Forum Purpose: A Discussion

I've started using the forums a lot more, mainly as a place to save my levels and also to discuss whatever I feel like talking about. Like most people, I also use the Discord server since that's the community standard. Unfortunately we don't live in the 2000s anymore, those planes dove and went down in flames.

My primary incentive for the forums is mainly archival, I feel like this is a sentiment shared by everyone. This is a good place to retain important shit for whoever passes by every now and then, whether it be resolved support issues or custom files. In terms of general use, honestly, having a discussion in here compared to the Discord server is night and day. With threads having a central subject that could be deviated slightly, not only can I respond whenever I can, but this allows others to think over their words before they post anything instantly. It's a bit of a breather compared to the fast-paced, one and done, nature of chatrooms.

But that's the caveat, people can choose whether to contribute or not, this can be a filter that determines whether the thread gets a response or remains unanswered. I have a hunch that those who want to create forum posts fear that the latter would happen to them, which is a given outcome. Still, it's a bit demoralising, and I feel like that small fraction want to avoid this outcome, preferring to put their discussion onto a chat room to ensure a quick response. Also, taking time with your response could be an obstacle in itself if you're used to chucking your shit at the wall. I think it introduces a self-imposed pressure where rather than being quick, you want to be as thoughtful with your words.
Im inventing a guy here, again, the main reason is Discord being better than an outdated discussion board. That's really all there is to it.

That's my thoughts about the forums. They're a better place to archive shit instead of keeping it behind a service that requires an account to access. Though when it comes to general discussions, Discord remains at top for most people solely for conveniences. I believe there can be a place for general discussions on the forums, especially since that shit is concentrated but slowly than a chatroom, yet I feel like those factors are also the reason people don't really post much in here.
Discord being the place for discussion is warranted though, Im sure this was the case back then with MSN Messenger, Skype, or the Online Webchat, though in these cases, I imagine the forums activity wasn't as inactive. I don't fucking know, Im sure the resident granny can attest to its activity back then.

I actually started a similar topic to this back in 2020, but we all know things have changed a lot since then, so I'm glad you're revisiting it.

I don't know if I qualify as the "resident granny", but I was certainly active on these forums both during the days of Skype and Webchat (though not MSN) and today. Yes, these forums were much more active even in 2016 than they are now, although I think the activity decreased pretty heavily once 2018 came around, people joined the main Discord server (which was started on 2017-08-12), and people stopped submitting PQ bug reports here.

Before the current Discord server in 2017, these forums served as the official discussion platform for the Marble Blast community since 2006. It could be argued that they still are, but the sheer difference in amount of information exchanged here versus on Discord makes it hard to truly believe that. Before August 2017, however, yes we had nobody's old "Webchat Without Mods" server, but that was never official, there was little to no moderation, and it was not a healthy place to be for a lot of people. So people did still use the forums quite regularly when discussing the game.

That server was created on 2016-05-15, and before that date these forums were much more active. There would be several new posts every day, the Spam Board saw regular use (though one thing HiGuy did right was to make it so that Spam Board posts don't contribute to post count), and people would actually use these forums for posting videos, levels, and records, and discussing these things in the appropriate threads. It was lovely to have such organized discussion, even if I was a little bitch (which is neither here nor there).

One feature that was used a lot, and which is still missing in this version of Kunena, was the button below every front page article which said "Discuss this article on the forums (9 replies)", along with a list of the first few comments from the forums, since front page articles would automatically be posted to the "Rules & News" section of these forums when published. They say you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone (actually Joni Mitchell said that), and they're right, because I remember seeing many new names just from those news posts who otherwise probably would never have made accounts.

Now to actually address the topic of this thread, I think archival purpose is a good way to look at these forums. But I'd interpret it in a broader sense—not only would it be great to see people posting videos, levels, WRs, etc. here for historical purposes and to open up discussion (since we don't allow discussion in #new-levels or #new-releases in Discord), but any discussion on these forums is fun to look back on later and can contain useful information for someone starting out with the game. Just think about how much information is on Discord—years' and years' worth—that never made it to the forums. I often notice how often someone asks a question in Discord and someone (usually RandomityGuy) replies to a message from years ago with an answer that no one would ever have known to look for. Stuff like that would be so much easier to find on the forums.

