TheToO: The original AIO message board.

[Woody]

During the entire year of 2012 on the ToO, only one prominent member joined (Woody).

On the Soda Shop, that group is still emerging and being defined, but we also have dedicated members. The Soda Shop is younger, and has way more new members posting than the ToO, which has very few (just Woody, if you only count 1000+ posts).

*feels special*

But on the topic of the ToO in general, it is a fully awesome(Rhino ) message board. Don't believe what you hear about confusing forum layout. It's really quite simple if you just read the forum descriptions, and know not to post in the Ruins. You should join.

[Novatom]

The first time I got on the ToO chat, I couldn't respond because I couldn't figure out how to post. My brother finally had to show me. I'm not on the ToO though, but I might get an account.

[Connie G.]

I would be on there now, but it's a hassle to sign up unless your 13, which I'm not. I will be in 2 weeks But I am on the ToO chat often

[snubs]

SS also has an average level of younger people. Most of the prominent members on the ToO are above the age of 15 or almost 15.

Yes. Which is why I think the SS is more active. The members here are younger and have more time on their hands. While the members on the ToO have been around for ages and are older now and have more offline responsibilities... like college, job, or are even married.

It is true, the SS does have more new members posting more consistently (whether they eventually fade out or not). The ToO gets new members but they rarely POST. : x It's frustrating.

Which leads back to most of the ToO's members being older. You have to remember it didn't quite start out that way. Maybe they weren't as young as 12, but they weren't in their 20s when they first joined. A lot of the oldies/midbies (or core group of members, as you say TS) joined when they were around 14-17. (I was 16 when I joined the ToO) And now they are all older and busier and frequent the board a lot less. I noticed a good bunch of them still come around pretty often, they just don't post (nearly as much).

This fact has contributed to the lack of activity on the board. Yes, we have a strong group of members, but they are now not posting as much, and the ToO isn't really compensating for that because new members aren't posting. So it just leaves us in the this kind of 'meh' state of low activity. =|


Now that some months have past, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the ToO's current state, TS. Because it now appears to be less active than here.

[Tea Ess]

I probably should be studying for finals instead of posting here, but I really wanted to reply to you, snubs. =p

It is true, the SS does have more new members posting more consistently (whether they eventually fade out or not). The ToO gets new members but they rarely POST. : x It's frustrating.

Yeah, I think this is true of message boards in general. Whether people make an account just to see member-only areas, or if they simply never get interested enough to post, it's a relatively rare event for someone to join and post their way into the core member group.

Which leads back to most of the ToO's members being older. You have to remember it didn't quite start out that way. Maybe they weren't as young as 12, but they weren't in their 20s when they first joined. A lot of the oldies/midbies (or core group of members, as you say TS) joined when they were around 14-17. (I was 16 when I joined the ToO) And now they are all older and busier and frequent the board a lot less. I noticed a good bunch of them still come around pretty often, they just don't post (nearly as much).

This is definitely true. Most people are going to post the most in their teenage years, and possibly into their early 20s, but the majority of members aren't going to stay forever.

I think the main problem is that the ToO hasn't been getting active new members for years. While people have joined and started posting, it's mostly been Soda Shop posters who were already active and post on the ToO as a secondary choice. I'm a pretty good example of this, as I've accumulated over 400 posts on the ToO, but I really don't contribute that much to the board (with the possible exemption of my ToO wealth graph. )

Earlier in the thread, I used the term "prominent member" to reference someone who joined and eventually entered what I would consider the core member group of the ToO. It's a little hard to define objectively, but I imagine the core member group as people who have:

1. A significant amount of posts. 1000 posts seems reasonable enough.
2. Created activity on the ToO. Not only do they post regularly, they start threads and post things that people can reply to, and might even run for an office.

I said that Woody was the last prominent member to join, and I think you could add Penguin to that list as well, now that he's achieved over 1000 posts. They both joined in 2012, and you really have to go back to 2011 to find a decent number of people who entered the core member group. It's probably fair to say more people from 2012 and maybe 2013 will enter that group, but the number of active members is definitely dropping off.

The Soda Shop opened on May 9th in 2012, and it's certainly plausible that its existence has directly contributed to the lack of new active members on the ToO. It's hard to say for sure, but I think that the SS has basically siphoned off a lot of people who would otherwise have posted on the ToO, maybe enough to become a core member of the board. I'm not sure you could say the Soda Shop and Town of Odyssey are directly competing, as there's at least some interaction between the boards, but I think that the SS has definitely engaged members who otherwise have joined the ToO. It would be really interesting to try to represent this mathematically, but I'm not sure how I would go about doing that.

