Evolution, revolution and still no solution
Written by Qzinho // September 17, 2009 // Opinion // 11 Comments
I could write this rambling piece every year and possibly every year I could write the same thing about how the ‘scene’ is becoming worse, how more and more sites are opening and even more are closing.
If I’m completely honest the community of sites we have at the moment is probably the best it’s been in the last 2 or 3 years. The staple of the community at the moment consists of FMG:Live, Los Wonderkids, FM-Britain, Sortitoutsi & here. Go back 4 years ago and the names would’ve been Goal-Kick, Throw-In & Sortitioutsi.
Now on the other hand the quality of the community has plummeted, there was a time not so long ago that anyone daring to consider opening a football manager site would be flamed within an inch of their life for having a forum with little or no main site. Sortitoutsi’s main site is nothing but a download portal these days, the same can be said of FMG:Live, Los Wonderkids’ main site is nothing more than a portal to the forums and FM-Britain’s has random bursts of activity. So are we saying that forums are the future? I sincerely hope not.
Towards the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007 the community experienced a blogging high. The world and his wife bought a domain, signed up to WordPress or grabbed some space from an existing FM site and shared with the world the views of the game, their game or even about the community. There was guides for this that and sometimes the other.
To find a written word about FM in the community these days you have to trawl through some sometimes awfully laid out forums, hope the title of the thread is something vaguely relevant and pray that the author is semi-literate!
No-one seems to want to showcase the best of their content any-more, on the flip side I could say that there isn’t much quality around these days but that would be a tad too judgemental even for myself! More and more we seem to live in a forum culture of ‘discussing the game’ but on the other side of the coin is attracting new members to your forum. The majority of people arrive on the FM community looking for guides or a quick answer to a random question or even more likely – graphics! The don’t arrive on the FM community for the first time to discuss what they’ve been doing today or what they last ate.
For the most part a forum needs a main site to thrive and evolve with new members joining because they’ve been impressed by what they’ve seen as a guest. A main site doesn’t need a forum to thrive or evolve though. All a main site needs is a dedicated sole to churn out content and keep both themselves and their readers occupied/entertained. A forum needs a band of merry men to either keep order, boost activity or in some cases go on a power trip.
Until last week I was staff on the forums here at FM-View until I made a conscience decision – to quit as forum staff. The forums were providing too much of a distraction from contributing to the main site. I’m not in this game for the power trip or the adulation, I’ve had my time in the limelight. Gone are the days of Q. opening a billion different ventures, providing a quadrillion data updates etc. I’ve learnt that one person can’t do everything without the help of a few other like-minded people chipping in. My plan these days is to do what I want when I want rather than trying to break my back trying to please a forum full of people that would rather not do anything productive.
All it takes to become ‘staff’ on a FM site these days is post 30 times a day, string a whole paragraph together and make sure you use a spell checker. Gone are the days when you actually had to do anything before you got a shiny badge. Hopefully with the impending release of Football Manager 2010 we will see a rise in the quality of content and productivity across the community or all we’ll be left with is half a dozen forums that wither away because they’re not doing sufficient to entice people to want to either join or stay at their sites.
I’ll leave you all with some wise words from Charles Darwin …
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
11 Comments on "Evolution, revolution and still no solution"
Insightful and accurate.
You already know my take on the issue… if you can keep up creating content like you have been for the next few months, I reckon FM-View will get much more traffic than you’d believe.
It’s a true piece indeed. But one of the great things about he community is that we can all get involved. If I look back on some of my early musings 10 years ago now I am shocked at how poor my writing was I like to think that writing through the gears steadly got better and I am still learning today. What I find frustrating a little is a lack of feedback sometimes because 1 it’s an ego trip I like to know people are reading and 2 you need to know where to improve.
I do have to agree though that content is key to any long running site those that have been around for years have one thing in common they continue to produce content with passion and hopefully relvance to those who read.
Levo, one of the top reasons why people quit “blogging” is due to the lack of feedback, barely anyone reading it and the attitude that hard work isn’t being appreciated. That’s why you need a lot of persistence, especially in the beginning, and you can’t have the mentality of “build it and they will come”.
As you’ll hear on the upcoming episode of the FMV podcast, there are many more ways of promoting your content besides posting in the community section on other fansite forums. I think people fail to see that advertising to the same small group of people who either don’t care, can’t be arsed to read your content anyways and prefers the forum off-topic banter more than anything else, this obviously shouldn’t be the only demographic you should seek out.
I always get the notion in the “scene” that people start sites, post heavy on forums, produce some sort of content only because of appearing “cool” or gaining some type of reputation – not because they have any passion int the subject to what they’re actually doing. Football Manager is being played by at least 1.5 million people across the world, don’t you think it would be a good idea to latch on to this massive base instead of a small sub-section of about 100-200 “scenesters”?
It’s an interesting piece and as said previously is very accurate at the moment, but right now the issue is that we’re waiting on a new game. People’s interest has tailed off and the time is slightly off to judge sites (accurately) on how they will perform with regards to next year.
