How do you interact with a forum?

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Plotline_Progenitor
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How do you interact with a forum?

#1 Post by Plotline_Progenitor »

Hi everyone, I joined this forum not that long ago for a couple reasons one of which was to participate in NanoRenO, but I had also kind of hoped to make friends, improve skills, and maybe get involved with collaborative projects.

At this point though I have to admit that I don't really know what I'm doing, my only other experience with a forum was one meant for board games where most activity was around the games themselves so I don't really know what to do in a place like Lemmasoft to interact with the community

Hopefully this post can help turn things around a little

It's also worth noting I don't have entirely convenient access to the internet for the time being so responses on my part might be a little slow, but I'll always be able to access it sooner or later

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Re: How do you interact with a forum?

#2 Post by trooper6 »

I imagine people interact with the forums in different ways.
I tend to hang out on the Questions board, either asking questions about coding if I have one, or answering questions of others, or reading questions and answers to learn more.
Then I check out "Cookbook" and "Development" to further better my coding skills or learn how Renpy is changing with each version.

After that I check out any interesting threads in "Creator Discussion," and the three "Asset Creation" threads. If I have something to add, I do. Otherwise I read threads that will teach me something.

When I'm looking for new games to play, I check out the "Completed Games."

If I'm looking to recruit for commissions I check out "Recruitment."

I find this to be very much a practical board rather than a socializing board. So I don't really come here to just chat about the weather like I would on reddit. Other folks can tell you how they interact.
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*Last Thing Done (Aug 17): Finished coding emotions and camera for 4/10 main labels.
*Currently Doing: Coding of emotions and camera for the labels--On 5/10
*First Next thing to do: Code in all CG and special animation stuff
*Next Next thing to do: Set up film animation
*Other Thing to Do: Do SFX and Score (maybe think about eye blinks?)
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Re: How do you interact with a forum?

#3 Post by Parataxis »

I am here mostly for discussion, and to stay in the headspace of VNs while I am writing. Thus I tend to hang out almost exclusively in the General Discussion, Creator Discussion and Writing Discussion forums, with field trips and jaunts to other areas as needed. (Say, I have a peculiar programming error, or I decide to spend a day considering who I would want to do a soundtrack, etc) I mostly read posts, though I've been trying to post more.

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Re: How do you interact with a forum?

#4 Post by AllegroDiRossi »

I read the boards almost exclusively to keep me inspired to keep working on my own projects. I usually haunt Ideas and WIPs to feed off the creative energy there like some sort of VN-vampire. I'll reply when I see a topic that piques my interest, but I'm generally more of a lurker. Whenever I get to the actual building of my game, I'll probably start posting and reading a lot in the coding sections.
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Re: How do you interact with a forum?

#5 Post by psy_wombats »

While it's definitely good to have a helpful and dev-focused forum, it is kind of a shame there's not as much activity around the general boards for just getting to know other people working on games. At least people are occasionally on IRC I guess.
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Re: How do you interact with a forum?

#6 Post by trooper6 »

I think these forums are not so much a "socialize and make friends" sort of place is by design. If you look at the forum rules you'll see that the rules are set up the minimize drama and keep the boards professional rather than like other more chatty boards. That said, I imagine people make connections with my others when collaborating on projects, usually NaNoReNo, and then socialize/make friends in PMs, emails, Skype, IRC, etc.
A Close Shave:
*Last Thing Done (Aug 17): Finished coding emotions and camera for 4/10 main labels.
*Currently Doing: Coding of emotions and camera for the labels--On 5/10
*First Next thing to do: Code in all CG and special animation stuff
*Next Next thing to do: Set up film animation
*Other Thing to Do: Do SFX and Score (maybe think about eye blinks?)
Check out My Clock Cookbook Recipe: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 51&t=21978

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Re: How do you interact with a forum?

#7 Post by AllegroDiRossi »

psy_wombats wrote:At least people are occasionally on IRC I guess.
I have never taken the time to demystify the secrets of how to IRC (I just can't muster the energy to google). Have you ever used slack / thought about a Slack for LSF? I've been wanting one for a while. I would love to just chat with people without starting a new thread that has to have a purpose. This is also the reason I haven't been able to deeply get into reddit.
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Re: How do you interact with a forum?

#8 Post by psy_wombats »

I do use Slack, actually, and I personally think it might help provide a more modern experience and if advertised could get more people into chat. Not without a couple drawbacks, though. I've recently been through a IRC->slack transition on another game dev forum (RMN) so a brief synopsis:

Went well:
- Lots more people showed up on slack than were ever on IRC, and it didn't skew anywhere near as heavy towards techie types
- A lot more people started logging in on tablets, phones, etc

Not so well:
- A few graybeards who were in IRC since like 2008 are now moderately annoyed because several of the few remaining IRC people left for slack and they don't like slack... there is now a giant bellyaching forum thread on it
- Slack requires authorization, so a web app had to be set up... it's mostly fine but still odd

I'm a little new to be making any chat recommendations here though, but I think it might be worth surfacing with admins (or IRC vets), probably in another topic. In the meantime though, while IRC is definitely not the most user friendly thing in the world, there are web clients that make things mostly straightforward. For instance just clicking the IRC link at the top of the page should just ask you for a nick then drop you in the room, no questions asked.
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Re: How do you interact with a forum?

#9 Post by Plotline_Progenitor »

I guess certain aspects of interaction were false expectations on my part but I think even in a professional forum some small level of connection is to be had, I mean I read a kinetic novel from last years NanoRenO and actually paused to reflect on how many names appeared in the credits which would mean more than one person contributed and they all had to come into contact somehow.

I'm aware of the recruitment threads and may even post something there soon to see if anyone wants to help out on some things I'd like to make and that I could make contacts through that process, I suppose I just wanted to know if there was much else I could do to make contacts and connections around here or seem like more of a familiar face so to speak, I've heard some forums tend not to take newcomers very seriously and wondered if I was being out of place for not posting much and going extended periods of time without logging in

Far as I can tell though responses seem to just point back to the already clearly laid out sections of the forum and suggest browsing so I guess there's not much to be gained in a thread like this. I guess the mods can go ahead and remove this thread unless anyone else has something to finish with it

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Re: How do you interact with a forum?

#10 Post by Shagwrath »

I just wanted to add, I've been in, and ran a forums with lots of socialization, drama becomes inevitable it seems like, so that's one thing that's nice about here, I haven't seen any of it. And there still is a helpful degree of socialization without it. When you ask for feedback, people give it. You still find people to work with and there is a lot going on.

That's just my thoughts after reading what everyone has said, perspective from another newbie I guess.
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Re: How do you interact with a forum?

#11 Post by hoihoisoi »

For how I go through the forums, I'd usually open up the creator's discussion, general discussion, work in progress and skill improvement:writing as tabs and view what's been happening. I guess you can say I'm looking for any topics of interest that I can give my input in and also read about some thought provoking discussions if any.
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