I have been apart of the AIO message board community for 6 years. In that time I have seen message boards come and go. For a while, The ToO was the big hangout spot. For a while it had a combination of AIO discussion and events. As time has marched on, the ToO has kind of slipped in both areas. SS has taken on the AIO discussion. Personally, I wanted CC to live up to more than what it has.
This begs the question, is there a shift in what the AIO community wants in a board? Is the desire solely for AIO discussion or is there still something that wants both. I hate to think that message boards are no longer relevant.
How Relevant Are Message Boards In The AIO Community?
I think that a good AIO message board has a mixture of lots of AIO discussion and general discussion also. I think that the message boards are quite central to the AIO community. I like how they're are theological debates on the SS and the ToO. I also like how there is lots of AIO discussion on the SS. Unfortunately the activity on the CC has plummeted. So, I like lots of AIO discussion debates, and just general discussion.
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Wodfamchocsod
- Cookies & Creme
- Posts: 290
- Joined: January 2014
I think that it's great to have message boards and Whitsend.org (I go there a lot) but I Like message boards better. They don't have to take so long, and it's great organized discussion.
Girls just wanna have fun!
Message boards aren't the most relevant in Odyssey, but if there are parts of it that are purely Odyssey, it's relevant enough. 
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John Henry
- Peach Cobbler
- Posts: 1430
- Joined: June 2014
SS is the only mainly AIO-related.
I like message boards, but sometimes I feel like Alex in The Virtual Kid. I post on SS, but I don't really listen to Odyssey at all anymore (though I do listen to the new albums occasionally when they come out, but rarely ones that I've already heard).
17:39<Novatom>: I'm in another boat. A boat of people who don't know what everyone's talking about. A boat that is sinking.
17:40<Sameriazx>: oh no... here we go again...
17:40<Sameriazx>: oh no... here we go again...
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ArnoldtheRubberDucky
- Butter Pecan
- Posts: 2912
- Joined: June 2012
- Location: Unknown
- Contact:
I believe that they are very relevant to the AIO Community, as there really is not "community" without them. I knew absolutely no one who liked AIO as much as I did before I came here.
It seems the main problem with all the different boards is that you kind of have to choose one of the three. Most people don't have time to be an active member of two boards, and people tend to gravitate to either the ToO or SS, even if they're a member of both.
I think that what was at the heart of CC's problem was that most of the users on there were also huge SS users. And it became very difficult to split your time between the two. CC was actually something different, a combo of the two boards, if you will. It had the AIO discussion of the SS, and the fun and games and general discussion of the ToO. But for some reason, no one seemed to want both. I think that three message boards might have been a bit much anyway, and there weren't really enough in the AIO community for all three. For some reason, CC was edged out of the discussion.
I actually have a theory for why CC got "third-place" to a new board: Jacob Isom had already been the webmaster of the most popular AIO fansite ever for 12 years by the time he finally got the idea to make a message board, and he advertised and hosted the thing directly at the Odyssey Scoop. The Odyssey Scoop had a pretty big fan base, so everyone who read the Odyssey Scoop naturally joined the board. CC was kind of its own separate thing, so there was no established readership that would instantly join the board if the webmaster wanted them to. In the end, for the grand return of CC, Bren got most of the prominent SS users to join and it was all good for a while, but as I said before, people kind of had to choose one or the other, and most of them (including myself, I admit) chose the SS.
I believe that CC "could" come back and trump both the SS and the ToO, but it would have to be a pretty big and exciting and unique thing to drag the SS members attention away from the SS, or the ToOers attention away from the ToO.
It seems the main problem with all the different boards is that you kind of have to choose one of the three. Most people don't have time to be an active member of two boards, and people tend to gravitate to either the ToO or SS, even if they're a member of both.
I think that what was at the heart of CC's problem was that most of the users on there were also huge SS users. And it became very difficult to split your time between the two. CC was actually something different, a combo of the two boards, if you will. It had the AIO discussion of the SS, and the fun and games and general discussion of the ToO. But for some reason, no one seemed to want both. I think that three message boards might have been a bit much anyway, and there weren't really enough in the AIO community for all three. For some reason, CC was edged out of the discussion.
I actually have a theory for why CC got "third-place" to a new board: Jacob Isom had already been the webmaster of the most popular AIO fansite ever for 12 years by the time he finally got the idea to make a message board, and he advertised and hosted the thing directly at the Odyssey Scoop. The Odyssey Scoop had a pretty big fan base, so everyone who read the Odyssey Scoop naturally joined the board. CC was kind of its own separate thing, so there was no established readership that would instantly join the board if the webmaster wanted them to. In the end, for the grand return of CC, Bren got most of the prominent SS users to join and it was all good for a while, but as I said before, people kind of had to choose one or the other, and most of them (including myself, I admit) chose the SS.
I believe that CC "could" come back and trump both the SS and the ToO, but it would have to be a pretty big and exciting and unique thing to drag the SS members attention away from the SS, or the ToOers attention away from the ToO.
Sir Arnold, Knight of the Order of Augustine, Debate Vampire
Mr. Yorp wrote:You don't need a degree to shovel manure.
Actually activity is back up on the CC!ArnoldtheRubberDucky wrote: I believe that CC "could" come back and trump both the SS and the ToO, but it would have to be a pretty big and exciting and unique thing to drag the SS members attention away from the SS, or the ToOers attention away from the ToO.
I say it's more active then the ToO currently, but people don't like it when I say that. 
Several of the newer and older members of the SS have come over (JH, Yelsew, HSCG, Blitz, Natalie, Gaberk, etc.) The CC has just celebrated it's 5th birthday and has lots of events coming up. Such as Fall Festival, and Christmas events. 