In the Interest of Transparency - What resources are currently going into the Forums?

Mortal Sky

Spinning this off of the mobile issues going on right now:

Would it be possible to get a clear report from site admins on the status of Vanilla, and what support the forums are actually receiving both at a technical and moderation level? It feels like both technical issues as well as problematic thread tangents are taking a lot longer to respond to than even 2 or 3 years back, even though the forums aren't *that* dead compared to the previous couple of years. I still enjoy being on here but I think we could use a "State of The Forums 2024" or something from higher up

Athenor

I don't mean to sound entitled, or like I am owed anything.. but I do want to point out that at least personally, I am part of the Penny Arcade patreon pretty much exclusively for the forum. I believe in this place to the extent that I am subscribing at the $10/month level, as opposed to the dedicated "forumer" tier of 1 dollar/month.

I know that forums are seen as old-fashioned and outdated compared to discord forums or other avenues of interaction. I also know that our particular Vanilla is off in its own land thanks to being an experimental site where development could be tested. But I really want to see this place succeed... and that means I want my money to be an investment in this community.

Bullhead

Athenor wrote: »

I don't mean to sound entitled, or like I am owed anything.. but I do want to point out that at least personally, I am part of the Penny Arcade patreon pretty much exclusively for the forum. I believe in this place to the extent that I am subscribing at the $10/month level, as opposed to the dedicated "forumer" tier of 1 dollar/month.

I know that forums are seen as old-fashioned and outdated compared to discord forums or other avenues of interaction. I also know that our particular Vanilla is off in its own land thanks to being an experimental site where development could be tested. But I really want to see this place succeed... and that means I want my money to be an investment in this community.

Yup, after years of lurking I picked up the top tier sub just to help pay them for the service of this forum, I don't even really hit the FP anymore. But I love these forums and when they aren't working (like today) it's like the internet has gone down

Mortal Sky

In full transparency, I don't pay for the site, but this is one of the last websites I use that isn't part of the megalithic social media ecosystem of Google/Twitter/Meta/Reddit, and I'd genuinely miss it if it disappeared one day due to neglect -- hence my minor freakout around the time I made this thread over how broken the forums are

Xaquin

I pay the cheapo sub

If it would help any I'd gladly bump up a few tiers

MorganV

Xaquin wrote: »

I pay the cheapo sub

If it would help any I'd gladly bump up a few tiers

Yeah,I'm in the same situation. Only reason I didn't go a higher level was a) not knowing costs were (potentially) such an issue, and b) not wanting the rewards of the higher level.

EDIT - Don't know if it is, added qualifier for speculation.

DJ Eebs

In terms of transparency, I can tell you that we had discussions about the future of the forums within PA last year, and the plan is to keep them online for at least the next few years. I don't mean that as a frightening "end is near," sort of thing: we're keeping them online because I think there's value in keeping a community like this as intact as possible, especially given how many social media sites are...increasingly unreliable, from a community standpoint.

Resource wise, I'm the main person from PA with access to and eyes on the forum. It's not my only responsibility at PA, but I do still think it's important, and I apologize for how slow I've been to respond to some of these bugs. In terms of the mod team: I'm aware we've had fewer mods active, and it's something I mean to look into. If you have any specific trouble areas you think I'm unaware of, please reach out (I don't need more information on D&D, however).

Some good news on one front: I believe a number of our current problems are down to us using an outdated version of Higher Logic/Vanilla's community tools for our forum. I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I believe this is the main reason we have issues on the mobile site, because they handle mobile versions of forums much differently when we first transitioned over to Vanilla. To that end, we're looking to upgrade to a newer version of this software, which should hopefully address a number of these concerns. It should prevent any future mobile forum bugs, of this kind, allow us a bit more control over things like profile fields, and maybe some newer features. It's going to take a bit of time, but it is a priority for me.

MegaMan001

I appreciate the information and all I would ask is before we get to the point of turning off the lights that the community has the opportunity to try and keep things going. Maybe an option to do a fundraiser if that's the issue or take over the management, if any of that is even possible?

Mill

If nothing else, the heads up would at least give the community a chance to figure out where they might land, if taking over isn't even an option.

Label

I really appreciate being informed that the admin team is aware of the bug affecting the forum. It significantly helps ease anxiety about the state of the forum.

Thank you.

Akilae

So between the ads and Club PA, does it generate anywhere near enough to keep the forum lights on? Is more needed?

Aldo

A few years ago it was explained that the costs of this forum including the hours Eebs (and Tube before him) were not very significant, but the club PA memberships helped with keeping it logical for Gabe and Tycho to keep this place. Consider that they're also running a bunch of Discords for various projects, manage Twitch chat and maintain a social media presence. None of those venues eclipse everything else, all of them require moderation. I think Gabe and Tycho only interact directly with fans on Twitch.
All this to say: there's little reason to worry. We're not more or less ignored then other channels.

