Why do you still come to the Escapist forums?

[n0e]

Prepare your inbox.

Bring it on!

On a more serious note, what precisely does a Community Manager for the Escapist do? What are your capabilities? I think that'll focus what kind of questions you'll receive.

I think we're getting a little off-topic of the thread content. Officially, I start tomorrow. I think it'll be more appropriate to ask questions related specifically to and about me in my introductory thread.

To answer your question as simply as I can, I'm the go-to guy for the community at The Escapist. I'm there to answer any and all questions you may have, be active on the forums, fix any issues that may arise and enforce the guidelines that everyone must abide by (including me!). I'll also be handling the Facebook page content and the helpdesk as well.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Same reason as the OP - habit, convenience and nostalgia. The Escapist used to be, at least in my opinion, one of the best gaming culture/ news sites out there. These days most the best content creator have moved on or been booted due to questionable management choices and the once fantastic community is this bizarre mix of the kind of flamebait-y contrarians you see on reddit or a youtube comment section and people like myself who still remember a few years back and spend far too much time pining for those days. I won't even get into the obnoxious advertising, slow-reacting news feed, or increasing prevalence of clickbait nonsense but I'm certainly at a point where the fact I'm familiar with the site layout is probably the biggest draw for me now which is kinda sad really.

I've been trying to ween myself off and go to RPS or videogamer's site but often autopilot takes over and i just wind up back here without realising it.

To be fair to the Escapist's community, I'd say it's far better than YouTube's and at the very least on par with the above-average reddit discussion. I'd say how the community is governed does have something to do with that, even if the downside is smugness and passive-aggressiveness.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Prepare your inbox.

Bring it on!

On a more serious note, what precisely does a Community Manager for the Escapist do? What are your capabilities? I think that'll focus what kind of questions you'll receive.

I think we're getting a little off-topic of the thread content. Officially, I start tomorrow. I think it'll be more appropriate to ask questions related specifically to and about me in my introductory thread.

To answer your question as simply as I can, I'm the go-to guy for the community at The Escapist. I'm there to answer any and all questions you may have, be active on the forums, fix any issues that may arise and enforce the guidelines that everyone must abide by (including me!). I'll also be handling the Facebook page content and the helpdesk as well.

Alright. I look forwards to the thread, (wo)man. I'll stop derailing now.

 

[Battenberg]

Same reason as the OP - habit, convenience and nostalgia. The Escapist used to be, at least in my opinion, one of the best gaming culture/ news sites out there. These days most the best content creator have moved on or been booted due to questionable management choices and the once fantastic community is this bizarre mix of the kind of flamebait-y contrarians you see on reddit or a youtube comment section and people like myself who still remember a few years back and spend far too much time pining for those days. I won't even get into the obnoxious advertising, slow-reacting news feed, or increasing prevalence of clickbait nonsense but I'm certainly at a point where the fact I'm familiar with the site layout is probably the biggest draw for me now which is kinda sad really.

I've been trying to ween myself off and go to RPS or videogamer's site but often autopilot takes over and i just wind up back here without realising it.

To be fair to the Escapist's community, I'd say it's far better than YouTube's and at the very least on par with the above-average reddit discussion. I'd say how the community is governed does have something to do with that, even if the downside is smugness and passive-aggressiveness.

I didn't say the community is as bad as reddit/ YouTube, just that a lot of the less pleasant behaviour from those sites has made its way here. I'm certainly not saying The Escapist has the worst forum community on the internet, even in its somewhat dilapidated state I still think it's actually better than a huge number of sites. But that doesn't change the fact that it has fallen so far from what it used to be in my eyes.

 

[n0e]

I think this is the biggest thing.

These days most the best content creator have moved on or been booted due to questionable management choices and the once fantastic community is this bizarre mix of the kind of flamebait-y contrarians you see on reddit or a youtube comment section and people like myself who still remember a few years back and spend far too much time pining for those days. I won't even get into the obnoxious advertising, slow-reacting news feed, or increasing prevalence of clickbait nonsense but I'm certainly at a point where the fact I'm familiar with the site layout is probably the biggest draw for me now which is kinda sad really.

Most of that has nothing to do with the community, and everything to do with management.

The "booted by questionable management choices" has my focus. I'm not trying to spark an argument, but do you know why they were booted? It's hard to fathom that the best content creators would be booted unless there was a very good reason, one that may just not be known to the public.

