Is MacNN dying?

I started coming here with technical questions, then ended up staying for the lounge. Mind you, this was back in 1999. We had a smaller group of people, but everybody spent more time in there responses, and you could actually have a pretty intellectual debate about damn near anything in here. This was before +1s and "I'd hit it", this was when posts were generally at least a few sentences, but more often than not a paragraph or two, sometimes even longer.

Then... the stupidity became rampant, and the lounge was filled with political trolls, starting threads on fire only to push their viewpoints upon everyone else, and I fought hard for the creation of a political lounge. I was even banned for the gonzo balls out method in which I used to prove my point that we needed one. However, the seperation of anything political/religious into a seperate forum has had some unexpected side effects. Now, it seems, the lounge is slowly dying, with less than a page of new threads/responses per day, most of which being links to other websites, movie clips, etc. Basically, we're starting to lack content, and of that content, it's lacking MacNN original content. Also, any shred of political/philosophical/religious debate gets thrown into the PL, which is filled with trolls, so most rational people avoid that place entirely, leaving the lounge to discuss whatever is left over. For a while, we discussed movies and videogames and cars, but now any videogame topic gets moved into the 'mac gaming' forum, which is usually about as exciting as a senior citizen's knitting party. Recently, other people have been calling for the creation of a 'car forum', so all the gearheads can discuss cars without 'bothering' people in the lounge.

At what point will this organization stop? The lounge used to be intersting and intelligent until it became filled with stupid people. Then it was still entertaining, but on a much lower level of intelligence. Then, it became too heated and political, so those portions were removed, so it became more of an easy going silly place for light hearted topics, and then even videogames were removed from it's available topics.

What is the future of the lounge? I don't think it looks good, and if the posts/threads created per day are any indication, I'm afraid the lounge won't be worth visiting at all. What would MacNN be like WITHOUT a lounge? Would it improve the other forums, and give them a little more 'life' and 'personality'? Would perhaps they be checked more frequently, solving people's problems faster since they usually involve some sort of technical aspect? Would YOU still visit MacNN if the lounge ceased to exist? And do you think that we should start removing some of the other forums (such as gaming, the political lounge, and mac modification) to create a more diverse atmosphere here?

Peace,

- Ca$h

Ibtl.

Its a joke, get over it :/

are you serious?

Wrong forum.

I cant decide if this is trolling, or a discussion?
Or if its Lounge or Feedback forum worthy
Reported. :)

You are exactly what I was talking about. When you die, I hope to come to your funeral, ask to give a speech, and say "Plus One" and exit.

Why? Why not keep it in this one? Moving it will only make the lounge even more boring. :hmm:

It's a discussion. And it's not for feedback, it's a discussion of the lounge in the lounge. And reported for what? :confused:

I started coming here a while back for technical questions before I got my Mac. Then stuck around to keep myself updated with Mac news. And I like visiting the lounge to see other peoples views on current events and other topics. But some of it has been going down hill lately, not really down hill but slowing down some I guess.

Not reported for the content, or because of the author - because I'm unsure as to which forum it should be located.

People have been saying that pretty much the last six years or so.

What people never realize is that back in the old days, everybody talked about how much better the old days were, too.


And Rob: From your perspective, I'm sure your reception is quite different today than it was six years ago. I know my reaction to you is different than it was back then. But you must realize that there's six years of constant bans, ban-circumvention, flaming, whining, and complete jack-assery in between that has somewhat tainted the relationship between you and this forum.

And as for your post (sorry about the derailing ... go figure)
I dont think MacNN is "dying", I think the Lounge is massively popular for social reasons and people forget that there is a ton of other forums on MacNN. They're all equally high traffic, just an entirely different crowd.
Sure the Lounge has a fair amount of offtopic weirdness (IBTL, +1, Timeline, GoRickey( :lol : )) but I think its kept under control.

Analogika: Most of the ass-jackery was in response to other jackasses picking fights with me constantly. I don't set out to do so*. I think you're cool, and you generally post things that require more the average amount of braincells. You aren't the problem here.

Peter: That's just it. Lately there's been a lack of posts, threads, or updates. It used to be if you missed a day, you'd have a few pages of new stuff to sift through. Lately, it's less than a page. And of everything posted here, a LOT of it is just a link to some other site, instead of actual discussion.

Personally, no.

1. Gaming isn't a general topic, I'm sure I'm not the only person here who isn't interested in it, at all.

2. There has to be some place for people who don't want to involve themselves in political flame wars and religious idiocy.

3. Mac modification may hold interest for some who don't necessarily care about casual conversation.

It's my fault. Everything was better before I turned up.

And then I come along and you all feel inadequate because you're a bunch of hippies who don't rock, so you don't post as much because you're too busy hiding your shame.

Or, it could be that it's Summer and everyone's outside doing outside kind of stuff.

I hope I'm not the only one that found that hilarious.

What is this "summer" you speak of?

I think the forums are fine. The main page I hardly ever visit any more. The old layout was much better than the new one.

What's on this main page you speak of?

I'm more tired of having to read about the same horse getting beaten over and over and over. It started out just being 2 or 3 people not letting things go. Now it seems it is 6 or so not letting several different subjects go. Soon, they will appear in this thread I'm sure.

There isn't much of a point to start new threads to have them come in and crap in it.

It is obviously slower than it use to be, so maybe others are tired of those same posters too and choose to not to participate in the lounge?

