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Fuwanovel Thoughts - Quarter 3


OriginalRen

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Please note that any names and or likeness to descriptions of people in this post are not meant to be offensive in anyway. I mention names for the sole purpose of getting points across, not to tell you your opinion and way of forum use is inferior. Also, please note that not everything I say will reflect how you feel. I am merely posting the things I see from my point of view, though this may not entirely reflect how you feel at this point in time. That is all.

 

Fuwanovel. It's a site that has been around for quite some time now, and with all the recent changes that have happened in the past year or so, things have slowly started to go downhill. I don't want to beat around the bush and try to write something witty, I just want to state my thoughts about how I feel this site is changing and what is currently happening to lead it down its own path of destruction.

 

Let me start by saying that this site is falling apart, and very quickly. Old members who guided this forum have slowly started to leave the site due to lack of interest, and new members are too "young" to understand the intricacies of the site. I understand that Tay has a perfect excuse for being away due to personal life issues on the island he is currently studying on, but what I do not understand is the amount of work that is being done to the site otherwise. Let me just cut right to how I feel.

 

First of all...

 

I am sick of the fact that the front site has not been updated. For the love of God, there is no excuse at this point. Nayleen, you took over Checkmate's job for the sole purpose of being that guy who works on the site when Tay is out (which he usually is) and yet all you are doing is putting it off more and more every fucking day. Don't tell me you are busy; you are sitting on Steam playing video games and clearly have the time to update the site. There is no fucking excuse at this point! People are donating to this site, and you refuse to even work on it. If there is a personal life issue that is happening, at least let people know because at this point all I see is complete laziness and lack of interest.

 

So, we have Tay who is busy, and Nayleen who has apparently given up on Fuwanovel and left the site. Emi and other members like Kendjin and Rooke have left because nothing is happening, and a lot of those guys were the driving force for changes occurring on the site. Eclipsed and a lot of other active board moderators have started going into their own social cliques and don't give a flying fuck about the site at this point and its changes, dividing Fuwanovel with the confession's thread, the Love Live thread, and chat. Kaguya himself, someone who always complained about helping in the leadership department, has now resorted to posting in his PMs and giving a flying fuck about moderation. In other words, this place has no community anymore. There is no sense of togetherness anymore on the forums, and it's both sad and pathetic. You want to use college life as an excuse? Bullshit. People were attending school last year and nothing like this was happening. Most of you are freshman, and after going to college for 5 years myself with a double major mind you, your 1st year is pathetically easy regardless of your major. You have time to use this site for 1 hour a day at most and still socialize with others around campus.

 

Am I the only person who actually cares about this community being together anymore? I have my TeamSpeak and group of friends, but even I try to desperately unite old and new members with a variety of activities and events. I am desperately trying to find something that will unite the community again, yet it seems nobody fucking gives a shit about what this site does anymore. Do they still lurk in the shadows? Of course, the loli ban on the site proved that when my TeamSpeak filled itself with 26 members and old members returned to post in that thread, people are still here. Yet nobody gives a flying fuck about what is happening, and at this point it's making it extremely difficult to continue pushing forward. And I get it, even I find myself doing the same thing others are doing as well. I start something and instantly give up on it because I know how much of a waste of time it is, so don't worry I am to blame as well.

 

For the love of God, we got a donation system. It's pathetic and it's sad that we still don't have a stable leader to guide the site when real life situations occur. Tay has an excuse, but nobody else really does. At least Tay admits what is going on and shows his love for this site constantly. Everyone else just says "fuck it" and abandons it without a word. That's fine, but it makes it damn near impossible to do anything anymore.

 

Entertainment and streams aren't working. I remember when 30+ members signed up actively for games and other community activities. Now we have nothing. No logo contests, no participation, nothing. I am not mad that what I am doing isn't working, but I am furious that this site is still sitting where it is this far into 2015. It's pathetic, and I want to say that I believe Fuwanovel is a dead shell. Sadly it isn't because of the changes, but rather because of the lack of interest anyone has on this site anymore. That's fine, but let's just admit the truth at this point - Fuwanovel is going downhill, and unless something is done and people actively work toward making it better, it's finished.

 

I apologize for this post and for being upset, but deep down all I feel is regret and sadness for seeing such a site fall to the wayside and realize nothing has happened for the past year. Update the front site. There is no fucking excuse for this anymore.

