MelonLand Discussion 2024 ~ Have your say here!

[Kolo]

I have been making a lot of updates to my website that I just do not share here, because I would effectively be spamming the forum if I did haha. I think that is arguably the trouble that comes from websites is that a lot of change and development happens behind the scenes be it in digital art programs or desktop code editors, so it is hard to tell if a space is still alive.

This is how I feel, sort of! I produce a lot of... art. writing. I work on my site a lot, too. In a way it is basically my fulltime job... and I am always conscious about how much "space" I'm taking up in, well, any given space! So I've always felt a bit shy posting about what I've made or created on the forum. Especially making a whole thread. A thread has a huge weight to me, on my shoulders!

So when I saw the posts in the thread talking about how they wanted to see more creative works, I did feel a little guilty haha. In part this has been because most of the threads I see getting the most replies are not threads about sharing creative works necessarily, but discussions about a topic or asking people's opinions on something. To a degree this is natural/expected but it does I think subconsciously influence how I view and think of the space. But then - how do you encourage people to reply to threads about creativity or creative projects? And I guess also I ask: are my creative projects worth the storage and bandwidth of being talked about here? Not to anyone in particular, I don't expect an answer, it's just always bouncing around in my head like a ping-pong ball.

And really it's no one's responsibility to necessarily encourage people to post one way or another. Is it even possible to? People will do as people do.... I know part of the problem is just being hyperaware about the "space" I'm taking up with every post. But I wonder if anyone else feels the same :P I shout into the void.

I can't even say if I'd participate in any community events. I kind of secretly did a few prompts for the art club that I never posted because I am chronically shy ahahah... but I would like to read them and see people's entries for sure.

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A dividing line to divide the thoughts. Yes I am still having fun. I enjoy reading the forum while I eat like a newspaper, especially the discussions. I kind of want to say yes to a temporary shutdown of the Interests board just to see what happens... like how the forum closes on Mondays sort of thing. I think if you are a part of this forum in a way you have to enjoy the zany experimentation that can happen on it...! I don't think anyone would be permanently upset.

I love the idea of Site of the Week!

It definitely does surprise me to find out that people join the forum without a website. Huh! I wonder what they value in this place. The community, the removal from social media spaces? What about a community of webgardeners would attract non-webmasters into integrating with it while not having their own spaces (barring a kneejerk reason such as "I'm planning on making a site later" sort of thing)? Does that transform the forum in a way... is that transformation acceptable?

A hmm hmmmm hmmm.

[BlazingCobaltX]

Hello hello, due to some holidays I haven't been active here in a moment. It took a while to read through the thread, and I may have skipped over some points that I'm about to repeat. Apologies for that.

A similar idea: Instead of making new threads in the Interests Zone, people send prompts to  a mod. The prompts are then posted in a single thread as a weekly web page challenge. Example: One of the prompts is "What is your favourite TV show?" Instead of writing up a post, you would make a web page/shrine instead, with what you would post otherwise.

I would absolutely love this idea, because it is both a moment for people to talk freely about their interests and a community event. In general I encourage community events through weekly threads or monthly code/creation events. You may need a community moderator specifically for this, Melon. Someone who can just focus on fostering a community that fits with the vision of this forum.

I do not agree with the closure of the Interests Zone, as off-topic threads are indeed important to any forum. I do think that moderation needs to be stricter there: A lot of loose threads there can be merged into the general movie/game/anime thread and decrease clutter. Having more generic discussions in these generalised threads IMO also helps with fostering micro communities in those threads.

Personally, I too have seen a decrease of web-related conversation and an increase of content-related conversation. It is a bit tiring to see these in the RSS feed, truth be told. Some older posters have become less active as new ones have come in. While that automatically changes the culture, there are some tools in the disposal of the admin/mods to ensure the site retanis its unique vibe. Frankly, I would be sad if this forum turned into another Reddit board with generic "what do you like about X"-threads.

(Still waiting for Surf Zine part 2 btw )

[grubbyfox]

@xixxii ooph, thanks for the clear reply! Though it sounds like you feel we've failed to enact rules, follow the projects goals or nurture good discussions Old folks on a sidewalk is very much not my aim here

I believed that creating a space that was warm and excited about web crafting was inherently a powerful act in the face of an increasingly anxious and uncertain web ~ and that that would ultimately build people up and get people enthusiastic about art and tech and making cool stuff. However if the perception is one of aimlessness and stagnation, then I think I'll have to go back to the drawing board 

I'm sure others will agree and disagree with various parts of it ~ but I appreciate the frank assessment! 

