Lemmasoft@5 Years: My Reflections (A short rant/essay)

[lordcloudx]

Lemmasoft@5 Years: My Reflections

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a gregarious person by anyone's standards. In fact, I consider myself to be quite antisocial - but please allow me to say, that I liked the forums the way it was before.

A few years ago, before I joined the Lemmasoft Forums, I was actually going solo with my kinetic novels. In fact, my first three releases were made outside of the community via upload.com. However, it seems that its creator has some kind of infallible radar for anything Ren'Py-related. Thus, our friendly neighborhood Ren'Py Creator found my three releases on download.com and promptly brought them to the community's attention.

Being the narcissist that I am, I also have excellent lurking skills for anything mentioning any of my works; and this is how I first joined the forums as lordcloudx.

Back then, LSF wasn't nearly as active as it is right now - except maybe during NaNoRenO month, which I didn't actively participate in at that time.

Now the community is five years old and still going strong. In hindsight, I believe there were three things that LSF had, which kept its few active members coming back.

Maturity

No, we did/do not act like a bunch of grumpy old senior citizens as the subheading might imply. However, ever since I joined the forums, I've always felt that you, my fellow members, acted with a certain sense of dignity and justice tempered with patience and tolerance. This is my rather abstract concept of maturity.

For example, when we come to a disagreement regarding a particular subject matter; be it VN-related or not, we do exchange intellectual blows in spontaneous arguments from time to time. Yet, everyone always seems to know when to stop, when to lighten up, or when to insert a joke or two to break the tension when the discussion becomes too heated; and we do all this without letting the original conversation degrade to the level of nonsense - which brings me to my next point.

Intelligence

One reason why I fell that LSF is a community that I can talk to about almost any topic under the sun (or beyond even) is because I have come to expect a certain level of intelligence in each individual member's posts. Although we might come from all corners of the globe and are equipped with varying levels of proficiency in the English language, I've always felt that the posts in this community were well thought out and adequately researched (even if it's just a simple google search) which in turn, reflects the posters consideration for the potential readers.

Thus, we come to my final point.

Courtesy

LSF is one of those few online communities that has always thrived with minimal moderation. Perhaps this can be attributed to the slightly older average age of its active members. (23, if I remember correctly) Yet, I'd also like to believe in other contributing factors - specifically, I'd like to think that we have/had this unwritten rule of mutual respect for all members regardless of age, offline/online achievements, or post count. Personal attacks rarely happen and if they do, we are quick to point this out and the offender would acknowledge his/her mistake while the original discussion goes on unhindered.

Now, at five years, LSF is expanding its virtual territory at a steady pace. We have more active members than we did a few years ago and we are nearing the 100th Ren'Py game milestone.

As the forum grows, so does the socio-cultural range of its members. We now have people with more artistic, journalistic and musical talents and skills than we ever did/showed before.

Yet... I and a few of the more senior members (based on forum seniority) of this community, cannot help but express some concern at the growing number of irrelevant and/or unwarranted posts in LSF recently.

Now we have one-line retorts, cynical remarks, arrogance veiled in eloquent words, and just pure spam.

I am not about to figuratively point an accusing finger at anyone here. That would serve no other purpose than to incite a flame-war. As one of the youngest active chatters in the IRC channel puts it, "Sometimes it's enough to just say what you want." So I will do just that.

In the end, perhaps this entire discourse was totally meaningless, even though I would like to believe otherwise. After all, I am not about to convince the thick-headed, while logical persons who disagree with me can easily find countless flaws and fallacies in my assertions; and yes, LSF will continue to exist with or without these new undesirable developments. So, to wrap things up, let me just restate this: I liked the forums the way it was before.

In a somewhat unrelated conclusion, to all who have not yet read this, please ponder these timeless words of wisdom

Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

[Kura]

Hmm. In my experience, it seems that on nearly every forum I visit somewhat regularly, I find a post similar to this one. Now, I haven't been around here long enough to judge, but I'm sure that everything you say is quite true. It's just the nature of forums, I think. They grow, more people join, and the community becomes a little less tight-knit and a little less considerate. Not to say that forums growing is a bad thing, but almost always, older members will miss the way it used to be.

So my point? You've probably very right, and it's regrettable, but inevitable.

Also, I think that Desiderata may be the very same thing my Chemistry teacher read to us one day last year.

