammered!!!" How can you go up against those? They are ingrained now into every young persons brain. Even the ones that have better tastes are going there through peer pressure.
i have no idea what works on line these days. So good luck finding something that works here. Short of somebody filming themselves falling off their skateboard and posting the video here, or everybody having their own "i went out with tracy saturday, and got soooo hammered!!!!" blog.
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polson
Member
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# Posted: 1 May 2007 22:53
Reply
If you want the forums to jump, simply post something controversial.
Otherwise, boredom will spawn stupid inside jokes and uninteresting threads.
Do I find the forums boring as of late? Hell yeah. Am I perfectly capable of putting up a hot topic? Sure thing. Am I that ambitious? Not really. Besides, the forums are not why I'm here at OTF. It's simply another aspect of the site to utilize for multiple purposes. I'd rather chat in TF, but if something grabs me in the forums I'll post. I cruise the lesser used forums every month or so for anything I might want to voice my opinion on, but usually I'm just not interested in a lot of what it's used for.
That doesn't mean I don't agree with Anth...some sprucing up is in order, though I'm not sure what exactly would be the best way to go about that. I'm not a very technical person.
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anth
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 01:45
Reply
I think the problem is as far as the more specialist forums here go. That they need numbers of people, and sheer volume present here to work.
Specialist topics, and special interest forums are usually found by people visiting sites linked to their hobbies etc. Places which are established, and can cater for that interest, and have been doing so for a long time. These sites pull in thousands of people interested i their respective areas of interest.
Our hope here for those topics and forums is to snag people who happen to be visiting this site, or have become members.
Somebody having problems running Windows Vista is not going to find OTF while Googling for a solution. The membership has to be large enough and active enough to have a cross section which is interested or needs the info which takes in all the forums topics and sub forums.
For instance. The ratio of people interested in my hobbies, space and astronomy is about 1 in a 1000. For that section of OTF to work and be active i need a lot of people through the door of OTF.
So, no amount of tinkering will do any good. It all boils down to weight of numbers. More people equals more opinions, more ideas, more jokes, more imagination, and more variety.
One by one the old guard are going here. Or they are visiting less and less. We need new people. The only way we get new people is us cropping up when people are wandering the net. Like it or not, this place will live and die by Google results. As long as our meta tags feature words which nobody is typing into search engines anymore we will not show up in most searches, and we will not be discovered by the new faces we need.
Of course if they do find us. We still need to seem interesting and worth hanging around for. Or we will not see them for dust.
I am no expert on web sites. But i do know one rule is that to make a place look exciting is to always have the front page updated and fresh. If stories and features are months out of date it suggests the place is run down, and not active.
Polson is right too. Controversy would kick us all up the butt and get us posting. But only within the confines of the small amount of membership we have which are active. We would soon get fed up of one person or another's political views coming to the surface over and over though. Or the same people not agreeing time after time. Also of course, rightly or wrongly, extreme views would be deleted, and on other sites they would not. So, even there our hands are tied and we come off second best. btw, i am not for us hosting extreme views, i'm just saying it.
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david1
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 07:18
Reply
[quote=anth,May 02 2007,01:45][/quote]<br>*Yawns* Same old stories...<br><br>A: maybe its the slow forums which are causing people not to post here? lmao, it takes 72 seconds to load up the main forum page, and anything between 60-80 to load up any sub catagory, and thats on a 8mb broadband, I wonder how dialup people suffer? Unless im one of the few who suffer from it. And i've changed ISP, and re-installed entire network in past few months with no visable change. (People of these days are impatient, and tend to avoid slow loading pages)<br><br>B: Addictivness: Where it gone? This place has no appeal anymore, for me, mindlessly going around shooting random people in prey or CS-S is now my past-time, having been away from the site, and comming back, its looks exactly how it did when I first joined, what 7-8 years ago!<br><br><!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->One by one the old guard are going here. Or they are visiting less and less. We need new people. The only way we get new people is us cropping up when people are wandering the net. Like it or not, this place will live and die by Google results. As long as our meta tags feature words which nobody is typing into search engines anymore we will not show up in most searches, and we will not be discovered by the new faces we need.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--><br><br>How else would you describe "Star Trek" <!--emo&:?--><img src="http://www.outpost10f.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/srp.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':?'><!--endemo--> "Starwars" <!--emo&:?--><img src="http://www.outpost10f.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/srp.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':?'><!--endemo--> "Lord Of The Rings" <!--emo&:?--><img src="http://www.outpost10f.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/srp.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':?'><!--endemo-->, that would help bring them up more in search results?