I will be honest, I use abbreviations and all that a lot. For me, that's a normal part of a forum. Others may disagree, naturally. I read the rules and was a bit scared by it, how short posts and abbreviations/lingo was not "allowed", but I wanted to give it a chance. I saw others using internet slang and such, and I figured maybe I misunderstood the rules or that it was outdated.

I apologize, because my intention wasn't to muddy the waters like that. But I will say, I was part of a lot of forums back in the early 00s, and short posts here and there + lingo/slang was completely normal everywhere. It was part of the culture or each forum, giving it it's personality, and some even had forum-specific slang that came over time, due to "inside jokes" on the entire forum, running jokes, etc.

Ya know, I was actually at a forum a few months ago, TV show specific, and they literally went into a post I made, and edited my text because I wrote "lol" - because "the old people here dont understand". It just seriously put me off so much, I stopped going to that forum. As if old people cant learn what LOL means. Just tell them?? Anyway, I got side tracked, haha.

And I honestly love this forum so much, it's so cool, fresh, we're so many here! I love it. But if the goal was to only rally up website crafters to have a spot to hang out on, then there's honestly no place for me here. I dont mean that in a melodramatic way, hahaha. I mean, like, just realistically. If anyone feels like users here not into web-crafting are taking up space or muddying the waters, then ...ya know..

[larvapuppy]

Sorry to revive the thread on a negative note, but...

I'm noticing that lately about half of the new posts are either replies to introduction posts or very short one-sentence replies that aren't helpful or necessary... It seems like there is a lack of understanding of forum etiquette, and this place is starting to get treated as an instant messaging client. Maybe it's my own fault for keeping track of the forum mostly through the recent posts page, but it's a bit of a bummer when there are only 10-40 new posts on the entire site to read a day and half/more-than-half are somewhat spammy. 

Not sure how to fix this really, other than implementing posting limits? That may be a bit drastic though...

[Melooon]

very short one-sentence replies that aren't helpful or necessary

I'm well aware ; and Iv been nuking some and sending messages to offending members explaining how to make better posts; but it just doesn't seem to be working; I did ask someone to put together a guide on propper posting but Iv not heard back; either people just don't get it, by the time someone learns how to expand their posts someone new joins and it starts over again.

Im not blaming anyone; its a mix of many factors, and everyone is trying to figure it out as we go; ultimately the forum is an experiment and it can fail as a natural outcome of that ~ or it can self correct, its really up to what people here want I would like to see more bottom-up actions being taken on issues like this; and Id like people to teach me how I can support that!

EDIT: Also this might be a hot-take, but is it maybe time to close the Greetings board? Can we start to encourage people to do something else, such as creating a room on the everyone site? That might be a more creative and on-topic way for people to introduce themselves than a traditional forum post ??

[larvapuppy]

Also this might be a hot-take, but is it maybe time to close the Greetings board? Can we start to encourage people to do something else, such as creating a room on the everyone site? That might be a more creative and on-topic way for people to introduce themselves than a traditional forum post ??

I would support this decision! And if we need an intro section on the forum itself maybe a single thread would be better than a whole board. I think that would discourage too many one-sentence "welcome to the forum" replies, and people can just PM each other if they want to chat one-on-one in that way.

[candycanearter07]

I would support this decision! And if we need an intro section on the forum itself maybe a single thread would be better than a whole board. I think that would discourage too many one-sentence "welcome to the forum" replies, and people can just PM each other if they want to chat one-on-one in that way.

how would that work? would it be like a cbox esque thing? or would you have to edit the page to introduce yourself

[arcus]

EDIT: Also this might be a hot-take, but is it maybe time to close the Greetings board? Can we start to encourage people to do something else, such as creating a room on the everyone site? That might be a more creative and on-topic way for people to introduce themselves than a traditional forum post ??

It's worth testing out. The web garden insert could be used for this, with a thread for new users to embed their rooms.

[caracalled]

I know this might be a long shot and it's not exactly necessary but in this forum I used to hang out in as a kid there was a really active chat that was similar to this one!
It had some chat games like hangman, skipbo (my fave!), UNO and  battleship and more importantly, a bingo game every four hours where the winner got digital little cookies that could then be used for betting on other games and gifting to friends in chat. The bingo games got people into the chat regularly and it was fun having these instances in a day where a bunch of people would pop up to even just say hi to everyone!
I think the chat here is kind of tucked away a bit awkwardly, maybe it could have a bit more of a presence? I would love to hear from other users in a more casual chatty way as well, since it can be a bit difficult to get the chat going...