[musical74]

I'll pretty much agree with everything you said loudcloud

I'm part of the older crowd, and I've come to expect a level of maturity and intelligence when visiting the forum...it's great that the forums have expanded, and the forum is still strong after 5 years. Some of the recent posts have left me straching my head on what the purpose is though...has the demographic changed? I don't think so...but I'm not sure I'm the one to know.

[Samu-kun]

Mmm... While I do agree with some of your points, (I'm probably guilty of committing some of them too. XD) I still like Lemma better than any other community I've been in.

In general, I've found the majority of the people here to be far more mature and intelligent than what one would find elsewhere on the Internet. Sure, there are isolated incidents, but generally, there's a sense of community here and people seem to check blatant violations of the rules themselves without much assistance from the administration. And I like the fact that people actually take the time every now and then to write some really long intelligent posts. I swear, forum posts consisting of over a 1000 words nowadays are very, very rare. Most of them are short one liners with barely intellible English.

I'm probably guilty of posting alot of short posts, some of them positive, some of them negative, and some of them irrelivant, and this is due to laziness on my part. I have art to draw, games to program, and a school to study for, so it's difficult to spend hours on posts unless I have something very important to say.

The ren'py section of this board is still extremely useful and everybody's questions get answered no matter how simple they are. That's the best thing about this board. In many other boards, I can assure you that is blatantly not the case.

Well, even though I've gotten bad first impressions of some of the members here, I think they all turn out to be not so bad people once you get to know them. XD So even though, yes, I too have seen some degredation in the professionalism in the board, I don't think it's really any amount that should lead to any big changes in the administration of this board. I still think Lemmasoft is still the best internet forum to come for professional doujin game making and I think it'll seriously take alot for me to change my mind about that.... Like seriously something along the lines of a power struggle to the death between Lemma and PyTom or something... (And don't tell me that things like that never happen... Because they do rather frequently in other boards. -_-;)

[mikey]

Unfortunately I don't go to IRC, so there may be things or discussions I don't know of, so I can only judge by the forums...

In any case if I had to make my short reflections on the forums... well, I don't miss the old times terribly - I mean the very old times when there was one post a week and when a lot of people were basically laughing at the first efforts that are now known as oelvns.

Phase 2, when Ren'Py created that huge increase in production was really nice, you kind of saw that things were moving forwards - this was for me something around 2005/2006.

These days it's probably a kind of third evolution - the community has grown, the tools and resources are available and there is not an awful lot to improve - I'm struggling to think about something that would make Ren'Py "better", I've said it before that I think there is now enough talent to create things that are on par with anything the "doujins" can throw at you, commercial quality is also easily possible. So basically, there is no real goal - at least I don't see it so clearly as in the first phase where it might have been establishing ourselves, and the second phase where it might have been recognition. Today, it's all done and if it isn't, it doesn't bother anyone. People who don't want to play oelvn don't play them and that's fine.

The question then could be what is the goal for the community now, in its third phase? I thought it could be some sort of consolidation - there is a lot of new things - we have RAA, we have the CW and there should really be an overview of valuable threads as well as lists of released games or some form of tracking. Somehow though, this doesn't work with the system that has been with the forums in their earlier phases - self-moderating sort of autopilot mode. I think it worked before, but as there is more and more information and projects, the number of sites one needs to keep tabs on is becoming very high - almost everyone has their own page or blog (or both) and some visit the IRC, some don't. The forums are a kind of central point, but still, my suggestion for a direction to move in, and a goal to move towards would be to try to tighten the community as a whole.

The forums could use reorganizing, merging of sections and generally having a better structure. The Community Wiki should be used, and the RAA should be updated. A news site would probably be the step after that - you'd have a representative area (news site), a technical site / toolbox (CW), an archive area (RAA), and a discussion forum (LSF).

I haven't studied sociology, so it may be that the last thing the forum needs is direction - after all, this self-controlled approach has worked before and maybe giving the community a stronger sense of identity could actually make it more susceptible to controversies and arguments - maybe a dedicated oelvn news as a face of a community isn't a good idea. But I think the other three goals mentioned above probably are.