The Scene has changed a lot since I first happened upon it. The mainsite and blogging culture is down, people are highly competitive with regards to their forum statistics and that’s not only sad but it’s the only real reason why a lot of sites are generic and unproductive. It’s the sole reason that big sites can dominate the Scene because no-one does anything different and people get comfortable.
With regards to LW it is forum focussed right now (due to the lack of a new game) but it’s not got a main site. It’s a hub which is split for blogging and information. Obviously right now it is not as active as it will be come FM10 so it’s no doubt hard to assertain what it is other than a portal but come FM10 I think we will be a good example of what your article is getting at, with a bit of effort.
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I do feel though that forums are as beneficial as a main site if ran properly. Sure you can have people ranting about their dinner but you can have a conversation and discussion on a forum that you cannot have via a blog on a main site.
@Game – I wasn’t just judging sites on how they are today but how they’ve been for most of the last year. You make a good point about forums being good but the point is people have decided that they are the be all and end all. A forum used to be an add on to the main site but more and more it’s the other way round.
@ Jordan – You’re right, 99% of people are in it for their E-penis.
@Levo – feedback always seems to be lacking and not just to blogging. When was the last time you saw a reply to a guide with any half decent feedback in terms of a thank you for helping me or even a rebuttal for a half truth?
@JP – Hopefully the first of many comments from your good self!
It’s very accurate right now, I’m interested to see how this year will pan out to be honest. Intregued to see if we see the same pattern emerging once more or if a few sites can break the mould.
In my opinion the big sites won’t change much – if they did we’d probably have a vastly different Scene.
If you would ask me “what does the scene need?”, this is a perfect example of what I’m talking about:
1. Q wrote an article, posted it here on FM-View.
2. Interested parties read the article.
3. Several commented on it and started a discussion.
Currently, (and for the whole time I’ve been in the “scene”) it’s been heavily forum-driven and not easy for people to find actual content even if it’s being posted in a forum section. This is a horribly unfriendly for new users as it makes them click multiple links and search through many threads in order to find anything of use. With web users having shorter and shorted attention spans, why wouldn’t you want to give them what they’re looking for in the easiest manner possible?
There’s no reason why the cycle of interaction can’t be turned on its head the opposite way. Instead of posting a new thread on a forum to spur discussion, you can create a piece of content and base discussion around it. You accomplish everything this way:
1. Producing regular content for FM players to digest.
2. Easy indexing for Google to generate search referral traffic.
3. Providing new visitors with the information wanted immediately.
4. Utilizing comments, spurs interaction between readers. (even people from across multiple fansites :shudders:)
5. Utilizing RSS feeds & social networks, converts readers into regular followers.
6. Utilizing forums, it EVENTUALLY turns followers into active participants, creating threads, replying to posts and interacting with other members of the site’s community.
What I’ve just outlined is a typical streamlined marketing strategy that almost every professional now-heavily-trafficked blog uses. Maybe the stagnation in the FM scene is due to fansites looking to skip directly to #6 without putting in the effort fully in accomplishing #1-5?
Maybe it’s not that people don’t want to write, it’s that people don’t have the time.
The most driven people on any fansite should be the admins. If they’re as busy as I am then you won’t see them blogging because of time issues.
Also a lot of the newer sites have to build foundations to take on the bigger sites. This takes time and people work on their forums, design and sales pitch before they want to blog. They’d rather offer downloads than words.
I personally have always thought the opposite but even with me wanting very much to do the blogging aspect of FM I can’t because I’m innundated with other responsibilities.
Maybe it’s the same for other sites too?
I still agree with the original statements outlined above but I think it goes beyond that. You never truely know what’s happening behind staff room doors. I know for a fact that LW is a lot more than a portal to the forums but due to time restrictions that’s all it appears to be at the moment. Hopefully next month we’ll finally reveal the whole picture – and maybe that’s the same with these other sites who appear to do nothing – maybe they’re not ready just yet?
@ Game
1. Exactly my point – people concentrate on having a well laid out forum with a snazzy skin rather than offering something before they open. If it doesn’t have a popular forum then they see no point.
2. Before I say this it’s not meant as some harsh criticism but more an observation – Everything at LW seems to be based around the forum or connected to it in some way which gives at least me the impression that it’s a portal to the forums. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing it’s just the way it is.
Oh yeah it is. I’ve very much wanted to push for a community rather than just a site but I’m also very keen on pushing the blogs and written content out. The problem is that I want to pretty much do it all and do it immediately *which fails* and that’s why things have taken so long to do, even though they’re constantly worked on.
Infact I’m more focussed on the latter and for me, everything new in the site this year is aimed at doing that. I’m not even staff there now in a bid to finally do what I think should be done with the site (like you were saying before it’s a massive distraction).
I’ve built a section for guides (Playbook) and the main Featured page will link the heart of LW, the content, news, everything into the forum and vice-versa and that’s in a bid to draw more attention to the main site and to save people (as was mentioned) trawling through the forums – which bores us all when we’re not reading something we want to.