ZD Forum Change Concerns

[Lozjam]

There has been a ton of concern around the ZD community about ZD not only switching to the ZI brand but also switching programs and forums altogether.

This is a thread to voice these concerns.

Some of them I have is:

Changing the Community
New blood is altogether good for forums. It needs new blood to survive. However, ZI was known to be toxic. They were terrible. Could the community really take this terrible reputation. Furthermore, Zelda Informers comment section can be quite toxic as well. Is this really a good idea?

Changing from Xenoforo
Many of the odds things we have in this community is what continues to give ZD a unique flavor. Everything here is fun. The ZD community loves to chat in its shout box, comment on threads, and see each thread being replied to. It is easy, fun, and a great place! Not to mention, our recently added Credit System was a fantastic return, that made some posters more likely to do so. Not to mention, we will be saying goodbye to other quirky things such as the arcades. Not only that, but all of our fabulous emotes will likely not make the trip. They are amazing, quirky, energetic, and scream ZD. Without these, ZD will not have the same charm, and that can put people off.

Change
If we change, we could lose a lot of members. Those that come back from being gone years ago will likely find an empty shell of a URL. Even recent members could miss the memo. More importantly however, some users could just straight up leave. Because it won't be Zelda Dungeon. It will be some replacement.

The forums are a place of the community. Believe it or not, we have a right to say what could be bad, or what couldn't be. We are the ones that support this website, we are the life here. So please, voice your concerns! So that people such as @Mases could here what may go wrong, and perhaps rectify that so it doesn't happen!

 

[Soul]

Agreed. I generally have a hard time getting around the idea of the merge. The reason I joined Zelda Dungeon in the first place was because the news section over on Zelda Informer was incredibly cluttered with nonsense I don't care about (watching the umpteenth metal cover of a Zelda song only stays entertaining for so long), while the news section over here was much more focused on interesting content. The better, more welcoming community here did the rest.

I can deal with news items being on Zelda Informer, even though it's already getting on my nerves, but keep the community here please. If anything, port them over. I don't see the point in moving the bigger community over to the smaller one.

 

[Emma]

From what I understand, the main reason is that Xenforo itself is conflicting from some optimizations we are trying to implement which will hopefully improve loading time for the wiki. However I don't see why that necessities a move. We changed the software here once before, it's not like we can't do it again.

Speaking for the wiki, I personally agree with most of the changes. Moving news posting to ZI and rebranding some of the bigger activities like the meetup and mailbags and such. But I'm 100% against the forum move. It'll be a tremendous mistake. Everything else being done in this will help the wiki, but moving the forums will seriously undermine the efforts to revitalize the wiki and get its activity back up.

The average viewer is just going to assume that ZI and ZD are partners and not that they have a single owner. Internal politics like that are never obvious and are usually not learned until after a person has already decided to help. Our efforts to increase activity on the wiki have been focusing on trying to provoke organic volunteering. That is, increase the wiki's traffic and viewership and hope maybe one viewer out of say 10,000 or whatever number you want decides to join. Everything we're doing is focused on trying to accomplish it that way. However, given that the wiki is very much at a standstill now, and that the front page is being migrated over to ZI, if the forums also move over to ZI, that'll leave ZD with the only interaction people can publicly see be the wiki, which will appear dead. Viewers will not be motivated to join what looks like a dead site so we will be unable to recover from the slow period we've been stuck in for a while and we'll not see the growth and increase that Mases is hoping for. Instead the place will struggle to make it by and be passed further and further by Zelda Wiki, which we still haven't completely caught up to. We need SOME kind of community activity here, on ZD, not on ZI, for our organic traffic method to work. Without it, none of it will.

 

[Lozjam]

Agreed. I generally have a hard time getting around the idea of the merge. The reason I joined Zelda Dungeon in the first place was because the news section over on Zelda Informer was incredibly cluttered with nonsense I don't care about (watching the umpteenth metal cover of a Zelda song only stays entertaining for so long), while the news section over here was much more focused on interesting content. The better, more welcoming community here did the rest.

I can deal with news items being on Zelda Informer, even though it's already getting on my nerves, but keep the community here please. If anything, port them over. I don't see the point in moving the bigger community over to the smaller one.

That's the question as well. As far as I can tell, ZI's commenters on articles are the very opposite of welcoming. They are quite mean. The comments are overrun by bots and even trolls most of the time as well. Very little real discussion comes out of the comments section. It can be very toxic at times.

