Pacman+Mariofan : I question how much it "helps activity" though. Maybe during the first year where the competition was more than just posting (when green and red became about CP) but after that I don't feel like it has really helped much. Sure the people who compete might work harder but I know from a posting perspective that I regularly dropped off the map during a TdV and then posted more between them because I didn't like the way things were during.

I'm just speaking for myself though. Still, I think having it twice a year rather than 4 times a year would be a nice change.

geeogree : I agree. I've noticed so many users getting points on accident but not actually helping activity. Having it less frequently would allow more threads to be available when the TdV's come around. That would also allow more time for users to finish any big projects, such as reviews or guides that they can post later in the month.

YES PLEASE.

HAVING THE TDV LESS OFTEN WOULD BE PERFECT.

...or maybe not perfect, but it would help a whole lot.

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ewe it seems like you're planning on competing in the July TdV, Pac. Well, I'm planning on getting rainbow. XD I'll probably give up in the first few days though unless I never get worn out

Having the TDV be less frequent would be nice. Or if there was some way to make there be much less freaking drama going on that entire month, that too would be nice.

Well, that's more up to David than anyone else but I think the suggestion has merit. The TdV simply creates too much drama to have it every 3 months. I know lots of people who avoid Vizzed during it and if people stop showing up for a month there is a good chance they forget and don't come back at all.

ZeroTails: Yeah, I'll be competing in the July TdV but I'll be put behind by the fact that I'm in Florida for the first 2 days of the month. Getting rainbow might be easier than it used to because of the lack of activity, so go for it! Just don't go crazy on the first couple days because everyone does that and then the competition falls flat as a pancake that was rolled up and then flattened with the pan it was cooked in.

A user of this : I think there will be less drama if more users compete and the entire TdV isn't a domination in all 4 jerseys by one person.

geeogree : Yeah, the more we can prevent activity the better it will be for the site. Even the users that regularly compete likely wouldn't mind. Maybe it would be less unbelievably inactive if it's less frequent.

Pacman+Mariofan : well, this would also require a bunch of people to put pressure on David to end it for the fall one.

I also just put in a thread to remove the back and forth posting restriction that currently exists. When a forum is this dead it makes no sense to restrict people from posting.

geeogree: That's true. I wouldn't want to put pressure on David but maybe the staff could discuss it with him during/after the July one.

Do you mean that you want the site code that puts a limit on sandwich posting to be removed? I think it also makes sense if that's removed due to the circumstances. The only time I ever noticed back-and-forth posting being a major issue was during the July TdV 4 years ago. I barely ever see it happen now since users aren't posting enough in each thread to be sandwich posting.

On a side note, I made a pretty bad typo in my last post. I meant the more we can promote activity the better, not prevent. XD

Pacman+Mariofan : it might be a problem in the TdV but honestly posting is only 1 jersey (maybe 2 if you count yellow) so I don't think it should the staff should be too heavy-handed about it.

Welp, getting a rainbow next TdV might be harder than I thought because I'm starting summer school next week... :p

ZeroTails : yeah, if you can't dedicate the majority of your time it is really hard to win the TdV. I was unemployed when I won and was able to spend LOTS of time getting points.

So, I just had a thought while I was replying to other threads....

Did we (being me and other staff) kill (some of) the activity on Vizzed by being too strict with the rules? Anyone who didn't fit the mold of the normal member we wanted was banned or harassed into behaving "properly".

A week ago I decided to reply to a thread and not hold back my response. What resulted was one of the biggest jumps in posting activity we've seen all year. I think I saw 70 posts in 1 hour made when that happened. We used to have 70 posts an hour on a daily basis....

It's so frustrating to think that we pushed people away because they didn't fit our vision of what a member should be.... paying for my heavy-handedness I guess.

geeogree :

It's hard to explain, because as a user who this directly concerns/concerned, I truly believe it's a case of both yes, and no.

We made decisions, and as a result, there were consequences. Some were positive, some were negative, but ultimately there was a reaction to our action. Good or bad, there was a response at all, which is the name of the game when it comes to both the entertainment business, as well as social media.

What we did last week was a great thing, because it kind of proved a few things I'd believed:

1. It all starts with a single post - having even one person take the initiative to get others involved can have a snowball effect on other users unrelated to the initial plan. You, pacman, and I all made our own little posts, and from there, multiple posts spawned. Indirectly, our posts spawned posts beyond our own.

2. For good or for bad, a reaction is all it takes - This one is tricky, but it requires people to relax on the rules a bit. When there's a statement that isn't universally accepted, there's pushback. when there's pushback, there are more posts, and when there are more posts, there is thus a higher level of activity. So in a way "drama" is good for activity, even if it isn't great quality.

3. Quality, while nice to have, is overrated - People just want to have fun, so let them have fun.

You asked if we were too strict in the past, and this is where I think it falls upon individual moderators to question themselves. You might have been a bit stricter than I am. I started a Discord server of my own after I was kicked from one for existing. On this server I have basically no rules. I just ask people not to be illegal. And it's incredibly active all the time. People don't want to be judged. They don't want rules restricting them. They want to have fun, and by allowing them to have fun, I find myself having more fun of my own.

I don't think, in the end, that you should feel it falls on us (us being the former mods in general) or you, personally. While it is noble to believe you have erred, I don't know that it is factually correct. Activity persisted long after both the "pre-Leggy" era as I will call it (since you have so many stints as a global I can't count them all), and my own era. Activity really started to drop off in 2013/14, and has been in a tailspin since. While you are an admin/global at some times during this, I never really saw any difference in how you treated others, nor any difference in how they responded to it.

To me, the main reason activity has fallen and people have been pushed away comes to two main issues - a perceived lack of David (which I'll get into in a minute) and a lack of newbie retention, which I think has been discussed to death.

On the lack of David, he may be less active now than he was to begin with, but his activity has never been what I'd call super active, in the time I've been here. In my entire time here, he mostly stuck to private chat rooms, or private forums, and was discussing with moderators, and rarely regular users. He would occasionally say hi to them in the general chat room, but the one thing you and I both did was act as his liason with the community (at least from my perspective you did). By telling the community what David was up to, they never felt abandoned and like David wasn't around. They just felt like he was busy. Now, there's really no illusion, David is gone because he has to work, and when he's not working, he's too busy to really chat. It's not David's fault, obviously, the Nintendo issue really f***ed things, and so has the apparent server costs and the costs of raising a family. But the perception is a little different, because the reality isn't really as well hidden. The honesty is refreshing, but it isn't a complete positive either.

But that's just my take. I'm sure somebody thinks I'm totally wrong and will whine about this somewhere.

legacyme3 : yeah. I feel like we should have let people have more fun. That's really what I was getting at. Sometimes I remember being way too restrictive with people. If they were having fun and being active did it really matter if the post was "quality" enough to my standards? I'm twice the age of a lot of the members so my opinion of what is good posting is going to be different than the 14-18 year olds and that makes sense. Let them be who they are. I was that age and did some stupid and annoying things on the internet and so should they


Still, I think making Vizzed fun again would really help and it doesn't feel like that right now. Too strict with rules and what not in my opinion.