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Oh, is it this time of the year again?  :Teeku:

 

As for the community being split and cliquish, kinda seems like business as usual to me and the typical "forum wistfulness" from older members that is perpetually rehashed whenever any internet community has a little time under its belt. That said, your first and last points shouldn't be so easily dismissed. It *is* a little frustrating that the front site redesign still hasn't been completed and it is a little sad that my first thought in response to that is "that's just the speed fuwanovel moves at." Though, as far as I know, the front site redesign is being done in goodwill - so you get what you pay for.

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Oh, is it this time of the year again?  :Teeku:

 

As for the community being split and cliquish, kinda seems like business as usual to me and the typical "forum wistfulness" from older members that is perpetually rehashed whenever any internet community has a little time under its belt. That said, your first and last points shouldn't be so easily dismissed. It *is* a little frustrating that the front site redesign still hasn't been completed and it is a little sad that my first thought in response to that is "that's just the speed fuwanovel moves at." Though, as far as I know, the front site redesign is being done in goodwill - so you get what you pay for.

 

Nayleen isn't working on it. Hand it off, or let people know real life is becoming a thing, because all we can do is sit and hope something happens. It's pathetic that nothing is being done.

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Let's be honest, what's even the point of the new front site? Yeah we kinda need one, but will it really make any difference? Will it save this place from the current nothingness that we're going through?

 

It shows a willingness that people still care about this fucking site. It shows that the people who stepped up to make these changes care about this site. Simple as that.

 

If that's the mindset people have, why even remove torrents or ban lolis? We did it because we care about this site, yet if we can't even update it, what was the point of changing anything?

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I think that there are many users who are doing their best to keep fuwa as it was or even make it better, old and new users, so it's a bit unfair to all of them to say that you are the only one that tries to keep the community together or that cares about it even if what you are saying is partially true still is unfair.

 

Regarding everything else I agree.

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Please note that any names and or likeness to descriptions of people in this post are not meant to be offensive in anyway. I mention names for the sole purpose of getting points across, not to tell you your opinion and way of forum use is inferior. Also, please note that not everything I say will reflect how you feel. I am merely posting the things I see from my point of view, though this may not entirely reflect how you feel at this point in time. That is all.

 

Fuwanovel. It's a site that has been around for quite some time now, and with all the recent changes that have happened in the past year or so, things have slowly started to go downhill. I don't want to beat around the bush and try to write something witty, I just want to state my thoughts about how I feel this site is changing and what is currently happening to lead it down its own path of destruction.

 

Let me start by saying that this site is falling apart, and very quickly. Old members who guided this forum have slowly started to leave the site due to lack of interest, and new members are too "young" to understand the intricacies of the site. 

 

Am I the only person who actually cares about this community being together anymore? I have my TeamSpeak and group of friends, but even I try to desperately unite old and new members with a variety of activities and events. I am desperately trying to find something that will unite the community again, yet it seems nobody fucking gives a shit about what this site does anymore. Do they still lurk in the shadows? Of course, the loli ban on the site proved that when my TeamSpeak filled itself with 26 members and old members returned to post in that thread, people are still here. Yet nobody gives a flying fuck about what is happening, and at this point it's making it extremely difficult to continue pushing forward. And I get it, even I find myself doing the same thing others are doing as well. I start something and instantly give up on it because I know how much of a waste of time it is, so don't worry I am to blame as well.

 

Entertainment and streams aren't working. I remember when 30+ members signed up actively for games and other community activities. Now we have nothing. No logo contests, no participation, nothing. I am not mad that what I am doing isn't working, but I am furious that this site is still sitting where it is this far into 2015. It's pathetic, and I want to say that I believe Fuwanovel is a dead shell. Sadly it isn't because of the changes, but rather because of the lack of interest anyone has on this site anymore. That's fine, but let's just admit the truth at this point - Fuwanovel is going downhill, and unless something is done and people actively work toward making it better, it's finished.

 

I apologize for this post and for being upset, but deep down all I feel is regret and sadness for seeing such a site fall to the wayside and realize nothing has happened for the past year. Update the front site. There is no fucking excuse for this anymore.

 

I won't be commenting on any administration issues as I don't know much on that end.

