Post Apocalyptic Frothing?

[Bronshtein]

Mmm?
Maybe I posted a picture of the wrong type of butterly or something?
I posted 9 nine times there prior to mcfonz's 'rampant homophobia' effort.
On-
Lion Rampant
Dux Bellorum
Solo gaming
and some pictures of insects
and had several what I thought had been nice quiet conversations in the 'chat room/shed'.

Maybe I didn't hold the cup correctly?

[Monkeyborg]

Random Platypus has the passivity of LAF, with a dash of Frothers aggression. Make of that what you will.

[Guest]

Maybe I didn't hold the cup correctly?

Don't stick your little finger out it's very declasse.

[Monkeyborg]

Maybe I didn't hold the cup correctly?

Don't stick your little finger out it's very declasse.

That's right up there with curling out a fat one into their pot of camomile.

[Bronshtein]

Fuck!
Too much to remember.

[Australian Dawn]

It seems to me Frothers, Random Platypus, and TMP are all slowly becoming ghost towns. I wonder if this isn't the beginning of the end for all miniature forums.
They just don't seem to be popular anymore. Even old time Frothers like Stedders and Duff seem to pop in less and less.
And when Frothers conked out for a bit a while back I thought it was all over.

I don't get it. Forums beat Face Book hands down IMHO but I seem to be in the minority.

[Guest]

Despite Facebook I do still think there is a place for discussion forums, that they offer something that Facebook doesn't.
So I can't account for the down slump.
I suspect it's due to the fact that it's a small hobby.
Look across all the forums - there's a LOT of commonality in users. Of course, they don't represent the entirety of the hobby but they probably do represent a good majority of gamers who can be arsed to go on the various fora.
Just spread too thinly, I imagine.
This place is as good as dead, RP never really took off, TWW is struggling, TMP is probably still one of the biggest (despite what the 6 people still using this forum want to believe), and LAF is probably the healthiest of all.
It may also be due to age of gamers. Most of us are 20+ and we all probably have jobs and families, so our hobby time is limited and, consequently, the amount of things we can find to say about gaming is limited - so there's just not much to post. I find battle reports a bit dull to read, I can summon only a limited amount of motivation to post 'That's great!' to a few painted miniatures, and the world is full enough already with advertising and marketing for me to be bothered to click on some promotional/new release post.
So not only are there not that many people using the fora but there's not that much to say. And all that spread over several different fora.
That's the best explanation I have for it.

[MartinR]

I think a lot of stuff which used to be on fora has been replaced by blogs, but yes LAF and to a lesser extent TWW have a decent amount of traffic although there is a limit to how many photos of other peoples 28mm figures I can bear to look at. Amongst the tangospam, porn and neo-nazis there are one or two threads on TMP which are OK.

But overall I suspect forum participation has always been a very minority activity, going right back to the good old days of the rec.games.miniatures.historical usenet group in the early 90s before the www was anything but an academic toy. I still see at least two of the other contributors from there popping up here and there, 25 years on, so perhaps the three of us are just slightly deranged:)

[Bronshtein]

Facebook appears to be bollocks for worthwhile information/discussion (so, brilliant for the minuscule attention span generation and advertisers). Most of us still hanging around fora are the old topers at closing time hoping for a lock in but knowing that the new copper in the village isn't one of us and will be in at 11 to make sure it all shuts down.

We know most of what we want to know and the 'young people' have Google and Wikipedia so don't need us. It was exciting when it was new, discovering there were people we liked hundreds/thousands of miles away (and people we hated). That's gone. It's become commonplace.

So why bother with fora?

Shoot the breeze?

I have no beef with RP but there is little that attracts me there. TMP is well, it's TMP lite in info and personality, and all that's left are the old gits round the dart board who everyone warned you about when you were too young to go in. TWW is okay but needs to double its active participants to get a buzz going. You should go - at least it will be a Humph free zone according to his miserable attitude towards Mike. LAF? Too twee, too 28mm, too painty, too fucking boring, too fucking German.
I don't mind Germans, but I do have a problem with
'There is a rule you broke.'
'I know but it was an accident.'
'You broke the rule.'
'But only a little bit and I said sorry.'
'You broke the rule.'
'Look okay, I know. I'm sorry, I won't do it again.'
'You won't break the rule again. This thread is locked. You will be banned. We must have rules and the rules must be obeyed. I moderate the rules consistently and firmly. YOU BROKE THE RULE!'
Maybe fora are dead.

[Drjackson]

I find facebook pretty handy for smaller groups where a discussion won't get washed away in few hours by loads of other noise. Other forums are a bit hit and miss but I never really used them anyway to begin with for wargaming purposes.