Having a quick look at ZI, the Community really doesn't look at all toxic, but I didn't dig very deep.
Honestly, I think this change is a bad idea. No matter what the change is, URL and major layout overhauls severely impact the population of a website. Look at Bungie.net's forums prior to and after January 8, 2013. There was a gargantuan population drop, and a similar thing happened with another overhaul on July 16, 2014. It sets entire communities back to square 1.
But whatever, this isn't my website.
Because the community isn't toxic. Our code of conduct really took care of eliminated most of it. You still get toxic individuals at times, but when they start breaking the code of conduct... whelp, it is time to move on from that person and remove them (after a fair warning and showing to them of the code of conduct, of course).
As for "major change in URL, layout overhauls, changes... etc killing a community" - certainly this can happen. But let's be honest - the ZD forums aren't exactly brimming with a massive user base. Bigger than ZI's? Sure. It should be. The only reason anyone visits our forums is because old timers wondered back over a link at the top - but I am aware we have many other former forum users sort of sitting around waiting for something to happen with the boards to bring them back. Them sitting unskinned and still in beta is not really going to revive the community.
But I don't care for the merger one way or the other. Myself and the ZI staff were actually opposed to the forum merger at the start, and that was with us having 5 active forum goers at the time. We had misconceptions about your community just as you guys have of ours that made us feel like the ideals don't mesh. Turns out - they sure seem to be pretty on par with each other. That simply means prior bad blood between sites has really altered what we think of each other. None of this is relevant to your remark - what you say is true. ZI's currently barely alive forum is proof to that point. And what sucks for me the most is the one thing I am TERRIBLE at is skinning boards and to look a way that is more inviting and more connected to the site. I was heavily relying on Dennis to take care of it before ZI was sold. I will have to probably look else where or convince Mases to do the same.
But, and I want to stress this, a good thriving community filled with people that care to see it succeed can bounce back. I do care. I think ZI's community can bounce back WITHOUT ZD's community brought in. At the same time based on what I have seen here, I also think that it is possible this entire community would be in better hands at Zelda Informer, viewing the forums as equal importance to literally everything else we do (that is, once our boards are out of beta. Can;t stress that enough). And yes, I am a numbers guy, but numbers can't be the sole measure when community building.
Hopefully in this case us, being the superior beings, usurp their existence and transform into our ultimate forms.
This should ultimately be a non issue. There are likely very little username crossover and what there is, whoever is the currently active member will take priority.
To continue the productive conversation...
@Mases many of us at both ZI and ZD want to keep our post archive. I strongly hope this is taken into consideration so we can all preserve our content.
This shouldn't be hard. We have a bunch of stuff on our boards from the last 8 years currently. That archive of content isn't tied to any accounts because unfortunately Dennis was unable to connect it all after all the years of changes. But we still kept the content because it was important. I know first hand IPB has a tool to import users and posts from Xenforo. So everything can be preserved and connected to your accounts here while the stuff already at ZI from the current small community stays intact. Meanwhile, all the old ZI archived posts can remain too. It shouldn't be a big task - but I understand the overarching concern. New things are scary when you've never seen it done before.
Hey there, I guess I should post here. I'm Dr. Flamingo of ZI. I just wanted to explain what the ZI boards are currently like. They are... mostly dead. The members of ZI don't seem to trust the boards to stay up after several technology shifts, down periods, and legit attempts by the higher-ups to minimize the role of the veteran members to attract a new userbase that never materialized. They're holed up in a Skype chatroom, and very few still venture out to the forum, but they still exist, and might even return to a revived board.
Now, I'm not super certain that the ZD and ZI communities are a good match, but I'd be willing to give it a good effort. I just don't want the ZI community to be lost somewhere in the mix. I, personally, don't want to be lost in the mix. And stuff like keeping our post archive is a good step toward reassuring that we aren't forgotten.
