So the forums have had less activity

[Joeno]

We're not ending PKMN.NET, but we're not going to invest as much time in it to update it as people might want. We're not going to kill anything, nothing's going anywhere, but right now I believe I'm the only one doing any regular work on the site. I'm not interested at the moment in focusing on stuff like writing, and if there's nobody else who does so either, nothing is going to happen there.

TAR is intended to solve that, because more people are interested in writing for that, while avoiding some legacy that's holding us back now.

I'm not going to merge any communities as there's no point in doing so. I'm still interested in and am updating parts of the site, just not the ones people apparently want. Merging communities means that I'm severely restricted in that - don't forget that you use your forums account here on the site as well, the two are too linked to seperate.

As for forum changes - how about trying out to see how TAR works down the line? We're relaxing the rules there compared to here - intentionally, as we feel we can do more in that setting. New boards doesn't seem like a good idea, there's too many empty ones already, the existing ones need more activity first. As for other things... I don't see how doing stuff like upping a signature limit will make any real difference.

To set up a proper survey, we need to spend more time on actually getting that set up and working, while I don't see the benefits it would bring. It might be nice for people to say something, but then what are we supposed to do? And with the usual response rate to surveys and the type of answers you get back, I'm not sure how many conclusions we could really draw from it.

[Spriter]

I must say that the main influence for my activity here is because of the community. It's just lost it's magic now, I guess, but TAR is definitely a nice concept. I would gladly stay here, and I can keep up with both sites.

[OVOxo]

PKMN.NET I'd say isn't dying but it most certainly is regressing. There isn't enough effort being put into it; I don't blame the higher ups for it because everyone's life has changed over the years. It'd need a lot of changes for this place to get to where it was and that would need to come from the current member base or a new one (which is why Richard and Blaziken's idea does have merit but whether that's plausible or not is another matter... I don't really know about that sort of thing so I won't mention it further). As with the higher ups the rest of us don't really have the time for it either and those that do may not want to or even be given a chance for them to be completely helpful. I guess it's just natural site regression.

TAR is a potentially good concept but tbh it's two or three years too late for it to have been truly successful. With a more active and contributing PKMN.NET then more members would move onto there and help it flourish. To get TAR working you'd need to seek out a new audience for it to get anywhere near the interest that this place had. It's also why we can't just 'wait and see how TAR works' because it won't work for a lot of members. Plus TAR getting preferential treatment over PKMN.NET complicates things further; it seems that the side project has become the primary project and vice-versa. Don't blame you guys for it at all (if TAR becomes successful then it'll be justified) but it is clear to see that it could hurt this site more than help it. I'm not saying stop TAR because it's obvious that there is a want for it and there has been a lot of work put into it which should be respected. I just don't want to see this  be compromised for it.

If this and TAR are going to co-exist I think they need the same treatment. That means they should links to each other on their own sites, very similar rules (obviously with slight differences due to their subject matter) among whatever else. I like the fact that they are styled similarly which helps. New boards wouldn't help at all. In actual fact; maybe there should be just one forum for both PKMN.NET and TAR? I don't understand site to forum mechanics and whatnot but surely if TAR is just going to be a place for content outside of Pokémon then have this as your forums with Pokémon content but have a TAR section in the forums? So have PKMN.NET General and TAR General with their respective Updates and Suggestions boards, etc.; it's not necessarily about new boards but revamping what there is to make it an easier compromise.

Trolling happens everywhere so I doubt that has led to inactivity.

If activity were to increase though new members would need to be brought in... and if that can't happen the community will flop to an extent. This is where I agree with Turner I think it was; if other Pokémon sites are far more serious about their work then perhaps we should integrate a more laid back approach and build the community around that as it were?

As for more activity in our current boards; maybe a weekly topic for discussion? I've seen before in places that have a weekly debate where a topic is chosen and it keeps the place fresh and interesting. Of course, it'd comply with the rules and whatnot but considering members have shown that they like to debate it'd be great! Plus the whole attitude of 'what happens in the board stays in the board' would also work alongside it.

As for the art boards, that's dependent on the activity of posters and right now it's not going to work that well as members don't have as much time for this place any more. Same applies to RP.

For the media boards... this could work with aligning TAR's and PKMN.NET's forums but what if we have an Album of the Week, Song of the Week, TV Show of the Week, Film of the Week, Book of the Week and Game of the Week. Discussion would take place on the forums and then analysis can be provided by the contributors on TAR for those choices. It'd be a great way of being interactive between both sites with retaining this community (as I alluded to before, not all of the member base will switch over to TAR which means this would keep both audiences together).

RR has always been a funny board... so I won't go into that.

Pokémon boards would remain as they would provide information; that could help with content? Those learning information can easily help contribute that.