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bria
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 07:45
Reply
Put in the word "sex", then claim we speak Latin and it refers to the number of Star Wars episodes if people complain.
But if I'm perfectly honest... it's not the forums. New people have turned up and got told off or at least received snide comments when they "played Star Wars". Let's face it, we don't want to play lightsabers and space battles anymore, we don't want to discuss the new Star Trek movie or talk about space news. We either want to whine how crappy our life is, or argue about stupid things like the alert status. And why do we want to argue about pedantics, so we can then whine about how crappy our life is when everyone is out to get us.
Maybe if there weren't people getting offended at every turn, moaning about being discriminated against or God knows what else, it'd be more fun. Maybe if people stopped acting like stuffy bureaucrats who need everything organised and protocolled and ranked, it'd be more fun. I remember a few years ago I'd come in and talk to people I called my friends. We joked, we messed around, we flirted. Can't do that anymore, because innuendo is evil and offenders will be shot. In a community where most people are of the age where they do this kind of thing, that isn't going to make it very attractive. Is it.
To sum up... bureaucracy and fun don't get along for the simple reason that you can't organise fun. And if kids can't play Star Wars and teenagers can't flirt somewhere, they're gonna go and do it somewhere else.
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anth
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 08:10
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<!--QuoteBegin--david1+May 02 2007,07:18--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (david1 @ May 02 2007,07:18)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->How else would you describe "Star Trek" <!--emo&:?--><img src="http://www.outpost10f.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/srp.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':?'><!--endemo--> "Starwars" <!--emo&:?--><img src="http://www.outpost10f.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/srp.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':?'><!--endemo--> "Lord Of The Rings" <!--emo&:?--><img src="http://www.outpost10f.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/srp.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':?'><!--endemo-->, that would help bring them up more in search results?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--><br>I would describe them as something most young people these days do not really care about. Or bother looking at on-line.<br><br>Star Trek has gone from TV, the last lot of Star Wars films probably turned a generation away from the best movies of all time too.<br><br>So, no i do not believe we could ever get back to how this place once was with that being the case, and without forging some ties to some stuff that has the kind of popularity Trek and Star Wars had back in the day we are all talking about, when this place was worth hanging around in. <br><br>Bria : Is that what the chats are like? I stopped going in because it was just no fun anymore i know that much.<br><br>Do people need or want chatrooms these days? With their myspace, and msn messengers. The internet for young people seems to me to be growing more inward. They come home from school then chat to their friends on line. They are past the cool factor of the early days of the net allowing you to chat to somebody in Australia or the USA, or the other side of the world. I think. It's far more relevant and fun to them to catch up on gossip and keep in touch with their real life friends.<br><br>If there is OTF with rules and regulations, and there is Myspace and a friends MSN with no restrictions. I guess its a no brainer as to why nobody is here.<br><br>Remember in days gone by there was all types of OTF clones springing up? They have all gone to my knowledge. So, i do not think we can blame ourselves 100% I think the general trend is away from what we are all about.<br><br>But, if bria is right, then the small amount of people we do appeal to are not staying due to the points she has raised.<br><br>Anyway. Life is too short etc. That's my last post on this subject. <br><br><!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.outpost10f.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smi.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo--><br><br><!--EDIT|anth|May 02 2007,08:18-->
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skevington
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 08:26
Reply
Eeeh... i read most of the posts then briefly glanced over the others. I noticed the word "sex" and got interested for about five seconds, then quickly read the rest without really taking in all that much information.
This place reminds me of the Q Continuum. Everything has been done and talked about. Life there is dull. And they need something or someone new to come freshen it up.
I fear otf has become dull and stagnant and it smells musty like the house of some crazy old insane cat-lady. Or maybe it is just eminating from Jeremy's old police box in the corner of tenforward.
Anyway!
I have no real point, i am merely agreeing lots. And yes David is most certainly right. The forums are stupidly slow. So much so i don't even want to use them. I sent in a suggestion about changing to a set that actually WORKED a while ago but ohnoez i never got no feedback. =p
But yeah - forums that work at a decent speed + interesting topics = success.
My work here is done.
Mr Dmitri
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polson
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 08:27
Reply
I HATE to disagree with Bria because we are mind twins, but Bria, I hear that same speech every three years give or take. "Oh it used to be more fun and more relaxed." It goes in waves. I'll tell you, I'm bored of it.