My experiences are usually that whenever things stall, or get into a comfortable zone, people don't have goals or a direction, and start to opinionate. It does lead to interesting discussions, but it also drags away from the primary purpose of making a game. I think this is because it's much easier to comment or give opinion (even to sophisticatedly argument) than it is to create. So when I come to the forums looking for something to talk about instead of getting or asking for help, or appreciating the already done creations, if there is no purpose other than to talk, then I think some of the charm is gone.

All of this is of course not to say the forums are "bad" - it can't be stressed enough, the community hasn't been plagued with controversies (a.k.a dramas), leadership issues, ego trips or any of those nasty things. NaNoRenO made its 4th consecitive year, and that's a fantastic achievement - compare that to the spiritually close alltogether, which more or less died. And (we've talked about this I think), it just may be because this is a community for those who primarily create - it's not hugely appropriate to discuss what the best oelvn is, simply because that's not the point. We should be happy that we have oelvns and help those who want to make their own. And LSF''s primary objective was always to help and to motivate, to share and appreciate.

To sum it up, maybe there should be a constructive discussion about the near future or possible goals or direction of the forums (regarding structure), RAA (updating), and the community wiki (contributions, sections). I will agree that an hour spent writing a post can also be used more productively in writing documentation or helpful advice. My general idea is that when people see that their contribution (tips, links, finished games) will not be forgotten - being mirrored in RAA, your resources being available on the CW and so on - that they will be more willing to contribute with specific helpful content and the feeling of building something together simply can't be beat. The problem is probably the same it has been before - in my case, I can't step up to lead such an initiative, because at this time, my contribution is working on my project. So I can't give any continuous commitment - and you have to believe me it breaks my heart seeing RAA not updated, but such is life. Still, it doesn't mean I can't help at all. There just needs to be a meaningful direction.

So maybe some criticism can be refreshing. I don't have a problem admitting my mistakes, and if it means helping to eliminate things that are slightly frustrating about the LSF for people, then I'm all for it and let's talk.

[PyTom]

First of all, I moved this to general since I think a meta-discussion about the board belongs more here than in the GMC, which should really stay devoted to game-making.

I have to say, first of all, I'm mostly opposed to having hard and fast rules on the board. Having rules means people having to enforce the rules, and people trying to game edge cases, and so on... and that's the last thing we need. I like the relatively freeform nature of many of the threads on this board, insofar as thinking outside of the box is often the way to get new ideas.

Instead, let me just ask people to pause a second before posting. Ask yourself if what you're posting is something that contributes to the thread. Take a look, and think about if it's going to offend someone else... if it might, consider rewording. If you do that, the board will continue to be a great place to read.

That being said, I don't think the board is particularly worse now than it has been for the past few years, except perhaps proportionally. We have more newbies now since more people are joining now, and it takes a while for new people to assimilate into our culture. I think the correct response is to set an excessively good example. (I know I've been somewhat lax here, as a lack of time has led me to write terser posts. I'll try to fix that.)

I'm not sure the forum should have goals, apart from the purpose of providing a place for people to create games, and to support the efforts of people that do. Things need to come out of that organically... with people choosing to spend some of their time helping the community, rather than feeling pressured into it. In retrospect, I'm not sure the pledge drive was a good thing, although it had a number of good results. Similarly, I don't want anyone to feel pressured into maintaining the RAA, if they don't want to or don't have the time.

One of the reasons I think NaNoRenO has succeeded is that for the past two years its been put together organically by interested people, rather than requiring the efforts of a central organizer like Al|together did.

[mikey]

I'm not sure the forum should have goals, apart from the purpose of providing a place for people to create games, and to support the efforts of people that do. Things need to come out of that organically... with people choosing to spend some of their time helping the community, rather than feeling pressured into it. In retrospect, I'm not sure the pledge drive was a good thing, although it had a number of good results. Similarly, I don't want anyone to feel pressured into maintaining the RAA, if they don't want to or don't have the time.

Well, I have a modified theory on this - specifically regarding the fact that the forums are bigger now. My theory is that it's not very hard to get motivated to do such "community work" - like cleaning, organizing, extracting, contributing to a common, shared resource such as the Wiki, RAA etc.. when the community is small - it's among friends and all this and it's often much better appreciated. However, when things get bigger, you have a greater sense of anonymity, and consequently people get "lazier", since there is less personal involvement. So I really believe that from a certain level (activity, members, topics, forum size), there needs to be a minimum amount of organization or initiatives to keep good things and products / outcomes from the community from being lost in the "mess". It doesn't mean that all of the sudden all things need to be moderated, rules laid down or anything like that - but I do think that there is this minimum of things to be done and organized, simply because the amount of information and things has grown.

