Gentlemen ..this place,...

[Sir Adrian]

Participate in what?

[PikeStance]

Pike, perhaps you weren't around back when the forum was more active with so many interesting posters and what exactly the Curia did back then. It had a somewhat decentralized administration and made a pool for talented people to execute their ideas. I was eager to get involved and join in, even had a stint as a D&D moderator. There's a reason why I'm 'fatherless'. I've messaged people I perceived to make good quality posts and could bring good insight to the site. All of them had no interest because there's not much reason to pursue citizenship nor get involved in a mockup of the house of commons.
Why constantly scrutinize yourself to make good posts with no real benefit after attaining this 'prestigious' class of posting that offers little benefit? Less and less people were willing to commit the effort when others they knew were patronized and then told how it is here.

First I want to say I agree with most of your wrote.....

Once the Curia lost any sort of administrative responsibilities, then I can see why certain people would be less incline to see a purpose. However, 90% of the time when approach someone about citizenship they are enthusiastic. But as you say, if citizenship benefits outweigh the increases scrutiny, then you would probably have greater interest.

Back when modding was burgeoning and before the days of Steam, this is where everyone came. Now people can just go on the Steam workshop for many of the big mods. Plus, the classic TW games are aging and people have moved on to other games, coming back only sporadically with a minority of people that still play it religiously. There was some anticipation and excitement for Rome II, but the game missed the mark of what most were hoping for, a revival of the creativity and flexibility that was Rome and Med 2. I think that the Minecraft server had more activity than any TW competition and more people have moved over to the Paradox series. The TW titles are selling more, sure. But it's more of an arcade game for casual players than strategy with high replayability anymore. Nowadays, the site is getting the most participation in a few D&D forums, but the posts are noticeably less frequent, less effort put into, and often devolve into the same disputes between the same few posters. That issue was brought up in the Curia some time ago, but nothing much ever really got done to alleviate that. At about that point, I lost much interest in the D&D forums too ergo, I only sporadically log in to peek at things to see less happening. But, there are still a couple Medieval 2 and Rome mods I'm interested in and check on the progress.

Well, steam is convenient if you download mods "a la carte." However, the larger mods, it is ridiculous. There was one mod I downloaded it was in 12 parts. I just came back here downloaded in one shot, dropped in the data folder and it was over and done with. It was easier. Recently I downloaded a NTW mod. If it was on steam it would be 30+ parts on steam. Steam also have a horrible UI. It is easier to follow a forum than that crap. Modding teams will also need a foum because steam does not have that arraignment. Even if it did, the UI completely stinks.

But what do I think that could improve things somewhat and rid us of the repitition and boredom? A fundamental transformation of the site, look back what old things worked, what didn't, and what new things we can try out. I think that the Curia can be safely retired, even if for a time, and put more focus into revitalizing the site directly through working with teams set up by admins.

You can go here....there is a discussion.

The main job of the Curia is not to recognize the contribution of members, you said so yourself. You can move the QP literally anywhere on the site without even the slightest ripple.

I once stated that the most noblest thing the Curia does is recognizing contribution, but I retracted that a long time ago. If the Curia will have any meaning, it needs give greater benefits to citizenship.

Ok let's assume it's a convenient system. If it's so convenient why isn't it used. Why has it been unable to do anything useful in the past 3 years and counting. Why has the Curia to rise to the challenge even when the challenge was placed on silver platter with the solution beside it in golden letters.

How many different ways are you going to ask the same question. Didn't I deal with this question two responses ago.

I am referring of course to when that lawyer guy who save the Westeros mod was awarded a medal. What was a straightforward job that should have taken a couple of days because everyone agreed on it devolved into several weeks of zebra posting, wall o'text, hot air and general embarrassment for the entire site.

If I recall wasn't whether or not he should be awarded, it was whether or not the chosen award was appropriate for what he did.

But wait there's more. There's the tagger anonymous in initiative which failed to even lift off the ground, the epic dumpster fire that was the curial action team, the failed reviews section (which for a time was handled by the curia), etc.

Members became citizens for a reason. They contributed in meaningful away. It is silly to expect or to assume that they will stop what they were doing to do menial work that would probably be best done by members pursuing citizenship who might not otherwise have the skills to contribute in another way. I personally do not mind doing some things, but I much rather spend my time modding, so I do not hold anyone accountable for not helping with mundane task.

Even something as straightforward as creating a new medal or awarding one devolved into constitution this, constitution that and arguments with the subtlety of a baseball bat.

Awards have been added, removed and modified throughout the history of the site. Some are good, some are bad, and some are just ugly. I think many awards have been proposed and most have been rejected.

Meanwhile in the FM citizens and staffers are organizing and running two yearly site-wide contests without even the slightest hitch and everybody is having fun.

