Spongelash
Touhou Traveler
I hope this forum is the right place for this post. It seemed like a website issue, even if it isn't a technical one.
Recently an announcement post was made by Nitorium which floated the idea of rethinking the site because the participation in the current TH6NC contest indicated a lack of an engaging community. Personally I really like this site and if the possible cause of its diminishment maybe up to its shutdown is related to its community then I thought the least I could do is make a response that indicated there is some portion of a community that still cares. This isn't meant to serve as any kind of "rebuttal" or the like because ultimately no one can really obligate anyone to maintain a website, but I did think the recent post represented the community unfairly and if that's the reason for any harm to the site I'd like everything to be looked at holistically.
First of all, I think the TH6NC contest specifically is a rather poor event to have suspected large engagement on. It requires lunatic runs which only a smaller portion of the Touhou fanbase are capable of completing. Additionally, there is only one reward for the very best score, which means realistically the people most attracted to participate are those who think they are the best of the best at Touhou on this website. Doesn't this contest select for a very small group of people by necessity? I understand the thought process of "people who beat lunatic mode are really into Touhou -> people who are really into Touhou are more likely to seek out discussion spots online -> Moriya is a discussion spot so probably has a larger portion of high difficulty players" but especially when it comes to who I see as really active people on this forum there are a lot who were disqualified from participating based on the concept alone. None of this is mentioned to bash the creation of the event but rather to question if we've really tried out everything we can to prove whether this engagement doesn't exist.
I also wanted to mention the success of the on-going second community art event. Isn't the board getting pretty filled? I understand it can be expanded forever, I think, but it seems that participation in that event has been pretty healthy, especially considering that art is also a high-skill barrier for participation. Maybe that one is being written off as a "Discord" event and that is why there seems to be no consideration for it in the post, but I know that someone in the comments on that thread had participated and I intend to participate before the 30th's deadline as well. I wanted to bring it up to make the case that not every extra thing done on this website seems to receive no attention.
Finally, I wanted to point towards the more mundane examples of the community. We are no Reddit, obviously, but we still get a new thread at least roughly every other day, especially when averaged with spurs of higher activity. Not every thread is highly active but it isn't rare for them to get over ten replies. The gallery art feed always seems to keep moving at a healthy pace. When considering these I think there is easily at least twenty active participating users (by my own judgement, of course). I realize that I haven't been on this forum long and maybe I missed out on some glory days that makes current participation seem paltry in comparison, but when I look at other thread boards like Maidens of the Kaleidoscope they don't get this kind of activity, which I think is owed partially due to the archives here at Moriya but also the efforts of administration to keep the design of the website much more modern which is something that is very appreciated.
Listen folks, the old internet as it was is dying, and that's something I'm very aware of. But I really do think that Moriya has a community that at the very least I enjoy participating in and I think there is still a lot of life in this website yet. As I said earlier I can't really "argue" someone into caring about this website, but what I wanted to do was provide my own perspective on the value of the community here in hopes that it might bring the attention back to what I enjoy as a member here. I really hope that post was made in momentary disappointment (we all know the sting when we want things to go one way and they go another) and wasn't a long-thought idea to pull away from the site, because some folks like me really like it here.
This post was made because I really enjoy the site and the efforts of the administration, and the recent post shook me. It isn't intended as some sort of harsh criticism, but rather as a plea to see things in a different light. I hope I overreacted, and the post was more-so referencing pulling away from events like this and wasn't speaking about the site as a whole.
P.S. As far as cancelling the event goes, I think that would be a big mistake. I get that it is disappointing and it feels bad to expend so many resources when it felt like it didn't accomplish its job, but there were still folks who did make an effort and were promised a certain reward. I think the most graceful thing to do would be to accept the mistake and see the payout as the cost of learning (though I really don't necessarily consider the event a failure myself; maybe I have lower standards than administration). Certainly, if the hope is to see more participation in the future, cancelling it will serve as a big lack of confidence towards these in the future.
