Get rid of useless forums!!!!!!

[Ura]

People get busy, some people like myself don't play magic anymore and thus don't say anything out of the off topic forum even though we keep tabs on the whole site. Others just pack up their bags and leave due to various reasons.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the CPA, theres just nothing to talk about, magic is about as sterile as its ever been as far as I can tell so there's little to stir up the nest.
I don't think the CPA was ever made to be a dojo-2 or another MTGnews as Gizmo would so love it to be, so the CPA really hasn't changed. The big surge in membership we got after other major sites shut down was expected, but those people weren't going to find the same things here as in the sites that closed so they eventually all left to try and find what they were looking for. For a long time the CPA has been more about community then magic itself. Magic is just the thread that binds us together, but its the community that keeps many non-players such as myself around despite our silence.

nothing lasts forever

 

[Chaos Turtle]

Sorry, seems to me that Gizmo is right.

There were lots of opportunities for change, but every small change brought scores of complaints. With all the exposure from the Adkinson (at al) interviews, we really had a chance to capitalize, modernize the look and accessibility of the site, and no one seemed interested enough to make it happen.

Heck, I tried for awhile, but it became too frustrating, with a lot of work for a little return, and the feeling that no one really cared anyhow.

There has been too much emphasis on maintaining the status quo for too long.

So it looks for now like the site isn't going to grow much anytime soon. Does that mean it has to fade into oblivion? Not necessarily. As long as people keep coming here and hanging out, there will still be a community. But I think that this community's impact on the Magic scene is next to nothing now.

There are a few extremely dedicated people here, and as long as the server space is still available, I'm sure those folks will keep things going for as long as there's a core audience that still participates.

By the way...I still play.

 

[Purple_jester]

What exactly does it take for a community to make an impact on the Magic scene?

Professional players to provide game and strategy analyses? Good writers? More articles? A snazzier look to the site itself? More tournament reports? Insiders in WOTC R&D?

Work with me a little here because I really have no clue.

Is there some reason why the CPA can't change the status quo now?

 

[Spiderman]

Everything here seemed to pick up at night EST...

I totally agree with Gizmo. I don't think this place will "pick up" as others are predicting; why should it? Hardly anyone posted anything about Torment. Was it that bland? We hardly get any new members and if they post in the New Members section, they rarely post after that. As many people have pointed out, they've become busy with other things. They could always come back; I have a little after 2 years of not playing Magic yet keeping with the site, but by then it might be "too late".

I don't think the site will actually "die" as in the url will no longer be valid (until Ed decides that to happen), but it's been coasting along and not growing for at least a year now. I'm on around 8 hours a day, 4-5 days a weekm checking in around every hour, so I think I have a pretty good feel for the general atmosphere.

A lot of people seem to like the casual atmosphere here and it's great and all, but it stagnates if no one new is coming in to bring fresh views; everyone knows a lot of where other people stand on stuff right now.

I liked Chaos Turtle's work way in the beginning and thought it was a good step to becoming a "good Magic site"; who wants to visit the front page when it's only updated once a week or so? But like he said, it's a lot of work to go out trolling for stuff; I don't have time to do it though I can put up submitted articles here.

I'm not sure what you mean, PJ. Are you trying to say the CPA as a community needs to have an impact on Magic or something?

 

[DÛke]

...believe, Spiderman, that Purple Girl is saying that...why is it too late to make this a more attractive place for visitors and new members?

Obviously, Gizmo and Chaos Turtle both say that it *could have been* a more active place, but is it too late to make such a place?

You've already somewhat answered the question though:

Spiderman:

...it's a lot of work to go out trolling for stuff; I don't have time to do it...

But are other factors to becoming a more active site?

Gizmo:

The decision was taken not to make that step up...

And what was that decision again? I seriously missed it.

Gizmo:

I wanted the CPA to be the biggest and best site on the net - that vision was rejected.

The "vision" was rejected -- what vision? I really did miss out on this stuff didn't I?

Unless he's talking about being rejected as a moderator/front-page supervisor or something...I dunno...

This place *will* fall apart. I consider myself to be an active member, and I've not been on that much. There's just nothing to say or do, and I have quit Magic, so that adds up to. I'll give this place 2 years before it totally becomes completely a nothing unless something happens...

Zadok, Duel, Cateran Emperor, Darsh, Multani, YellowJacket, and many other "regular" members" haven't been on much if at all lately. We are actually losing many more members than we are gaining...

