Has everyone moved over to Facebook?

and...

(there is still an unanswered question hanging in front of you like a big gorilla in the room. don't you see it?)


and whilst I'm here.

I don't like facebook, WAY too public and benign...

Ya know

I have no idea how you stay so calm, Robert!!!!!!!! Truly - the 'personal' rantings of some folk must do your head in at times.

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If folk don't wanna be on A2K - then there is no need to be here - there is a choice - it's the internet - if you wish to go and play somewhere else, do so, instead of spitting the dummy about the forum. Simple!

"everyone" who wants to post - is able to! It's not so difficult.

if "anyone" doesn't like the forum - why continue to be here?




"everyone moved"????????????????????? mmmmmmmmmmmmm I don't think so!

There are many regular posters - some come and go and some things happen in between - but there is, in my opinion, certainly a community here, and a great one. For some it is a virtual community and for others it moves over into real life, as well as online, with varying degrees of interaction.

There are a lot of irregular posters here too and it's really nice to see people coming back online and saying "hey" again - it's a shame some people leave and the sad feelings of missing people who have disappeared (for whatever reasons), those feelings are very real. How is that any different to real life and moving house/town/community? You can stay in touch with people a million and one ways - or not if you choose.

There is a huge sense of community too. As much as there are folk getting along, there are folk arguing/discussing/debating. As much as there are people who I talk with as part of the community - there are also people here who often make me feel sick to my stomach and whom I choose not to converse with (I'm certain that works vice versa also - no problem) - no different to real life. The joy of the internet is, it is here as much as you choose to be on it, enjoy it and take part in it whereas in real life it's a lot harder to ignore people.

AND - it isn't costing a thing to the users!!!!!!!!! The people who have a personal financial cost for it seem to get hammered - amazing <shakes head>

Why anyone stays on any forum, repeatedly declaring their disgust for it - just doesn't make sense.

I haven't been here that long but was aware of changes taking place and that the owners had been talking to many folk. The changes that took place - well, ya know - you just can't please everybody all of the time a? There were things I didn't take to immediately - so what? The community is why I, personally, was here and stayed - the format was neither here nor there.

I simply don't understand if someone hates the place so much - why they are still posting.




edit: DYING COMMUNITY...... Wha??????????????????????????????????????? Good grief.

If you had any evidence whatsoever to back up your definition of "truth" then this statement might have some basis. You've been asked more than once on this thread alone to supply a list of the "lot" of individuals who left and didn't come back because of the format change.



Now, all of a sudden, your truth has become an opinion but those who disagree with you are wrong. How do your unsupportable fabrications and lies represent truth?

Benign is BAD ??

I wasn't calm. I was pretty angry about it. My girlfriend asked me if I was mad at her. I told her it was the internet again and it calmed me down by reminding me of the "internet, it's serious business!" meme.

I just don't "get" Facebook, really, and so far have found it of very little interest.

well, your diplomatic skills and patience far outweigh mine is all I can say.

<I am known to quietly spit feathers (or be insipid - whatever) or place said quill in a bow to burst their bubble quietly - sometimes with profanity) there are some posters who just are on a "traipse the troll out day" nit like the Sunday afternoon driver - heard it and seen it all before!".

Anyhoo - being that I'm more of the chicken variety poster as the leaders move in, I do tend to back off and watch - not always>

But Dammit it - not everyone has gone (what, are we the stragglers??? - who are we - I quiet like the "collective we" here, olides and newbies) and, in my opinion, for what's it's worth, us "possible stragglers" left still have a growing community and I feel, more interesting threads / thought proving threads appearing in the last few weeks. I'm very thankful for the folk here and the community spirit.


[edit] Membership life cycle for virtual communities

A membership life cycle for online communities was proposed by Amy Jo Kim (2000). It states that members of virtual communities begin their life in a community as visitors, or lurkers. After breaking through a barrier, people become novices and participate in community life. After contributing for a sustained period of time they become regulars. If they break through another barrier they become leaders, and once they have contributed to the community for some time they become elders. This life cycle can be applied to many virtual communities, most obviously to bulletin boards, but also to blogs and wiki-based communities like Wikipedia.

A similar model can be found in the works of Lave and Wenger, who illustrate a cycle of how users become incorporated into virtual communities using the principles of legitimate peripheral participation. They suggest five types of trajectories amongst a learning community:

Peripheral (i.e. Lurker) " An outside, unstructured participation
Inbound (i.e. Novice) " Newcomer is invested in the community and heading towards full participation
Insider (i.e. Regular) " Full committed community participant
Boundary (i.e. Leader) " A leader, sustains membership participation and brokers interactions
Outbound (i.e. Elder) " Process of leaving the community due to new relationships, new positions, new outlooks

The following shows the correlation between the learning trajectories and Web 2.0 community participation.