Will this negatively affect our sweet, welcoming community? I know for a fact that was the reason I join ZD. I felt so welcomed, and I was inclined to stay. I did, and I have made some amazing, loyal friends here. What happens if ZD becomes toxic as well due to this change? That can potentially kill the community, and ward off new people.

 

[Emma]

That's the question as well. As far as I can tell, ZI's commenters on articles are the very opposite of welcoming. They are quite mean. The comments are overrun by bots and even trolls most of the time as well. Very little real discussion comes out of the comments section. It can be very toxic at times.

Will this negatively affect our sweet, welcoming community? I know for a fact that was the reason I join ZD. I felt so welcomed, and I was inclined to stay. I did, and I have made some amazing, loyal friends here. What happens if ZD becomes toxic as well due to this change? That can potentially kill the community, and ward off new people.

The disqus community there is a major reason why it's being moved. But that's not a good thing. Like you just said the disqus commenters there are so horrifyingly bad that even casual viewers noticed it. I tried speaking with an old friend of mine about this and he knows nothing about the internal politics of the place. He'd been a fan of ZI for years but even he very openly admitted immediately that its comments are outragously toxic. I feel this is a very bad influence that we need to keep the forums as distant from as possible.

Regardless of where the forums are, the wiki is still going to try to rely on it. It we are too direct with trying to get the ZI disqus commenters on the forum, they might, in very small numbers mind you, come to the wiki. The last thing I need at the wiki is the same sort of drama that the forum has struggled with in the past of sociopathic egomaniacs causing chaos. It'll make it even harder to get new people if the first thing people see when they try to join is someone acting like they're a god who demands the ground they walk on be worshiped and those are exactly the kind of people ZI has always attracted that overrun its comments now.

 

[Azure Sage]

My biggest concern is if all of our forum posts (I do mean ALL of them, no matter how old), will be left untouched. Because I don't want to lose any of my writing or graphics or artwork, and honestly any of my regular posts would be missed too. After spending 5 years on this site, I don't want to lose any of that stuff.

My next concern after that is how our community will be affected. ZI is very well-known for having toxic members and I don't want them spilling over into this community; the toxicity we already had was bad enough, we don't need more.

 

[Mipha]

Here are my concerns. I doubt they will change or amount to anything, but I still believe I should voice them.

Firstly, It seems that most of us ZDers and some of the ZIers object to this change. Due to this, we would probably lose quite a few members.

Secondly, From my experience, Every time there is a large forum hosting change/move, although there are efforts to preserve most of the information, some threads/posts/Like/PMs/etc. are lost in the move and I as well as many other(especially those that frequently used the fan works, graphics, and role play sections) would be devestated or at least annoyed by this.

Fourthly, Now I have no experience with ZI, but it seems that it has quite a bad reputation. Not only by merging, will we slightly gain some of there reputation as seen by outsiders, but we have already had to deal with a fair share of toxicity on these forums and we certainly don't need more.

And finally, through the many years that this forum has lasted, we have built up what could amount to some sort of culture and a whole slew of inside jokes and memes. While, they would still last to some degree, I believe this will just speed up their demise.

Note: Also, why don't we just move their forum to here instead of the opposite? Not only will everything be preserved, but we will gain some new members. Plus, ZI Forums are practically dead anyways.
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Less serious concerns:
The emotes and groups will probably be lost, and ZD just sound better than ZI or any sort of mishmash of their names. And I don't want to rebrand ZD Chronicles into ZI Chronicles, or get in trouble for badmouthing the place on my fic.
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Edit:

1. Kingofhuklebery:
   We don't need more traffic. From what I can tell, we get plenty. And we should aim to get traffic from being a good site and not by cheating and having two sites for the exact same purpose.

 

[Djinn]

Like I had said in a previous thread there were two reasons for our move.

As stated here, the ZI forums have that nifty plugin that allows merges Disqus and forum accounts to a single login/register. I have been looking for something like that for Xenforo but I have only found a single thing that is a paid addon.

Second it was more of a courtesy. To show that we were not moving in on them and taking over everything they had and force converting all their stuff. Some things are converting like the wiki, etc. But Mases said he wanted to draw the line at the forum as a show that we are not going to just move in and dominate all, posibly causing some kind of anger, walkout etc.

Although their forum community is nil at the moment. I wonder if it might be more useful to get one or two ZIers to actually comment on this and see what they think. Naturally neither wants to lose their forum but with the changes we have made here within the last year I think we stand to lose a lot that people have placed a lot of time and effort into recently.

 

[Mipha]

Like I had said in a previous thread there were two reasons for our move.

As stated here, the ZI forums have that nifty plugin that allows merges Disqus and forum accounts to a single login/register. I have been looking for something like that for Xenforo but I have only found a single thing that is a paid addon.