I don't have a frame of reference for what the ToO was like before 2012, but I do remember it having significantly higher activity when I first started observing it, as opposed to now. While I would prefer a graph of the overall posts on the ToO, I'm not sure how to go about doing that, so I graphed the number of votes in elections instead. I would think this would be a fairly good measure of board participation. Keep in mind that for the 27th election, no one could get enough funding to run.

Now that some months have past, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the ToO's current state, TS. Because it now appears to be less active than here.

Last year, I said that I didn't think the ToO was going to die anytime soon. Now, I'm not completely sure. A little more than a year ago, people were discussing whether the ToO was dying or not, and it was still debatable whether the ToO was just in a slump. http://thetoo.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=34063&start=0

Now that it's been an entire year since then, though, I don't think we can say the ToO is just having some temporary problems anymore. It's been declining for years now, and it's going to continue on that path given the current state of events. Unless there's a significant change, that would have to either engage the existing members who aren't posting or bring in a lot of new active members, I think it's safe to say that eventually, most likely in the next few years, the ToO will cease to be an active board. Members like bookworm, Catspaw, you, and maybe Laurie and Woody are going to stay committed to the ToO as long as possible, but they can't keep it running by themselves.

[Woody]

Oy, don't forget me in that last list! #CommittedToTheToO

[The Old Judge]

I don't know if the ToO would go as far as shuttering completely. The CC, you know, has always struggled (as we've talked about recently in its own respective topic), but yet it still survives, albeit in a comatose state. The Town of Odyssey is the predominant message board in the AIO fan community still, if nothing else, it possesses the lore and notoriety that the other boards do not possess. I don't picture the hard-liner ToOers letting it die.

Known commonly as Shake, Senora, this song was featured at the end of the 1980s film Beetlejuice. (1946)

[Pound Foolish]

Well, letting it die is exactly what they're doing right now. Not entirely, mind you, but nearly.

My hope is web browsers will one day recognize us as the go-to aio board. It's high time.

[The Old Judge]

How are they doing that, Mr. Foolish? I must admit I checked on there a few days ago and noticed a stunning amount of inactivity, but all forums go through such times. You are a man of colorful opinions, and as you have had significantly more time than I to peruse the forum and formulate ideas in your head, I would very much like you to expound upon this.

(I must say, though, that I absolutely agree with your opinion about us becoming the go-to AIO forum. The ToO's Odyssey section was one of the first to become largely abandoned, as secular entertainment, debates, and personal lives became the high point of discussion there years ago.)

My little baby then became a brother-in-law to Dad, and so became my uncle, though it made me very sad. For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother of the widow's grown-up daughter, who of course was my stepmother. (1947)

[Pound Foolish]

Well, T.S's carefully made graph pretty much shows it's dying. Not entirely just yet, but slowing down. Yeah, when you only pop in once a month or so, you think, "Wow, this place is so big and has so many people." It's overwhelming, really. But when you want a good debate and the last topic in the debate area was made in October and has zero replies so far, or when you join a book club and the date to discuss the book comes and goes, you start to think, "Gee, overall, it's really pretty quiet here. Not truly dead, but quiet. Maybe call it a walking un-dead board."

As to the second thing you said, agreed. Yay, SS!

[aragtaghooligan]

When you look at all the overlap between AIO fan boards it makes sense that more than one cannot be thriving at once, espescially during the school year when people in elementary school, home school, high school, college, or university are more busy. I am also curious as to whether or not the forum is a dying media form. There are AIO facebook groups which are quite active.

[snubs]

When you look at all the overlap between AIO fan boards it makes sense that more than one cannot be thriving at once

Well, when you consider the ToO, we almost try to target the wrong audience. The ToO needs users, that not only enjoy AIO, but people that also just want a clean christian based place to hang out and discuss things. Because we when comes to people who just want to discuss Odyssey, then the Soda Shop is where they'll likely enjoy themselves more.

So in that sense, it is good that the two boards are different in that aspect, otherwise the ToO may have died/slowed a long time ago (even before the SS was created).

I am also curious as to whether or not the forum is a dying media form. There are AIO facebook groups which are quite active.

Yeah, I think the same thing. I think forums, as we know them, are dying. I don't think the concept of a forum will die out though, because there will always be things like facebook groups (which to me, is a super simplified forum/message board). But possibly message boards like this one might. I don't think for a while, but it'll probably happen if we continue with all of our other social media platforms.. and our need for everything to be faster and simpler.

[aragtaghooligan]

We sound like sad cynical grandpas One question though: I didn't spend much time on the TOO. When I was on there way back in the summer I found that a lot of it seemed to be more silly games(Like the up down number war thing) and it seemed to be slower to get responses. The Soda Shop (in my personal experience) is not only a more likely place for AIO discussion, but when you talk about "a clean christian based place to hang and discuss things" it seems to me that that is also provided in the SS' general courtyard thingy, is it not?

