Tadaima.
Before I begin, I would like to apologize in advance for the length of this post. While I understand that most forumgoers have the attention span of a packrat (ooh, shiny!), this post addresses issues of concern to all who post in these forums, and therefore I humbly ask all to read and consider the points expressed within.
PROLOGUE
Disdain and disillusionment drove me away from the Minitokyo forums, but concern and curiosity drove me to return. While I make a point to visit the community at least twice each day, it has been months since I was last active (at least in any real sense of the word) in the public forums.
Many things are certainly different. For example, an entirely new generation of forumgoers appears to have matriculated, as I can no longer claim to recognize the majority of usernames dotting forum threads, for better or worse. Likewise I can assume that most of the denizens of the forums do not recognize me, so by way of brief introduction, I will note simply that there was a time when these forums were solely under my jurisdiction.
Many things are certainly the same. Since my involvement with the forums began some twenty-one months ago, the level of discourse on the forum has remained appallingly low, even given the efforts made by dedicated members such as myself and Celessa.
AN ABORTED PROJECT
Some may remember a novel proposal submitted a year and a half ago for a working paper to study the demographics of the virtual community. It was hoped that a better understanding of the community would foster more effective structural change that would lead to continued improvement of the community.
It is a real pity that the project never really got off the ground, because I believe the results would have been very elucidating. Then again, I have a feeling that the conclusions would have simply mirrored my cynical observations of our community.
Some may wonder what observations these might be, and so I will note them below.
OBSERVATIONS
First, I find that most forumgoers share a number of attributes. They are ignorant, shallow, and puerile. Some are uncouth in speach. Many are alarmingly deficient in their grasp of basic grammar and spelling. Chief among their shortcomings, however, are their laziness and self-centeredness.
Members of the community are so eager to make their opinions heard that they are too lazy to read through the rules governing the community (which, incidentially, I was instrumental in the drafting of) when they first join. They are too lazy to search for existing threads to participate in, and when in a thread, they are too lazy to read past the first post before setting down their all-important opinion upon metaphorical paper. Threads, however, are intended as discussions but instead they tend to degenerate into disconnected statements of opinion which are useless to the community as a whole.
Of course, not all members of the forum are guilty of the above faults, and not all threads are worthless strings of characters that just take up space on our servers. Some threads are in fact extremely clever or informative and lead to very worthwhile exchanges. As such, the first post in a thread not only sets the topic, but also the nominal level of discourse.
As a means of improving the forums, the above two observations were used to derive the original Guidelines for Forum Participation. Unfortunately, the community decided to accept the letter but not the spirit of the law, eroding the guidelines until it was pointless to continue attempting to enforce them.
For the most part, threads lack originality, and good thread topics require originality. History has shown that, thread topics are cyclical in nature. Most threads that appear to be active today were discussed already in some form at least once before in the past, a aspect of the aforementioned generational turnover. Some members make attempts at being original in their topics, but unfortunately originality cannot be taught. Simply dreaming up a question that nobody else has asked before is not being original. For example, I don't think anyone has yet made a thread comparing a bowling ball to a plate of sashimi, but that is not really a creative thread. A good thread is one that poses a question that is, inter alia, carefully considered and intelligent, or one the likes of which has never been seen before.
Perhaps nothing illustrates the downwards spiral of the forums more clearly than the high turnover rate. The life cycle of an average forumgoer has three phases. Our larval forumgoer is a wide-eyed wanderer of the forums, dabbling in various topics as he familiarizes himself with the community. Our established forumgoer has made a name for himself in some circles and spends hours idling around engaging in frivolous topics. Our senior forumgoers are ones who subconciously begin to recognize the flaws in the community and who find the content and form of forum topics introduced by the young whippersnappers to be lacking. Disillusioned, they move on, and the cycle continues.
ACTION OR INACTION
One part of me pains to see so many members come and go, to see so relentless a display of superficial and banal discourse. This part of me wishes very much for there to be some stringently-enforced guidelines in order to govern conduct in the forums; while this will certainly drive away many, particularly the ignorant and the immature, it should raise the bar of discussion and therefore both enhance the experience of participating in true discussions in the forum and stem the tide of members leaving the community.
Another part of me subscribes to a more democratic approach. Clearly if people participate in certain activities, it is because that is their desire and their right, and therefore if their actions lead to the deterioration of their condition and their eventual disillusionment with the reality they have helped to create, they only have themselves to blame. In such a conception, forumgoers should be free to do as they please, and forum moderation should be concerned with only closing discussions that are discriminatory or harassing in nature or which violate established international statutes and regulations.
It is my background as a student and an appreciator of order which drives me to the former but my background as a moderator who lost countless hours and suffered countless headaches working to improve the community (but to no apparent effect) that drives me to the second. As such, I am entirely torn.
My thoughts having been enumerated, I turn now to you, my fellow members of this community. Do my observations mesh with your own? What path do you think is best for Minitokyo to take?
Those of you who have made it to the end, please congratulate yourselves. You are the few and the proud for whom my harsh words above do not describe.