Second it was more of a courtesy. To show that we were not moving in on them and taking over everything they had and force converting all their stuff. Some things are converting like the wiki, etc. But Mases said he wanted to draw the line at the forum as a show that we are not going to just move in and dominate all, posibly causing some kind of anger, walkout etc.

Although their forum community is nil at the moment. I wonder if it might be more useful to get one or two ZIers to actually comment on this and see what they think. Naturally neither wants to lose their forum but with the changes we have made here within the last year I think we stand to lose a lot that people have placed a lot of time and effort into recently.

Pardon me if I misunderstood, but isn't merging the forums essentially taking over and imposing our stuff on them?

 

[Fraxinus]

What are the chances that a user on ZI shares a username with a user on ZD and when the merge happens, they end up with a merged account?

 

[Djinn]

Pardon me if I misunderstood, but isn't merging the forums essentially taking over and imposing our stuff on them?

Yea that's the way I see it too, but apparently letting them keep their forum was supposed to be our way of throwing them a bone and letting them keep something in the takeover.

What are the chances that a user on ZI shares a username with a user on ZD and when the merge happens, they end up with a merged account?

More likely than people realize when I brought it up almost a month ago. Do not think I have heard much else on it since.

 

[Emma]

Like I had said in a previous thread there were two reasons for our move.

As stated here, the ZI forums have that nifty plugin that allows merges Disqus and forum accounts to a single login/register. I have been looking for something like that for Xenforo but I have only found a single thing that is a paid addon.

We can't keep Xenforo in any case if we still want to implement those optimizations. The simplier option is to instead change to the same software ZI is using, or another that has that plugin. Instead of moving the forum.

Second it was more of a courtesy. To show that we were not moving in on them and taking over everything they had and force converting all their stuff. Some things are converting like the wiki, etc. But Mases said he wanted to draw the line at the forum as a show that we are not going to just move in and dominate all, posibly causing some kind of anger, walkout etc.

Completely destroying a whole site and imploding its community to appease a smaller one that is openly hostile to the everything we're about hardly makes sense. If anything, trying to force our community over there will make it look MORE like we're taking over ZI. We have a totally different way of doing it. The community personalities are polar opposites. With our larger numbers we'd certainly eject what's left of ZI's small community. Your rational here is completely insane and is going to do the exact opposite of what you think it will.

Although their forum community is nil at the moment. I wonder if it might be more useful to get one or two ZIers to actually comment on this and see what they think. Naturally neither wants to lose their forum but with the changes we have made here within the last year I think we stand to lose a lot that people have placed a lot of time and effort into recently.

I don't think it's 100% necessary to delete either forum. They both can still function. ZD's could just have a larger scope. ZD's robust forum is one of its key features and this move will totally destroy it. A lot of people will go away. Some immediately, others over time. But it'll still lead to a slow, painful death. It's a bad idea in every possible way.

 

[Mellow Ezlo]

ZD just recently got good again. There was tons of drama a few months ago, but now we see very little of that. ZI is about as toxic as a community can get. Moving ZD over there would destroy everything that's good about this site. With everything sacrificed, what's the point of staying? From what I gather in this thread, the majority of the community is against the move. So a lot of people are going to leave. Is that what Mases wants to happen? ZD is the dominant site in this case. Moving ZD to ZI is like taking all the people in New York City and moving them to Seattle. It just won't work.

What really gets me is that all this stuff is happening with little to no say from the community. That's poor leadership. If this move causes us to lose the things I love about ZD, like the sb, the emotes, my posts, my vms, our community, etc, then I will leave with no hesitation, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. We've built a community here, sacrificing that without giving us a say is going to make a lot of people really mad.

Can we just, like, not move the forums and say we didn't?

 

[Emma]

In any event we're going to have to abandon Xenforo. I understand that. The wiki will greatly benefit from the optimizations that Xenforo is currently hindering. A few months back, it took upwards of ten seconds for a wiki page to fully load for me. IT's better now, but some further optimizations would help even more. But none of that will be particularly useful if the wiki doesn't have an active, thriving, healthy community to support it and help it grow. We won't keep getting viewers if the wiki can't get new content continuously. And we can't do that without contributors. And this plan will totally undermine that.

 

[Fraxinus]

Since ZD bought ZI, shouldn't they be merging with us? If Mases wants the incompetent forum software that is IP Boards because DISQUS IS THE FUTURE, we can still switch software, but the fact is, ZD is the brand; ZI is the product. It would be ridiculously backward for the current plans to be played out.