The other complaints, such as advertising and editorial content on the front page, are beyond my scope of capabilities to handle, outside of passing the word up.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

SNIP
I didn't say the community is as bad as reddit/ YouTube, just that a lot of the less pleasant behaviour from those sites has made its way here. I'm certainly not saying The Escapist has the worst forum community on the internet, even in its somewhat dilapidated state I still think it's actually better than a huge number of sites. But that doesn't change the fact that it has fallen so far from what it used to be in my eyes.

Ah. That's understandable. I'm not terribly active and even I can recall a brief period after ME3 and before GG where things were more active and less bitter.

 

[SolidState]

How about we start fresh? What do you feel is the most important item that needs to be addressed?

Are there any plans to overhaul and/or rewrite the forum's Code Of Conduct? Because previous Community Managers have been reluctant to do so, despite it being in dire need of a rewrite.

I'm there to answer any and all questions you may have, be active on the forums, fix any issues that may arise and enforce the guidelines that everyone must abide by (including me!).

Just wondering, do the moderators have to abide by the guidelines, or are they exempt? And further to that question, what do we do if we have evidence of a moderator NOT abiding by the guidelines themselves?

 

[Battenberg]

The "booted by questionable management choices" has my focus. I'm not trying to spark an argument, but do you know why they were booted? It's hard to fathom that the best content creators would be booted unless there was a very good reason, one that may just not be known to the public.

The other complaints, such as advertising and editorial content on the front page, are beyond my scope of capabilities to handle, outside of passing the word up.

Perhaps I didn't phrase it as clearly as possible but by "questionable management choices" I mean the actual decision to sack, for example, moviebob and Greg Tito. I think both of them actually added a lot to this site and I don't see why they were removed, somewhat unceremoniously if I recall correctly. I'm certainly not claiming any inside knowledge of the reasoning behind those choices but since I'm unaware of any reason good enough to qualify them I can't help but be sceptical about whether or not they were necessary or beneficial to the site.


On a small aside when Jim Sterling left he said something along the lines of The Escapist is going in a direction I don't want to (which to me sounds like he also questioned how the site was being managed). Obviously that falls under hearsay as opposed to any factual justification but I consider him a trustworthy source of information and he clearly knows how to run a site given how well he's doing now.

I must say I'm happy to see a community manager making such a proactive effort in the forums, that's fantastic. That said I honestly don't think I can give you anything particularly useful/ constructive to act on. The forums themselves are generally well moderated (just avoid another adblock fiasco ), the issues I personally have are with more general decisions of the site and probably are beyond being fixed/ restored.

 

[IceForce]

Um guys, laying into the new Community Manger over things that occurred before his tenure, probably isn't the best use of time.

 

[n0e]

How about we start fresh? What do you feel is the most important item that needs to be addressed?

Are there any plans to overhaul and/or rewrite the forum's Code Of Conduct? Because previous Community Managers have been reluctant to do so, despite it being in dire need of a rewrite.

I'm there to answer any and all questions you may have, be active on the forums, fix any issues that may arise and enforce the guidelines that everyone must abide by (including me!).

Just wondering, do the moderators have to abide by the guidelines, or are they exempt? And further to that question, what do we do if we have evidence of a moderator NOT abiding by the guidelines themselves?

I do believe that the Code of Conduct should be looked into from time to time. Times change, people change and the rules have to change along with them. That said, please give me a bit of time to absorb everything first. I'm not saying they will change when I do look at them, but I will certainly take the time and see if any changes are necessary.

Everyone must abide by the guidelines. I was making a slight joke that even the guy that's in charge of making the rules, still needs to follow them. Lead by example and whatnot.

 

[Kameburger]

Lets be honest, summer 2014 dragged the escapist into the Gamergate wars swallowed the forums for months, made it a vile toxic place where every topic was an argument, and everyone had an opinion and felt fine tearing at the throats of each. The escapist staff for better or for worse, dove into the controversy head first, with accusations leveled at them, responding to those accusations, and generally allowing the conversation to happen here, because when they tried to push away things just got worse. The vile on the forums grew strong, I think largely because the staff at the escapist at the time was several times more opinionated than their readership which forced people who liked the escapist content to join in the conversation whether they wanted to or not. After Greg Tito's Escapist was promptly whipped out of existence along with half of the personalities, the escapist became a much more neutral voice, but the stench of that Vile still lingers on the forum and now the content that exists on the site is so bland on nearly all fronts that discussion is basically driven by the minority of regular posters who still want to talk about bullshit controversy and the hypothetical questions that surround it.