 

[Ransac]

Honestly, I think that all of these forums is a GOOD idea. When I look at new message boards, I tend to think that if they have less than eight forums, there's not enough info being talked about on that site for me to bother. And, if there is, the info is clumped into confusing spaces. That's what I like about the CPA. If you want to find a thread with a certain topic, ou SHOULD know which forum to go to.

Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Spiderman]

Well, I think in general, for this place to be thriving, it needs to have more Magic talk/analysis of decks and cards. I'm always partial to rumors and behind the scenes stories too, but the other stuff is the meat, I think.

I think perhaps one of the problems is the mods/Founders themselves are not that active and it trickles down. Isty says he's been playing Magic Online, but I haven't really heard from Zadok anymore. TomB comes on but has also said he's not really playing; perhaps it's the same with theorgg. And that's pretty much it. If you look the 'Forum Leaders' link on the bottom right of the Forums page, you'll see about two-thirds of the people don't really make their presence known.

I'm a bit hazy on the decisons that Gizmo is talking about; from what I remember, no actual decision was made that we're not stepping up but instead, we decided to let things coast as they were and that's what ended up as the result.

And I agree about all of those missing faces... I'm glad PJ came back for a while though

 

[rakso]

Well...

I've been here for a pretty long time, even if it's not as long as the real founders, but my problem is that I don't know what I'll find in CPA every time I browse it.

I think the identity got all muddled up for people who haven't been here since way back.

 

[Gizmo]

Well the incident I was specifically thinking of was the hoo-hah about rejecting/editing front page articles. I put forward the point that if people actually put some effort into writing their articles, and editors actually put some effort into critiqueing those articles and if necessary requesting they were rewritten or dropped altogether - if all that happened, the CPA could take a quantum leap and become a seriously important site. At the time it had a high profile, lots of new members, and the place was buzzing more than it had ever been - the perfect opportunity to push the CPA to a tier-one site.

The response?

If people actually had to put some effort into making sure the articles they wrote were any good?
They said they wouldnt bother writing them in the first place.

If people actually had to recieve constructive criticism about the articles they submitted, so that they could be improved?
They said they wouldnt bother writing them in the first place.

I put forwards a very positive vision of what I thought the CPA could become, and was met by almost unanimous votes of "yeah, maybe", or "kinda, I guess", or "well so long as some else does it cos I dont want to".

Around that time, one editor (i forget who) quit for being flamed simply for rejecting an article, and then came back when everyone had decided they were just going to carry along as lazily and sloppily as before because, quite simply, they didnt want to put the effort in to improve the CPA.
At this time an application by me to volunteer to be the person who would edit the front page articles WAS rejected... but not by Ed who told me he personally was in favour of me being put in a position where I could influence the site. Ed told me that, as a result of the recent fighting over articles being rejected/having suggestions added, he had asked several founder members and that THEY had rejected having me as an editor.

When I said this site will die, I didnt mean the URL will cease. But there is a critical mass of members required to support a message board, and once you get below that it simply implodes. I`m afraid that number was passed several months ago, and as Duke points out the rate of member loss is far more rapid than you might suspect - most of the hardcore CPAers who ACTUALLY PLAY MAGIC have already gone.
Thus no real magic content.
Thus any magic content put on here gets minimal response.
Thus people are less likely to post magic content.
And thus, and thus, and thus...

I dont think the CPA can recover from this. Because, in the end, nobody actually cares enough to make it happen.
Too many people, as has been made apparent on this thread, are happy to maintain the status quo precisely where it is, because for them the CPA hasnt really changed as the membership dropped off. They long stopped caring about Magic, so thats no concern, and the threads they were posting on, usually in Off Topic, were only ever posted on by the same five people who are still around now.

This post is beginning to feel awfully like a post mortem, so I`ll stop now.

 

[Spiderman]

I totally agree with that assessment. Harsh, but honest.

I seem to remember the front page thingie but not the exact details (although I'm pretty sure it was Isty who got flamed for rejecting an article). But what you seem to be saying is that it was the authors who had a problem if the submission rules got tightened? Not the editors? I got a bit lost there.

And if that's the case, was the CPA supposed to find other authors who were willing to work under those rules? Was that what you were trying to say?

For the record, if I was a mod when this came up (and I think I was), I think I voted "Didn't care" for you. I'm pretty sure I didn't vote against you but like I said, my memory's hazy on this so I might have; checking the past would probably clear that up if it ever came down to it.

