Author Topic: are the forums dead?  (Read 6901 times)

phillip1882

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are the forums dead?
« on: September 28, 2016, 01:32:38 pm »
haven't seen much discussion for the most recent chapter.
there are two ways to be a patriot. the first is to join the military. the second is to convince the government that use of military force is unnecessary. the second is much more difficult but also more rewarding.

Brion Foulke

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2016, 03:11:53 pm »
No I wouldn't say they're dead.  Things have been a little slower, lately.  In general, people don't use forums as much as they used to, thanks to things like reddit.

bulmabriefs144

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2016, 01:09:37 pm »
That said, some of the threads are older than 2014, and can likely be shifted to the Graveyard.
"この世界の悪があれば本当に、それは人類の心の内にあります."
(Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind)
—Edward D. Morrison

Brion Foulke

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2016, 08:57:27 am »
Well, I think it's okay to leave them there for people who want to look at them.  It'd be too much work to move every old thread to the graveyard.

GhostlyYorick

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2016, 02:00:15 pm »
There should not be a separate forum, but a thread underneath every comic page. Use preferably Disqus 

bulmabriefs144

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2016, 10:18:51 pm »
I think I'd agree with this. Especially since the only active topics I can see are:

  • Mistakes Thread
  • Chapter Whatever

Pretty much nothing else. Disqus allows viewing of comments in real time, rather than going back and forth to another forum, and it focuses the topic on the page at hand.
"この世界の悪があれば本当に、それは人類の心の内にあります."
(Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind)
—Edward D. Morrison

SirBananaPie

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2018, 12:21:14 am »
Sorry for picking up an old topic, but I was just wondering: If the forums are almost dead, then where else is everyone?
Twitter has even less activity and the website doesn't link to any other social platforms. Are people talking on Patreon and Twitch instead?

bulmabriefs144

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2018, 10:14:09 am »
Having tried twice to make my own forum, and failed miserably both times (the forum was made for free, and wasn't attached to any other pages), I can say with certainty... sometimes you just make too many sections. People retain interest in certain topics, and really, this website might be better served with a Disqus page, since the posters are mostly interested in the website itself (but this doesn't allow side announcements, like the making a Live Action.

I do think Flipside could take stock of inactive sections and possibly wipe them in favor of a cleaner forum with only a few sections.
"この世界の悪があれば本当に、それは人類の心の内にあります."
(Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind)
—Edward D. Morrison

SirBananaPie

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2018, 01:13:42 pm »
Yeah I understand that. I was just mainly wondering where the rest of the rather large following is, i.e. whether or not I am missing most of the action. I mean, the Patreon following is doing quite well and I assume that the total number of readers is typically about 100 times the paying followers. Also Brion rarely visits the forum lately.

Blue Dragon

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #9 on: February 01, 2019, 09:34:37 am »
I like the idea of comments under the page, but I'm not sure how much time the author has for it. Working on my own comic press/wordpress website is super time consuming..and I'm not even printing/uploading more than once a week. I guess it would be  good thing to do--there are times I've wanted to post comments but couldn't, and I'm just stretched across too many forums right now to pop in here much :/


That's just my 2 cents. I haven't ever stopped reading, but I don't think I've been her much since 2015? I think? I did that Naughty Christmas contest thing...and I don't think I've posted much after that (I guess I did have two jobs and worked a lot back then...)

bulmabriefs144

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #10 on: February 01, 2019, 01:11:01 pm »
Yeah I understand that. I was just mainly wondering where the rest of the rather large following is, i.e. whether or not I am missing most of the action. I mean, the Patreon following is doing quite well and I assume that the total number of readers is typically about 100 times the paying followers. Also Brion rarely visits the forum lately.

I wasn't aware Flipside had a large following... until I saw the petition for donating for comic made by May, and two strips later Brion reports that they met the goal. That's what, six days or less and $5k or so is donated?
"この世界の悪があれば本当に、それは人類の心の内にあります."
(Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind)
—Edward D. Morrison

Brion Foulke

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2019, 05:24:19 pm »
The comments under the pages are a good idea.  It's something I'd like to have whenever the website gets redone, which I was thinking about doing soon.  But it keeps getting put off, sorry!

It was actually 5k within a few weeks.  Ended up making around 8k total.  Flipside has had a large following over the years, but I think sometimes it doesn't always feel like it because it's the kind of comic people binge, then forget about for months or years, then maybe eventually come back to.  It's not necessarily the kind of comic people come to every day.  So I appreciate the people who still do check it every day, which is a smaller but more dedicated group of people!

bulmabriefs144

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #12 on: February 02, 2019, 08:34:41 am »
I am like this with Megatokyo. Doesn't help that the author updates extremely slowly.

I can name those people (not counting hundreds or thousands of lurkers) on about two hands. Myself, Brion (of course! ^_^ ), SAGG, sunphoenix, SirBananaPie, UmberIsSexy, and ... that's mostly it. Obviously, there are quite a few more but some of them won't navigate to the forum. I think a very large part of this is once you get to the forum, there is no real Back To The Comic button, so the average user is wary of going there unless shortcutted. Also, it breaks the immersion when you have to stop reading the comment to discuss.

The question is, do you want to hire out someone like Disqus, or internalize it to the comic design? It looks like you have some talent for web design, so either is fine.
"この世界の悪があれば本当に、それは人類の心の内にあります."
(Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind)
—Edward D. Morrison

Blue Dragon

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #13 on: February 04, 2019, 03:52:24 pm »
I tend to binge read a week or maybe a month at a time (just some reader data for ya ;) ) I refuse to figure out RSS feeds because I'm crabby and old, but I keep a link to Flipside on my own blog (that no one reads XD) so I remember to click it when I'm making sure links still work.

I think my computer has pretty much considered it a "fav" by now, too. If that means anything :)

Kisai

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #14 on: January 26, 2020, 03:20:06 pm »
Forums are generally not the primary means of engaging with the author any more. It's typically discord or twitter now.

Brion Foulke

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #15 on: January 26, 2020, 03:45:20 pm »
We DO have a discord for Flipside now: https://discord.gg/CqDASP

bulmabriefs144

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Re: are the forums dead?
« Reply #16 on: January 27, 2020, 05:09:08 am »
I literally haven't been able to login for about two weeks.

The forums are literally nort only dead but broken.

My advice Brion? Talk to the guy from Gaia webcomic, or Tom from Gunnerkrigg Court, and see about having an internal post system after each comment (not Disqus though, Disqus started erasing my comments because they're a big company and political comments in a political forum seem to spill into webcomic posts getting erased, until basically none of my comments worked).

I will add that Discord link though.
"この世界の悪があれば本当に、それは人類の心の内にあります."
(Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind)
—Edward D. Morrison