 

[chiggerwood]

*leans back in rocking chair* 2010? Those were the days! The discussions had meat on them and there were videos aplenty. I even remember when abandoned threads were flooded with spiderman pictures, people made a big show of leaving by forcing a ban, and even when the thread "The Artist In Thee" was first made... and then came the reign of Danyal. Now those were dark times for the religious among us. The R&P forums were a hellscape that made Dante's inferno seem like a children's playground, but then the banhammer was brought down on those who made it so and peace was restored, but that's ancient history now.

I don't post much anymore, but I'll always come here. This was my first internet home and even though I wander quite a bit, I know that these forums will always be the best there are and ever will be. They're filled with good users, good mods, and good discussions. Sure there might not be a wide variety of topics now, but just wait, this lull will pass. This has happened before an it'll happen again, it's as inevitable as the tide and as sure as th- HOLY SHIT I AM SO OLD!

 

[Drathnoxis]

A forum is only as strong as the community that supports it. If you feel as though it's not as active as it once was, why not create content you feel others would enjoy discussing?

Every time there is this kind of thread, someone posts something like this. It's really just blame shifting though.

As I said in my OP I have been making more threads lately, but as I also said it feels pointless when most of them just get a handful of responses. It takes me a fair bit of time to make a thread between thinking of a decent topic, and wording it so it's understandable and hopefully will spark discussion, so when a thread doesn't get more than a dozen short replies it just feels like a massive waste of time for me. Heck, even if I get 2 pages of responses that's a "good" thread, but a couple years ago 3 pages of responses was pretty much the bare minimum for any thread.

I just can't make thousands of people come to the forums, it's simply not in my power. I don't think any amount of threads I could make would bring enough people back to the forums to even reclaim a shred of the Escapists past glory. The only one with the power to bring enough new people to the Escapist is Yahtzee. Almost everybody who is still here originally came because his videos were on the Escapist. However, now that Zero Punctuation is also being uploaded to Youtube, new people don't actually have a reason to come to the site. The time that forum activity began falling coincides with the time that Zero Punctuation was uploaded to Youtube. I did just send a feedback ticket about this a couple days ago, but I'll post it again here anyway:

Spoiler: The reason the forums are barren

An old post where I compiled some numbers

For a while now it's seemed to me that the site has much lower activity than when I first joined, so I decided to gather some numbers to see if this was actually the case, and whether Gamergate was the cause.

I used Wayback Machine [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/] and found archives that were 1 week apart. Then, I calculated how many new threads and posts were made in that week.

Spoiler: The Numbers

Pre Gamergate

March 2009
Gaming discussion
370 new threads
15457 new posts

Off Topic
496 new threads
22966 new posts


March 2010
Gaming Discussion
471 new threads
16865 new posts

Off Topic
468 new threads
19247 new posts

July 2011
Gaming Discussion
549 new threads
18154 new posts

Off Topic
465 new threads
27292 new posts

May 2012
Gaming Discussion
254 new threads
8359 new posts

Off Topic
213 new threads
11075 new posts

Jun 2013
Gaming Discussion
181 new threads
6954 new posts

Off Topic
73 new threads
3618 new posts

March 2014
Gaming Discussion
98 new threads
2863 new posts

Off Topic
51 new threads
1850 new posts

July 2014
Gaming Discussion
21 new threads
4648 new posts

Off Topic
13 new threads
2170 new posts


Post Gamergate
There was only 1 set of archives a week apart after August 2014

March 2015
Gaming discussion
62 new threads
1953 new posts

Off Topic
67 new threads
2213 new posts

EDIT:
October 2015
Gaming discussion
32 new threads
677 new posts

Off Topic
45 new threads
2233 new posts

Spoiler: Sources

[link]http://web.archive.org/web/20151022200922/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/[/link]
[link]http://web.archive.org/web/20151029214625/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/[/link]

So as you can see, the forum traffic took a enormous hit in 2012 and has been dropping ever since. It seems Gamergate has not really had too much of an impact on The forum activity considering how low it was before Gamergate even began.
If we compare the high point of July 2011 to the low point of March 2015 we see:

Gaming Discussion
Topic creation is down 89%
New posts are down 89%

Off Topic
Topic creation is down 85%
New posts are down 92%

Edit As of October 2015:
Gaming Discussion
Topic creation is down 90%
New posts are down 96%

Off Topic
Topic creation is down 90%
New posts are down 91%

We can see that Zero Punctuation is still very popular by the numbers on Youtube.
From his recent Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam review
Views on Youtube: 345,359
Comments on Youtube: 958
Comments on the Escapist: 38

We can also see that the high point in forum activity was around July 2011. This coincides with the date that the Escapist began uploading ZP to Youtube, which was July 21, 2011 as we can see by the Psychonauts review. The Psychonauts review was his second review for the Escapist and was originally released on August 22, 2007. Also the other reviews leading up to July 21, 2011 all have the same Youtube upload date.