But to be honest, the only reason I could see people not voting for you were fears of turning this into a tourney site (since you were more active in that area back then) which I guess people didn't want the main emphasis being. Perhaps it was a mistake, who knows...

 

[Gizmo]

Well, to be honest, I wasnt mad about not getting editor. I was disappointed, because I felt it was a bad move for the future of the CPA to reject the more strictly editted and higher-quality frontpage.
But assigning an editor with a mandate of creating better articles for the front page would only have been step two. Step one was for the CPA authors to decide they wanted to write good articles not bad ones. Pretty much to a man they instead chose to sulk at the suggestion that there was anything wrong with their articles, and threaten not to write any more in future.

No I wasnt trying to say the CPA should have found other authors. When the current authors refused to change, and nobody else was willing to step up to write better articles... then really the decision had been made.

 

[arhar]

Heh, Gizmo just may be right.... Just because no one has posted "Hey, you're wrong! I care about the future of this site, I want to make CPA the best Magic site on the 'net!" Well, I guess I fall under the category of people who quit playing Magic and moved to other things... And mostly, I come here to see if anything controversial has been posted in the Off-Topic and to argue about it Would I be happy if somebody tries to make this site bigger and better? Hell yeah. Do I have the will, the time, and the energy to volunteer to be one of those people, being the author or the editor? No As I'm sure the case is with a lot of other people, there's just too many things going on "in real life" that prevent me from doing that. So I guess we'll just remain here and post inner jokes until everybody leaves

 

[Spiderman]

See, I think the thing was that we really haven't had any "regular" writers so when the suggestion was made to tighten them up, no one else could pick up the slack. Unfortunately.

Of course, it also takes peopl actually playing Magic to really write about it, which we already said we don't have much of, and I guess money helps (Gizmo and Zadok wrote for Star City at some point; don't know if they're still doing it and don't know if they got paid but I always thought it curious that Zadok would write for them and not the CPA where he was a co-founder )

 

[DÛke]

...

Wow, I recall all those incidents now.

Yes, it was Istanbul who got flamed. Actually, I also recall an argument (maybe more than an argument) between Istanbul and Arhar, because Istanbul had edited Arhar's article or something.

Basically, the point is -- this place is "too casual." The Off-Topic slowly but gradually grew in popularity until it became the leading forum. Focus slowly shifted from Magic into other things; soon enough, the focus on Magic was extremely minimal, which eventually drove members away.

Yeah...I just noticed, most of the people who left (Zadok, YellowJacket, Duel, Cateran Emperor...) are still playing Magic, most likely, and they're the devoted ones too. Note that those particular people *didn't* have much Off-Topic activity in the first place. As the Off-Topic matters grew, the members faded.


The CPA, as seen now, is *not* a Magic site at all. Those people left are the ones we actually *know*. I can imagine dozens of people who we didn't really know that left after easily observing how Magic lacks real existence in here.

To give the CPA back it's "life":


Great amount of card analysis, and deck constructions must be made. The front page must be taken care of. So much Magic related work must be done in order to get out of the shadow of the Off-Topic matters.

When that happens, we'll get members interested in Magic and finding Magic as opposed to finding nothing. We can write great articles for even other sites -- people would see it, they become interested in this writer from that "one site" (Th CPA), and they join here, expecting more great articles, and great subject matter. Zadok actually did that when he wrote to StarCityGames -- everyone knew he was "from the CPA." Hell, that's how I knew about the CPA.

We can't have great articles if we don't have Magic players, and we don't have any real Magic players here. Maybe few. Very few. In conclusion, there isn't much hope until we get 20 new members who just love Magic, including 3-5 members who can write legendary articles that will have everyone drooling for more...

We could change this into a coffee shop place, so we can reach audiences who are just looking for a (almost) friendly site to hang out in. This site can't pick up on Magic again, but it can pick up more people who'd just like to "hang out." Articles would be about life in general -- music, politics, relationships...anything. Lets face it, this site is *already* like that...it's sorta lost between Magic and life. Obviously, it can't be both. I know people who have wanted to join this place but never really thought twice about it because it was still labeled a Magic site, and so they thought they have to know the game. My brother, my sister, and one of my cousins were interested. I have 2 friends that were interested too. That's 5 people right there just looking for the "hang out." Almost everyone here is capable of great creative writing; just because we're not using these potential abilities we actually *have* to write Magic articles, we could use them to write other things!

