Eliminating Portal and Chat

https://gildedglovegaming.forumotion.com/announcements-f3/eliminating-portal-and-chat-t48.htm

Thread for discussion of this announcement.

Sure, socialization shouldn’t be our focal point in how we run the forums, but it’s basically the only thing keeping them together. That chat makes everything simpler for getting together battles on ANY online game, discussing FORUM events, and plain socializing. Obviously, if we advertize, we’d be linking the portal, now, we’d be linking the forum. I hate forums that rely entirely on juts the forums, they move too slowly. The chat makes it faster paced, and it auto-refreshes so I don’t have to click refresh a million times to see if I got a response.

In the old OBC, we ran community events and main events through the chat and Teamspeak, but Teamspeak died. Do you know why Teamspeak died? It relied on talking, and most people don’t have a mic, or the people there would endlessly talk and you couldn’t get a word in edge-wise. It was inconvenient to try and work things out on Teamspeak, because it was always just one person talking. This isn’t even counting the fact that some people couldn’t get on due to loose language and the fact that some of the members are younger and their parents don’t want to listen to it. It was usable, but only to a certain extent. With the forums alone, everything is slower.

The funny thing, chat actually stayed active all the way into when the actual forums died, and even then, there was still some people getting on periodically. While the chat doesn’t make the community, it does help keep some of the people at the community. Removing it from the site will make it inconvenient for people, forcing them to find it on the xat website and bookmark it to keep it. But how many people will do that? Will it even be worth it to bookmark it, when there’s a good chance that most people will NOT bother?

Some of our members actually joined through the chat, some of our members found the site through the chat. Hell, Fizz found me through the chat. If Fizz didn’t have me on friend’s list, then I probably never would’ve come back to OBC, because I never would’ve known that it was back. I got on the triggerforce website, and the first thing I see is a pc opening with Fizz. I got a link and went on my merry way, but that wouldn’t be possible for some of the lost members if some of the befrienders lose access to chat. We’re also still using the old chat, giving access to members of past because they know about it. Not all of the major members of OBC know about G3 yet, and we’re barely giving them a chance.

The thing you don’t realize, while the forums aren’t the most active, they won’t change too much without the chat. Some people just don’t like to post too often, some people only like to read and pop up randomly. This is like a big “Fuck you!” and you’re just gonna critique the less active people. The chat allows for a… forum on crack effect. It’s just like the forums, there’s topics of discussion, people you can talk to personally, names and avvies you recognize people by, and text flying about like no tomorrow. The only difference between it and the forums that is most noticeable is that the words on xat aren’t permanent, but you still remember them.

This isn’t nearly as good an idea as the switch, and I’m not even gonna brood over it.

-Also, most members can't reply in the announcement section.

this is retarded >_> fail admin

I'm gonna have to go with keeping it. Cause sure I may only use it for socialization. But lots of other people use it to keep communication during matches, which was the whole point dNES brought the xat chat in the first place.

shadowray7 wrote:

I'm gonna have to go with keeping it. Cause sure I may only use it for socialization. But lots of other people use it to keep communication during matches, which was the whole point dNES brought the xat chat in the first place.

Exactly. Sexy reasoning

I also say keep it, I mean the chat is mostly used for people to get matches going and get live feedback, as opposed to sending PMs back and forth. I see what your getting at, and yes i do agree with you on some points, but taking away the option to just freely talk about things and socialize is kinda....wha? I mean yeah our focus is G3 and fighthing games but alot of people are not gonna want to talk about fighthing games every single time they come here, maybe they will who knows, but just saying because thats how OBC became more than just a community, we all got to know each other, and not just only play together but also make a bond between members that makes us more than just any other forum. eh who knows, perhaps im wrong? just saying what i need to say about this matter

^I clap for him. He is right, constantly PMing would be annoying. The chat makes it easy for people to communicate.

Furr wrote:

That chat makes everything simpler for getting together battles on ANY online game

shadowray7 wrote:

lots of other people use it to keep communication during matches, which was the whole point dNES brought the xat chat in the first place.

These would be the only points I've read that would bring back some form of chat.

The front page should be the forum. Chat should be a secondary feature that is convenient to help organize events and matches. As it stood before, the chat was only used to socialize because the forums were dying. The forums are pretty much dead because all you have left is a bunch of old members that got to know each other.

The point of the move was to attract new members. The point of removing chat is to attract new members (at least XAT chat).

Mario complained about not asking the community's opinion.

Well, then I'll ask you all something:

What do you want this forum to be?
Where do you want this forum to go?

Do you want new members, or do you want to keep your small clique of old OBC members?

Do you want a large active community, or a small partially active community?

The very first OBC was made by me on a freeforum website like this one. It had built-in chat and the like. We were able to gather a few members, but it didn't really kick off until darkNES386 went and bought the domain name onlinebrawlcommunity.com. After that we were able to gather hundreds of members into our community, and it flourished. The only reason it died like it did was because Brawl declined in popularity.

What I'm trying to do is host a new popular game (among others), to create that trend once again.

If the old OBC community really can't live without XAT chat and wants it back that bad, then you've already made your decision on what you want this forum to be.

But, if you want to grow a new community, then we need to put chat on hold.

Of course I want the community to grow, but a chat won't deny that ability to the forums.

Or you can make a section here that links to the chat.

Worldjem

Alright, you backed up you argument with good points, and execellent points indeed. just a quick observation, yeah your right the front page SHOULD NOT be the chat room, though i dont think taking out the whole thing is completely necessary, maybe have on the navigation bar or something? If not xat, anything simple will do, if we do get new members there gonna wanna play eachother right? As the furr and sray quotes say, that would be the only reason to have a chat. As i said it would bring down the hassle of getting friendly matches together, and live feed back, but whatever, do what you think will help this community grow, as long as it works, im fine with it

Just make one of those subsections that lead to the chat. The old OBC did something sorta like that, lol.

so the portal is gone?

the exact details are fuzzy.

that will do, I thought he was planning to not allow chatting whatsoever but. If there's a link to it then thats fine with me.