So I think the forums are best suited for hosting helpful information and having non-spammy discussions on level building, coding, records, videos, bug reports, and just any other interesting information about the game and its community. I've spent countless hours perusing these forums and made some amazing friends here. I'll do all I can to keep this platform alive, and I've been absolutely loving the recent activity. You in particular have made some great and fun topics lately, and I look forward to seeing what else you do here!

I do also think that the forums could use some reorganizing to make them more relevant to today's community than that of 2014. I wonder how that could happen. Hopefully on the forums.

wrote:

I actually started a similar topic to this back in 2020, but we all know things have changed a lot since then, so I'm glad you're revisiting it.

I had another subject in mind about the forums, it was a bit inspired by the recent discussion about restructuring the Discord. That topic was centred on what the forum is like to someone who's contained within it, but my complaint ended up encompassing the whole website and I shifted gears.

It's pretty interesting to see that the old thread had similar sentiments about the forum.

wrote:

I don't know if I qualify as the "resident granny", but I was certainly active on these forums both during the days of Skype and Webchat (though not MSN) and today. Yes, these forums were much more active even in 2016 than they are now, although I think the activity decreased pretty heavily once 2018 came around, people joined the main Discord server (which was started on 2017-08-12), and people stopped submitting PQ bug reports here.

I feel like I present myself as a snobby know-it-all, I confidentially assert information even if I feel doubtful about its validity. This has been an issue with me especially on Discord, where I only have so little time to review whether my answer is accurate, or I leave this to someone else who can answer better than me. Maybe Im just conditioned to act like this just to retain the conversation before it abruptly moves on, Im aware to how unhealthy it is to act like this.

My last paragraph was more of an optimistic theory rather than an observation, I thought that most people preferred organising chatrooms rather than mainly conversing in the forums, even if the options weren't as vast back then as Discord would be now.

wrote:

One feature that was used a lot, and which is still missing in this version of Kunena, was the button below every front page article which said "Discuss this article on the forums (9 replies)", along with a list of the first few comments from the forums, since front page articles would automatically be posted to the "Rules & News" section of these forums when published.

Maybe my memory is crossing other forums, but I swear there's other missing features that vanished after the revival. I swear there used to be a way to preview your forum posts before submission. I used that to check whether my formatting or images worked, also to organise my post from rogue spaces.

My initial topic was meant to gauge whether Im hallucinating certain aspects of the forum from my limited use back then, hearing this seems to confirm that there might be some substance about that idea.

wrote:

I do also think that the forums could use some reorganizing to make them more relevant to today's community than that of 2014. I wonder how that could happen. Hopefully on the forums.

This was the crutch of my original purpose for this thread.
The post was originally about forum notifications and whether those existed prior or not. From what I could remember from my limited use, I don't think such a thing existed, which I found strange. I didn't wanna propose anything without getting insight from the other four forum users here, maybe they were comfortable with how things currently were, or they also have their own complaints.

While reviewing, I noted that there were two ways one could review their notification (excluding email and Discord, the purpose was to visualise a user who only uses the forums), had illustrations to demonstrate this too cause Im extra:

• First was by through the website login, this one is clever because it chucks you into your own profile, where you're able to immediately review your posts to see if anything new came through. I doubt this was intentional, but it was a way for people contained here to review activity.

 

• Second assumes you log in through the forums, whether to add to a current discussion or just because. That method keeps you on the forum page rather than throw you over to your profile. This user would move into the "My Topic" tab if they want to check for activity. 

 
 

Again, inspired by the discussion about Discord's restructure. As I wrote more, I noticed that my thoughts diverted into a general overview of the website. Most of it was speculative, so I completely erased it and instead turned it into a personal topic about the forums and why I think others won't use it as much.

The vast majority of people who use these forums also use the Discord, so a discussion about the forums will at least apply to more people if it also takes Discord into account.

I swear there used to be a way to preview your forum posts before submission. I used that to check whether my formatting or images worked, also to organise my post from rogue spaces.

There was a way to do this, but as I recall it was kind of bad, so I didn't use it much. There is still the "Source" button which you can use to look at the source for your post, and that can help determine how it will look, but I miss what you're talking about if it ever functioned as intended.