[snubs]

@Pound Foolish:

We sound like sad cynical grandpas

=p Honestly though, the ToO would be more active if people would stop TALKING about how inactive it is and actually POST and get involved.

People keep claiming "there are no topics to post in. D=" ...um, HEELLOOOO? THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF THREADS TO POST IN. People just aren't making the effort to post in them. And if you really don't want to post in any of the existing threads, CREATE A THREAD YOU DO WANT TO POST IN.

But seriously, if you (talking about users in general) don't care about the ToO (and what happens to it) then by all means, don't come around. And for all that is good in the world, STOP TALKING ABOUT HOW YOU THINK IT IS DYING IF YOU DON'T EVEN CARE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

It takes people to make a message board (active). They don't just magically come around. If everyone just waits for people to start posting, then, of course it's going to continue to die out.

The Soda Shop (in my personal experience) is not only a more likely place for AIO discussion, but when you talk about "a clean christian based place to hang and discuss things" it seems to me that that is also provided in the SS' general courtyard thingy, is it not?

It is, now. I've noticed the Soda Shop's general discussion area has expanded since it first started. However, when you look at the Soda Shop as a nonmember/guest, you don't see the Community Courtyard. The reasoning behind this, I'm sure, is because the SS was meant to be built around AIO discussion.

When you look at the ToO long enough to read the forum descriptions, you'll see that we really only have one section for AIO discussion (unlike the SS, which has four). Though you can find AIO references (within discussions) throughout the whole board, we are still very much overrun with general discussion. Which is actually what I really like about the ToO in the first place. I like that I can talk about AIO whenever I want, but also talk about anything else.


Anyway, the way I see it is..

The Soda Shop was meant to be built around AIO discussion. That is (or was) supposed to be the core focus of this board.

The Town of Odyssey was created based off the Odyssey world, but was centered around making a fun place to hang out with friends and AIO fans alike (and even non-Odyssians) to talk about, not only Odyssey, but anything and everything else.

[aragtaghooligan]

I am sorry if I offended you, one more thing though you said that instead of commenting on its dyingness people should post but I'd like to clarify that my main problem was how long it took for people to reply to my posts, not that there were not places for me to post but that no matter how much I posted conversations were never very lively.

[Miss Friendship]

People keep claiming "there are no topics to post in. D=" ...um, HEELLOOOO? THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF THREADS TO POST IN. People just aren't making the effort to post in them. And if you really don't want to post in any of the existing threads, CREATE A THREAD YOU DO WANT TO POST IN.

This is truth. My problem, however, has always been that I don't want to bump an old thread and watch no one reply. Everyone likes threads that get responses.

[snubs]

I am sorry if I offended you, one more thing though you said that instead of commenting on its dyingness people should post but I'd like to clarify that my main problem was how long it took for people to reply to my posts, not that there were not places for me to post but that no matter how much I posted conversations were never very lively.

You didn't offend me at all. =p And I wasn't really responding to you specifically.

I understand what you mean, and I run into the same problem at times. But again, and I cannot seem to stress this enough, that it takes people to make a message board. Meaning if there are only a small handful of people actively posting.. then yes, you'll run into slow responding times.

I was just talking about this with Kaida last night actually. We were talking about how some people may be discouraged to create threads and such because they assume no one will respond. Which does seem to be problem. I've even found myself on the fence a few times about whether or not I wanted to post something (because I didn't think there was a point if no one would respond). However, if we all took this mentality then things will just continue to suffer. So we have to start somewhere, maybe for a while responding will be slow, but if people keep posting then there's a higher chance that things will pick up.

I also understand that it may not be enough to just post, and that our source problem is that we don't get enough new members integrating into the board. But I know for a fact, that if more existing members posted, we would have a much more active board (new members or not).

This is truth. My problem, however, has always been that I don't want to bump an old thread and watch no one reply. Everyone likes threads that get responses.

Again, if we are all taking this attitude, then it's no wonder the board is inactive... and will stay inactive.

[Kaida]

Yeah... I've made two topics over there. Just about no responses. BUT I WILL NOT BE DISCOURAGED. I WILL FIND A WAY TO HELP THE BOARD..... when I have the time. =p

[Connie G.]

I don't know if the ToO would go as far as shuttering completely. The CC, you know, has always struggled (as we've talked about recently in its own respective topic), but yet it still survives, albeit in a comatose state. The Town of Odyssey is the predominant message board in the AIO fan community still, if nothing else, it possesses the lore and notoriety that the other boards do not possess. I don't picture the hard-liner ToOers letting it die.

Old forums never die. They just... fade away.

[Paula]

So the ToO hasn't been loading for me, and I was wondering if it's the sites issue or my laptop's problem. When I click the link it stays on the page that I'm already on and just says "connecting" and does absolutely nothing...So yeah...Is it just me?