Our post archive (as you have seen it return when we came back in october) is important and it won't go anywhere. I hope in it's return you can see my sincere effort in caring about our past. As for minimizing the roles of veterans, mostly it was about a cultural shift. I don't want to minimize the role, I want to makes the forums feel like they aren't this foreign entity to the rest of the site. I think we're on our way. I just really wish Dennis delivered on what he promised me for the boards so I could finally do more with them. :/
And with the other staff members former and current, they all have been resistant to accepting that the wiki and forum ought to be considered one single community that helps each other. They might not agree because they don't look at it the way I do...
To me, it's more than that. The entirety of the website needs to be one single entity. I understand why you specifically would focus more on Wiki/Forum connectivity, but it should be more than even that. That's just part of it. When people visit anything that has to do with X brand, it should feel familiar and safe. If people visit our Facebook page, conversing there shouldn't necessarily feel like a totally different community than conversing in the forums. Because all areas of the site should be held to the same ideals. While there are obviously going to be differences inherent to the delivery method of conversation (and differences in user engagement). I think we're mostly in agreement here. Everything is a part of the whole. Facebook isn't who we are. Etc. Everything is centralized at the site where we have more control over the community we wish to have.
You may remember that that's not how Zelda Wiki was run. The bureaucrats acted as if they were gods that ought to be worshiped... Community is central to its function. It needs a community to act as it should, to grow beyond its boundries. With that in mind I couldn't in good conscience operate any other way but a community-based drive...
To be fair, the very early days of ZW (long before there was head butting), pretty much the entirety of the ZW community back then originated from said bureaucrats. Like the entire foundation of the wiki was built off of their user bases and their support. Once that culture began changing as ZW was starting to see more organic growth, that's when headbutting occurred and the crats didn't want to see the change happen, even though it ultimately needed too. As for the base of operations - I agree in a sense forums can help foster a healthy wiki, but I have first hand experience that it isn't the only way. It's the way you know. It's the way you're familiar with. But I have seen that growth and community building can come from many different avenues. That's part of my ideal with a united site. It's about bringing the whole community together - and when I say community it's not just the boards. I hate notions we should "ignore" the fact that most of the Zelda community doesn't, nor will ever, use a forum. Because in a sense, that air of superiority forum users feel over commenters is something that needs to go away. Those people who comment can care just as much as anyone in the forums about this site.
You have no idea how much people are irritated by me championing anti-censorship ideals. I don't wear this avatar for just any reason. But on the same coin several here can tell you that I also believe there has to be a reasonable limit. Expectations of what is and isn't okay to do to people. I'm never respected for that. People just see me as some irritating little trouble maker out to cause chaos. I'm never acknowledged to simply trying to improve this community. If all I wanted was trouble or if I hated it, I'd have left long ago. But I'm still here...
See, the thing is, our code of conduct takes care of all of this organically. It governs our staff too. Like, this is how we want everything to be. People weed themselves out naturally. People are allowed to have opinions and speak their minds - even against us. But, there is a limit to how that can be approached for the betterment of the community on the whole. I don't know this community pretty much at all. I see my ideals lining up with some in this thread - but I have a hard time believing that those in this thread is all there is. I saw someone mention 40 active users or something. No idea on the truth of that, but I'd like to see more and more what this community is about. Because my ideals at ZI may be geat and our code of conduct sound, but it doesn't mean that those ideals are the reality here, and people here may not actually want those ideals. Much like some of ZI's old guard are ho-hum about the code of conduct, but for the most part are willing to work within it if the community can foster. They care more about having an active community than about trolling and all that other nonsense that use to go on.
That makes me think. In reality the entire Zelda community is toxic to some degree. ZI has had its history of it. And there's certainly been some here. We've had bad staff members, or toxic regular members who seemed to want nothing but to watch the world burn. For years. It seems that it just keeps happening. Addressing the problem in general, rather than singling out any specific place, seems like a pretty good idea. If you can spare a minute, Nathan, I think you would appreciate the thread I made about bullying in the Life Advice section, it's at the top. It should give some perspective on what I think about bullying and why it's so important that I don't let it go unchecked...