[Eunice]

I do like the idea of having prompts. Back in the day, there was a community called iVillage. It was aimed at women, and one of their "channels" was about making websites. For several years iVillage gave away free webspace, based on the early Angelfire CMS. Later all the sites were swapped to Tripod. But one of the threads was about ideas for pages. Silly ideas, serious ones etc. There wasn't a competition, it was just for fun. I would like to see something like that here.

[zawieja]

EDIT: Also this might be a hot-take, but is it maybe time to close the Greetings board? Can we start to encourage people to do something else, such as creating a room on the everyone site? That might be a more creative and on-topic way for people to introduce themselves than a traditional forum post ??

Wouldn't that be alienating towards people who won't know how to use it? Some people come here because they want to learn how to make their own webpage, not get thrown into editing code immediatelly This is primarly a forum, not everyone's website. Idk, I like the Greeting board, since it's just nice to see what new people are interested in or see their webpages right away; closing it sounds rather drastic to me. I imagine it just feels pretty welcoming, having a little topic for yourself at the start, too, especially for people who haven't used a forum in a while.

If the majority of the posts are greeting posts, it sounds like an activity problem on the other boards. I don't have a solution for that, just throwing my two cents in    A single thread could be a good compromise, though.

[WK_0]

Wouldn't that be alienating towards people who won't know how to use it? Some people come here because they want to learn how to make their own webpage, not get thrown into editing code immediatelly

As someone who is relatively new, I kinda don't see much of a problem with this proposal.
Granted, I'm one of those weirdos who likes to jump straight into making regular posts about whatever topics or creations are in my hands for the time being. I never was super good about introducing myself, I like the prospect of just popping into existence and getting into whatever interests me straightaway.

I do, however, like the alternative proposal to just shutting the Greetings board down.

And if we need an intro section on the forum itself maybe a single thread would be better than a whole board. I think that would discourage too many one-sentence "welcome to the forum" replies, and people can just PM each other if they want to chat one-on-one in that way.

Simply condensing the Greetings board and relegating all intros to a single thread would be a good middle-ground option. That way folks new to the boards still have a place to go to and say their first hellos, while mitigating the usual influx of one-sentenced greetings that get repeated a lot in each individual greetings topic. Though, having a peek at the board myself as of today, I do see some folks trying their best to engage in conversing with new forumites. But I too am of the impression that it gets a little boring to see over and over. Sometimes you want to be both welcoming while also encouraging of getting at least fairly active across the forum (I say as an infrequent user and regular lurker myself, but then again I have an excuse. I'm in the middle of living a life of my own while making things on the side and can't always be active in social spaces. I do frequent as a reader, at least. I always love stopping by here.).

Idk, I like the Greeting board, since it's just nice to see what new people are interested in or see their webpages right away; closing it sounds rather drastic to me. I imagine it just feels pretty welcoming, having a little topic for yourself at the start, too, especially for people who haven't used a forum in a while.

If the majority of the posts are greeting posts, it sounds like an activity problem on the other boards. I don't have a solution for that, just throwing my two cents in 

Then again, this bit here does have me rethink my stance a little. Being given the chance to make your first forum post is quite an interesting moment to have, when you're new, and from there it can lead to a user being more comfortable with making further posts in the future.

Problem is, I see thoughts like this pop up-

This is how I feel, sort of! I produce a lot of... art. writing. I work on my site a lot, too. In a way it is basically my fulltime job... and I am always conscious about how much "space" I'm taking up in, well, any given space! So I've always felt a bit shy posting about what I've made or created on the forum. Especially making a whole thread. A thread has a huge weight to me, on my shoulders!

And I'm reminded that, currently, we live in an almost drastically different web climate than some of us did a decade+, even over two decades ago! And lemme tell ya, it's a climate that's not too friendly towards passionate and creative types. It's seems it became more geared towards common folk usage to me, where the most common thing to talk about is what's on the telly or what movie or game just came out recently (or worse, *shudders*, the news). This is especially true if you're coming from the bigger social sites, where it's just Not A Regular Thing to get super into something, so attention usually doesn't cling because folks there don't know what to do with passionately put together posts, and ultimately the lack of attention creates discouragement which then minimizes such posts (unless you're one of the lucky few who does get a following, but then that leads to the Problem of Popularity, which is a whole other topic on its own). It's a pretty vicious cycle, and I'd like to see folks maybe help those coming in from said big spaces to unlearn those bad habits that have unfortunately become more normal nowadays.