OTF is what we make it. If we make it all about how much we don't like policies and stuff, then we won't enjoy it. Unless you enjoy complaining, which admitedly I might. I am anti-rank as you can get and I've taken a LOT of heat for it and been called unappreciative etc, etc. And yet, I'm one of the FEW oldtimers who doesn't run around here complaining about the good ol' days being so much better than the current ones.
It's a Star Trek, Star Wars, Sci Fi, Fantasy website. Is it the best damn site out there? No. Does it appeal to the vast majority of internet cruisers? No. Is that a BAD thing? No!!! We don't have to have ten million members to make this place better. In fact I LIKE OTF because when I jump into the chat room I ALWAYS see someone I know, even if the room is full of n00bs there's always a familiar face. If we make this site about more popular things, aren't we changing what the site is for? I think I'd have a hard time continuously coming if this suddenly became a site for Space Junkies. If we advertise bigger and better things and then folks get here and it's neither, they'll turn around and leave. What's more important? That it's a website about stuff we like or it's a popular website about stuff we don't like?
And I know, it's rare to stumble into a decent sci fi conversation, but does that really matter? We all have something that ties us together here even if we don't chat about it every second of the day. For that matter, some of us have known each other for so long, there isn't any point in reitterating how much I love Stargate. Not that that will always stop me.
However, I DO agree with Bria - the shows we've grown up with are no longer the primary scifi shows of the up and coming generation. We can't expect the same levels of fresh blood if we want to stay as we are. The right changes can be good. The wrong changes will end up like Star Trek Enterprise - pulling in a new crowd at the cost of the old faithful one. And - we need to ease up on the little 'uns who ARE passionate (and crazy) about Star Wars. They're just kids and they don't speak "grown-up-mature *snort* adult" yet.
I have as much reason as anybody to leave OTF in a bitter huff of oldtimer put-up-a-stink-ness. I haven't.
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polson
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 08:28
Reply
Yegads, YES the forums are slow as all. I HATE using them with Windows Vista. It's the only thing that crashes my IE.
Dmitri...I THINK what you said is that we need a civil war.
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skevington
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 08:32
Reply
Mmm...
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars
{insert awesome air guitar solo}
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demonvamp
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 08:36
Reply
Agrees about the slow part, one day last week I sat for three minutes before giving up and leaving. Ironically, today it loaded off the bat.
Typical. 
QD.
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skevington
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 08:51
Reply
I believe this is a case of -
"Iain Iain, wherefore art thou?"
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iain
Moderator
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 15:17
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Hi guys!
Seems my name has been invoked... 
I'm afraid that the reason that the forums are so slow is one that is exceptionally difficult to solve. It is, in a nutshell, a combination of:
(1) Old server hardware (ie, fewer resources than modern standards)
(2) Inefficient, non-optimised, and non-trivially-optimisable code and database usage (ie, ~15 database queries to generate each page, and each query non optimised. And, that's on top of the overhead of having to compile the giant .pl script each time - since it's not utilising FastCGI, or trivially changeable to be such.) Optimising this would involve a total rewrite... unlike most OTF code, the forums are entirely non-in-house written, and not optimised to much higher standards, like our other scripts.
(3) Load on the server already being high (our server typically is running at approximately 150% of its maximum recommended capacity. At highest load times of day, which is approximately 0400 PST - 0900 PST, daily and extremely resource-intensive maintenance tasks take place on the server. At this time of day, it's entirely normal for the server to be running at 600% of its maximum recommended capacity. This means that each already-slow DB query becomes... extremely extremely slow. And, typical loading times are hopeless.)
The result, unfortunately, is that - on the current hardware, and without cutting back on essential maintenance tasks, or essential services (eg: spam filtering is very highly resource intensive, but cutting it out would be a Bad Idea) - it's not possible to make the Forums "go faster" without overhauling the whole system. And, even then, it wouldn't be as speedy as people would hope for. At absolute best, a few seconds per page, at the highest-load times of day, on the current hardware - after a full rewrite.
Sorry guys... there's just no slack left to work with in our server hardware. It's over 5 years behind the times...
(For technically-minded people: we're talking about us running on a single-core 450MHz AMD processor; 512 MB RAM; 7 GB non-RAID single harddisk (including OS).)
~Iain
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polson
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 17:13
Reply
Um, let's NOT invoke his name anymore.
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demonvamp
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 18:16
Reply
That sounds a lot like my laptop *l*
kidding 
QD 
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skevington
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 18:41
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This may seem entirely dense of me and/or perhaps i am over-simplifying the problem, yet instead of overhauling the forum code why not simply switch to a new and more efficient set of forums? phpbb ones for example.