I may give it a read. I have a hard time diving into old topics and sifting through them here mostly because well, I do a lot at Zelda Informer. Even as I am starting to spread responsibilities around, I like to keep my thumb on everything so I can get a good feel for what areas need my help or need more people hired on, etc. But that also means I want to keep my ear to the ground here. If this change is happening, it's happening. Today, tomorrow, in a month, whenever. All I can do is my very best to address any concerns and work with the forum team - a team I have yet to have a real conversation with yet. I might start pming them in hopes of getting together this month to talk about things.
I liked that article. It was interesting. As for the comments, typical of the internet in general. Approvals, disapprovals, instances that something else is better so that subject doesn't matter. None of it surprising. It's why I think the comments serve a different purpose from forums. There's not much you can do about how random people on the internet behave. You can't force them to be something else. But what you can do is set a positive influence in your own community. If they respect you, and your expectations of conduct are reasonable, they'll gladly go for it. It is a delicate balance....
Sorry you view the comments that way. But I think this goes along with your overall mentality and misconceptions about comment sections versus forums in general. Did you know that most of the people commenting on my editorial there are regulars who are around daily/weekly conversing with fellow Zelda fans on ZI? They aren't just a random subset of users. As for "approvals, disapprovals, something is better, etc" - that's literally what a conversation is. This is also true in forums. I have read many Zelda threads on these boards as part of my internal search for inspiration on editorials and daily debates. I see a lot of that same stuff right here on the boards. Why is that? Because that's what a conversation entails. If everyone just nods there head in agreement, it typically becomes a rather stale conversation after the first page or two and it fades away.
Let's look at a more broad conversational discussion:
http://www.zeldainformer.com/exclus...-enough-to-convince-you-to-buy-twilight-princ
Now, there are clear differences there than a forum. Mostly that forums serve better purpose to a depth of conversation and continuation - basically this sort of topic at the site is really only going to have conversation going for a couple days before they move on to the next conversation. But the conversation is still just as important and it's pretty healthy there - even with an influx of "randoms". Those randoms are still viewers of our site. They aren't 2nd class citizens below a long standing commenter. However, the idea I had moving forward was the interconectivity - these discussions promoting continuation to the boards to keep the conversation going longer. Allowing different forms of the conversation to take place. To me, forums are for long form conversations, comment sections are more for quick discussion (think of it more like your chat box area versus people posting in threads). But all of the above is essential to a cohesive and long form community. I have a long standing history and experience that neither is inherently more important than the other for any aspect of the site. They are just different, but equal parts important to a healthy community.
Well you might be touching on a very serious point. You say that the community at ZI has improved and that people here are not aware of that. What about people who used to go to ZI that no longer do and are not aware of the other events you referenced? Your changes that you said not everyone was happy about? What happens when some of the more volitile elements of ZI's past see that it now has a huge forum? Would they come back and behave exactly how they did before? And what about Gamensia? From what you have said, and what was said in our meeting, there seems like there's an element there that is very, very unhappy with the direction you personally took ZI and with this recent aquisition. Can we expect a problem from them like what both of our sites got from ZU? For reference, that problem admin I mentioned before was active at ZU for a while and along with a former admin at ZU, brought over people from ZU to troll ZD and even convinced people at Zelda Wiki to come and harass us for a non-issue that the respective leaderships of both wikis had already reached an agreement about years previously. Needless to say that after I re-initiated contact with that leader, he was less than pleased about what they had done and that they had lied about the previous agreement existing.
If they come back and do not conform to our code of conduct, there is no special treatment here. They are out the door. We've already had one returning member in particular trying to fight against the change and after the boards get out of beta, if his behavior continues he's out of here. That's the beauty of how things work now. It doesn't matter what they were like before, we have new standards and they either live within them or find themselves removing... themselves from the community.