[Jake]

Personally, I kind of dislike the very idea of 'forum seniority'. In a lot of contexts, the mere display of post counts seems to intimidate a lot of new people when faced by a thousand-post established member with an opposing opinion, and equally seems to bring out an argumentative streak in another class of newbie deciding he has to 'prove himself' against an older member. 'Ranks' imply that people are somehow better for posting more, leading to an increase in frivolous post volume and again that feeling (which has been explicitly mentioned by at least one new members in the last few months) that people who have only just joined the community somehow don't count as much.

Now, it's understandable that people will get used to names and come to expect certain things from certain members, those prejudices - good or bad - colouring their responses to posts, their willingness to get involved with projects, etc.... but in general, this is one of the most open and accepting web communities I've ever seen, and generally doesn't descend into elitism. Personally, I'd like to see it continue like this, so I certainly don't think I'd like any changes which leave new people feeling any less comfortable joining in.

That said, I've also been annoyed at the recent increase in totally-off-topic, often-nonsensical stuff being thrown around, and past experience suggests to me that this kind of thing needs to be nipped in the bud if it's considered a problem, because it breeds itself; allowing the 4chan-esque rubbish in one category only seems to encourage a set of users to think of the forum in general as a place where such things are tolerated, if not de rigueur, and the tone of other categories goes downhill in accompaniment. Admittedly, though, my past experience is a totally different context because it's a totally different forum - my background is in moderating the Clone Army forum (the Dan Kim comics CA, rather than anything to do with Star Wars; elsewhere on the web my username is often 'Sar'), which doesn't have that creative-community element.

In response to mikey (you know, it takes effort to not capitalise that every time? ), two things, really:

My experiences are usually that whenever things stall, or get into a comfortable zone, people don't have goals or a direction, and start to opinionate.

Personally, I'm quite capable of being opinionated when I'm in the middle of a project.

(I know I'm also quite capable of offending people if I get into a more-heated discussion with them, although I certainly don't do it on purpose. I do try to keep to an objective point of view, most of the time, but I tend to lose patience (and then shortly afterwards tact) pretty quickly in the face of people bluntly asserting things which seem obviously wrong. Again, though, this will happen with anyone, from close friends to complete strangers...)

So I can't give any continuous commitment - and you have to believe me it breaks my heart seeing RAA not updated, but such is life.

I've probably asked this before, and I can't remember the answer; is there any reason that RAA-updating duties couldn't be picked up by several people rather than just one? I know I don't have the time - let alone the inclination, in some cases - to play every single game that gets released on these forums, and I'd feel I had to if I were going to fill a sole-RAA-curator role. But I still play through a fair number of them, and I really wouldn't mind asking permissions and filling in pages and uploading that stuff which I do get through. I'd just feel that I'd need other people covering the ground I'm not for it to be worthwhile. Wouldn't it be better to have five or six people each doing a little bit of the work than no-one doing any?

(If I volunteered on my own, I expect I'd simply end up frustrating half the game-makers who release stuff on the forum 'cause I don't have time to get through their games and appeared to be ignoring them...)

[mikey]

A quickie:

My experiences are usually that whenever things stall, or get into a comfortable zone, people don't have goals or a direction, and start to opinionate.

Personally, I'm quite capable of being opinionated when I'm in the middle of a project.

I think the point I explained a bit better in my second post (reply to PyTom). Opinions and distractions as a form of procrastination or when you can't get focused. I don't question the ability of being able to opinionate when one is focused. I am focused project-wise, have the will, the motivation and all - and still, look what I'm just doing ^_^.

I've probably asked this before, and I can't remember the answer; is there any reason that RAA-updating duties couldn't be picked up by several people rather than just one

I don't see a reason why that couldn't be the case, sure.

In a lot of contexts, the mere display of post counts seems to intimidate a lot of new people when faced by a thousand-post established member with an opposing opinion, ....

Actually, I wouldn't be opposed to hiding the post count, I get depressed when I see the number.