They are open source so we can modify it as we wish, create our own templates, etc... sure it is a lot of work but i am sure someone out there is willing to put the time in...
And obviously what we have isn't working, therefore it seems like a viable solution.
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aeon
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 20:47
Reply
Surprisingly, the forums work perfectly fine for me lately. =D
*points at laughs*
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lzrman
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 22:39
Reply
<!--QuoteBegin--skevington+May 02 2007,18:41--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> (skevington @ May 02 2007,18:41)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->This may seem entirely dense of me and/or perhaps i am over-simplifying the problem, yet instead of overhauling the forum code why not simply switch to a new and more efficient set of forums? phpbb ones for example. <br><br>They are open source so we can modify it as we wish, create our own templates, etc... sure it is a lot of work but i am sure someone out there is willing to put the time in...<br><br>And obviously what we have isn't working, therefore it seems like a viable solution.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--><br>*surfaces*<br><br>Lee, I agree with you
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kayana
Member
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# Posted: 2 May 2007 23:26
Reply
Guys, don't blame the admin, come up with what you want to see. Maybe sometimes there are bad decisions made, maybe sometimes people are asses but that happens everywhere. If there's something you really want to see, come forward with it and we can give it a try. There's a firefly weekend coming up btw, in June, run by the lovely Mezoti and Amanda Sielu Paris!
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monny
Member
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# Posted: 3 May 2007 00:38
Reply
I agree with both Anth and Polson but I have neither the time nor energy to write long posts.
Sci-fi has kinda moved on and so has the internet but OTF can still be fun if we want it to be. I pop in from time to time to try and mess with some of the peeps but then I get bored, irritated and/or busy.
I guess it's just a wait and see thing as far as I'm concerned but I'll keeping showing up every now and again.
Later folks.
V
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iain
Moderator
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# Posted: 3 May 2007 07:29
Reply
Moving to a different forums system is an option I'm seriously looking into...
While I don't think phpBB would be sufficiently optimised for our server (see previous post), there are a few hopeful pieces of software, that could probably run in reasonable time. I wouldn't say less than 1 second page loads, but we should be able to manage a lot, lot better than just now...
~Iain
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deanna
Member
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# Posted: 3 May 2007 12:41
Reply
HEY!
Hi gang *waves and such* the forums loaded for me ....... and I'm home bored, so now I read.
Let's do this........Let's go to war. Those that are Pro-OTFishness and those that are whiney and against OTFishness. I declare war!
........leave it to an american to not only solve the problem, but in one post, cause an uproar in controversy and ..... well war *lmao*
Let the tyraids begin (and for the record if there's no tyraids I'll be sad and slip into nothingness again) 
~Kym
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lzrman
Member
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# Posted: 3 May 2007 14:48
Reply
Deanna, am I your friend or your enemy (prepares to go to war):K
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tiamai
Member
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# Posted: 4 May 2007 07:32
Reply
for me, its the speed, or lack of, that this place loads at.
Just to let you see how long it takes it to load for me....
I got into general, clicked on this topic, stared at the screen, went, filled the kettle, boiled wated, got a mug, added instant (gosh, Im not so posh eh?) coffee, poured on water, came back to the PC and it still hadnt loaded. So I had to go get biscuits.
I have went to post a few times and just got fed up waiting....
Tia
ps, Kym, are we fighting in mud? or atleast with mud?
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lzrman
Member
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# Posted: 4 May 2007 22:00
Reply
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td><b>Quote</b> </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->ps, Kym, are we fighting in mud? or atleast with mud?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--><br><br>I prefer a mud fight
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rpmobsession
Member
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# Posted: 21 May 2007 20:21
Reply
Hah. I'm going to revive this thread, or at the very least let off some steam and maybe stir up the masses.
Ok, first of all, if you're complaining about how slow OTF is, you are a SPOILED BRAT. Why do I say this? Simple. Try being on dial-up loading myspace. It's faster to make yourself a slow-cooking roast and potatoes than to try and get a "totally pimped out" myspace page to load. I'm on dial-up, and I can tell you that even -I- stick around to let pages load. And, in my opinion, OTF isn't even that slow. It's not an impossibility. Yea, so you might have to take a sip of your beverage while the page finishes loading. Big deal. On dial-up, I can't even CONSIDER going to youtube. It kills my computer. Literally, axe and all. So, is the reason the forums are dead because of speed? If you say yes to this, then you're a spoiled brat. Be grateful you even have the internet.