Sorry if what I've said isn't really helpful since I don't know how sites to forums and stuff like that works (never needed to learn it as of yet) but I thought I'd at least throw some ideas around because there is evidence to show that people still want to see this place around =]

[Pam-the-Lamb]

 I usually go on a broader forum now because of the atmosphere over there, not my actual reason to why I don't spend as much time here though.

I could try and get a few people to come here like, they all seem pretty entheusiastic towards Pokemon, but isn't there a whole rule about not advertising other sites?

This site is nice but I've noticed loads of people joining up, posting 1 or 2 different messages and just not coming back. Which is sad

[Richard and Blaziken]

Bringing others here won't work if they have no reason to stay. The lack of time and care for this site doesn't present an atmosphere for a forum that begs a member to stay. No new content is being added, and you can tell you're at a dead forum when you come here.

I could write up a weekly thing like 'Pokemon of the week' that talks about a Pokemon in all aspects (competitively, from my personal stance, and some general information about it), as a way to show people that this site is still active and wants users to come back. Now, you could get knowledge about a Pokemon from Bulbapedia, but it's so structured and written professionally. I'd like to write something that has a bit more soul to it, and I definitely have extensive knowledge about Pokemon from many aspects, especially competitively (we could even split the Pokemon of the Week into sections written by different users. For example, one user writing the competitive aspect of the Pokemon, one writing anime bio, one writing about cards it has been featured in, etc.).

My main worry with this is that staff doesn't have time to post these things we've written. It'd be a complete waste of time and effort for those involved if staff isn't willing to put it on the site. I want to help get this site back on the right track, but it's a little frustrating when you keep hitting the "No time, don't care" wall. =/

[Joeno]

My main worry with this is that staff doesn't have time to post these things we've written.

If we can sit down to show you how to properly do our HTML and you can get that checked by us two or three times (I can quickly go through them and correct them), then it's trivial to give you access to add them yourself. That's always been possible.

However, it does need to be kept up then. It's easy to say you'll do it, do it twice and then forget about it. That's what happened to many things people see around the site they now miss.

[Richard and Blaziken]

I can say that I will absolutely try to learn, but I have little knowledge of it. I am more than willing to learn and keep up with it, because honestly, I care about this site a lot. I don't know if it will help at all, but I'd love to try. I usually have at least two free days a week, and that's more than enough to write up an article about a Pokemon, especially when most of the information is already in my mind. I'd love to be given a chance to do it, really, if there is someone willing to teach me patiently.

[Joeno]

I should be able to find time at some point to do so

[Pam-the-Lamb]

 Didn't we have that pokemon card thing before? That was really cool.

[Mulholland]

My main worry with this is that staff doesn't have time to post these things we've written. It'd be a complete waste of time and effort for those involved if staff isn't willing to put it on the site. I want to help get this site back on the right track, but it's a little frustrating when you keep hitting the "No time, don't care" wall. =/

For the media boards... this could work with aligning TAR's and PKMN.NET's forums but what if we have an Album of the Week, Song of the Week, TV Show of the Week, Film of the Week, Book of the Week and Game of the Week. Discussion would take place on the forums and then analysis can be provided by the contributors on TAR for those choices. It'd be a great way of being interactive between both sites with retaining this community (as I alluded to before, not all of the member base will switch over to TAR which means this would keep both audiences together).

I could write up a weekly thing like 'Pokemon of the week' that talks about a Pokemon in all aspects (competitively, from my personal stance, and some general information about it), as a way to show people that this site is still active and wants users to come back. Now, you could get knowledge about a Pokemon from Bulbapedia, but it's so structured and written professionally. I'd like to write something that has a bit more soul to it, and I definitely have extensive knowledge about Pokemon from many aspects, especially competitively (we could even split the Pokemon of the Week into sections written by different users. For example, one user writing the competitive aspect of the Pokemon, one writing anime bio, one writing about cards it has been featured in, etc.).

I'm going to answer these quoted things at some point in this post but instead of splitting up this thought vomit with quotes it made more sense to just have it as a sorta-cohesive thing.

It is no point denying that with myself, Joeno, Mike and Rob being in full-time employment (Mike being in full-time education with employment on the weekends) that the posting of new content on this site has been lax. It's happened, it's there. We still have an admin where this isn't an issue.

To stand up for Joeno here, he is still working his socks off doing behind the scenes work on this site when he gets home from work. For me when I am teaching I come home to marking and lesson planning until 10pm... so the last thing I want to do is extra work when I could vegetate with some Gilmore Girls/Adventure Time/Star Trek etc (especially when I lose my weekends to lesson planning).