This is a joke right? All but two members of the modding award committee are citizens and one of the two recently became a citizen. The other one hasn't logged in months and contributed very little if anything.
Moreover, the modding award in particular hardly could be said went off without a slightest hitch. I am pretty sure the members awards do not occurr at the same time every year either.

Give me one sane reason why we should keep a system that cannot get anything done, drives most of its members away screaming, and whose only two successful functions can be performed just as well if not better by other fora. Why should we keep all this constitutional ?

If you run away "screaming" then you probably approach it with a self- righteous attitude. Some times what you think is the right thing to do isn't. If you cannot accept that others will not agree with you, then you should not be apart of any group in which decisions are made collectively. I deal with this all the time as a teacher. I have certain ideas how and what should be done, but they are not always shared by others. It is life and you need to deal with it with maturity.

I have said from the beginning that a better approach is to decentralized the site. Active members of a given areas would have better sense of what needs to be done than the Curia as a whole. This is why I suggested the creation of a universal subforum/ threads in the past. So far the site as gone in the opposite directions and activity continue to decline.

[Augustus Lucifer]

The problem the Curia and the site in general has at this juncture is that there's no clear path forward. There was a time around the release of Medieval 2 and in subsequent years where TWC was at the forefront of the modding scene, not just for TW but in general with regards to the tools, utilities, distribution channels, media visibility and community engagement offered to modders. That TWC could have innovated and continued developing its platform as the needs of modders and the community developed over the years, but for a number of reasons be they complacency, lack of directed leadership, or lack of ability to acquire or retain or empower or finance individuals who could continually develop a website and not just work within the confines of a dated forum system, it did not do so.

Current TWC has seen that ship sail already, and would take a lot of swimming to catch back up. The existence and refinement of platforms such as Steam Workshop, ModDB, and the Nexus family of sites, has seen TWC fall off the S Tier of websites in terms of offering modders the full package for development and community of their mod, and that's been true for several years now. There were talks as far back as 10 years ago to expand the platform past the TW series, but for one reason or another nothing really came of that, we elected to live or die by our intrinsic link to the Total War series and coupled to vBulletin as our platform. We've historically had few members of Staff who were technically competent beyond knowing their way around segments of the Admin CP, and from my perspective we've done little administratively to attempt to acquire those members. The Tech Bazaar and the ability to get involved in the site in that fashion is something like 90+ forums down the front page, and in my entire time on the Tech Staff I've never seen us create a meaningful, transformational site initiative and then go out and head hunt for assistance in seeing it come to fruition. The core of user interaction with the site looks much as it did in 2006; utilizing vB4 features or tweaking the front page is just changing the dressing on the same expired salad.

I don't say that to knock the good work done by Squid and GED on their own dime / free time, or the sensational job done by Simetrical before we lost him to the real world, I don't envy them their often thankless predicament. I've also never been on Hex, so I can't speak to why the direction of the site has proceeded as it has, nor can I blame them because we're all just volunteers here trying to make something of this community. All I can do is comment on the results, which is that we made some core guarantees nearly a decade ago such as hosted mod forums, workshops, a downloads area (kind of used), and so on, and relative to that we've basically just sprawled into each new game since then, throwing up new forums as they release and maintaining the status quo. We have a mountain of technical debt and institutional debt which we've only really brushed around. And when you do that while the leaders in the space are continuing to innovate and provide new tools and appeal to wider audiences, you're going to see lower and lower user registrations and lower user retention, which leads to stagnation that cascades through all areas of the site, the Curia included.

And like I said at the beginning, at this point I'm not sure where you go from here, we're like AOL in a world of Google, Facebook, and Twitter. The safe, conservative approach of carrying on as we have will see the site fizzle down or die off or become bloated and unsustainable sometime in the next 5 years, largely dependent on how relevant future TW games are I suppose, and maybe that's okay since all things must pass and TWC had its day. Though maybe it won't and I'll be back to eat my words in 2021 when the Curia has a post every 6 months and is the 125th forum on the main index. Any other approach would involve taking big risks and possibly requiring financial investment that I'm not sure anyone should want to make, potentially alienating members or ruining what's left in order to strive for relevance and modernity. And the fact of the matter is unless the Curia wants to play venture capitalist or collectively build something, nothing the site needs right now can be done with words and debates and suggestions to someone else, so it is what it is and that's a relic of a simpler time when we could talk and tweak our way forward.

[Halie Satanus]

Agree with much of what you say. Not sure I'd lay so much on the forum though, other sites seem to be successful while their forums pail in comparison to TWC, even now.

There was a thread in the Q&S where some ideas for revitalising the FP were being discussed, some sound ideas too, I think that's the way to go and the area that feels most outdated. Forums are just forums, it's the window dressing that needs to be more interactive and meaningful.

[Basileos Leandros I]

There's a lot of head scratching around for many forums because of the way Reddit and other websites have literally taken over their member base.