The CPA will become a ghost town, unless we move the other direction now -- make it a "club" or something. I'm being serious too...

I don't even know why we're labeled a Magic site anymore when a NEW freakin' set hits the stores and nobody even gives a crap.

The CPA as a Magic place -- forget it.

 

[Spiderman]

I don't think it was arhar's article, I think it was someone who didn't frequent the forums. But I could be wrong

Yeah...I just noticed, most of the people who left (Zadok, YellowJacket, Duel, Cateran Emperor...) are still playing Magic, most likely, and they're the devoted ones too. Note that those particular people *didn't* have much Off-Topic activity in the first place

Are you sure? The only ones I could hazard a guess who's still playing is Zadok and CE; I haven't heard from Duel in a LONG while (half a year, maybe) and YJ never said why he stopped coming; personal reasons in real life or stopped playing Magic, who knows.

I thought you heard about the CPA from MTGNews...

 

[Ransac]

Idea.


Not a big thing, but I feel that the Trading Post is in the wrong place. It's the only thing in that section that directly deals with magic. Maybe it's placement on the forums page would be better dealt with in CPA Stuff, since everyone who trades on it is a CPA member.

How does this deal with this topic, you ask. Psychologically. The trading post isn't as hot as it once was. In many sites, the trading post is the hottest part. By placing it with Magic Related items, the people that come to this site solely for Magic, some of which might not scroll down because they're looking at the Magic stuff at the top of the page.

Make a link to the trading post on the actual main page that looks bigger/flashier than the rest of the links.

However, my suggestion might not be worth listening to. So, whatever.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Baskil]

Trust me, this place is doing fine.

If only based on the fact that even though I haven't really posted here in probably nine months or more, all of the major regulars have sticked around. And with *all* BBs, if the hard-core people stay, newbies will come, and the posting will ebb and flow. Nothing to be worried about, this time of year is usually a stagnation point all around.

 

[Demon]

Wow, I didn't realize that so many people from the CPA have dropped, or are going to drop, Magic! That seems so odd to me, I can't even fathom giving up on my favourite pastime!

I love this site! Joined it for the Magic, and stay for the Magic. I visiti other forums, such as MTGnews, but even the casual areas of those sites are still really tournament oriented. That's why I keep coming back.

I haven't been much of a presence, because mostly I just see what's being said and offer my opinion if I think it'll actually help. I've been doing a lot more of that lately, I guess I've finally realized that I CAN contribute and not feel like an idiot or getted flamed for bad ideas, unlike other places. Another reason why I keep coming back.

I'm busy in the real world just like everyone else, and definitely don't play as much Magic as I would like (haven't been able to even buy any Torment, let alone play with it), but I would like to speak up and volunteer my time and effort to help revitalize this place. I may even be able to write an article or two, and if so I welcome tighter editing (having been an editor myself at one point, and willing to do so again).

I don't know what exactly I can contribute, or if anyone wants me to, so I'll just end this by shouting
PLEASE DON'T GO ANYWHERE, I NEED YOU!

 

[Gizmo]

It was an article by Arhar. I went back and checked the threads anew.

YJ left cos there was no point staying as Magic had ceased to be a part of the boards. We still talk online occasionally in Mirc, and last I heard he was whupping ass with one of my decks.

Yes, Starcity paid us, in store singles credit.

If I had nothing to say, but wanted free cards... Id still be writing for them. A little like John 'Im a oink writer but nobody has noticed' Rizzo. Now there is a man who`s articles, on average, contain 0 things you need to know, but who pumps them out like twice a week just to get the free cards, so he can ingratiate his way into some semi-celebrity company.

 

[Spiderman]

Originally posted by Baskil
Trust me, this place is doing fine.

If only based on the fact that even though I haven't really posted here in probably nine months or more, all of the major regulars have sticked around. And with *all* BBs, if the hard-core people stay, newbies will come, and the posting will ebb and flow. Nothing to be worried about, this time of year is usually a stagnation point all around.

Hey ho, trust a thread like this to bring out some old folks!

But what regulars are you talking about? DUke and I covered a lot...

And the posting has been ebbing since the beginning of the year. Trust me You can even look at the forums and see, a lot of them aren't being posted in regularly. Even this one only has 10 threads or so from the last 10 days that have been posted in.

Edited 'cause Gizmo posted at the same time:

Did arhar himself complain or someone else? I can't imagine him raising such a ruckus over an editing job (which was most likely due to cursing, seeing his link to his reply in another thread )