Author Topic: Why is the yahoolist still used? Why isnt this forum where the action is?  (Read 3907 times)

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john_dbmm

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As a returner to DBx (from FOG most recently) I do hope DBMM will prevail and fight its way up to among the top-dags among games.
But, also as a returner, I find the yahoolist outdated and unwieldy. Ive play several types of games, tabletop, MMORGS etc, and nowhere are lists used today. Forums are just so much better in terms of overview, straight communication and so forth. I do hope this forum could get a better status and that the discussions on the list could be transferred here.

To be "competative" as a game today I do believe that its not enough to "just write a rulebook" - the support and community is almost as important. An active forum (with a bit easier way to get access to it) is a very big plus to gain new gamers, a yahoo list isnt.

Thoughs? counter-arguments?

Orcoteuthis

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As someone who's active on good numbers of both fora and mailing lists I can't see I see any great differences in terms of overview, straight communication, or indeed much of anything except the greater support for graphics that a decent forum provides (not that all fora I frequent are decent by this metric - The Miniatures Page, I'm looking at you). It may help I use a modern email service with threading etc.

Be that as it may, most of the activity is going to stick to the Yahoo list as long as that's Phil's communication channel of choice.

MikeCampbell

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Because the yahoolist gores straight to ppl's email addresses - they do not have to log in to a seperate site, they can address it in "real time", they can access it at work, and individual emails are generally easy to read.

and Phil is on the Yahoo list.

IMO high volume fora are just as aunweildy and full of rubbish as any email list.

john_dbmm

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I agree that it can be convenient if mails go directly to a certain address - but for my part i would not be good for several reasons if i used my "work-mail" to handle this. So, people that opt not to use a mail address "permanently" open must still log into their "list"-mail.

Further, each list message contains alot of "junk" (for instance double quotations for instance which can be logic when you answer a mail but becomes unlogic and "junk" when the topic is expanded or automatically generated text such as in your mails Mike), which would not appear in a forum thread. And searching trough a certain topic to find something is much easier in an "uncluttered" forum thread than in a list-topic because this "junk". Ive experienced and read in th list that the search engine isn't working which also doesn't help promote the list. And, this is purely a guess, I think that younger players are more inclined the be active in a forum than in a list.

I realize that i might have seemed a bit harsh in the first post here but I strongly believe that in order to make DBMM gain more active players it needs to be better at marketing itself. The rulebook doesn't do it of course, its a brick, and a lot of my friends (previos DBx-players) wont touch it. The list imho, and in others i know, isn't doing the job. An active homepage, preferably with AARs including pictures and such linked with an active forum would probably be much better. ATM there is 13 "guests" at the homepage. Probably most of them are already DBMM:ers but if some isn't - do you believe that what they see there attracts them to go further into the game?

If there would be a consent that the forum could handle everything handled in the list, but better (even by a tiny bit) - would it be impossible that Phil would switch to the forum? It would rectify/address the issue with his mailbox getting swamped and angry people not getting their mails answered.


Orcoteuthis

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Further, each list message contains alot of "junk" (for instance double quotations for instance which can be logic when you answer a mail but becomes unlogic and "junk" when the topic is expanded or automatically generated text such as in your mails Mike), which would not appear in a forum thread.
Do yourself a favour and get an email app that automatically hides quoted text and overlong signatures.
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And searching trough a certain topic to find something is much easier in an "uncluttered" forum thread than in a list-topic because this "junk". Ive experienced and read in th list that the search engine isn't working which also doesn't help promote the list.
That the Yahoo search is broken is indeed a bloody shame. Yahoo doesn't seem interested in fixing it, which to my mind is the one good argument to abandon the list.

(That said, I read the list via Gmail, so everything posted after I joined with that address is more easily searchable for me than any forum.)
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And, this is purely a guess, I think that younger players are more inclined the be active in a forum than in a list.
I don't think guesses are going to convince a lot of people.
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ATM there is 13 "guests" at the homepage. Probably most of them are already DBMM:ers but if some isn't - do you believe that what they see there attracts them to go further into the game?
Probably most of them are bots. :p
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If there would be a consent that the forum could handle everything handled in the list, but better (even by a tiny bit) - would it be impossible that Phil would switch to the forum?
Dunno - you'll have to ask him.

vexillia

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As a returner to DBx (from FOG most recently) I do hope DBMM will prevail and fight its way up to among the top-dogs among games.

