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The future of Codewalrus

Started by Dream of Omnimaga, December 05, 2015, 09:49:35 AM

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Dream of Omnimaga

Nobody seems to give rats about the forums anymore.If you check weekly stats I had over 44% of the entire board posts since November 20th and pretty much any attempt  by me at generating interest, either by participating or by branching out (for example, news articles about non-calculator games) have been futile.  It's not because of school because I see 65 people logged in every week and IRC is pretty active. We originally opened as a forum to hang out and have fun, while discussing our favorite technology topics, including calculators, but If wake up calls and expanding are not gonna save CW, then I don't know what will.

I know that there was drama earlier this week and I am sorry about that, but the recent activity collapse happened two weeks before that drama and the collapse was nearly instant. Has other drama occurred behind the scenes two weeks ago without any staff knowing? Or would CW simply be better off without my presence, to bring back people? When people are asked what could be improved on CW that would bring people back or what they don't like about the site, almost everytime the only answer we get is "I don't know".
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

novenary

#1
I believe there's already a thread about this. Poll will be left open but I'm locking the thread.

Dream of Omnimaga

Topic re-opened, as there was no link to duplicate thread given and no other explanation of lock given.
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

novenary

#3
Ok then, let's be constructive instead.
It's something like the 9001st time you complain about this for starters and it's getting irritating, that was part of what we had a fight just a couple days ago. Do you really want this again ?
Otherwise the site is doing much better than you think it is. You having 44% of the posts for the past month is because you're you, and the forums are not quite as active during the week as during weekends. Can't blame people for having lives. You can't force anyone to post or visit the forums. I think people enjoy it here (correct me if I'm wrong) and I like the community being small, growth would make the atmosphere less friendly.
Also keep in mind that the school trimester is ending, people are focusing on exams rather than having fun atm.

Dream of Omnimaga

#4
Quote from: Streetwalrus on December 05, 2015, 10:36:38 AM
Also keep in mind that the school trimester is ending, people are focusing on exams rather than having fun atm.

That is where I am missing something out. If exams are the reason, then why is IRC still active and why do we still have 65 logged in users every week, and why not the forums? Wouldn't exams instead result into global inactivity instead of just post-wise?

The other problem is if you check the trendline, we had like 50% more activity in 2014 during the same period, yet we only had 8 members. If exams were really the issue then last December we would have averaged at 10 posts a day.

Quote from: Streetwalrus on December 05, 2015, 10:36:38 AMI like the community being small, growth would make the atmosphere less friendly.
I would rather see CodeWalrus community not shrink month after month to the point where there's nobody left. I don't think friendly atmosphere is in danger as long as the core users are engaged. Omnimaga was much more friendly in October 2010 when it had 12K posts a month than in 2014 when it had 2K.
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

novenary

IRC isn't that active IMO, but that might be because most of it is when I sleep. :P

Dream of Omnimaga

Most of it seemed during afternoon, but I didn't check in a few days.

Also I edited my last post with another quote
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

novenary

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on December 05, 2015, 04:17:39 PM
Quote from: Streetwalrus on December 05, 2015, 10:36:38 AMI like the community being small, growth would make the atmosphere less friendly.
I would rather see CodeWalrus community not shrink month after month to the point where there's nobody left. I don't think friendly atmosphere is in danger as long as the core users are engaged. Omnimaga was much more friendly in October 2010 when it had 12K posts a month than in 2014 when it had 2K.
It really doesn't look like it's what's happening to me though, the core users are still around.

Dream of Omnimaga

The graph says otherwise, at least if we compare to last year:



If I check the gray line correctly, on December 4 2014 we averaged at 73 per day, versus 49 this year. Activity only started to drop during the last few weeks before holidays. Does it mean that holiday this year will do this much worse than last year?
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

Caleb Hansberry

I'm one of the offenders who is on IRC but not the forums. The reason is IRC is more casual and I just enjoy hanging out with the people who happen to be hanging out in the Codewalrus channel. That is the reason I think codewalrus should not close: the people are people not numbers, and I like them. (and hey the activity is always better than calebnet and bosaiknet anyway :>)
  • Calculators owned: TI-82, TI-83, TI-83+SE, TI-84+SE, TI-85, TI-89, TI-99/4A
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: HP Portable Plus 110, Toshiba T3100, Toshiba T5200, GRiD 1660, TI-99/4A, Apple IIgs, and much more than I can list here

novenary

This is very true, I've been hanging out on more IRC channels lately because IRC is less formal than forums (even though CW isn't very formal even on the forums), and for getting help in some cases it's pretty useful. I'm always reluctant to sending an email or joining a forum for that reason when I know I don't plan to stick around.

Dream of Omnimaga

I guess I am more a forum person overall. My issue with IRC is people there can be cs while on forums  they think more before typing (there's even a preview button).

Also, it's easier to find Nspire Lua or TI-84+ BASIC help on a forum than via IRC logs.
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

Travis

To be honest, I didn't even notice that the forum was "dead". Even ignoring DJ Omnimaga's posts, there's a lot more activity here than, say, the ticalc.org mailing lists/Google Groups forums, but we haven't shut those down. ;) Because every now and then, someone does post something, and in a lot of cases, someone sees it and gives some helpful responses. Same with the #ti IRC channel.

I know of at least a couple of people who have benefited from codewalr.us today and yesterday. That seems worth it to me.
  • Calculators owned: TI-81, TI-82, TI-85, TI-86, TI-89, TI-89 Titanium, 2 × HP 50g
ticalc.org staff member—http://www.ticalc.org/

c4ooo

If it closes, where would we all go?
Even if it has little ppl now, codewalrus still has more ppl then other calculator sites. (Although it would be fun if everyone just migrated to omni overnight XD ) Anyway, as i was saying, if cw closed it might lead to a small spike of postign on othersites, but it would only break the community farther.

Dream of Omnimaga

It's not about being dead, but rather diminished activity year by year, from the current trend. I agree that people can benefit from CW, though. I just hope we're not headed to something close to ghost town status next fall. Without user interaction or with a 20 hours period per day with none at all, the community vibe gets lost.
  • Calculators owned: TI-82 Advanced Edition Python TI-84+ TI-84+CSE TI-84+CE TI-84+CEP TI-86 TI-89T cfx-9940GT fx-7400G+ fx 1.0+ fx-9750G+ fx-9860G fx-CG10 HP 49g+ HP 39g+ HP 39gs (bricked) HP 39gII HP Prime G1 HP Prime G2 Sharp EL-9600C
  • Consoles, mobile devices and vintage computers owned: Huawei P30 Lite, Moto G 5G, Nintendo 64 (broken), Playstation, Wii U

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