Now, if what was meant was simply calling it early and paying out the rewards, then I see no issue with it, even it I find it unneccesary.
Recently an announcement post was made by Nitorium which floated the idea of rethinking the site because the participation in the current TH6NC contest indicated a lack of an engaging community. Personally I really like this site and if the possible cause of its diminishment maybe up to its shutdown is related to its community then I thought the least I could do is make a response that indicated there is some portion of a community that still cares. This isn't meant to serve as any kind of "rebuttal" or the like because ultimately no one can really obligate anyone to maintain a website, but I did think the recent post represented the community unfairly and if that's the reason for any harm to the site I'd like everything to be looked at holistically.
First of all, I think the TH6NC contest specifically is a rather poor event to have suspected large engagement on. It requires lunatic runs which only a smaller portion of the Touhou fanbase are capable of completing. Additionally, there is only one reward for the very best score, which means realistically the people most attracted to participate are those who think they are the best of the best at Touhou on this website. Doesn't this contest select for a very small group of people by necessity? I understand the thought process of "people who beat lunatic mode are really into Touhou -> people who are really into Touhou are more likely to seek out discussion spots online -> Moriya is a discussion spot so probably has a larger portion of high difficulty players" but especially when it comes to who I see as really active people on this forum there are a lot who were disqualified from participating based on the concept alone. None of this is mentioned to bash the creation of the event but rather to question if we've really tried out everything we can to prove whether this engagement doesn't exist.
I also wanted to mention the success of the on-going second community art event. Isn't the board getting pretty filled? I understand it can be expanded forever, I think, but it seems that participation in that event has been pretty healthy, especially considering that art is also a high-skill barrier for participation. Maybe that one is being written off as a "Discord" event and that is why there seems to be no consideration for it in the post, but I know that someone in the comments on that thread had participated and I intend to participate before the 30th's deadline as well. I wanted to bring it up to make the case that not every extra thing done on this website seems to receive no attention.
Finally, I wanted to point towards the more mundane examples of the community. We are no Reddit, obviously, but we still get a new thread at least roughly every other day, especially when averaged with spurs of higher activity. Not every thread is highly active but it isn't rare for them to get over ten replies. The gallery art feed always seems to keep moving at a healthy pace. When considering these I think there is easily at least twenty active participating users (by my own judgement, of course). I realize that I haven't been on this forum long and maybe I missed out on some glory days that makes current participation seem paltry in comparison, but when I look at other thread boards like Maidens of the Kaleidoscope they don't get this kind of activity, which I think is owed partially due to the archives here at Moriya but also the efforts of administration to keep the design of the website much more modern which is something that is very appreciated.
Listen folks, the old internet as it was is dying, and that's something I'm very aware of. But I really do think that Moriya has a community that at the very least I enjoy participating in and I think there is still a lot of life in this website yet. As I said earlier I can't really "argue" someone into caring about this website, but what I wanted to do was provide my own perspective on the value of the community here in hopes that it might bring the attention back to what I enjoy as a member here. I really hope that post was made in momentary disappointment (we all know the sting when we want things to go one way and they go another) and wasn't a long-thought idea to pull away from the site, because some folks like me really like it here.
This post was made because I really enjoy the site and the efforts of the administration, and the recent post shook me. It isn't intended as some sort of harsh criticism, but rather as a plea to see things in a different light. I hope I overreacted, and the post was more-so referencing pulling away from events like this and wasn't speaking about the site as a whole.
P.S. As far as cancelling the event goes, I think that would be a big mistake. I get that it is disappointing and it feels bad to expend so many resources when it felt like it didn't accomplish its job, but there were still folks who did make an effort and were promised a certain reward. I think the most graceful thing to do would be to accept the mistake and see the payout as the cost of learning (though I really don't necessarily consider the event a failure myself; maybe I have lower standards than administration). Certainly, if the hope is to see more participation in the future, cancelling it will serve as a big lack of confidence towards these in the future.
Now, if what was meant was simply calling it early and paying out the rewards, then I see no issue with it, even it I find it unneccesary.