 

With the Love Live Thread, Fuwanovel Confessions, etc., I definitely feel a gap in the community. When ever I check "my content" those two are typically at the top of recently updated. While the "What are you playing/listening" to threads get attention as well, it doesn't seem like other topics or activities are going on. 

 

When I went ahead and posted about how it would be nice if the Steam group were to be more active, it was met with either "meh" or "sounds nice". The Steam curator does seem to be updated which is nice, but no other activity between the members seem to be going on. Whether this is because people mostly play single player or as was stated in the Steam thread, there are other individual communities people are already involved in with Fuwa. While the Steam group has nothing to directly do with this site I feel as if it provides a decent example of people on Fuwa not actively participating in being a "community". People, of coarse, still post and certain threads that pop up are interesting to read, but it does feel a bit empty.

 

Basically, I feel more inclined to your position on how the forum is currently operating. It does feel like beating a dead horse with a stick at this point though. IIRC, other members have made more or less the same thread as this one yet nothing really happens. 

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It shows a willingness that people still care about this fucking site. It shows that the people who stepped up to make these changes care about this site. Simple as that.

 

If that's the mindset people have, why even remove torrents or ban lolis? We did it because we care about this site, yet if we can't even update it, what was the point of changing anything?

 

I agree with you regarding the "show interest" part, but what then? I feel like you're probably right about most things you said, but I can't really see the front site changing much. Maybe I'm straying too much from your point, but I just felt like this was a relevant thought to keep in mind.

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And I came here expecting a circlejerk thread. Oh how wrong I was.

 

This doesn't seem to be too different from any other forum. People are just going around and doing their own thing like always. People leave and people come like anywhere else, they have their own lives to live so it's expected. We don't always need a PM cult or contests or anything like that. This just a place to chill and talk about VN's and anime and shit like that. We don't always need to be united as a community, just be talking about VN's and being friendly to each other we already accomplish what we want to as a community. If people don't want to participate in events or contests then they won't, that's just the way it goes.

 

Though I guess I understand your frustration on how the community seems to be dividing into smaller groups (Love Live, that PM cult thing etc.) As someone who doesn't bode well with talking to people (I have pretty bad social anxiety) it does make it really hard to feel active in the community since everyone is in their own little circle. I guess I don't really have a solution to that though since it's a lot of other peoples individual choices that makes this happen. Like I could sit down and brainstorm some ideas for the hell of it but my presence in the community is pretty small so I doubt it'd do anything.

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Eclipsed and a lot of other active board moderators have started going into their own social clicks and don't give a flying fuck about the site at this point and its changes, dividing Fuwanovel with the confession's thread, the Love Live thread, and chat.

I got mentioned!@#

~~

Agreed with monkeysrumble, people are just going around doing their own thing and that's just how it is. You make it sound like the clicks just started happening recently, but it's been there since day one.

 

You're right in that I don't really give a damn about the site nowadays though. I did care, back in Q1 ~ Q2 with all my shitty suggestions and polls and shoutbox front page shenanigans, but it soon became clear with all the snark I got and with the higher ups becoming more busy and whatnot that things simply weren't gonna happen until the dreaded soonTM and so screw it, it's woot woot time.

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And I came here expecting a circlejerk thread. Oh how wrong I was.

 

This doesn't seem to be too different from any other forum. People are just going around and doing their own thing like always. People leave and people come like anywhere else, they have their own lives to live so it's expected. We don't always need a PM cult or contests or anything like that. This just a place to chill and talk about VN's and anime and shit like that. We don't always need to be united as a community, just be talking about VN's and being friendly to each other we already accomplish what we want to as a community. If people don't want to participate in events or contests then they won't, that's just the way it goes.

 

Though I guess I understand your frustration on how the community seems to be dividing into smaller groups (Love Live, that PM cult thing etc.) As someone who doesn't bode well with talking to people (I have pretty bad social anxiety) it does make it really hard to feel active in the community since everyone is in their own little circle. I guess I don't really have a solution to that though since it's a lot of other peoples individual choices that makes this happen. Like I could sit down and brainstorm some ideas for the hell of it but my presence in the community is pretty small so I doubt it'd do anything.

 

I feel like showing interest is already quite a lot considering how things are right now, but naturally we need those in charge to make things truly happen, otherwise no amount of effort will make a difference.