[edit] Learning trajectory " online community participation
Example " YouTube

Peripheral (Lurker) " Observing the community and viewing content. Does not add to the community content or discussion. The user occasionally goes onto YouTube.com to check out a video that someone has directed them to.

Inbound (Novice) " Just beginning to engage the community. Starts to provide content. Tentatively interacts in a few discussions. The user comments on other user’s videos. Potentially posts a video of his or her own.

Insider (Regular) " Consistently adds to the community discussion and content. Interacts with other users. Regularly posts videos. Either videos they have found or made themselves. Makes a concerted effort to comment and rate other users' videos.

Boundary (Leader) " Recognized as a veteran participant. Connects with regulars to make higher concepts ideas. Community grants their opinion greater consideration. The user has become recognized as a contributor to watch. Possibly their videos are podcasts commenting on the state of YouTube and its community. The user would not consider watching another user’s videos without commenting on them. Will often correct a user in behavior the community considers inappropriate. Will reference other user’s videos in their comments as a way to cross link content.

Outbound (Elder) " Leaves the community for a variety of reasons. Interests have changed. Community has moved in a direction that he doesn’t agree with. Lack of time. User got a new job that takes up too much time to maintain a constant presence in the community. The Deletionist versus Inclusionist Controversy in another such case within wiki-based communities.


[edit] Motivations and barriers to contributing to virtual communities
Successful online communities motivate online participation. Several research studies have investigated methods of motivating participation in virtual communities.

See more at: Online participation.

[edit] Online community virtuous cycle

See also: Metcalfe's law
See also: Bass diffusion model
Most online communities grow slowly at first, due in part to the fact that the strength of motivation for contributing is usually proportional to the size of the community. As the size of the potential audience increases, so does the attraction of writing and contributing. This, coupled with the fact that organizational culture does not change overnight, means creators can expect slow progress at first with a new virtual community. As more people begin to participate, however, the aforementioned motivations will increase, creating a virtuous cycle in which more participation begets more participation.



If the don't like - flick the switch.

Keep the thick skin lad, Nick et al - go hug your ladies



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_community




However, some posters are sorely tempting me to vocal UP my "not so sweet" views - then I must remember "that instant freedom is only as far away as a flip of my power switch on my computer." Not gonna feed.... quite yet.


Nite all ...

I've totally given up on a2k, never go there, I spend all my time on facebook.

Oh for pete's sake.

Discussion of the new forum began gaes ago, just as Robert says.

It was discussed in numerous ways, on numerous threads.

Yes, and the "dying community" theme has popped up for years.

not to worry, it's all just a near death experience, the great white light of utter stupidity as well as the Omaha Aquarium Choir will save us (except for the atheists). Damn, I can't ever remember the a2k before the BIG CHANGE.

Boy, my trying to get reintroduced to A2K sure opened a can of worms. I was just trying to see if anyone was here that I communicated with before.
I left before PM's were brought back and I was hoping some of the irritability and derailments had changed.

Hi Marty!

Hi Occum Bill! Hope life is treating you well

Izzie, hoping things are going well for you. I'm getting closer to having the RA meds at the right levels. Been easier to type lately.

Can I buy stock in that company?

Sorry if my misinterpretation contributed to that marty.

I don't think that is in the cards, our goal is to be small and do things well, and having more shareholders would complicate our ability to do so. I'd have to then think about getting a good return on your investment and that might get in the way of what we are trying to do. Our motto is:

"Do what you love, love what you do, and do it well."

We just want to work with others who are damn good at what they do on projects that we love, and make a decent living at it. Shareholders means becoming beholden to profit. For this reason we are going to avoid outside funding (including loans etc) as much as possible. As it stands the whole supporting ourselves thing is getting in the way too much (e.g. we had to dedicate all our time to the profitable parts of our business, and put a2k development on hold). When we are stable we'll be able to spend our time on the projects we would do if money were no object. If we had investors, the best thing we could do for them is sell a2k and work on the stuff that makes money (other niches we are in make well over 60 times the revenue per visit that a2k does, and that's just factoring in advertising, which isn't even the main source of revenue for those projects).

Yes, I agree with what you say.

Although I am not on Facebook (or any other similar site), in my opinion, comparing A2K with sites like that is an "apples and oranges" thing. They are quite different and do different things. No one site can do it all, and do it very well.

I happen to like A2K and did not have too much difficulty changing over to the new format. If remember correctly, I was feeling comfortable with it after a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, since the changeover, many good tweaks have been done, and I have no doubt, that more will slowly happen as Robert (and all) has the time and money for.

As for folks disappearing from here to go wherever, I don't believe this to be necessarily true. I still get the overall impression that many haven't gone anywhere.

Some people take breaks for a while and come back, or perhaps they're dealing with problems in their daily lives. Many times we don't really know what's happening with them.

To me, all is well.