Side note, nothing wrong with talking about current interests and life stuff when a community is small though, which is why I'm glad folks here have been fairly skeptical about putting the General Interests Zone on ice for a month, even though someone like me who doesn't really utilise those boards all that much wouldn't have been negatively affected. I much prefer discussing creative venues and topics, but I also know not everyone is like me. I'm just an android pretending to be a human.

So in terms of how to gauge and ease newer users into the feel of the forum, there's a few things to consider. Are they coming from a social media-based setting? Have they had practice writing posts longer than the 140 characters that the likes of Twitter/X had popularised? Have they had any experience confidently posting to forums in general? 'Cause let's face it, to us among the forum and indie web spaces we're used to the slower and more openly thorough web climate, but those coming in may not all be coming from the same background. Believe it or not, we gotta remember some might not have even been born around the time forums and indie websites were a thing! Yes, I'm as shocked as you are!

There's also the prospect that some might be out of practice and need some space to get back into the groove of things too. I'm one prime example of this, believe it or not. I had to practice writing out longer thoughts through a personal journal first before I started feeling comfortable posting on a forum, though some like to just jump in and give it a try which is valid, sometimes experience is the best teacher.

I'm well aware ; and Iv been nuking some and sending messages to offending members explaining how to make better posts; but it just doesn't seem to be working; I did ask someone to put together a guide on propper posting but Iv not heard back; either people just don't get it, by the time someone learns how to expand their posts someone new joins and it starts over again.

That's indeed the nature of the eternal cycle of new members, ain't it? I do like the idea of a guide to writing forum posts though, something supplementing the Community Forum Guide to help point out bad posting habits to watch out for and suggestions on how to improve writing and reading retention— especially since as of now the Forum Guide kinda touches more on the technical how-tos and barely mentions the social aspects, which is where the current problem of short posts arises from. Though instead of depending on a single person to write it (as, like you experienced, they could very well go poof on you), we should maybe collect suggestions through its own forum topic and discuss how to write it as a community. I wouldn't mind giving my two cents (or twenty) from what I've learned and unlearned and learned again, but I'm just one automaton who went through my own experiences. Others might have some good tidbits to share that I wouldn't have even considered!

I should finish off, though, this is just the ramblings of a madman whose cogs got spinning while reading this thread so far. I certainly wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes as an outsider. Things just got me thinking, yanno?

[grubbyfox]

I dont know if I can say that I am disagreeing with anything here, in that I agree that most replies should def be more than one sentence, because I know that once everyone starts replying with one-liners, it means the forum is on its last leg. However, I dont think necessarily it's in that order. I dont think tons of one-liners = forum is dying, rather I think, forum is dying = people post one-liners.

Most of the times I've seen forums dying, it's been because there were not any new users coming in, or the topics grew stale (nothing new to talk about in a long time), the forum may have had only a few "niche interests" and then someone out grows that interest and they stop coming very frequently. People came for the niche interest, and stayed for the relations they made with people through general chats and interests.

The longest running boards I have seen, have been the ones with niche interests, that also allow for a lot of "general talk". Just the same way a work place needs water cooler banter and fresh topics, not just to clock in and not talk about anything other than work.

But I think we will start to walk a very fine line in user policing if one-liners are constantly frowned upon, the use of abbrevations and all that. It just feeling too policing, at least for my liking.

Does every single reply in every single thread require a wall of text? Should a discussion or just a general chat not flow naturally like a normal conversation - and not like some someone squeezing a monologue out of a stone just to hit that x amount of words limit, lest they get a stern warning. I understand that super short replies are not fun - but they are kinda essential in a conversation, and I've never seen a forum before where people would really take notice of that, except in sub-categories of forums where there were roleplays. Because in roleplays, one-liners were very frowned upon most of the time - but even there, sometimes it was necessary to keep the flow of things.

I agree with the introduction forum, there could very well be just one big thread of "INTRODUCE YOURSELF HERE", which I think quite a few forums used to do. I dont really see the trouble with people posting a whole thread just to introduce themselves, but I also dont see the harm in having just a big ol' thread for everyone.