 

I got mentioned!@#

 

 Eclipsed in a nutshell.  :Kappa:

 

I honestly don't think this kind of comments should be made on a serious discussion thread, much less coming from staff members.

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I used to have a club for a university anime club way back and for the first few years it was very popular in my last year at university however I noticed that the forums just weren't popular anymore. A lot of people simply didn't have time for them. Sure people lurked but they didn't want to take the time to post things for whatever reason. Fuwanovel seems to be exhibiting signs of forum fatigue. Not really sure if there is a fix for it. The one thing I can think of that might help is organizing non-forum based events although even that might do little to nothing. People simply grow tired. As long as the forum remains semi-active it will still get traffic though. 

 

Fuwanovel lost a shit ton of its traffic with the torrent issue and then quite a bit more with loligeddon (possibly not even for the loli factor but rather the censorship factor). Fuwanovel has made some questionable choices but even then it's quite possible this would still be happening. Forum Fatigue set in. The reason I believe that your games are not getting as much traffic is that you did them too much to the point people just got tired of them. Youtube content creators see a similar thing happen. If they release too many videos in a span of time their viewer count often goes down because there are too many things to watch...sometimes this means they don't watch any of them because they are so indecisive that they can't choose.

 

So yeah Fuwanovel I think is suffering from a few different types of fatigue at the moment. If you're going to try another game in the future or even a stream my suggestion is to separate it out a bit. You were not the only person doing forum games a while back we also had stray cat and batman so three game creators and multiple games...people just got fatigued by them. At least this is my theory who knows whether it's even close to right though.

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I'll say the biggest thing that annoys me: we need an active admin who actually cares about this site. Tay cares a lot, but he has a lot of personal issues. Every other admin we have had doesn't give a rat's ass about Fuwanovel, leading it to this shit. Nobody shows interest enough to make sure people get shit done.

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I feel like showing interest is already quite a lot considering how things are right now, but naturally we need those in charge to make things truly happen, otherwise no amount of effort will make a difference.

 

But what are the staff members suppose to do to unite the community? It's kind of hard to sit and think about what can be done about it. A lot of the staffs "jobs" is to really sit down and moderate boards and make sure things don't get out of hand. If I can think of any ideas in my head it'd be to make guilds in video games that people in the community are interested in playing together, and that still doesn't mean people would participate.

 

 

Fuwanovel lost a shit ton of its traffic with the torrent issue and then quite a bit more with loligeddon

 

Was loligeddon really that bad? I thought it was a ban on NSFW loli images which is kind of understandable. Was there something else to it?

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But what are the staff members suppose to do to unite the community? It's kind of hard to sit and think about what can be done about it. A lot of the staffs "jobs" is to really sit down and moderate boards and make sure things don't get out of hand. If I can think of any ideas in my head it'd be to make guilds in video games that people in the community are interested in playing together, and that still doesn't mean people would participate.

 

 

 

Was loligeddon really that bad? I thought it was a ban on NSFW loli images which is kind of understandable. Was there something else to it?

 

Get an admin that fucking cares about the site when Tay is away on personal issues and who makes people work and do shit if they are interested.

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But what are the staff members suppose to do to unite the community? It's kind of hard to sit and think about what can be done about it. A lot of the staffs "jobs" is to really sit down and moderate boards and make sure things don't get out of hand. If I can think of any ideas in my head it'd be to make guilds in video games that people in the community are interested in playing together, and that still doesn't mean people would participate.

 

 

 

Was loligeddon really that bad? I thought it was a ban on NSFW loli images which is kind of understandable. Was there something else to it?

 

From my understanding it isn't just the fact that it was loli, rather the idea of censorship.

 

Also, say a few of us played FF14, made a guild, and the people who play FF14 actively participate. In that situation it still seems to me like creating yet another sub-community within Fuwanovel, not a whole.

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Can we not call "cliques" "clicks"? :sachi:

 

Maybe I'm just dense but besides the fact that both Tay and Nay have been more absent than usual and we seem to have lost some people to the recent changes not much has, well, changed. Most people still stick to their little groups, some of which have died and were replaced by new ones.

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Can we not call "cliques" "clicks"? :sachi:

 

Maybe I'm just dense but besides the fact that both Tay and Nay have been more absent than usual and we seem to have lost some people to the recent changes not much has, well, changed. Most people still stick to their little groups, some of which have died and were replaced by new ones.

