Thanks Guys! I actually tried to add the User CP, but it will show up for guests, which is a big no-no for me. Making in the future once I get good enough to completely changed the overall layout of the forum.
I have been debating about this for quite around as I observed the state of the overall forum. In terms of appearances, the forum has never been cleaner, bug fixes are more and less under control (for now) and we are shifting gears of focusing the Art Garden and the RPG Park as the main attraction of the website.
However, there is a overlaying problem that I have started to noticed over the past year—users dwindle down to a few, competitions can’t break bring more than a few users at a time and the sense of community is no longer there. How can the forum able to reach its full potential when flaws are apparent? :thinks:
After a few weeks of discussing with several other key members who expressed similar sentiments in regarding the downfall of activity (and take note, we do not agree on everything hundred percent, we still have different perspectives in which we sought to improve on)—all in which points to the Discord Channel. It is undeniable that Discord had absorbed all the contents away from the site. Often hear the following excuses: I do not feel like posting, do not have the time, I worked 24/7 every single second of the day, broken fingers, why do this hear when I have friends on other places, lack of care, etc.
Side-note: a bit of an irony of fates here—what drove people away from the previous forum was the central disagreement of adding a chat box and yet, here we are at this point (when Discord is, and always been, a glorified chat box).
All of this is fine by the way. You are not obligated to post nor be here; do not get the wrong idea.
Before I start having thoughts to purge the forum (either reducing to just Art Garden/RPG Park and/or deleted in entirely altogether to stop wasting money on it), I thought about the ideas suggested by those members of how to better discord. I went to other forums who, despite having discord, do not faced this problem and livelier than ever (because of passion, interesting topics, central theme, etc., which attracts new members because they can see a sense of community boiling up… something that this website had in the beginning, but dwindle out overtime).
Considering these instances, after gathering all the suggestions made from key members and adopting a system from other forums, that have discords alongside it, the current discord chat ceases to function; a new one will replace it as we speak. The official BGC Discord group will now be supplementary to the website—a tool for members to use for the forum—not a replacement for discussions. In other words, in other to join this Discord chat, you are required to do the following things:
- Be active within BGC—meaning, you actually have to participate in posting/thread to be in the in the group. This does not mean posting for one week, then cease activity afterwards. This is can continuous effort—if you can post in Discord chat without fail, this should not be too difficult to accomplish (and honestly, why be in the chat dedicated to BGC if you are not using the site?).
- Failure to do so above will mean dismissal from the group (this includes everyone, even Admins and Moderators). You can re-enter the chat again when you are capable of doing so in the future.
- In the new Discord chat, a brand new plugin alerts you whenever a brand new post and/or thread appear on the site. This gives you good options to be on top of things of what goes down on the website without the “I didn’t see it excuse” :wagh:
- This does not mean you have to post every single second of the day, but you are required to post in some capacity within the week or so.
Of course, you can still post on Boogaloo without the need of this official Discord chat—and you can quite easily just create your own server with users you want to speak with if these requirements are too much for you; in case sudden galaxy brain posters come out of the woodwork and say, “this isn’t fair”. If you’re into fast responses because it serves an instant gratification, that is fine as well. Just to restate it again, if you don’t want to do this—that is absolutely fine—trust me, I harbor no feelings if you’re not that interested forums, requirements isn’t too hot for you or any other reasons.
With that said and done, I have already sent out invites to members who are currently active (usually RPG Players). If you have not received an invite yet—this is because either you are inactive on the website or I have not added you as a friend yet. Boost your activity resolves this issue. There will be a graphic design (along with the BGC YouTube button) in the BGC Social Tab (hence why it said "coming soon"... this is been in the works for a while..)