Paladin

Would more money help?

DJ Eebs

I appreciate your thoughts on the money aspect of this, folks, but I very much was not intending to imply that the forums are due for imminent shutdown due to money. You can push that worry out of your minds, and if anything were to ever change, I would 100% make sure to give everyone a head's up about it.

Chanus

got it

i won't

*wink*

keep my sub

*nudge*

to ClubPA going

*nod nod*

SeñorAmor

It might also help to change the Club PA link at the top to the Patreon page. The current link leads to a 404.

jungleroomx

Look, I don't know if this is asking too much considering all the other things you guys have going on but...

In the age of 400 nit regular monitors, the white color scheme of these forums is retina burning... just throwing that out there, as I squint

Bullhead

jungleroomx wrote: »

Look, I don't know if this is asking too much considering all the other things you guys have going on but...

In the age of 400 nit regular monitors, the white color scheme of these forums is retina burning... just throwing that out there, as I squint

God yes, a dark mode would be AMAZING.

jmcdonald

The mobile blue is much better

Shadowfire

jmcdonald wrote: »

The mobile blue is much better

That's what the style sheets are for, really.

Aioua

There's another thing I've been wondering about and with the current login-logout game to fix the mobile site it's been brought back to my mind.

What's the deal with almost all the forums being hidden to logged-out users? I know this place is on its downslope but nobody would join if they look at the main page and just see the dead PA community forums. I get why H/A and the art ones are hidden but if a potential new user could see D&D, G&T, and SE++ we'd at least look like a place where people exist.

Is it just spam mitigation or was there a more deliberate choice to wall us off?

DJ Eebs

Honestly, I think it was mostly a quirk of permissions, and I'll see what I can do to address it

baudattitude

Aioua wrote: »

There's another thing I've been wondering about and with the current login-logout game to fix the mobile site it's been brought back to my mind.

What's the deal with almost all the forums being hidden to logged-out users? I know this place is on its downslope but nobody would join if they look at the main page and just see the dead PA community forums. I get why H/A and the art ones are hidden but if a potential new user could see D&D, G&T, and SE++ we'd at least look like a place where people exist.

Is it just spam mitigation or was there a more deliberate choice to wall us off?

I’ve assumed it was a deliberate choice to keep some of the more extreme threads in D&D away from being Google indexed or seen by casual browsers of the forum.

Mill

Yeah, I had assumed that was intentional with D&D and SE++ as well, since google indexed political discourse can attract some real jack asses. On the other hand, I'm not sure it's particularly great if you want to keep the forums alive. Kind of have to deal with both the good and the bad, where being publicly indexed by google results in new blood finding its way here.

Ringo

With the way google works these days the only people seeing the forums would be people who weren't trying to be here

Lanz

One thing I’ve wondered: I’ve seen embeds for Twitter still working on other forum software; is the current embeds issue a vanilla issue as well?

https://twitter.com/honobonomoon/status/1766699214132969958?s=46

Above is Tanuki video, because, well [gestures at self]

BahamutZERO

It is almost certainly an issue with the forum software, but also aren't we better off now :P

Trajan45

This may sound dumb, but I've used the forums for almost 2 decades now and I had no idea that ClubPA paid for the running of these forums. I know there is a blurb at the top mentioning if you don't want Ad's, but since they aren't really intrusive, it never bothered me. I only learned about ClubPA's contribution to the forums via the mobile issue thread here. I know it was mentioned that money isn't an issue right now, but if it's something that becomes an issue, maybe something added under the Ad's? I would have joined up long ago if I had known, maybe there are others here in the same situation.

furlion

Club PA is the only thing i even pay for on patreon and i would definitely be willing to increase the amount rather than see the forums shuttered. I am sure i am not the only one who feels that way.

expendable

Trajan45 wrote: »

This may sound dumb, but I've used the forums for almost 2 decades now and I had no idea that ClubPA paid for the running of these forums. I know there is a blurb at the top mentioning if you don't want Ad's, but since they aren't really intrusive, it never bothered me. I only learned about ClubPA's contribution to the forums via the mobile issue thread here. I know it was mentioned that money isn't an issue right now, but if it's something that becomes an issue, maybe something added under the Ad's? I would have joined up long ago if I had known, maybe there are others here in the same situation.

It's not dumb. In the past a $1/month Forumer Patreon tier was added and then every once in a while in a random part of the forums it comes up in a thread, which is how I found out about it and joined despite being around in some capacity a few years longer.

If it ever comes to it I can definitely kick in more than $1/month for the forums.

discrider

Ringo wrote: »

With the way google works these days the only people seeing the forums would be people who weren't trying to be here

Ehh..
I had someone join to thank me for helping them in a videogame last year.
So I assume google is working somewhat.

I've also seen forum results rank highly for specific questions on videogames/computer things, but that's probably down to me poisoning my search results.