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I am sick of the fact that the front site has not been updated. For the love of God, there is no excuse at this point. Nayleen, you took over Checkmate's job for the sole purpose of being that guy who works on the site when Tay is out (which he usually is) and yet all you are doing is putting it off more and more every fucking day. Don't tell me you are busy; you are sitting on Steam playing video games and clearly have the time to update the site. There is no fucking excuse at this point! People are donating to this site, and you refuse to even work on it. If there is a personal life issue that is happening, at least let people know because at this point all I see is complete laziness and lack of interest.

 

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But what are the staff members suppose to do to unite the community? It's kind of hard to sit and think about what can be done about it. A lot of the staffs "jobs" is to really sit down and moderate boards and make sure things don't get out of hand. If I can think of any ideas in my head it'd be to make guilds in video games that people in the community are interested in playing together, and that still doesn't mean people would participate.

 

Was loligeddon really that bad? I thought it was a ban on NSFW loli images which is kind of understandable. Was there something else to it?

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As one of the "old" members of the site who has basically gone from being a semi-active lurker (that's an oxymoron, right?  I'm pretty sure that's an oxymoron... but, that's what I'm gonna call myself!) to an active poster in the Reviews super-secret forum and PMs mostly in regard to the running of FuwaReviews, I'm sort of in the category of "gave up on the forums, but not the site."

 

I check the site every day for two reasons:  One, to see if there are any new posts that may actually be relevant to my interests.  Unfortunately, with the history not scrolling back as far as it used to, sometimes I miss a few things here and there, and that sucks, but if I don't see it instantly, I'm very likely going to miss it.  And then when I do post on something, then I get sidetracked or forget about it or "promise I'm going to do it later only to not do it" (my most recent example being that I reserved a spot in Ren's thief game, even saying that I was going to apply for it on Skype, only to completely get sidetracked by work), then I don't post responses to anything that may need responding to.  It's a commitment I can't make, and commitments I should avoid making, so I tend to stay away from things I don't feel strongly about.

 

What I do do is spend some time in our reviews subforum.  Anytime there's a new post in that forum, I'm instantly reading it.  I don't care if it's Bats or Palas or Exenorate or whoever (Down<3) updating their status post or if we have hold of a new review key or what have you, I read that, because that's what I like to do on this site.  I like doing FuwaReviews - I like the business side of doing all of it.  I like working with Flutterz on making sure my reviews are as perfect as they can be.  I like trolling Bats when he is drunk and posting Minute Reviews that are a paragraph in length and have more jokes than actual content.  I like to get people's opinions on what games we should consider high priority.

 

I do what I enjoy on the site.  Unfortunately a lot of that is behind-the-scenes work, which sucks, but it's what I enjoy.

 

I would hope people act with this same mentality.  If they aren't having fun, why are they here?  When the torrents were removed, we lost that crowd.  Oh well, they went to [removed] and now they sit on the forums "hey x game is released where the hell is my ddl of it wtf admin".  Then the "Forum Cleanup" policy went into effect, and that sent a lot of people packing because they were worried that they were going to get banned because they post something that may be considered suggestive.  That's not exactly the intent, but I understand where they're coming from, and I also understand why the Administrators would want to take that route.

 

We can't please everybody.  That's impossible.  Somebody is going to show up and ask "WHAR TORRENT", realize we don't have those anymore, and never come back.  Somebody is going to post something that crosses the line in a spoiler and not realize we can't do that, get warned, and leave.  That's the natural flow of forums.  Same with cliques, moderation, and members.  Natural flow of forums.

 

Spoiler regarding a similar forum that may trigger people.  Don't click if you're easily triggered.

Spoiler

This forum is going exactly like Cartoon-World.  It used to primarily serve as a place to get and discuss things (in this case, anime and cartoons, mainly), and when those things began to disappear (3rd party links were banned unless they were official, random forums started to close because moderation deemed them no longer necessary), so did the community.  And eventually, the forums were ditched and the original intent of the site returned to the forefront, to provide the latest and greatest.

 

Fuwanovel could very well turn into that.  That is also the natural flow of forums.

 

And if it does, I'll continue to run FuwaReviews until it, too, is killed by admin.

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