Vasquez on 13/1/2016 at 07:07
I got chased away with torches and pitchforks over the use of the word "childfree", and didn't dare return :D
Seriously, I'm not sure what happened. My drifting away started way before I joined Facebook, and even though that place is a soul-eating vortex, I can't blame it for this. But I still peek in here every now and then (also in #thief! ha!), and being able to stay in touch with some old TTLG'ers makes Facebook a bit less horrible.
Chade on 13/1/2016 at 07:52
I've never found a lot of motivation for facebook.
Well, I'll always be lurking, and happy to chat in any thread not requiring a developed sense of humour. Or an up-to-date knowledge of games. Or news. Or culture. I guess that's why I don't post much. :(
But even if it fades away TTLG will always be my favourite place on the internet (it would be a miracle if it didn't fade away, but here's hoping!)
demagogue on 13/1/2016 at 08:23
I've come to appreciate this place in the sense that the great majority of people on FB have no idea how to do online discussion, much less community. And I also can't help but notice that of the online discussions that do work on FB, 90% of the time (a number I admit I just made up, but it feels like that) it's TTLG people involved, which doesn't surprise me because we're the ones that actually know how the whole online communication thing works.
And then it ... well it doesn't really surprise me, but it's still striking how inept so much of the FB crowd is about really simple things with how online community is supposed to work. People will delete their posts or entire threads when the heat turns up, but then they walk on ice to never even get close to that point ... things that if you did on TTLG you'd get called out on. Not even speaking about the leet speak that would never fly here. But also like fett said, a lot of times I don't feel like opening up to people I don't know if I can trust either...
TTLG made me learn how to be both a decent human online, be fun and original, but most of all have a backbone -- say what I mean, mean what I say, if I'm wrong I get called out for it I don't delete the whole thread in a huff but I admit it & let the record stand, and if I still think I'm right, I give my reasons why.
One thing about the TTLG ethos that survives is that I don't think about the comments to my posts on FB as *my* personal comment space. I think of them as public forum where people can say what they think and I let it stand for the record, even if they'd tear my point to pieces (... they don't do that, but only because most people don't want to rock the boat and say how they really feel).
But yeah, the cost of that is a few bad apples can wreck the threads around here if they turn the whole discussion sour. I think it's not because it's a new thing so much as, if there's fewer people around to offset it, they can take threads over. That and I think people have less tolerance than they did in the past maybe.
henke on 13/1/2016 at 08:44
Quote Posted by demagogue
Not even speaking about the leet speak that would never fly here.
sp34k 4 ur s3lf
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
I am happy to be a part of any resurgence of Commchat.
Please do stop by Gen Gaming more regularly as well! You bring up a lot of interesting gaming stuff on FB but I never feel like replying and getting into it over there. Posts disappear so quickly from the FB feed that it doesn't feel as conductive to longer and deeper discussions as a forum does. And because of the time differences I'm often asleep when my American friends make posts, and when I wake up and see the discussion it might be 12 hours later. That's
ages in Facebook-time, but only just a moment ago in forum-time. If that makes sense.
Jason Moyer on 13/1/2016 at 09:28
That's one of the bigger problems I have with FB; even with a carefully curated friend list and then making sure I have certain people (like Aerothorn) set to appear in my news feed, I still feel like I miss a pretty good chunk of stuff I'd probably be interested in reading.
Gloria Creep on 13/1/2016 at 13:51
I've never been here on this forum, but now I am.
Hi Taffers!
:angel:
fett on 13/1/2016 at 13:55
Brethren - that was nearly 4 years ago. Time and age change a lot of things. I for one know that my online interaction with other people here had changed and matured because of FB. I actually know more about many people's RL and that makes me want longer conversations like we can have here.
Renault on 13/1/2016 at 15:07
Yeah, I agree, I just thought it might be an interesting read and relevant to this conversation. It's interesting we talked about this same thing back then and nothing really changed.
I think Renz (& others) pretty much nailed it a few posts above. When we were all younger, and had far fewer commitments, we had more opportunity to waste time, play video games, and "hang out" on message boards for hours at a time. Over time, and with added responsibilities, TTLG slowly shifted down the priority list. Then, with people leaving or being around less, the boards become slightly less interesting and we have less reason to come here, and the whole effect is multiplied exponentially.
My simple example - and it's really simple, because I don't have kids like a lot of people do - is this. When I was younger and single, I'd come home from work, heat up a microwave burrito, and sit down and have a marathon gaming session for 6-7 hours. Now, no kids but married with a dog, I usually have to work later, then pick up some food for dinner, get home and walk the hound, fix dinner and watch a show with the wife, and by the time I'm back to my computer it's 9 or 10 PM at night and I have to get up early so I get an hour or two of gaming in.
Throw 1-5 kids in there, and you've pretty much eliminated free time, I'm guessing.
faetal on 13/1/2016 at 15:12
I do a lot of work at a PC with irregular time constraints, so between bouts of reading / writing / planning I get a fair amount of time to hang out on here. I tend to spend my free time hanging out with my wife and daughter with a bit of gaming here and there, so for now*, I still have stuff to talk about. Besides, CommChat can be about anything, so not sure that gaming less is necessarily a reason to stop visiting the forum entirely.
I can imagine that for people whose day jobs don't give them much opportunity to hang out in forums may have naturally drifted away. I don't imagine I'd have the same relationship with the place if I wasn't reading it often.
* - Daughter is only 7 weeks old, so I imagine my free time will be taking more of a hammering as she gets older.