Secondly, I've been wanting to say this next piece for a looooooooooonnng time. Why are the forums dead? Or more importantly, why is OTF on a slow decline? In my opinion it's simply because people don't care as much about OTF as they did. Now, before you jump over this and think it's what you've been hearing for years, hear me out.
What I like to call the first generation of OTFers. The people who made the site. The people who created this entire space. Those people are gone. Plain and simple. They no longer chat, and they no longer post. I couldn't even tell you the names of those people. Well, not some of them. They've been gone for a long time now. But, they cared about OTF. They had to in order to make it survive. They truly with all their hearts cared. In fact, I bet you those are the same people who STILL donate money and buy webaccounts they know they won't ever use. But, they are gone now. They weren't even around when I signed up. Or, I was too much of a n00b to recognized them. Let's move on to the second generation....
Ahhh yes. The second generation. Or at least what -I- like to call the second generation. This is the time where PV, Rubicon, Kymburlee, Chrissy, Anth, Jadzia, Hydra, Sonata, Glenn, CT, Babel, etc. were all big chatters. These were the CL5's, CL6's, etc when I was a n00b. They knew the first generation personally. Why? Because they were either around for it or they saw them when they signed up. They got to know them on and off the chat. And, the love the first generation had was shown to the second and the second took that love in respect.
Now, let me clarify something. For those that were in the second generation and weren't involved in the upkeep and creation of OTF have love, but they don't have the same love as the first generation. They have respectful love. They have love for OTF because the first generation does. And, some of the second generation are still around although most of them just for a spell once every six months...maybe. Which brings me to the third generation...
The third generation. Or what I like to think is my generation. We all spawned at the VERY end of the Version 1 and the beginning of V2. This is the generation of FM, Hobbie, Iain, AJ, Bria, etc. There are a lot more than that, but those are the ones still in the public's eye today. These are the people that are now CL8's, CL7's, CL6's, etc. They run the departments, Wizards, Agents, and Senators. They are the big wigs of OTF now. We were around to see only the second generation people. Those are the only ones we really got to know. The only ones that gave us a chance. Yes, some of first generation approved of us after we'd made something of ourselves, but not in the beginning.
In the beginning even then, we were reckless n00bs who were lame and simmed all the time. We were young, most of us silly, and yes, we were all n00bs. But, that love and cherished caring that was passed down from first generation people to second generation people was now being passed down yet a third time. And, as with the first passing, it's different. It's not the same. We weren't involved in the creation. And, we weren't involved in seeing that love first hand. The only thing we saw was the respectful love of the second generation. So, clearly, while we all love OTF, it's still not the same as the first generation. And then there was the fourth generation...
But, before I talk about them. The first and second generation people GREW UP. They got lives. They had things to do. They had important people to become. It's not a sin or a tragedy. It's life. You grow out of the things of your childhood. You start your own life and just simply get busy. Simple as that. We see it now. People of the third generation and the last of the second are moving on. We are getting lives. Some of us are no longer young teens wanting to kill time on-line. We don't have time for that anymore. But with our quiet goodbyes and leaving, I wonder....has the fourth generation seen the love from the third?
Now, back to the fourth generation. That is the generation of people that we refer to n00bs nowadays. We really don't go out of our way to meet them. They are weird. And, it never fails that they either are an Anakin, Leia, or Skywalker or they are friends with an Anakin, Leia, or Skywalker. That love the past generations had it's been passed on, but do they really get it? Or is it too far removed already from the instigators? What's the solution? I don't know. Who's fault is it? No one's. But, I think it's time we realized that unless something drastic is done...there won't be an OTF to celebrate its 20 years. I know it's harsh to hear, but the kids around now, we don't get it. We don't get it like the original kids got it. We never had to fight being small. Fight the silly day-to-day mishaps that occured. We joined when it was already a community. And, for that reason alone, we don't get it. Not completely. Sure we try to pretend we do, but we don't. Will it continue? Sure. Will it be the same as it was for us? Definitely not. We don't know how to have love like that. We weren't around for love like that.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm done with OTF. I mean, here I sit in the OTF forums on my vacation to get away from everything. *lol* OTF is still a big part of my life. But, I've also realized, I can't complain about what OTF has become. It's just progressing on it's normal path. It's no one's fault. It's not a BAD thing. It's just simply DIFFERENT. It's taking a new course. Big deal. All we need to do now is to help it on it's way and make sure it stays true to the fundamentals this place was founded on.