Welcome to the crazy world of DBMM John.

But, also as a returner, I find the yahoolist outdated and unwieldy.

I agree.  See http://tinyurl.com/lmx4fr and http://tinyurl.com/bzajx2 for my experiences.  

I think that the clarity of the list suffers because many authors format their message on their screen paying no attention to what it will look like on another machine with different software.  I always post in plain text because of this.  

I use RSS feeds and Google Reader to follow both the list and this forum; it's great for weeding out the crap very quickly.

I do hope this forum could get a better status and that the discussions on the list could be transferred here.

I doubt it for many of the reasons posted below.  There are some good people here and it is very good for tackling rules issues.  

To be "competitive" as a game today I do believe that its not enough to "just write a rulebook" - the support and community is almost as important. An active forum (with a bit easier way to get access to it) is a very big plus to gain new gamers, a yahoo list isnt.

All good points but DBMM is a game with a very old style support mechanism at it's heart.

As for getting Phil Barker to join: I doubt it.  It's clear to be that Phil's prefers to work his way through the emails sent by the Yahoo! list. I can't see him switching to monitoring a forum.

If anything, I think he likes getting a lot of mail.  I've noticed that he appears to troll the list (see http://tinyurl.com/2bjua8) when it goes quiet with surprise suggestions for a new grading system; knights in wedge etc.  I've seen this at least three times this year alone.

« Last Edit: July 20, 2009, 09:50:21 AM by vexillia »

Geoff Pearson

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As a returner to DBx (from FOG most recently) I do hope DBMM will prevail and fight its way up to among the top-dags among games.
But, also as a returner, I find the yahoolist outdated and unwieldy. Ive play several types of games, tabletop, MMORGS etc, and nowhere are lists used today. Forums are just so much better in terms of overview, straight communication and so forth. I do hope this forum could get a better status and that the discussions on the list could be transferred here.

To be "competative" as a game today I do believe that its not enough to "just write a rulebook" - the support and community is almost as important. An active forum (with a bit easier way to get access to it) is a very big plus to gain new gamers, a yahoo list isnt.

Thoughs? counter-arguments?
Hi John
We set the forum up when the rules were first published, the Yahoo list had been going for about 4 year by then and had about 1100-1200 members IIRC it now has nearly 1500 and is still growing while the forum has 230 but is not growing as fast but you do not need to be a member to view it so people viewing the forum is a lot higher than 230.
I've always seen the forum as a companion to the Yahoo list with the list as more day to day comments and the forum as a more permanent record, my idea was to have it more like the flames of war website forum. I hoped that we would have a lot more photos in the battle reports and people showing off  photos of there latest additions to there armies. The big advantage of the forum is being able to add photos or graphic diagrams to posts.
Toby and I run the forum and website in our limited free time we rely on heavily on contributions from others, it would be nice see more guides etc posted here instead of linked away from the forum.
The bottom line is the forum is what the members make of it.

Best Regards
Geoff
Fourm, www.dbmm.org.uk and Yahoo DBMMlist Administrator
PS your photos in the Gallery look great thanks for posting them John.

Geoff Pearson

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If there would be a consent that the forum could handle everything handled in the list, but better (even by a tiny bit) - would it be impossible that Phil would switch to the forum? It would rectify/address the issue with his mailbox getting swamped and angry people not getting their mails answered.


Hi John
The problem is Phil prints out most of the emails he replys to first
Best Regard
Geoff

john_dbmm

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Thanks for the replies. I guess that the list is a "part of the package" of DBMM and perhaps not much to do about presently. I still believe its to the detriment of DBMM as a whole.

And your point Geoff about the members in the forum and thier part in making it is a keypoint without somekind of backing from a company (or Phil in his participation). Thank you for your effort in keeping it up. I hope to continue to contribute in my little way.

Platypus

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Pretty much what other people said;

a) Phil uses the list for development, so we have to be on the list to talk to him. I doubt he'd like the forum.

b) The e-mail sneaks past my work web-site-blocker. I can't read this forum at work, but the list-digest* does and makes nice reading during lunch.

Some people like web-forums, some e-mail lists. I'm glad we have both.

Cheers,
JohnG
*Which also doesn't look like web-browsing when you read it, and the digest creates only a small number of e-mails so it doesn't feature on any snoop-ware my work uses.