Darvond: deviantArt. A worse community can be easily found, but it is a fine example of what staff neglect can do to a site.

Sachys: DA user myself - know exactly what you mean

Darvond: I don't mean to turn this into a 'bitch about dA' thread, but they've got 5 UI people, and yet the astetics of a single person.

Navagon: I used to be a regular on DeviantArt forums too. That was years ago now though. I don't know what's become of the site since then, but I saw it go from neglect to totalitarianism to being quite reasonable and well regulated.

That's when it became boring and I lost interest.

Darvond: Well, after it became regulated, it became neglected, they changed the site a few times, and now the staff are seen in the ivory towers, with none of the Community staff bothering to really community. We've got a forum, why can't the staff use it.

They threatened to close the shoutbox and protest prevented it from being killed off, and the deviantArt Messaging Network is still as basic as ever.

Navagon: But still, GOG could learn a lot from that message centre.

Darvond: Sure. I think for the time, deviantArt was ahead of the curve, but now I look and compare and it is looking dated. I know there's more that could be done with that, and I'm not sure what exactly.

But would it really be needed on GOG? The forums are a buzzing hub, but you can still easily navigate them.

Now, if they were categorized moreso...

Sachys: Oh dear no, it's becoming one of those threads...

In short:

Categories not required, labels maybe. A better search function DEFINATELY. More Icons for topics.
Thats it. We've been over this a thousand times easily.

Darvond: It tends to happen. Oops.

El_Caz: I come from a forum where some of the original guys from Operation CWAL still hang around.

Back in the original Starcraft days, when Blizzard was developing the game, there were a bunch of their fans in the official forums (first called 'Starcraft Suggestions', then 'Pilot's Lounge') waiting to get their mitts on the game.

And they waited.

And waited.

Until one of them decided he wanted to steal the gold master CD from Blizzard so they could play the game. Some other forumers followed along and they started writing stories and coming up with characters where they tried to 'liberate' the game from Blizzard. And so, Operation CWAL ( for 'Can't Wait Any Longer') was born.

That's where the cheat code in original Starcraft comes from and when you put it in, it makes buildings build much faster. Blizzard even thanked Operation CWAL in the credits, since the stories kept people entertained while they waited.

One of them linked me to GOG and I've been here since... I dunno. What does my join date say?

morciu: i used to sped way too much time on www.ultimate-guitar.com

Darvond: So wait, some forum users decided to steal an unreleased game from Blizzard?

Darvond: Howdy, ya'll! I was just wondering where you kindred folks hail from, what's your home forum, is what I'm asking.

Sadly for me, I majorly hail from the /b/ of Art, deviantArt. A worse community can be easily found, but it is a fine example of what staff neglect can do to a site.