Me and This Community
I've been a member of this site for a long time but I've really been very quiet in the community. I've kept my eye on things, I religiously watch the latest RvB episode and Short, I use Achievement Hunter as my first port of call whenever I'm stuck on a game, and I listen to the podcast every week. I'm a massive fan of Rooster Teeth. But I don't actually give anything back, I don't do or say anything. And I'm not sure why. I love online communities. I used to run one myself, back in the days of LANwars.org. So why don't I get involved? Is it because I'd rather spend my time playing games than talking about them? Maybe, but I'm a video game professional, I have a lot to say about video games. Maybe it's because I don't know anybody. I feel like I know the Staff because I've been watching their videos since the first episode of RvB, I've listened to them talking every week since the podcast started. But they don't know me, because I never show my face around the forums. I think it's about time I did something about that! And I did try, actually, a year or so ago. I was going through a phase of trying to 100% loads of games (which I failed miserably at), and found myself wishing the AH site had a few more features, so I made some suggestions in the relevant forum. And I remember RT Staff Member Ben chastised me for an idea that would be "horribly taxing" on the site servers, despite multiple other sites with similarly-sized userbases coping just fine. Since then I haven't really felt like trying to get involved again. But I really DO want to get involved again. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to start. What I need is the ability to see what people are talking about at a glance and join in if I see something I'm interersted in talking about. As far as I know, to do that I need to browse each forum individually. I know there's a Today's New Topics section on the forum's front page but that doesn't tell me what the most popular topics have been over the past few days. I think if there was a way to choose the topics I'm interested in hearing what people are saying about it, and have that information presented to me without me having to look for it, that would solve the problem. So here's a question I pose to you (and I'll have to post this on the forum to actually get a response from anyone)... what's the best way of getting involved in this site's community? Do I have to browse through each forum to find something I'm interested in, or is there an easier way? Does anyone else feel like, in a world of Facebook and Twitter and Digg and Reddit, where we can customise the information we're fed from our peers, that browsing through forums is a little old fashioned? I don't mean that to sound like a ciritism of this site, far from it. I'm just trying to get involved with the community and figure out the best way of doing it. |
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