The whole point of TAR was Mike's and myself and Jeroen did a lot of work to get it off of the ground. Lottie has been fantastic since the launch and she can back me up when I say that when sent an article (as editor I will be looking at all as well as writing my fair share) it is up in a few days unless I lose the e-mail which can happen.

If you want to do some writing there is this new place for you to do it and the scope is pretty wide. And I am pretty darned reliable when it comes to putting stuff up. If you want to know where to send it PM me here and I'll let you know and we can get a conversation going OR even PM me on TAR OR Facebook message me as that is what Lottie does. We even have a Facebook group which mostly me, Lottie and Joeno so I would welcome the company.

I guess what I am trying to say is that this has been open for a fortnight and no one else has asked to write anything for it... and yet you guys want to write stuff...

If you have no interest in writing about games, movies, music or other stuff and the only way you can think of writing content is Pokémon stuff, well I step forward now and say that until you get some decent HTML in your knowledgeheads.

I am not in anyway saying TAR will be replacing PKMN but an admin split will probably be happening with Mike and myself taking TAR duties and Rob and Rex more on the PKMN side. Joeno has the task of behind the scenes on both and thus deserves ice cream at the next meet... not from me as I keep him regularly fed and watered.

I guess the tl;dr is that a meeting between the admins will be needed at some point where we can co-ordinate the four worker bees about how we can raise the content stuff... but TAR is currently here and we want to make this work.

[OVOxo]

Again though, the problem lies with the fact that TAR has no appeal to some people whereas this place will at least retain some form of interest to all within the member base right now. I don't blame you guys for wanting to do TAR instead given everyone's situation but it's evident that there is a desire for this place to get back to being a successful site rather than what people are worried it will become.

I'm going to say this now; as it stands, I won't want to do anything for TAR. There's no point me joining the forums because I'm on these ones and I see no point in being on both. I wouldn't be surprised if others agree with me here. I'm not going to write articles for it because I don't feel like there's any reason for me to and if I were to attempt to write articles I'd look at different opportunities for it. My viewpoint could change over time but right now I'd much rather continue to post on here, keep the social side of the forums going with certain posters and keep discussions on the boards rather than writing articles about the same subject.

However... if you guys think that boosting TAR may help this place I may write a few articles. I want to see PKMN.NET do well and if I've got to put effort into helping this place do well by helping TAR then I guess I'd be willing to do so. I know this probably contradicts what I've said prior but both show that I want PKMN.NET to do well. Meh. I can't write PKMN.NET content so I can't help there but I will offer to help in any way. I don't want to see this whole thing of 'PKMN.NET is dying' when there are ways we can all help out.

Dunno what I'd write about... I'll have to think about that. Might do a few types of stuff just to get stuff going if needs be. I'll see what you guys want first I guess =S

I do hope TAR becomes a success for you guys but I hope more for this place to have the activity it used to. I've already said that they should co-exist more rather than seem like separate entities because that would probably raise interest from this side to contribute on both. I guess I seem to be rambling now but oh well.

Btw:

If you have no interest in writing about games, movies, music or other stuff and the only way you can think of writing content is Pokémon stuff, well I step forward now and say that until you get some decent HTML in your knowledgeheads.

Is there something meant to be on the end of that? Can't really tell and I'm not really sure how to respond to that point in particular yet =P

But yeah, sorry if this post seems really confusing. I'm just trying to be helpful in a way that I can be... and right now that doesn't actually seem too helpful. Whoops ^^;

[Richard and Blaziken]

@Mullholand - I'm not trying to bash anyone that doesn't have time, I'm really not. I understand that fully, but I am just trying to get my point across that I don't particularly care for TAR while I do care about PKMN.net. I want to help keep this site alive, and I will learn HTML from anyone willing to teach me (I've already asked TCoZ on IRC, and I believe Joeno said he'd help when he does get some time). I'm not saying "I'm gonna save PKMN.net!", I'm saying I want to do what I can to try. I'm sorry if any of that came across wrong before.

[Pam-the-Lamb]

 I'm up for helping in any way I realisticly can 

[Lord Raven]

I'm sorry I haven't been contributing much despite creating this thread.  I'm willing to do almost whatever's necessary for community stuff- I'd love to meet with Rob and Rex at some point in the future to brainstorm ideas (even though I'm not a staff member at all).  I'd love to start tournaments of all kinds, keeping an open mind to things, etc and whatever to keep the community running.  We get newbies and I want them to have interest and incentive to stay.

Also- I'm very good these days at being pushed and pushing others to do their stuff.  I *am* incredibly persistent these days and if someone isn't doing something I will gladly do whatever I can to make sure whatever they needed to do gets done.

[Richard and Blaziken]

I've actually just written up the first Pokemon of the Week article completely, and Tim said he enjoyed it, just to show I am ready to follow up with what I said ^_^