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Re: Is This Forum Dying?
I miss the possibility of a new album coming out. It was an exciting time to be a fan.
I also liked the community aspect. You'd come and hang out with your GNR friends basically. You'd have the "new kid" come in and post a fake Chinese Democracy album cover or say he had such-and-such a song and everybody would tell him to fuck off or shut the fuck up and then after a couple of weeks he was one of the bros. It's a great thing that's missing from our society, that sort of bonding.
I miss the half-trolls the most. The ones that would make fun of Merck, Del James, and Beta to their face or account suicide to rip Jarmo or Madison a new one. Great times.
I also miss the Wild West aspect of it. The internet was a different place back in the late 90s. It was like you were a prospector digging for gold and not just GNR stuff but anything else too you could find some crazy shit online that you'd never be able to find nowadays.
Re: Is This Forum Dying?
mitchejw wrote:It's definitively weird though because I hate Facebook and Instagram. What is the younger generation into? Themselves?
Sometimes I feel like an alien. Most people are content to keep their bubble really small and basically live on close relationships and inside jokes (ya know...stuff that FB tends to cater to). While there's nothing wrong with close relationships, sometimes people wrap themselves in it as a way to insulate themselves from the rest of the world.
I love this forum. I have been here since Roses of Velvet (was that it?) and I came here from HTGTH in the late 1990s. I was like 16 when I first posted.
You realise you just described this place, right?
I've never been on fb (or MySpace, remember that?), but instagram is great for keeping up to date with family. I don't get to see my brother & his family very often except thru instagram and skype, it's great. I don't use it as social media, to check in with the jenners or whoever, I'm following 9 people and they're all family. You get small adverts for celebrities or friends/random people associated with some of the people you're following, but it's easy to scroll right past that stuff.
But most social media apps I don't think people are content to keep their bubble really small & live on inside jokes.
Memes make the world go round these days & there's a lot of creativity, joy and wonder to be shared and found in random parts of the world. Every day amazing things are happening & getting shared on the internet for millions and millions of people. That's pretty fuckin cool if you ask me. Cooler than some daisy chain motherfuckers discussing GnR setlists or mythical albums..& I'll tell you what, this net neutrality thing is a very real threat to websites like this. This place actually still attracts new users even if you don't realise it. If you yanks don't act, smaller websites like this will most certainly die off pretty quickly if Comcast/Verizon get their way.
I guess you're right in a way...I mean...I guess that's what it is now. Now that cobwebs are forming in so many threads.
I guess I was speaking more so about my 16 yo self from the late 90s.
Discovering places like this was just a treasure trove of stimulation. From parts of the world I had never been.
It was weird to watch Jarmo take the role he did and change his site so as to affiliate himself with an opportunity. I think that was the first time I was aware of the power of a forum.
Just because it's not cool to be on the forums anymore doesn't mean I should stop.
Re: Is This Forum Dying?
I miss the possibility of a new album coming out. It was an exciting time to be a fan.
I also liked the community aspect. You'd come and hang out with your GNR friends basically. You'd have the "new kid" come in and post a fake Chinese Democracy album cover or say he had such-and-such a song and everybody would tell him to fuck off or shut the fuck up and then after a couple of weeks he was one of the bros. It's a great thing that's missing from our society, that sort of bonding.
I miss the half-trolls the most. The ones that would make fun of Merck, Del James, and Beta to their face or account suicide to rip Jarmo or Madison a new one. Great times.
I also miss the Wild West aspect of it. The internet was a different place back in the late 90s. It was like you were a prospector digging for gold and not just GNR stuff but anything else too you could find some crazy shit online that you'd never be able to find nowadays.
You nailed it. Remember using search engines that weren't filtered or weighted with advertising? A gold digging prospector is exactly what felt like.
Remember mIRC? I went into my first chat room on there.
Re: Is This Forum Dying?
mitchejw wrote:James Lofton wrote:That forum has been unreadable for years. Took it out of my bookmarks many moons ago.
Without its high google placement it would collapse under its own weight.
Haven't checked it in over a year but when I did, it was obvious most of the active accounts were troll accounts.
Its metal sludge without the laughs.
Just curious...I'm kind of a novice as to what the meaning of troll is these days...
By your account, when you say 'troll accounts,' I'm led to believe that it's done with direct intent and consistency. Could you elaborate more? It's still a concept that I don't quite grasp.
There are different types of trolls. The type I was referring to would technically be considered "alternyms", different "hats", or whatever people would call it nowadays.
