the vitality of 4X TBS gaming forums

[Trenacker]

Some thoughts I've had recently.

In an effort to help build the community at AC2, it might be argued that case studies be made of exceptionally active forums with a similar focus, especially, and perhaps exclusively, cases in which forum engagement remains much higher than engagement on their respective Discord channels. That special circumstance--where a Discord supplements, but does not either replace or outgrow the forum with which it is associated--could yield some good findings.

SpaceBattles (SB) actually seems to have expanded and thrived since I first began posting there a quarter-century ago, when it was already active. It's original raison d'etre was to host fan-made renders of sci-fi battles, but I was attracted by forum-based "story" games that tried to replicate 4Xs. Many games were successful enough to last years in real time, and the managers sometimes recruited a dozen or more new forum members to join them. Today, the gaming is less popular, but the forum itself has expanded massively into a home for political discussion, creative writing, and geek-art criticism.

Sufficient Velocity (SV) was a breakaway forum for people dissatisfied with the moderation of the political forum on SpaceBattles that has also become a refuge for LGBTQ+ geekdom. It has all the same attractions as SpaceBattles, but its most active spaces are for writers and readers of science fiction, especially participatory storytelling.

Both sites continued to attract large numbers of newcomers over the years, and both are well enough known on the Internet that they appear on sites like TV Tropes because of their members' contribution to pop culture discussions. A few published authors lurk or share on those sites.

I think it's worth considering the factors that keep people coming back.

First, a forum is an ideal place to communicate in long form, whereas Discord and other chat program emphasize quick or small-group communication. Authors use forums because of their capability for mass communication, which chat programs generally don't offer. Consider what has happened to forums where the focus is on discussion of much older games: when players move on, a lot of the engagement falls away, and most of what remains revolves around troubleshooting by people trying to create mods or overcome legacy bugs.

Second, a forum can become a social mecca for particular groups and cultures. SV is a well-known safe space for the LGBTQ+ community, although it is not exclusive to that community. SV is also a well-known safe space for far-left political discussion, whereas SB is known for being more politically centrist and has even hosted notable conservative voices despite an overall liberal lean. In the case of SV, a lot of engagement appears to be driven by feelings of personal loyalty to the site and the ideals and management style of its founding and governing members. StarDestroyer.net became a favorite haunt of people who liked very hot arguments on the Internet.

Third, a site can become a focus for a project. Another large and active forum at one time was StarDestroyer.net, which was also a gathering point for individuals who made contributions to published Star Wars media. SB had its origins as a host for videos that depicted literal space battles. I think the closest analogue to what happens on AC2 would be the preservation of SMAC and its cultural legacy, both by BU and Strategos' Risk.

[Buster's Uncle]

You speak long and well on a favorite subject at the center of my life, which is why I respond to it last - it's a big and important topic, and I'm needing to think it over before I dig in.  Consider yourself enthusiastically encouraged if you've more to say.

[Trenacker]

Here are some preliminary conclusions.

Also, I am absolutely not trying to encourage that we create a Discord. I am trying to learn from forums that have remained very active over the years, and which have not suffered measurably from any competition with Discord. This is because we want to find an alternative to trying to build the community by leaving it.

First, the forums we are studying originated in a single shared purpose--reactions to fan-made videos of space battles at a time when 3D rendering was in its earliest infancy, love of a specific video game, or as a rally of politically like-minded people--but created subordinate spaces for multiple purposes, especially: gaming discussion, art-sharing and critique, writing, and political discussion. I think AC2 has similar spaces (albeit scoped appropriately given its much smaller size).

Second, the forums we are studying are highly stable, often using the latest forum software. This makes it easy to engage and avoids loss of participation due to lack of access.

Third, forum governance matters. It isn't so much whether a forum is a dictatorship, but the bent of the dictator and any staff relative to the average forum member. In the special case of SV, even when certain sub-forums are "captured" and become hostile to some points of view, the rest of the forum can remain engaged if their own spaces are well-protected. I think AC2 is in good shape on that count. That said, I actually prefer "dictatorships" over pretended republics. The idea of sham trials, as practiced on a lot of high-population forums, carried out in the name of "transparency," bother me, personally. I think they usually end up being a kind of tourist attraction that mostly end up amplifying the grief of the guilty, like a kind of cruel and unusual punishment. And just like our own criminal justice system, even if the crimes are real, those who get caught up in it are far more likely than most to be neurodivergent.