As for Gamnesia - I had nothing to do with the sale of ZI. Let me make that clear. I had no say. I didn't get paid out of the ordeal. In fact, the sale itself brought to light something that was hard for me to accept - I never got down in writing that I co-owned Zelda Informer, so the sale literally happened without my input for the most part. I was made aware of respect for what I do by both sides, but I didn't get any real say in it. Gamnesia isn't upset at me or ZI. They are upset at Dennis, and yes there are many there that may not think to fondly of Mases. But that doesn't ultimately matter because Gamnesia is not Zelda Informer.
You mention trolling and yada yada. See, this sort of drama literally can't exist at ZI. Our code of conduct basically eliminates the possibility because it applies to EVERYONE. Is an admin acting against the policy? They will get the boot out of the community just like anyone else.I can't stress enough how much this code of conduct makes it a non issue. That doesn't mean people won't go behind closed doors to try and cause drama. People can be ****ty. But I don't forsee this being a problem. We literally eliminated our massive trolling issue int he past year. If a higher up at Gamnesia wants to come and start attacking us - it's literally a click or two away from not mattering at all. Everyone is expressly aware of this code of conduct, especially those at Gamnesia and on ZI's staff. It's a none starter concern.
I don't care about inter-site politics anymore. I want to move forward, not backwards. Lies, deceit, it doesn't matter today. What does matter is that we stand united moving forward.
Even if the toxicity is diminished from what it was, which I'm inclined to take your word for, I still think it's a very bad idea to merge the forums. I think they should be left as they are now. But also considered just two sections of a new larger community. I don't understand how that can be a problem. We can have members crossover as much as we want or need...
Again, I was and still sort of am against the merger. I just accept that the reality is it's probably happening. As such, I want to make the best of this situation and try to view things in a positive light - what can be beneficial to all in doing this? No one seems to be asking that question, but it's something I am trying to put out there. Chiefly, having a person at the top in myself that views the forums to be as important as say, us posting news. Also, someone who openly converses with the whole and probably does a better job communicating about changes/ideas, etc. IT sounds like these are common complaints here that are virtually addressed in a merge. There may be other things too, but again, I am not en-grained int his community enough to know just yet.
As to this, the main thing that bothers me about how he views it is how he constantly hyperfocuses on the numeber of views per day it gets and not on what it's actually there to do. It's not there to attract droves of viewers, that's what news, social pages, walkthroughs, and the wiki are for. That's their function. Forums are about a community. Views have nothing to do with it.
In a sense, a forum community, just like a comment community or a community on facebook, twitter, tumblr, etc... can't inherently be measured purely by raw numbers. Those numbers really only explain if things are growing, dying, or stagnant. They are vital, but only really one piece of information. He focuses on viewership to ZD because viewership is his livelihood. He makes his living from viewership. With or without the wiki, forums, news, etc - ZD get sso much traffic due to static content that really has absolutely nothing to do with community building that he doesn't need the other stuff. Now he does desire the wiki, but what I am getting at is that the forums aren't really part of his livlihood. That's fine. But he's not going to care as much because he was never a big forum person and forums have nothing to do with ZD's success. It's a very harsh reality, but it's nonetheless true.
Our wiki is near death. As much as Mases wishes to downplay it. It's barely holding on. If anyone who worked on your wiki wants to come to ours, they're more than welcome so long as they hold to the ideals of conduct and community that you've been advocating here. Help is desperately needed. Very desperately. More than anyone cares to admit.
Activity levels are definitely down from what I can see, but I wouldn't quite say it's dead. I think, more or less, a better job can be done fostering wiki growth and support in general from all around the reach available to it (not just forums). I know how to do just that, but I am fairly hands off with wiki stuff since it's not under the ZI umbrella. But I am willing to help in so much as Mases would like me too.
Someone in charge of a forum that isn't just going to ignore a problem and will simply just do something about it is certainly a good thing.
That's just me in general.