Proof that Zero Punctuation was the main draw to the forums.
How did you find The Escapist?
So how did you come to join the Escapist?
What Brought You to the Escapist?

Bottom line: We can see that forum activity had been climbing each year until Zero Punctuation was uploaded to Youtube. The next year, forum activity had dropped by around half and has been dropping ever since. I think it's pretty clear that the decline in forum activity is directly related to Zero Punctuation being on Youtube. People just won't come to the site as long as they can watch ZP somewhere else, and if they don't come to the site, they don't post on the forums.

Yahtzee is pretty much being wasted by the Escapist. He's making ad money on Youtube, sure. But he could actually be drawing people to the Escapist proper, where he would make ad money AND form the bridge to other Escapist content and forums where more ad money will be made as well as merchandise and pub club memberships. I'm aware that ZP videos are uploaded to Youtube after they are uploaded to the Escapist, but it's obvious it's not nearly enough. They should be uploaded months later, not weeks, and there should be a video up in the meantime that directs people to where they can see the video until it's put on Youtube.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Just wondering, do the moderators have to abide by the guidelines, or are they exempt? And further to that question, what do we do if we have evidence of a moderator NOT abiding by the guidelines themselves?

Moderators do have to abide by the guidelines, their healthbars are hidden, but they do still have them. I believe you can report them on their profile and that will open a ticket that will go directly to the community manager.

 

[n0e]

A forum is only as strong as the community that supports it. If you feel as though it's not as active as it once was, why not create content you feel others would enjoy discussing?

Every time there is this kind of thread, someone posts something like this. It's really just blame shifting though.

I'm not blaming anyone. It was a generalized response stating that forums thrive on new content and if it seems as though there aren't enough topics that peak your interest, perhaps one could be created that is. That's all my statement meant.

I'm getting a vibe of bitterness towards management around here. I'm not saying you are, but reading over this thread and a few others, that feeling does seem to be wafting around the forums a bit. I hope I can change that for the better.

As I said in my OP I have been making more threads lately, but as I also said it feels pointless when most of them just get a handful of responses. It takes me a fair bit of time to make a thread between thinking of a decent topic, and wording it so it's understandable and hopefully will spark discussion, so when a thread doesn't get more than a dozen short replies it just feels like a massive waste of time for me. Heck, even if I get 2 pages of responses that's a "good" thread, but a couple years ago 3 pages of responses was pretty much the bare minimum for any thread.

I just can't make thousands of people come to the forums, it's simply not in my power. I don't think any amount of threads I could make would bring enough people back to the forums to even reclaim a shred of the Escapists past glory. The only one with the power to bring enough new people to the Escapist is Yahtzee. Almost everybody who is still here originally came because his videos were on the Escapist. However, now that Zero Punctuation is also being uploaded to Youtube, new people don't actually have a reason to come to the site. The time that forum activity began falling coincides with the time that Zero Punctuation was uploaded to Youtube.

Then I thank you for contributing to the forums, adding to the number of topics that can be discussed. Your 'work' is done (I hope it's easy to spot that I mean this humorously). It's up to management to attract new faces that want to discuss these topics so more folks participate in the discussions.

I did just send a feedback ticket about this a couple days ago, but I'll post it again here anyway:

I'm not saying you do or do not make valid points here, but, given it's before my tenure I'd rather just invoke my "the new guy" card and worry more about the future and less on the past. I'm not going to ignore the data, far from it, but I'm not going to burden myself with worrying about how it once was when my focus should be looking at ways to bring in new faces and perpetually more activity. This would be my goal regardless of when you see the highpoint of the forums.

 

[Totenkreuz]

Well I come here because there might be questions about game development that I can answer as I have some knowledge from that line of work, or atleast I can get the answer from others, like graphic artists etc.

Other than that I just enjoy reading some of the topics posted here but I guess I could be online more often if it was more 'alive'. Still, I find this forum quite calm and peaceful.

Cheers.