Fourth, the forum needs to be able to cast a wide net. SB and SV are general spaces for fantasy and sci-fi enthusiasts. I think AC2 is that, too, but I think we should tread carefully--or at least deliberately--because SMAC is at the center of our story. As has been pointed out previously, we deal with a certain uncomfortable reality: this was a game made in 1999 that has become something of a curiosity among a very niche set of Internet philosophers. We may make all sorts of neat connections to contemporary issues and contemporary media, and I'd argue that even our name, Alpha Centauri 2, isn't so recognizable that it would put off someone who hadn't heard of SMAC, but the extent to which we are focused on a particular property may push people away. I don't know whether to feel that it's good or bad.

Fifth, as for a museum, a large collection is inherently good. More content means more potential "connects" for each new visitor. Are you here to figure out how to overcome the latest bug affecting SMAC? Go left. Are you here to read Outrun the Light? Go right. Want to do quizzes? Straight down the hall. And so on.

Sixth, you can have forums-within-forums. A recruit might focus their engagement on a specific sub-forum, especially at first, but they usually find their way outside it. I came to SB.com for the games but stayed even after they ended. Many of the people recruited for one specific game ended up joining other sub-forums or even participating in forum leadership years later.

[Buster's Uncle]

You've clearly looked in on some of my recent conversation with Green1 on Discords and reddit.  You should if you haven't, but  maybe I should tolerate such talk from you in this context - you'd keep in mind that it's a sore subject to me, of course.

I generally find that you're nuking the topic from orbit so thoroughly that I have no quibbles and little obvious to me to add.

You've probably seen my discussion of Civ7 and the relevant dilemma in Council Room, and this eggs me on to go create that space as soon as I post, intending to do the minor work of creating a 7 theme and defaulting to that there soon...

[Buster's Uncle]

Done.

I'm not prepared to bother with posting news articles or anything -unless I stumble over some- or going to trouble to create avatars or smilies, but ... I've got a good logo finally, and a theme I don't waste a lot of time on will carry some water, and we might yet find a 7-head to take point, which could make all the difference...

[Buster's Uncle]

If you want to research relevant history here, poke around Council Room ca. 2014? when we made a big push for Beyond Earth and I did a lot of public thinking about a focus broadened but not lost...

That last really summarizes it, though.  ANYthing that draws Our Kind of People is welcome here, just not/never has been worth knocking myself out over.

[Buster's Uncle]

FYI that, alas, I've never seen the Petek stuff -he's the king of troubleshooting- draw in a single member who took long-term in the 16 years I've been doing this/around to see.  I'm big on that stuff anyway, but it doesn't prove effective as bait.

[Buster's Uncle]

I've run up against a thing I always do -that I've forgotten a lot about how themes work since last time- and we've actually had some activity by Sunday afternoon standards, a first-world problem I greet with pleasure, but not getting any work done that way.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay.

It's set up and ready for some love --- which is up to YOU, the members, to make something of it.

P.S. Please?

[Metaliturtle]

I'm enjoying this theme a lot.

[Buster's Uncle]

It's just the 6 theme with a new 7 logo, and otherwise a million years old - but pretty, and the logo works.

[Metaliturtle]

All good, the efforts both seen and unseen are appreciated.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'd been waffling since the 16th of last month, and I find myself quite happy now I at least did the minimum as a gesture of hope and all...

[Metaliturtle]

Well I'm downloading the game, and I'll try to put some content up in the hopes that those more smarter than me show up and fix my noob mistakes... I don't play games too much anymore.

[Trenacker]

You've clearly looked in on some of my recent conversation with Green1 on Discords and reddit.  You should if you haven't, but  maybe I should tolerate such talk from you in this context - you'd keep in mind that it's a sore subject to me, of course.

I generally find that you're nuking the topic from orbit so thoroughly that I have no quibbles and little obvious to me to add.

You've probably seen my discussion of Civ7 and the relevant dilemma in Council Room, and this eggs me on to go create that space as soon as I post, intending to do the minor work of creating a 7 theme and defaulting to that there soon...

I saw the conversation with Green, but because I'm not promoting Discord, I figured I'd mention it because I wanted to establish that I think the value of studying these specific examples is because Discord isn't where they attract new recruits, it's just a place for their veterans to chat, kind of like the IRC channels that were used by forum gamers before Discord. That means those forums have some lessons to teach us about growth and retention, I think.

I don't really think at all about promotion, usually because it's explicitly prohibited in other places where I think we might find new blood. Although I've done some promotion in other settings for my own projects here, and for AC2 as a whole, I've never felt that people respond well to it. I can't think of anyone who started reading my fiction because they ran across a link; instead, I think they find it on forums they already enjoy--either this one or the places I moved during AC2's downtime. My skepticism about advertisement is probably a personal hang-up, not reality. It isn't rooted in any science of advertising or anything like that.

One question is whether there's a way for us to push ourselves higher on Google returns when people look for certain things, but I can't recall how I first ran across forums like these. (Obviously, we'd also want to push ourselves up towards the top for SMAC fans seeking out SMAC things.)