I'm going to tell you a secret. The layouts here have been pretty terrible. Not to mention how they hyper-focused on the forums being an isolated entity, ignoring the main site, removing the links to the wiki, and being somewhat.. ridiculous. The new default is okay, but I think it's too flat. Not enough definition. I know Microsoft has a hard-on for that super flat, ultra minimalist design, but I don't like it. I want some definition, some color, some curves, interesting borders, regions shaded different colors. Something when you look at it you say, "that looks really nice and very interesting!" But made with practical effects, not layers of absurd images like Zelda Universe is obsessed with.
Visual design is in the eye of the beholder. I focus more or less on inter-connectivity. Example:
http://www.zeldainformer.com/walkthrough/c/links-awakening
That's a walkthrough index page. Notice something? Forum link. Wiki page integration. News. Guides. It's all there (though, I wanted to work more on the forum integration). The point though is that this is the sort of direction I was taking ZI in before it was bought. A similar direction can still be seen moving forward. ZI's board design is just the default IPB design atm. There are many free and paid sklns themselves that are already leagues ahead of what we have. In an ideal world, I'd love to pay about $100 to $200 for someone to create two custom skins for the boards. One that allows people to set their layout more to ZD's current, the other fits more in line with the rest of Zelda Informer. my issue with ZD's current design beyond personal tastes is these boards feel isolated. Where are the game hubs and walkthrough pages? It's like they don't exist. That's bad form IMO (and a current issue wout the default IPB skin).
If you're willing to go the extra mile, that is good. I don't necessarily think it's relevant which system is better though. What matters is how well it is understood. No disrespect to our staff here, but none of them really understand Xenforo. The only one who seemed to really get it was Jamie. And he doesn't want to be involved anymore.You seem to really understand IPB. So in that case it is irrelevant which is better if you are experienced in making it do what you need it to.
I understand Xenforo really well too. But that's not the point really. My point was that I'm dedicated to the success of the boards, meaning any knowledge that is lacking I can help find others that can help with that.
I think you're missing a bit of context. So many here are resentful of DISQUS explicitly because of how much Mases emphasizes with his actions that he cares about it more than he's ever going to care about the forums. He more than once expressed his feelings that forums are an antiquated feature that in the future won't hold a place and instead there'd be comment sections like DISQUS. That is the source of the "DISQUS IS THE FUTURE!" joke. And there's a distinct possibility Mases will complete deny all of that. But as you said, actions speak louder than words and his actions support that he thinks that way.
I figured there was more to it. I just wanted to clear the air over ZI's mentality. I don't fret over what ZD does outside of, at this moment, this forum community.
The other problem is the problem I touched on above that is inherent with comments sections. Because this is the internet, the hugely open and incredibly casual nature of comments sections are magnets for conflict and argument, things that are not necessarily what one would want in a forum. And there's nothing you can do about that without making the comments ridiculously authoritarian like requiring them to be approved before being posted. And personally that degree of censorship turns my stomach in every painful way it can. There should be some degree of connectivity, yes, but there also has to be a floodgate so that not all of that negativity, that no one can do anything about, bleeds through.
Actually, there is something you can do. Enforce your code of conduct. The issue is, most places don't, or they don't even bother to have one. My long standing experience with the ZI comment community and your understanding of what many other sites do are on different spectrum. Other sites don't care about the commenters. I do. We rarely have conflict. Arguments are within reason (and arguments happen on forums a lot. Seen it over and over again at ZU and ZI). Arguments are not wholly negative. You just need to foster the best parts of them and discourage and eliminate the worst. We've done just that at ZI so far and we're not some small place. We're the 2nd largest Zelda site in the world, boasting one of the largest active followings in the world. I hope over time your adversity to commenters changes, because I think you may come to find out that you can also foster wiki growth from them too.