 

[IceForce]

I'm getting a vibe of bitterness towards management around here. I'm not saying you are, but reading over this thread and a few others, that feeling does seem to be wafting around the forums a bit. I hope I can change that for the better.

After one has been around here for a while, they can begin to understand some of the reasoning behind some of the bitterness.

The site management has a long standing tradition of over-promising but under-delivering.
To give a couple of examples: Last halloween, there was a site-based event that was supposed to happen, with halloween-themed content being posted on a special halloween page. But when the page went live it was broken beyond any functionality, and despite multiple reports and complaints regarding this, it never got fixed.
Another example: Wayyyy back in September, the management announced that they were planning on hiring a new PC writer, and encouraged people to apply. 5 months on, and there has been absolutely no feedback from the management regarding this, nor any person appointed to the position.

These sorts of promises which are never delivered on, give the impression that the management just simply doesn't care. They're happy to lead their users up the garden path and string them along, but when push comes to shove, nothing ever happens or changes.

Add onto this the way the site content has been diluted over recent months/years. With highly popular and opinionated content creators leaving, being replaced with such boring and vapid content as game walkthroughs and 'top 8' lists. You begin to understand why there's an ongoing trickle of users leaving the site, having become disinterested in what the site has to offer.

Add onto this, the utter shambles that is the forum moderation system on this site. Where people (often the same people) are getting warned, un-warned, banned and un-banned, all at the drop of a hat, and over and over again. We have a Code of Conduct that is incorrect/inaccurate in several places, but still hasn't been edited. And we have moderators making mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake, all seemingly without any repercussions or consequences, and nothing ever changes or improves.

...

All these things combined, and it's not hard to see why so many people have become dissatisfied or disillusioned with this site, the forums, the content, and/or the management.

Not meaning to scare you out of the job before you've even begun, but it has to be said; you've really got your work cut out for you.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Because in spite of the *massive* decline in forum quality over the past two years, this is still the best gaming forum I've ever been a part of.

Also the recognizable avatars have become my substitutes for real friends, which is why it drives a dagger into my heart whenever someone changes their icon and I can never find them again.

*Sniffle*

 

[n0e]

I'm getting a vibe of bitterness towards management around here. I'm not saying you are, but reading over this thread and a few others, that feeling does seem to be wafting around the forums a bit. I hope I can change that for the better.

After one has been around here for a while, they can begin to understand some of the reasoning behind some of the bitterness.

The site management has a long standing tradition of over-promising but under-delivering.
To give a couple of examples: Last halloween, there was a site-based event that was supposed to happen, with halloween-themed content being posted on a special halloween page. But when the page went live it was broken beyond any functionality, and despite multiple reports and complaints regarding this, it never got fixed.
Another example: Wayyyy back in September, the management announced that they were planning on hiring a new PC writer, and encouraged people to apply. 5 months on, and there has been absolutely no feedback from the management regarding this, nor any person appointed to the position.

These sorts of promises which are never delivered on, give the impression that the management just simply doesn't care. They're happy to lead their users up the garden path and string them along, but when push comes to shove, nothing ever happens or changes.

Add onto this the way the site content has been diluted over recent months/years. With highly popular and opinionated content creators leaving, being replaced with such boring and vapid content as game walkthroughs and 'top 8' lists. You begin to understand why there's an ongoing trickle of users leaving the site, having become disinterested in what the site has to offer.

Add onto this, the utter shambles that is the forum moderation system on this site. Where people (often the same people) are getting warned, un-warned, banned and un-banned, all at the drop of a hat, and over and over again. We have a Code of Conduct that is incorrect/inaccurate in several places, but still hasn't been edited. And we have moderators making mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake, all seemingly without any repercussions or consequences, and nothing ever changes or improves.

...

All these things combined, and it's not hard to see why so many people have become dissatisfied or disillusioned with this site, the forums, the content, and/or the management.

Not meaning to scare you out of the job before you've even begun, but it has to be said; you've really got your work cut out for you.

This certainly doesn't scare me away at all. In fact, what it does is encourage me to make sure that it doesn't happen in the future. Or, at the very least, inform the community why something happened or was ignored. Silence without a tie to an NDA sucks! If I can provide you the information, I will certainly do so.

 

[Jandau]

Because I haven't found another gaming forum that I like and I dislike Reddit's commenting system. To be fair, I'm also not as argumentative as I used to be, so having an outlet for that isn't as much of a priority anymore. So if I feel like actually talking about a video game, I might as well come here and get it out of my system.