Alternyms are 'normal' forum users(typically long time members) who have multiple usernames and use them to troll and/or play different "characters" on the forum. Basically you could read a 10 page thread that 20 members have posted in but in reality its 10 people.
metal sludge does this but its meant as a joke and not taken seriously. Its why I referred to that site as MS without the laughs.
You're a liberal who hates republicans and used to discuss food stamps. Let's pretend for this discussion that's just a character...That's your Mitch role for off topic. You'd use a name like axl4prez2020 as your character to talk GNR and be a "nutswinger". Log out of that account and your SlashSucks and with this character you troll old school fans and worship Finck like a god. Every day you juggle these various accounts acting like you're 3 different people.
That's the type I'm referring to.
monkey did a good job describing what the typical troll is.
Von wrote:I will admit that one of the downsides to posting here with such a currently limited userbase is the feeling that you're posting in a vacuum. I come back every so often and am always left disillusioned by the fact that seemingly no one is around to want to converse with me, and when I do post it seems to be as a thread killer. Kind of disheartening and keeps me, personally, from coming back here more often. So I check in, am largely ignored, and step away for another year plus. Maybe if we were a more proactive community that encouraged active contributions to this forum, then it wouldn't be dying. Or at the very least wouldn't turn into the weird, debased political mumbo jumbo this thread has devolved into.
You're definitely not being ignored intentionally. Hell....about half(or more) of my posts go ignored and I supposedly run the joint.
Go back 8-9 years, majority of the site's members would quote every post of mine.
The site has little activity and literally 95% of it is in the Trump thread, 4% in other off topic threads, and 1% in the GNR section. What's funny about that is many years ago I had a very ambitious vision of offering tons of off topic content unlike any GNR forum in history when we were unveiling that killer new design. It was resisted by everyone and instead of continuing to practically forcefeed it down your throats, I killed it all and just went back to standard, generic off topic sections.
Now its a GNR site in name only. The most activity it gets GNR wise is lurkers/guests reading CD Whispers.
I've had people send me messages(here and other places) that they would post if it was more active. If all the people who have said that would post, it would be more active. No one will post without any posts...causing them to not post. A Catch 22 from hell.
The site got back ontrack when the reunion happened. Once the newness wore off, it went back to 'normal'....the new normal anyways.
Another thing this site has going against it is the fact it was dead for about 3 years up until 2015 when it started to get a bit active again. People simply forgot about it during that timeframe and I don't blame them.
A new album would probably boost activity here but that would also be temporary. The golden age is never coming back. GNR forums don't truly get new people. Its either old timers coming back or a current user under a troll account. Young people are on social media and so are most casuals and even hardcore fans now.
Brett hit the nail on the head. He's right...most forums are dying. Horror forums, crime forums, list goes on and on.
Regulars begin to argue or some shit goes down, people leave. And another funny thing about regulars is that sometimes they come to a place out of habit, so you get a fanbase cannibalizing itself because they show up to, say GNREvo, because that's just where they've always went. Out of habit, they come back, but they lack enthusiasm about GNR and get negative, or nothing can please them. So the bad apples start spoiling the bunch because no one wants to be around people like that.
That's evo in a nutshell....
There's a ton of people I'd like to see come back. A good example is Aquiesce. She was always one of those types that seemed to post in cycles. Post for a year or so, vanish for a year, resurface, vanish, repeat cycle. if I were to compile a list of my top 5 favorite GNR forum members, she makes the list even though she was never a constant presence in the community.
How do you get these types back? get on your knees and beg? There's really no way to do it and considering the fact the site is devoted to a band that doesn't release music, you're at an immediate disadvantage as a community to give people an incentive.
The younger generation isn't as interested in boards
They're not interested at all. if you post on other GNr forums and ever see some noob claiming to be a kid/teen, ask for their twitter/FB/IG page. ALL young people have them. If they balk at the request, they're not really a kid/teen...they're a troll.
Aquiece - what about her posts did you like?
Re: Is This Forum Dying?
Everything. She had great yet slightly odd taste in music, she was funny, she was a Mischaholic, very intelligent and could jump into any discussion, and there were a few personal issues talked about in PMs that I could relate to.
better question would be what's not to like?
Re: Is This Forum Dying?
Everything. She had great yet slightly odd taste in music, she was funny, she was a Mischaholic, very intelligent and could jump into any discussion, and there were a few personal issues talked about in PMs that I could relate to.
better question would be what's not to like?
I just don't remember her at all. Seems like an awesome poster.
Re: Is This Forum Dying?
Here's the political thread. I'm sure you'll remember her....
Some cool posts...interesting to see what we were talking about a year ago.
Some prophetic insights.