As for the one account thing.... DISQUS doesn't have local accounts. They're global across all of DISQUS on the whole internet. Directly linking to DISQUS isn't exactly a desirable thing. However, you can still give people one single login by simply linking it to Facebook. DISQUS itself uses Facebook as one of its options to log in. And both the forum and the wiki have extensions that can be used to let people log into them with Facebook. Tying in facebook gives the same unified login without automatically opening to door for the worst of the commentors.
ZI has local accounts. When you register at ZI, it doesn't register you at DISQUS. Yet you can still make comments via disqus on our site with your username. So yes, disqus does support local accounts. IGN use to use them too and did the same thing. But it has to go deeper than disqus itself - you have to have full integration into the site. We have that. It's not perfect and could use some tweaks and fixes, but it's there. As for "facebook" - my issue with linking anything through social media channels is that while it should be a method, you are now entirely relying on registration and site connectivity through a third party. Why not also do it locally? Why rely on that? It can be part of, but shouldn't be the foundation of inter-connectivity.
All the segmenting I want is function and very limited in form. But I still want all parts to consider themselves cogs in the same machine that should work together in harmony. I don't think that merging the forums is the only answer. In fact, you having attitudes agreeable to our current ideals only makes that more of a bad idea. Because it seems like it is being done partly for the rational that your forum simply can't survive because it's too small and that it needs an infusion of blood. At least that's what Mases tried to imply in our discussion. I can't say that makes any sense to me. No community will die so long as someone cares about it enough to fight for it. And you certainly look like you can do that. If the forums are left alone as is, both can survive.
We can have survived for years without a thriving forum. It's not "essential" yet. I hope it will be down the road. But, the merger I feel more or less has to do with Mases not needing to manage or worry about forums anymore. Look at some of the dissent here against him - I am sure it's stuff he'd just rather not have to deal with. He admitted he's poor with communication and you can't be that way while fostering a community. I think he knows that. Which is why this merger makes sense for him. Gets everyone that cares to a place where they feeling is mutual from the whole of the site. Takes it almost entirely off his plate once things are moved cleanly. Let's him go back to refocusing on what he wants ZD to be, while he lets ZI take care of the rest. He's fairly "hands off" at ZI. I mean he's around and he talks with people, but he lets us be who we are and lets us run (IE, me and other staff) the show. Now that a merger is off the table, he is more concerned that ZI pushes forward and that he provides whatever he needs to to help that, while he personally focuses most of his work at ZD. What's nice for him in this regard is that ZI has me. In that way, he is less essential to keeping ZI moving forward, but still someone that actively cares. He just needs reminders now and then that traffic is important, but reputation and community matter too and they don't have to be exclusive.
If nothing in this universe can convince Mases to change his mind, which is very likely because, as a rule, he absolutely refuses to listen to anyone, particularly about anything even remotely controversial (which as a rule is what the majority of advice from an adviser such as myself is going to be), then from you I'll require the cooperation I need to support the wiki that previous iterations of the forum staff here never would do. I don't want to do just one thing. And I would hope that as a community, several people could work together to come up with ideas to help it and that they won't just stop with one idea and call it good enough. It needs all the help it can.
I can't talk much about ZD. However, if mases allows me I can greatly help the growth of your wiki with Zelda Informer. Not just increasing google rankings and driving traffic, but help foster a healthy community around it. I just hope you can come to grips over time that in that way, it's not just the forums. Forums are but one tool. It's like bringing a hammer and thinking you can build everything for x with it. You still need other parts.
Only if everyone keeps persisting in the delusion that number of visitors per day are the one and only function of a forum. That has absolutely nothing to do with it. It supports the rest of teh site because it creates a community that can bind together and form a fellowship. When other areas of the site, like walkthroughs, front page, wiki, social sites, look for help, their absolute best source, that is regretabbly untapped, is the forum. Someone you just pick up off the street, as a random hire will probably not stay. Random hires have an extremely high turnover rate. For the wiki, it's absolutely crucial to have a large contributor base that sticks with it long haul. Someone drawn from the existing community, like the forum will be more likely to be valuable and stay and will more likely care about the growth and future of the whole site. THAT is why forums are so valuable. That is their function. That is what people are absolutely refusing to admit. Every single time anyone tries to say what the forums are for, every single time the amount of views per day it gets is all anyone talks about. Those mean nothing. Viewers are the end goal our front end efforts, walkthrough, news, social. They are not important for the inborn community. This does not mean every single individual has to help everything in the site. Just being there helps, because it gives the people who do work on the other parts a place to socialize with a tighter knit community, talk about common goals and interests, and overall support each other. That is something that the THE FUTURE (DISQUS) cannot provide.
