I've been busy lately, so please forgive late reply - this is a subject I have often thought about.

In short, I think part of the the problem is social media. I prefer forums to social media, as there seems to be more chance of getting a discussion going. I too am on MeWe, and it was great when the BoL and EW pages first appeared. But now, as someone said, you post something and all you get in response (usually) is people responding by icons - no comments. Now that is a different issue, but I think it does show that people are used to adding 'likes' to posts they enjoy or agree with.

Forums are often seen, I feel, as old fashioned. You have to have the ability to add 'likes' to posts or else you are in the stone age (I exagerate, but you get my drift). If people just add 'likes' but don't post then social media too seem to be in trouble - as MeWe appears to be finding out. But some forums do thrive - RPG Pub seems to be doing well, with requent daily posts from a range of members.

So yes, it all comes down - no matter if its a forum or social media - to frequent posting. To people adding new stuff. 

A couple of times I've tried to get things moving here by posting stuff I've already put on MeWe and sometimes by just posting questions - "What do you think about ...." or "This is what I've found, what was your experience?" With the exception of a couple of folks here, hardly anyone posts anything, not even one sentence responses to my no doubt banal questions. As there are no 'likes' facility here, which I'm ambivalent about frankly, I don't even know if anyone's read what I've posted. You can check the number of views, but how many of those are bots. It feels like shouting into the void, so after a couple of separate attempts to get more traffic here, I gave up.

I don't know what the solution is, why this site has so little traffic and RPG Pub for instance does. Basically I suppose that if we want an active forum, we have to post more - all of us. And we have to respond to what people have posted, even if only to say, "Yeah, I agree!" 

If we get into the habit of posting the site will thrive. If we don't, it won't. 

I've been lurking here for years. A forum needs content in order to draw in users and become self-sustaining. When you visit a forum and see that the last post was made three years ago, people soon leave and don't come back. So it's all about getting back to a critical mass of posts/posters.

If LudoSpherik start posting I think that will begin to draw people in. Also, mentioning in various places that the forums are being resurrected will help (I was drawn here today because of a Facebook post).
 

An interesting point about the Pinnacle forums. Years ago, when Savage Worlds was about as big as BoL is now, their old forums were crazy active. Then Pinnacle redesigned their website and store, and changed the forum hosting at the same time. All the old posts and data were lost IIRC and that caused a downswing in forum activity on the new forum. I for one didn't really bother at that point. I also lost interest after they brought out the latest iteration of the game (SWADE) because it changed so many of the rules as to make it no longer backwards compatible with older settings.

I don't have a specific point to make, other than to say I really hope we can salvage this forum and keep it active for years to come.

Oh, and I still love Savage Worlds, but I prefer the Deluxe (SWD) version over the Adventure edition (SWADE).

Last edited by The GIT! (1/22/2024 9:00 am)

When it comees to this forum, I think that really part of the problem is the design. There are too many different pages. I seem to recall this was discussed some years back, but after discussion most people wanted to keep it like it is. 

However, the site boasts some 20 or so separate areas - many of which show little action recently, or even little action at all over the existance of the site. It's messy frankly, and does not look inviting. 

Personally I'd be happy with just an Official BoL, Everywhen, and Other BoL engine games (Dicey Tales, H+I, etc.) I don't see the benefit of having separate divisions for different editions of BoL, but I wouldn't die in a ditch over it.

If people decided that they liked more than 3 areas, well OK....but do we really need as many as we have? Surely, for example, the first seven groups in 'Tales far and wide' could be amalgamated into one page, even if people really wanted to keep a separate space for 'BoL rules in non-Lemurian settings' (and doesn't Dicey Tales, Everywhen and H+I already cover most of this aside from peoples' homebrews?) 

I'm ignorant over how much the site can be tweaked in this way, but at the moment I think it's too big and sprawling to be inviting. And if we just had 3 or 4 divisions at least there would be a greater chance of a post with a recent date being at the top.

Thoughts?

Last edited by Gruntfuttock (1/25/2024 11:52 am)