PCFormat Forum Archive

GreyWolf wrote:

Stuart wrote: I'm interested to know how you're pronouncing "tear" right now.

You would be, you sicko.

And some people call me sicko...

SykomantiS wrote:And some people call me sicko...

Normally I'm compassionate toward dogs, but poodles aren't dogs.

jee got banned? what else did i miss??

(y'all miss me?)

Ark wrote:jee got banned? what else did i miss??

(y'all miss me?)

RRF got banned, Ron2K left, Stuart became head hunchman, Kalster joined the mod squad, Hamin moved to live with the sheep (Australia), Anakha's leash got smaller (married), and the rest have slowly dwindled down to a trickle of forumites...

KatrynKat wrote:Kalster joined the mod squad

And by that she means that he will participate in the next season of America's Next Top Model.

Ark wrote:jee got banned? what else did i miss??

(y'all miss me?)

Hey ark! I see that you also took a bit of a sabbatical Since I don't recall interacting with you in the past, nice to meet you!

KatrynKat wrote:and the rest have slowly dwindled down to a trickle of bunnies...

That's what my brain ended your sentence with before I got to the word "forumites."

It's a pity you didn't use bunnies instead.

Stuart wrote:

KatrynKat wrote:Kalster joined the mod squad

And by that she means that he will participate in the next season of America's Next Top Model.

Ba hahahahahahahahaha!!! **puts on Twitter as QOTD**

Stuart wrote:

KatrynKat wrote:Kalster joined the mod squad

And by that she means that he will participate in the next season of America's Next Top Model.

Didn't quite get that, but if that were to happen, Kobus Wiese would start selling some clothes in the US.

We had people here?

IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIIIIIIVE!!!

'Tis but a brief spark, a reflex, a twitch if you will.
It - as with all things - will pass and the winds will once again return to these hallowed halls.

At least they're hallowed doo. : -)

hamin_aus wrote:Who is Jamin_ZA?
He sounds like a moffie....

He is

Now here's my take. I've noticed a trend of some forums dying while others flourish.

Systemshock = dead
MyBroadband = very much alive

My theory is that there are a few members on every forum that hold the lot together. No matter how popular or unpopular you are, you find yourself looking for the posts of a few. Once these few start leaving, you find yourself visiting the forums less and less. If you were one of the few that someone else looked up to, they've now got one less reason to return. When they leave, the people that looked up to them have one less reason to return, and so it snowballs.

Part two of my theory is specialising too deeply in one subject.

1. Systemshock reached its prime when all of the South African overclockers called it home. Some things happened (no need to bring up dirt) and they all left for Prophecy Forums - Prophecy Forums later became PHForums and the classifieds section was split off as Carbonite, which eventually swallowed PHForums altogether.

2. As a selling platform, Carbonite doesn't just appeal to one market and is flourishing.

XtremeSystems = dead
Overclock.net = very much alive

1. XtremeSystems was very much about the oldskool, hardcore overclockers such as hipro5, the guys who were hard modding their hardware and didn't even wake up in the mornings until the CPU, NB and graphics cards were all subzero. Those guys have all moved on to other hobbies, and the forums died. Overclock.net caters for the more casual overclocker, of which there are many. You could lose 100 and people would still have plenty more giving them reason to return.

2. The days of having to mod hardware to get much more out of it are long gone, whereas the top end motherboards of ten years ago couldn't supply high enough voltages under LN2, even low to mid range boards of today can. Competitive benchmarking has, for a very large part, moved away from making the best of what you have and more towards binning hardware until you have a golden CPU, RAM and graphics card(s). Manufacturer sponsorship has also segregated the extreme from everyone else, and it is near impossible for someone without sponsorship to get results which would get them the attention needed to obtain sponsorship. It's a bit of a catch 22, but as it stands Joe Average doesn't stand a chance of getting an earth shattering result.

Now onto PCFormat. PCFormat forums were held together by the magazine, it was a place to discuss articles, chat with the staff, request cover disc content, and so forth. Printed media started to die at the turn of the millennium and the death rapidly sped up circa 2007/2008. PCFormat, NAG, SACM, CustomPCSA, PlayStation magazine, .net (does anyone even remember that?) - they're all dead. The information available in magazines is available completely free of charge online, and often up to two months before you have the magazine in your hand. If I read an article for free a month or two back, why would I pay to re-read it now?

The irony is that this internet community may very well have been killed by the internet itself - with cheap access available to all, there's no reason NOT to read everything you want to and download to your heart's content. The binding force holding this forum together was removed.

The internet is a wonderful thing, but also one of the most destructive things we've ever made. It has hurt radio, TV, cinema, newspapers, magazines, books, retail stores, the list goes on.

Solid post is solid

-----

a shift in the paradigm is slowly eating away at the forum until a slither of its life force is left...

Oj wrote:2. As a selling platform, Carbonite doesn't just appeal to one market and is flourishing.

Carbonite would be virtually dead quiet if it weren't for the classifieds section of it. The rest of the forum isn't exactly booming. I'm there, but there's rarely anything to comment on.

Oj wrote: Now onto PCFormat. PCFormat forums were held together by the magazine, it was a place to discuss articles, chat with the staff, request cover disc content, and so forth.

Not the last few years, no. Few forumites read the mag and even fewer subscribed to it at a time the forum was blooming.

Fscking Aussies...

Oj wrote:PCFormat forums were held together by the magazine, it was a place to discuss articles, chat with the staff, request cover disc content, and so forth. Printed media started to die at the turn of the millennium and the death rapidly sped up circa 2007/2008. PCFormat, NAG, SACM, CustomPCSA, PlayStation magazine, .net (does anyone even remember that?) - they're all dead. The information available in magazines is available completely free of charge online, and often up to two months before you have the magazine in your hand. If I read an article for free a month or two back, why would I pay to re-read it now?

Nice effort post, so I'll effort reply

The mag held PCF together until about roughly midway thru Nab's tenure
He came in with a plan to mold the forums into something he thought would be great. Unfortunately the general population of the forums weren't down with that. They wanted to preserve the status quo. For different reasons.
His plans to invigorate the forums were met with criticism and sabotage - in the form of rather open hostility to the new members that came in as a result of his efforts
Eventually he became disillusioned and relegated the forums to the back of the bus.
He developed a PCF site that had virtually no tie-ins to the forums, with its own comments sections and everything.
It actually did quite well and went some ways towards proving the forums were somewhat exclusionary and not a place that welcomed change or growth for the most part.

So then the forums were held together by the 20 or so regulars who used it more as a social meeting place than as a forum to discuss gaming and technology

Eventually the very thing that kept the forums a place where only the long-standing members thrived was what undid it. High-school level drama and infighting eventually splintered the stalwart forumites and now you have the shell you see today.

Also Ron is right, the fcuking Aussies didn't help matters