Again, this just stems from your complete misunderstanding of not only ZI, but of anything beyond forums. Communities do not exist in forums alone for this stuff. ZI has a really great dedicated staff for walkthroughs, news, editorials, and a wiki. All of that built without a forum community to draw from. According to what you're saying, that's not possible. Yet it happened. ZI is literally where it is today without a forum community to draw off of. In fact, sometimes it's hard to draw from the forum community because while they care, they care more about the forums than necessarily any other part of the site. I am not saying forums can't help. They can. But they are a tool and comment sections are one too. Facebook pages are one. Twitter is one. Tumblr is one. I feel like part of the reason ZD's wiki is losing activity is because of a too narrowed focus outlook here. I have first hand knowledge that what your saying doesn't apply at least at ZI, because we specifically treat our fans respectfully and foster communities where people are. People are in our comments, so we foster it. People are on our facebook page, so we foster it. We don't act like they don't care just as much as someone on the boards. And because of that, we get our best volunteer help from those areas.
And yes, we've talked about common goals and interest both on our facebook page and directly on our front page through the comment section. It can and does work. It may not work at say, IGN, but we're not IGN. We're not Kotaku. We're Zelda Informer. I feel like there is going to be some back and forth on this point, but that's fine. I just hope you can open up a bit more if this merge goes down. Because you seem jaded against something and I don't blame you. ZI is a very unique place when it comes to the community aspect.
I don't think we can know if they are. That's why I think that it is absolutely essential that for now, we simply let the forums exist independently for at least a good long while. And let everyone take time to get to know each other first so we can be sure it'll mesh properly. Instead of Mases's insane plan of just mashing it together and forgetting about it no matter what happens to it. If some come out to help the wiki, which is very badly needed, that can be an opportunity to start getting to know each other and forming a bridge we can use to test the waters. And in any case it'll help the wiki stave off total stagnation.
As of last night (after my posts), I can confirm the merger is still on, but more slowly. It was going to be this week - now it sounds like he's going to slow burn it over the course of 3 to 6 weeks. Probably more likely after the release of TPHD. Just giving time for it to sink in, mostly on this end. Maybe allow me to work closer with the folks here and make this as smooth as we can instead of setting and forgetting.
Holy cow. That's really unbelievable to me. I know the forums aren't as active as they used to be, but damn. I had always thought they were the most used part of the site. I'm really surprised by these stats.
Now I can see why you care about the guides and the main site more. But I really hope that this doesn't make you take the forums any less seriously, especially when you have so many people here who love them and don't want to lose them.
Unless your website's foundation was forums (like Zelda Universe, or say.. NeoGAF that is nothing but a forum), all forum communities pale in comparison to the rest of the site. ZD's popularity is literally solely due to walkthrough rankings in google.It's starting to branch out a bit with the wiki, but the forums even at their peak probably didn't even register for traffic. Just saying. It's hard realizing that at times, but it's the truth. Forums can have good traffic, but they are just a cog of community building. As an example, I mentioned I have used the ZD boards to find inspiration for work I do at ZI. There is inherent value to me in a centralized long form communication area (IE, Forums). Not just for personal inspiration, but because it's just a form of conversation I thoroughly enjoy. I may not like making forums posts quite as big as this one, but we're dealing with something here that is unprecedented in the Zelda community, especially with two of the three giants in the Zelda community.