[000]

Well, I have a modified theory on this - specifically regarding the fact that the forums are bigger now. My theory is that it's not very hard to get motivated to do such "community work" - like cleaning, organizing, extracting, contributing to a common, shared resource such as the Wiki, RAA etc.. when the community is small - it's among friends and all this and it's often much better appreciated. However, when things get bigger, you have a greater sense of anonymity, and consequently people get "lazier", since there is less personal involvement.

Well, then easiest aswer will be personalization of deeds. Like, country should know its heroes... If you believe that lessening of the feeling of
appreciation can cause "laziness", then a simple namestamp near the finished workzone / privilegy to be publically recognized as <insert your title based on your work for community here> would be enough to motivate.

Or did I miss your point?

[papillon]

The same sort of thing (newbies! lowering the tone! the signal to noise ratio is failing!) is said on every forum as time goes by, pretty much.

It's not surprising that when new people show up, some of them don't fit right in right away, especially if they don't know any existing members. Usually, the new people that the old people fear fall into two categories - the type that speaks only in short, uncapitalised posts and the type that speaks in long rants. The short poster generally finds that e's not getting much response from the forum regulars and either decides to leave or observes the other posters and tries to emulate them, eventually being absorbed into the body of the whole. The ranty poster generally walks into an existing community and tells them all that they're doing it wrong. This stirs up a LOT of response, so the ranty poster sticks around.

[mikey]

000 >> The thing I proposed was actually to motivate/startup people to do something together - simply crediting and establishing who did what is I think actually the opposite, it's individualistic.

The same sort of thing (newbies! lowering the tone! the signal to noise ratio is failing!) is said on every forum as time goes by, pretty much.

You're right in saying it's not unnatural that such posts occur with time - the question is what can (should) be done about this. Does it make sense to try something at all? It may just be a personal issue anyway - it may not be the forums' problem, but the individual's.

[PyTom]

I've probably asked this before, and I can't remember the answer; is there any reason that RAA-updating duties couldn't be picked up by several people rather than just one? I know I don't have the time - let alone the inclination, in some cases - to play every single game that gets released on these forums, and I'd feel I had to if I were going to fill a sole-RAA-curator role. But I still play through a fair number of them, and I really wouldn't mind asking permissions and filling in pages and uploading that stuff which I do get through. I'd just feel that I'd need other people covering the ground I'm not for it to be worthwhile. Wouldn't it be better to have five or six people each doing a little bit of the work than no-one doing any?

I don't recall this being asked before, FWIW There's nothing technically preventing this. The only problem is coordinating between the various archive maintainers... but I think that would be pretty easy to do in the RAA thread, or on the community wiki. So I think I can get behind this proposal.

[Blue Lemma]

Well, I'm a little late here (paper deadlines and stuff arrrrgh!) but I thought I should inject my two cents

I think the forum is like a little company in a way. When you start out, everyone can be close and friendly... then when you get bigger, things get more impersonal. With a company, I guess it would be possible to keep things small by not hiring more people, but with a forum the only way to do that is reject new members. (Or maybe kick out old ones like on a reality TV show - "You're voted off the board!") Obviously those are probably not great solutions.

The forum really is worlds better in terms of community and civility than places like Megatokyo, though. Really, some of the moderators on there (I can think of one in particular not to name names ) are among the biggest "intestinally-related orifices" I've seen on the net. (Many are perfectly fine, though ^^ ) Here we don't go for people treating others poorly. Stuff like that doesn't fly

As for small posts, I think they have their place. Sometimes people aren't getting comments and you want to leave a little acknowledgment that you liked their work, or you just don't have anything major to say because the topic itself is kind of silly. Those tend to stick in the General Discussion board, which is a good thing. The sections about original works and game making are much more well-thought-out in general

I think the board is just evolving and will never have exactly the same feel as before. It's like growing up - your childhood days are special, but that doesn't mean becoming a teenager or adult doesn't have its advantages too ^^

[flowerthief]

I just think it's cool how well your board has done, Blue Lemma When you started out, most people interested in this stuff were posting at Megatokyo (which I don't blame anyone for leaving). That discussion over there sputtered and died while this board has grown--grown a lot, by the looks of it--is probably not a coincidence; an indication, perhaps, that the demand for English ren'ai games is such that those of us willing to pay the big bucks to import over and plow through the Japanese required to enjoy big ren'ai titles are outnumbered by those of us willing to make our own, darn it.