It's all because the Hot Babes thread doesn't get updated much any more. My bad. :cry:

I dunno, it doesn't look like its dying to me, lots of new members, lots of threads on a variety of subjects - seems pretty lively to me and in general people seem to keep flaming down to a minimum here. I generally don't go into the political forum mainly because of the folks who frequent that forum are pretty partisan in their politics, there's less banter and more arguing - not my cup of tea.

You have a point with the number of forums, I've been to some sites where the granularity of forums was so much that there were 30+ forums and each forum only had a few threads, not enough for critical mass and the place appeared to be a ghost town when in fact there were quite a few member bu they were so spread out to so many forums it was hard to tell.

Macnn seems to strike a nice balance having not have too many forums and not too little. I'm not a gear head so I could care less about car threads and I just skip over them. Do they need their forum I kind of doubt it.

Finally
Calling people stupid is not a great way to start having a conversation on the merits of the lounge (esp. when you mis-spelled words) Just because the topics don't interest you means the people or the subject matter is stupid or beneath you. Personally I find a lot of the threads not my taste but I do what I do with the car threads I skip over them.

It seems you're complaining that Macnn is dying but rather its changing and the you're not liking that. The lounge and forum in general is quite vibrant. I think the constant banning, flaming and fighting with other members has tainted your perspective of the lounge as analogika mentioned.

Maybe he doesn't want to have a conversation with stupid people. You might not like it because it's politically incorrect to say so, but there are in fact people who are more stupid than others, and they do drag things down. On some other forums, the tradition is to flame these people until they leave, whereas on others they flourish because no one is allowed to tell them off.

Some observation from a noob who's been here a month, immediately jumping on the anti-Ca$h bandwagon. It doesn't seem as if you know what you're talking about. Changing and vibrant, my arse. There observably is much less activity in the lounge than there used to be.

It certainly didn't have the ending I expected.

I agree.

And if I agree with Red Rocket about something then it's 100% indisputable fact.

gorickey.

:lol:

Well it seems to me that nobody is twisting his arm to have a conversation with stupid people. He can put them on the ignore list, he can not respond to them and he can avoid the threads that he deems stupid. Simple answer to a simple problem. No need to make it complex. bottom line is that if he thinks the lounge or the site is filling up with stupid people don't come to the lounge or macnn.

btw I have no idea how you can construe that I'm jumping on the anti-ca$h bandwagon by my post. Just pointing out that the forum isn't dying, there's plenty of "vibrant" threads regardless if considers them stupid. Yes there's a bunch of stupid threads too. He also has been banned a lot of time and has a lot of fights with a handful of members. Stating those facts is not jumping on any bandwagon. Another fact is that constant bickering can color a person's perception, I don't think that is being anti-ca$h

I don't think you've been here long enough to declare whether this forum is as vibrant as in the past.

It's not dying, it's being killed by a bunch of a-hole alpha males who have a very clear opinon about life and like to impose that upon others. Some of these jerks don't even own Macs, nor have any intention of buying one.

Other than that, it's summer time. If it's not raining outside, you should be outside.

This forum, IMHO, belongs to the newer generation of posters. Old members (like me) feel that everything that's worth discussing, already has been discussed, unless it is a new electric car.

steady on Dakar, lets not turn this thread into one of those threads.

So forums should only be frequented by dreary, geeky little omega males who have no opinions of their own and will never get laid because they're still in the basement looking for their stapler?

Grow a set, hippie. :p

Guys nothing is ever Rob's fault. We could all learn something by sitting down and reading is posts and taking what he said as valid, indisputable truth. Esp since no one has ever proved him wrong in here, or did he ever get banned justly.

We should even let him run the forum and make him king

Awesome?

It's true then. Irony is dead.

Well, I'm in it already so it's already awesome.

So it can't be in danger of turning into an awesome thread.

I kills me that this is a cash post .........

Although, the funeral / plus one scenario is the funniest thing I've read this week.

durr herr herr

I think this is actually what is happening to the mac community at large. We used to be a very tight knit group, a very small, yet very strong collection of people. Willing to defend each other, willing to help each other, willing to support each other in a world that rejected us.

Then, sometime in the past decade or so, the Mac actually became popular. Apple was no longer deemed to be on it's deathbed, and people took notice of the products that we'd been raving about for so long. So along with more cool people to join our ranks, we got the other half. In some cases we got some really great people. There are a few tech authors who used to be horribly against the mac, and now they love it.

I think it's just the cost of popularity. I imagine that if we still had mugs around that we'd be getting a lot of riff raff in them. It happens when you have an increased popularity in something.

reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live skit with William Shatner doing a Star Trek convention....

'move out of your parent's basement! You - you must be like 30 years old. Have you even ever kissed a girl?!'
:P:P

Did you see the other day that NPD said we had 10% market share in desktops and 15% in laptops?

Unbelievable.

Personally, I think the Lounge being dead has nothing to do with Apple at all.

The lounge is dead? I go away for 2-3 days a at a time. I always have to go back 2-3 pages to see what I missed.

I don't call that dead. Now lately since of all the forum problems Less people have been coming in.

Once the problems get taken care of, it will be back to normal.

Agreed. Lounge traffic seems to be affected more by Rickey Henderson's career than it is by Apple's popularity.

Fixed

So... this is gorickey's fault then?

:eek:

This might be a sour grapes post from Rob since he's been banned more often and not allowed to post as much. "OH well MacNN sux now anyhow"

BTW why is rob not banned?

ps. I know of people that HAVE quit the forum because of lack of consistent/fair and quick modding.

http://www.erikveland.com/arkiv/imag...ringlounge.jpg

Do you think this was appropriate?:
Just because it's funny doesn't mean it's less of a jack-assery.