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One of the most consistent cycles in the Escapist come in two solid waves. The first wave is a series of older members talking about how the influx of new members are the cancer that is killing
e. The next wave, that takes place about a week later, is a bunch of new members crying foul about being picked on for nothing other than their join date. Both parties stubbornly set their jaws, and point the accusatory finger in the other direction. Not because either party honestly finds the other at fault, but because neither party is willing to accept that they're personally responsible.
The truth of the matter is there is no single, solid, uniform reason as to why the Escapist is better or worse now, then, or will be better or worse in the future. If I had to think of any one person or object to blame, it would be the community at large. The whole thing, end to end.
But don't get ahead of me.
The largest issue I have with the community on the Escapist is that it is fundamentally different than it was when I first joined. The fundamental difference is how the community handles itself. It's a matter of details, but no less important for the effort. The difference is between the words "persons" and "people." Mostly that the forums were once comprised almost entirely of persons, and they are now a people. The difference isn't as negligible as it seems.
Formerly, the forums were composed largely of persons. Which is also part of the reason so many members reflect fondly on
Joe when he was a mod. It's not that his moderation was any better, just that it was more personal. He wasn't just suspending a user, he was personally ensuring that
you were getting your punishment for your indiscretion. It's because everything from end to end was just that much more personal. Every post was a hand-crafted article or idea, written with care and devotion to the time. When a new thread came up, which was only five to ten per day, everyone had the time to really set their feet with the idea. Counter-points were written with as much care, devotion, and time. Every single person had the time to settle down for discussions. The friends made at the time were more capable of conveying friendship than just a name on a friend list. It meant more personal interaction.
More lately, there just isn't the time for that kind of treatment. If any one user sits down to write a long idea on a thread, a lot of little things are different. Fewer persons read it, instead favoring the more people-friendly shorter topics. Because the views go down, the responses also drop, both in quality and size. When there are responses, anyone who goes through the time to write out a matching reply loses out on the passing of other threads, which now number in the tens
per hour. Which is astronomically fast compared to the previous speed. Which isn't to say its better or worse, just different. And that's just in one respect. It also means that persons know fewer persons, instead persons get to know the people. Just as any user can see with decent consistency that threads about
Half-Life will get more praise than those about
Halo. The same goes for topics like
Twilight, or
Modern Warfare 2, or Vegetarianism, or any number of other frequent discussions that tend to go in a single direction.
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The reason for this mass appeal is it becomes less about persons, and more about a people. A single, solitary, collective mass of people. They'll move more like a people, think more like a people, talk more like a people, and
care more like a people. There are exceptions, certainly, but its not the same. It's easier to care about a group of 5 friends than a group of 500 peers. For example, a user should try to step out of their comfort zone, their group of friends, and try to learn about all the other groups of users. I'm familiar with a handful of Escapists from the RP sections, especially those I've been in an RP with. But for folks like
thebobmaster and
Neonbob, whom I've hardly met. What little I know of them is just in passing. In the same way, I'm hardly familiar with
Furburt or
Hubilub, despite knowing of them. I couldn't tell you anything about
ExcitedNuke or
tellmeimninja. Sure, I recognize their avatars, but they're just part of the collective mass of people to me.
Now, I could tell you
Labyrinth's first name, just as I could pick her out of a crowd. I could tell you what city
Xitel lives in, what job
Baby_Tea has, and what
Galletea studied in college. I know these guys, they're my personal friends. As cold and detached as it sounds, they aren't just part of the collective people to me. They're my friends, whom I can realistically say I care more for than any of the other names in the list above. Is it fair? Certainly not, but it's that they're persons to me. Just like
Fire Daemon or
Khell_Sennet. Just like seeing
PedroSteckecilo leaving, or knowing
Cahlee isn't around much anymore. They're persons to me, just as the forums was filled with persons before.
Now its a people. They- no...
We think as a people. We start to feel each other out, we know how the mass will react, and we act as a people instead of as persons. For the old and gray, it means a sign of change. Less warm, less caring, less personal. Now all it seems is cold, uncaring, and unfeeling. It becomes harder to pick out persons, and simply to see them - us - as Legion. A single mass of people.
The biggest issue is that it's almost impossible to break up, because it's self-feeding. For every wave of new users that comes in, they have their own group. Friends have trouble breaking away from friends, and it ends up being cyclical. We can try to intermingle, with some success, but it's imperfect. Because for the old and gray, it's not the same. Nor will it ever be.
But all of life is like that. Work places have their groups, as do schools, gyms, clubs, whatever. People will naturally have their groups of persons, and the rest are the cold, the uncaring, the people. But the issue comes from the time when it wasn't that way. There was once a time where everyone knew everyone, and we were persons. That time is passed, though. We're a people now. Like it or not, it's what we've got.
What does it mean? In the long run, very little. Hopefully, though, we'll see a future of less worry about where the forums have been, and where they're going. It's a community, change will happen, and things will stay the same.
If nothing else, I'll raise my glass to hope.