Getting them back would require a considerable effort and some good ideas.

Plus, a new historical TW.

[PikeStance]

Well, I have been saying for over two years now that this site needs to develop some sort of a "strategic Plan" for dealing his the issue. Thus far people have responded with indifference or defeatist attitudes.

The Q & S Thread.

[Flinn]

And the fact of the matter is unless the Curia wants to play venture capitalist or collectively build something, nothing the site needs right now can be done with words and debates and suggestions to someone else, so it is what it is and that's a relic of a simpler time when we could talk and tweak our way forward.

Precisely what I always said; words are useless in this case. For how I see it, considering that the site has a management that has its own ideas and goals, a person who actually cares about the site only has two alternatives: contribute or leave (or simply stop complaining). The site is what it is, and as much as it's interesting to know why TWC was so great or why it will not be so anymore and bla bla, we have to be practical. IMO, as I said before, the Curia has lost much of its activity not because the site isn't the same anymore, but because it failed to be practical (due to the system in itself and also due to some of the persons involved, who are more concerned about bureaucratical staff than in actually making the Curia something useful).
I don't want to blame anyone in particular and I will certainly not blame the site management like others like to do (gents, this is a FAN site, everything here is done and based on the free contribution of people, and someone actually poured much money in it, even to his own damage), but, while I agree that the site could be improved in many ways (and it should indeed), I also have had enough of people whining about "the site is dying" "TWC is not the same anymore" and so on. Besides, the site is more than just your small garden, there's a whole neighborhood to explore, so I would thread carefully before saying that it is dying just because your own garden is dried out.
Real life says me: if you don't like something and you care about it, then try to change it; you might fail because of many reasons (many of which could not even be directly related to you), but at least you have tried. I don't know why, this is just my feeling, but from outside (and many non-citizens or members who refused to become citizens can confirm this, I'm sure) it appears that the Curia (in the sense of the system, not the people), does not care about anything apart it's own "priviledges". If you ask me how to change this state, I will honestly tell you I don't know how to, frankly I don't think this can be helped as this is the result of many years of evolution and in any case anyone who really wants to contribute for the site should be joining the staff (whatever branch).

[PikeStance]

Many members on this site know what this site once was and many members have opinions on what it is now, and yet still, there are members who can imagine what it could be.
One mans whine is another constructive criticism. One man's rant is another's manifesto.
A community has many different members each with their own way of expressing themselves. A rant, regardless of how pointless it may be expressed tells us invaluable information on a potential issue that may or may not be addressed. We should be open and ready to all citizens regardless how they express themselves. Not all citizens/ members can be staff members, but all have a investment in the site if they call enough to voice their opinion.

To all citizens and interested members.... please by all means rant, pontificate, or kick and scream; we are listening and hopefully the admin.

[Flinn]

I guess it's a matter of approach and real life exp Pike; we seldom agree on something, but none the less I think we have a certain respect one for the other... probably it's also an issue with lack of respect of some members towards others or towards those who are actually carring the site on their backs day after day.
As much as I agree with you that constructive criticism is positive, I'm certainly referring to the kind of criticism that it's not constructive (hence why I used the therm whiners) and honestly I don't think that just saying over and over "I don't like it" it's enough, if one wants to be taken seriously. This is what RL says me, but again, this is personal of course.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Thanks for the post AL, an interesting read.

[PikeStance]

I guess it's a matter of approach and real life exp Pike; we seldom agree on something, but none the less I think we have a certain respect one for the other...

You are keeping records?
I respect everyone regardless of their opinion. Then again, this site is a diversion and a source of entertainment.

probably it's also an issue with lack of respect of some members towards others or towards those who are actually carring the site on their backs day after day.

The site attracts of people of various stages of maturity. Some will take this too serious while others act with self- righteous indignation. You have to take those with low maturity and self- righteous ones with a grain of salt. However, sometime the biggest jerk can make a salient point.

As much as I agree with you that constructive criticism is positive, I'm certainly referring to the kind of criticism that it's not constructive (hence why I used the therm whiners) and honestly I don't think that just saying over and over "I don't like it" it's enough, if one wants to be taken seriously. This is what RL says me, but again, this is personal of course.

Even a rant is valuable feedback. People rant because they are upset. If they are upset, then maybe we should listen and understand. Sometimes we have to listen harder when the rant has very little constructive elements.

The purpose of the Curia is for people can vent their grievances (one of them anyway). Non- citizens can do it on the CCT. Let them. It let's know there is a potential problem.

[Flinn]

as I said, the approach here is very personal and no, I'm not keeping record, but we so seldom agree on something that it's easy to remember it when it happens

The site attracts of people of various stages of maturity. Some will take this too serious while others act with self- righteous indignation. You have to take those with low maturity and self- righteous ones with a grain of salt.

I'm on diet, I can't take any salt, that's probably my issue with this kind of people