The making of a space in the Everyone Website, in order to introduce oneselves, personally I would have found that too scary and I wouldnt know what to do with that at all. Which brings me back to this whole thing where it feels like this forum wants to be mostly for web developers who already know X amount of stuff, or just web developers in general - which is fair, but that does in fact exclude me (and maybe others), and I would feel very very out of place here. As I mentioned earlier, I dont mean that in some melodramatic way, haha, I just mean like in the sense that it would feel like I walked in on a subreddit about something I dont know anything about.

Another thing, I understand that forums want to be a safe zone, and I agree with that. I honestly dont want to discuss politics or horrible news and such, but I do think it's healthy for a forum to have a sort of general chat (well we already have that of course), but I want to just sell my point here, again, having a zone where you can talk about vapid stuff, water cooler stuff, the newest shows, movies/shows in general, anything "normie" and basic and whatnot. I have to admit, for me atleast, I feel like there is a vibe here that we cannot gush and talk about modern media. I get that we are about web revival/old web/old stuff. But I would love to have a place to talk about my fave new modern shows, movies, interests, etc - that is NOT reddit or whatever. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like we should only care about older things here. Which is strange for me, as the places I hung out at during my youth online, we obviously discussed modern stuff too. That was the whole point in the hang outs, mostly. Sure, loads of people loved old stuff back then too, but like, I wasnt galavanting around online back then to be nostalgic over rotary phones and pigeon post, lol.

As for the chat feature, I guess you guys mean the "cafe" on the top of the forum? I simply dont use it as it's hard to keep track of since it's only on the front page, afaik? (unless popped up).
Personally I would have preferred it if it was only actual chat based, and not "created XX thread" along with it. And if it was like a sleeve on the right or left side that you could pull in/out  - and it stayed at the side all the time, no matter where you were in the forum. If that makes sense. Maybe that is not possible? idk, just spitballing here.

[1dkreally]

I dont know if I can say that I am disagreeing with anything here, in that I agree that most replies should def be more than one sentence, because I know that once everyone starts replying with one-liners, it means the forum is on its last leg.

you've taken the words right out of my mouth with your whole reply here, i've been wanting to make a reply to this post for the past few days but couldn't think of how to word it - these are exactly my thoughts on the whole thing

[Melooon]

active chat that was similar to this one!
It had some chat games like hangman

People seem to mistake the shoutbox as a proper chat quite a lot; we can definitely explore adding some extra features; but I'm a bit reluctant to make it a full on chat since that's basically what a discord server is and I think that's really not what this forum can best offer! I think we should look into getting more out of the shoutbox though, that's a good idea! 

how to make their own webpage, not get thrown into editing code immediatelly This is primarly a forum, not everyone's website

So this is realy a matter of interface design and how we manage that transition; the forum and the everyone website are both essentially just text input boxes with slightly different interfaces for viewing the text that has been input. You don't actually need to use any HTML to make an everyone site page, you can just type text and it will work ~ what it does do is give people a full page displaying that text instead of just a box on a forum. I definitely don't want anyone to be intimidated, but I do want to push them out of their comfort zone, especially if they have never made a webpage before! That's when its most important

I dont think tons of one-liners = forum is dying, rather I think, forum is dying = people post one-liners.

Most of the times I've seen forums dying, it's been because there were not any new users coming in, or the topics grew stale (nothing new to talk about in a long time), the forum may have had only a few "niche interests" and then someone out grows that interest and they stop coming very frequently. People came for the niche interest, and stayed for the relations they made with people through general chats and interests.

So this is a good post; but I think maybe your expressing a general misconception about what the goal here is. Is the forum goal to exist indefinitely? Is the goal to increase engagement? Those are both goals that most companies would have; but they are not what the goal of MelonLand is! I don't want the forum to exist forever; I don't want high engagement. What I want is a collection of fragments of knowledge, inspiration and life that will still be interesting 100 years from now; long after the posting aspect of this forum is gone. The push for high quality posts is not about the forum; its about the value of whats being said and how that will hold up over time; e.g. the important part is what you say, not where you say it. This is utterly different from social media; and its easy to loose focus of, but its where our heart and soul needs to be. 

There's also a practicality that the forum exists as a forum for melon projects and I think that will be needed to a certain extent as long as there are melon projects!

Badgersaurus out for another nine months probably. Oh I'm not a highschooler anymore I should fix my signature. Dang.

You know; I appreciate the time taken to post; that's tough to do and its a part of your life that you've put into this space, which is really what its all about. However there's nothing I can do with what you've said here. Its not anyone's job to provide content for your entertainment. I can provide a space and people can provide responses; but its your job to make the discussions that you want to see happen