Forum notifications never existed, but website notifications did. The website would play an MBG bumper sound if you got a private message. This was removed in 2024 with the upgrade to the new website. Also, the "Subscribe to this topic" button has always been there and always done nothing. Go figure.

Neither "My Posts" nor "My Topics" shows the full extent of forum use that the forum's "Recent Topics" tab does. They only show topics that you have posted in. The subtle difference is that "My Topics" shows your favorited topics at the top, followed by topics that you've most recently posted in, whereas "My Posts" only shows the most recent topics you've posted in.

There's probably much to be done about the structuring and the intended purpose of the forums that could increase it's use. The trouble is that Discord ultimately serves many of those purposes better and that's why more people use it more often. The forums still has it's uses, for instance topics like this that want a more focused discussion on a specific topic that's less concerned with getting fewer responses, though, for now anyways, they're always thoughtful ones. I think the forums work as well as they're going to at the moment, but I'm not opposed to changing some things to better serve the purposes the community wants for it. I do think however that it is already much in alignment with what the community already uses it for, save maybe a few minor fixes for example like NF said the "subscribe to thread" button never worked. Maybe fixing that would be good.

I readily admit however that I've never used the forums enough to have a strong grasp of what they're supposed to be or even had an in-depth understanding of how it's currently set up. I just use it as it is and I seem to get by just fine. So perhaps I'm not the most qualified to say what the forums are/should be. That being said I think the way it is currently is just fine. That's all I have to say about that. 

"I swear there used to be a way to preview your forum posts before submission. I used that to check whether my formatting or images worked, also to organize my post from rogue spaces." - DoxtonPink
Yeah, there did used to be that, I never noticed until you said that. Strange. I guess the new forums largely shows the changes you make as you edit, but that does miss out some things so I think that'd be a good thing to bring back if possible. 

wrote:

Neither "My Posts" nor "My Topics" shows the full extent of forum use that the forum's "Recent Topics" tab does. They only show topics that you have posted in. The subtle difference is that "My Topics" shows your favorited topics at the top, followed by topics that you've most recently posted in, whereas "My Posts" only shows the most recent topics you've posted in.

I know. Like I said, the original thread was about forum notifications, these images were a demonstration to our current options and whether that warrants a change. I came at it with the idea of someone being contained solely within the forum, how I thought the website didn't do a good job at communicating activity in a person's thread.
I feel like the current system works better if you keep the website open and check shit by yourself, which seems to be the case according to what you said about the old PM system.

wrote:

The forums still has it's uses, for instance topics like this that want a more focused discussion on a specific topic that's less concerned with getting fewer responses, though, for now anyways, they're always thoughtful ones. I think the forums work as well as they're going to at the moment, but I'm not opposed to changing some things to better serve the purposes the community wants for it. I do think however that it is already much in alignment with what the community already uses it for, save maybe a few minor fixes for example like NF said the "subscribe to thread" button never worked. Maybe fixing that would be good.

Yeah. The forums has been a common website I check due to my time. I can't engage much with the Discord server, which means I end up missing out on shit that people moved on from, Im not pulling a Yoshicraft just to put my word into a convo long gone. Not to say that forum posts don't expire, that aspect suffers from the subject being extremely exhausted instead of passing on.
I feel with most of us growing up and being busier with life, we'll find an appreciation for forums. We can still engage with our favourite game series without having to sink much time into a chatroom, atleast that's how I see it. Not to prioritise one avenue over the other, but rather co-exist.

Regarding bugs in the website, yeah there are a bunch of shit that needs to be fixed or modernised, though that requires us to review the website before us and tinker around before we can propose a few changes. I may be somewhat of a regular in the forums, but not enough to provide my proposal for change. I also feel like maybe we should factor community members in the change, maybe get an idea to how we could get them to use the forums more.
Because as it stands now, if they're not active in the Marble Blast Discord server, they're most likely active in an off-shoot server ran by another community member. Not to fear-monger, but you and the moderation team demonstrated that the rules end in places you directly moderate (website, Discord server, webchat), meaning in the event that a community member falls victim to an action, regardless of severity, you won't protect them.