07-30-2020, 12:39 PM
Some thoughts on this...
I don't see the barriers to joining the forum as being significantly different from/harder than those associated with joining the old Yahoo groups. You had to ask for permission to join for that. OTOH, if you mean something other that LOE to join when you say 'barriers to entry' - maybe.
When I joined OA there were a lot more shorter articles in comparison to long ones than we have now. Our articles have tended to get longer and more involved. I've had instances where I've asked people about contributing - either in email conversations starting from a Contact Us message or elsewhere - and they indicate they don't think they know enough about science to contribute. Or that they imagine us to be intimidating or the like. We do tend to be much more rigorous about the science and 'logical consistency' of entries than we were back in the day (no more 'here's an article.' Ok - fine' and it's up by the next day). But I don't know that that is a particularly difficult or intimidating barrier to folks. I've not seen anyone bring it up before, at least. Maybe the newer members would have more to say on this.
It's possible the issue of most 'low hanging fruit' having been picked could play a role. When I joined OA there were easily dozens of hard SF, transhuman, and high tech concepts that hadn't made it to the EG yet. These days - much less of that. We've been gradually shifting to planet creation (a big thing right now), fleshing out and/or refining existing content and more 'social' elements like applications of psychoware. That said, there is certainly more or less unlimited room for people to create new polities or garden worlds if they feel like it.
One thing I wonder about is if the various alternative platforms to the forum (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Discord) might be both 'diluting' the pool of potential active members/contributors (more options than just the forum) and also promoting a culture of talking about OA rather than creating OA.
On a possibly related note - something that's come up on the Discord multiple times is someone presenting an idea, a forum member encouraging them to bring it to the forum to be turned into an EG article - and the person saying they aren't 'used to' forums as if this is some kind of distinct barrier to them joining or participating. I honestly don't understand this. A keyboard is a keyboard is a keyboard. But apparently they see some sort of significant barrier related to posting on the forum.
There is also a general tendency in the last 5 years or more for people to want to tell us how they think some part of the setting should be but do not want to actually put in the work to make the addition or change themselves. Instead they want us to do it for them. Which isn't what we're on about here. But it might be worth asking some newer members if they get a vibe that that is how OA is supposed to work (and why they get that feeling). Also, the OA Culture page will likely seek to address this to some degree. Aiming to have a draft of that ready over the weekend.
My 2c worth,
Todd
(07-29-2020, 09:32 AM)Dfleymmes1134 Wrote: These are interesting points
but as a more general question for the newer folks and maybe those who've been around since the beginning
could the higher activity actually have been due to lower barriers to entry, so to speak, or because all the low hanging fruit hadn't been taken yet? or other reasons?
because there also wasn't as much consistency or careful editing as there is now, from what I understand.
I don't see the barriers to joining the forum as being significantly different from/harder than those associated with joining the old Yahoo groups. You had to ask for permission to join for that. OTOH, if you mean something other that LOE to join when you say 'barriers to entry' - maybe.
When I joined OA there were a lot more shorter articles in comparison to long ones than we have now. Our articles have tended to get longer and more involved. I've had instances where I've asked people about contributing - either in email conversations starting from a Contact Us message or elsewhere - and they indicate they don't think they know enough about science to contribute. Or that they imagine us to be intimidating or the like. We do tend to be much more rigorous about the science and 'logical consistency' of entries than we were back in the day (no more 'here's an article.' Ok - fine' and it's up by the next day). But I don't know that that is a particularly difficult or intimidating barrier to folks. I've not seen anyone bring it up before, at least. Maybe the newer members would have more to say on this.
It's possible the issue of most 'low hanging fruit' having been picked could play a role. When I joined OA there were easily dozens of hard SF, transhuman, and high tech concepts that hadn't made it to the EG yet. These days - much less of that. We've been gradually shifting to planet creation (a big thing right now), fleshing out and/or refining existing content and more 'social' elements like applications of psychoware. That said, there is certainly more or less unlimited room for people to create new polities or garden worlds if they feel like it.
One thing I wonder about is if the various alternative platforms to the forum (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Discord) might be both 'diluting' the pool of potential active members/contributors (more options than just the forum) and also promoting a culture of talking about OA rather than creating OA.
On a possibly related note - something that's come up on the Discord multiple times is someone presenting an idea, a forum member encouraging them to bring it to the forum to be turned into an EG article - and the person saying they aren't 'used to' forums as if this is some kind of distinct barrier to them joining or participating. I honestly don't understand this. A keyboard is a keyboard is a keyboard. But apparently they see some sort of significant barrier related to posting on the forum.
There is also a general tendency in the last 5 years or more for people to want to tell us how they think some part of the setting should be but do not want to actually put in the work to make the addition or change themselves. Instead they want us to do it for them. Which isn't what we're on about here. But it might be worth asking some newer members if they get a vibe that that is how OA is supposed to work (and why they get that feeling). Also, the OA Culture page will likely seek to address this to some degree. Aiming to have a draft of that ready over the weekend.
My 2c worth,
Todd