RPMO
P.S. I don't want to hear that kids aren't interested in ST and SW anymore. That's crap and just an excuse. ST and SW are NEVER going to die. Just look around at little kids nowadays. I bet you'll see a lot more of yourself in them than you originally thought. Hell, go look down a kids' toy aisle. I can guarantee you'll find a cool updated lightsaber and yoda action figures. *lol* ST and SW will never die, they're like Cher in that sense.
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rpmobsession
Member
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# Posted: 21 May 2007 20:40
Reply
*dies*
Ok. I totally didn't intend for my post to be that long. For those of you who don't want to read all that, I have a nice alternative to get the point across...
First generation of OTF
The Creators
They gave....
LOVE
Second Generation
Glenn, Chrissy, CT, Babel, Kymburlee, etc.
They gave...
Love
Third Generation
Iain, Bria, Hobbie, AJ, etc.
They gave...
Love
Fourth Generation
CL3's, CL2's, etc.
They will give...
????
Basically...OTF is changing folks. Roll with it.
RPMO
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Feeble
Moderator
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# Posted: 22 May 2007 01:52
Reply
*read Phoebe's two cents* I'm gonna say this and no one has to agree with me, but here it is...
I think both OTF's biggest strength and biggest weakness is that it tries to be more than what it is - a set of chat rooms based on sci-fi/fantasy shows/movies.
This has always meant that OTF is a community, people physically/emotionally care for other people, which is lovely. People take an active interest in other's lives and therefore it becomes more than a 'Chat Room'. Most of us have made friendships that span the globe and that are extremely important to us. If you want - this is perhaps seen most strongly amongst what RPMO is saying is 1st, 2nd and 3rd generations - this for a hell of a lot of us has become the focus of the chatroom. The problem is - we are still marketted as ST, ST and LotR, no wonder we get confused n00bs who don't understand what the focus of the chat is and who as a result get told off for violent simming or whatever. You can't /tell/ people to absorb a community mindedness if they're not a part of that community.
This, in my opinion, leads to double standards and a certain favouritism to certain newbies. Hell, I'm the first to admit when I visit, I really should be the first to get shot out for my innuendos, topics that are brought up etc etc, and yet people tend to encourage me or play along. On the other hand, i've seen some people ask questions and then been given so little back by the people within the chat that they get angry - as can be understood - and therefore don't want to come back, or act upon their agression and get shot out. No offense - but we have become an elitest society in some ways.
As for waning popularity for departments, message boards, blogs and sundry... that can roll from all sorts of things, but yes, so much of it is built on in-jokes, yes so much of it is built on the favoured few, and the taboos that are rife in this place have seen other oldbies walk because there is little support for those that feel they have earned loyalty from this place. For example, if I /were/ shot out for any of my behaviour, I can't say how betrayed I'd feel by a place that's got me through so many hard times.
So, I guess the question has to be asked is - do we /want/ OTF to be the hottest site on the internet, and make it everything roled into one, or do we want it to remain true to the friendships we have made? I'm not saying that it can't be both, but, there has to be a focus - and at the moment, I think the focus being devided between the two is giving a hell of a lot of confusion to everyone who really cares.
*end Phoebe's two cents*
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kayana
Member
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# Posted: 22 May 2007 04:54
Reply
I lurrved RPM's post I think she brought up a lot of good points. No easy solution though I'm afraid, though I'd be interested to hear what any newbies had to say?
As for favoritism I really don't like to hear that as I disagree. Sure there may be people who are more popular here than others but that is natural, some of us are more outgoing than others, doesn't mean they're getting special attention or anything. I see some people walk into chats and receive lots of lurrrrve and others don't but that's fine, doesn't mean anyone is sucking up, maybe that person is just genuinely liked by a lot of people. Can't we be ok with that? Or do we have to give everyone the vulcan salute from now on just so we can claim we are a fair and equal community and so we can sleep at night cos that would really suck, I like getting hugs in chat. 
Do we sometimes favour our friends over people we don't know? Sure, of course we do, it's natural and again it's a chatsite, we come here to unwind not be politically correct so maybe we're not always on our best behaviour. And sometimes things suck and sometimes you want to go grr but at the end of the day it's only a chat. Cut people some slack or just chillax I feel temped to say 4:20 but it is May 22 so I won't
And yes I guess it is hard for a newbie to get adjusted to site especially when they see how "tight" everyone is (I felt like that too when I first joined) but hey we all talk to newbies too I hope! And who knows, maybe it's seeing how close people get in OTF that encourages some newbies to stick around
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