Expansion?

Apparently I haven't made this clear yet.

BAG OF DICKS

 

I'm just saying that 192 members online on a Tuesday is pretty good. That's around what BMGf's activity is. So imagine that our current active user pool doubled... I'm just listing forums that have the largest populations.

Is there any chance the staff could reveal which forums they are considering / are having dialogue with / have had dialogue with?

 

I'd be happy to, but I'll leave that up to Harry, since he handles the discussions with other forums.

 

Historically speaking, we've been rejected by PC twice and never heard back from PokeBeach. Other than that, we have not and are not currently in discussion with any communities.

The point of this thread was to determine if the URPG community wanted this to happen, and if so, where they might like to expand to.

 

tbh the only place I'm even remotely interested in is Smogon, if they'd take us. Anywhere else feels like a bad decision or a waste of our time and resources.

 

I'd be fine with Smogon - it's one of the only other forums with a userbase big enough to make it worthwhile.

Except Serebii but to reiterate - bag of dicks.

 

In terms of size, Marriland is also up there. It's more active than Smogon and PC, but less than Serebii and Bulbagarden.

 

Aren't they all like 5 years old though?

 

Don't forget the paradigm that each potential forum has on Pokemon in general.
Example: Monbrey doesn't want Serebii because it would attract dicks.
Expanding to Smogon would bring a large number of extremely competitive battlers
etc...

I don't know enough about the other discussed forums to make any sort of informed suggestion,
I just think that any expansion needs to think about the userbase of the expansion forum in both it's activity and user mentality

 

How is attracting dicks at all comparable to bringing a large number of extremely competitive battlers?

Smogon is a great forum. I'd be interested to know how they would respond to advances from URPG. They may be reluctant because they currently have no role playing forums at all on their board, but at the same time the URPG is a little bit of a cross between role playing and competitive battling. Futhermore, they do have "creative" boards such as smog(their web magazine) and the create a pokemon project.

 

I probably did a bad job representing my point.
Smogon is a fine and dandy Idea, it was just the only other example besides Monbrey's that I could think of, because it is the only other community that I am familiar with.
The point was: Different forums, different paradigms about pokemon.

 

Everyone saying "attracting dicks" keeps making me envision us as a giant magnet with...well I'm sure you get the point. It's actually quite funny.

Anyways, for a bit of relevancy here, I support proposing an expansion to Smogon when we eventually decide to engulf more of the internet. I also agree wholeheartedly with avoiding Serebii. IDK about Marriland, I'm pretty sure they're super PG-13 there (maybe even super PG), and I really feel like the URPG community in general would clash with the Marriland community. We're all pretty crazy and crude and off-color and all-around loony. We'd probably look very silly if we were to have a physical representation.

As far as having to keep track of stuff across multiple forums, why not have a main information hub and then have links on each forum that lead to the various info threads? That way we still exist on the forums and attract our main bulk of members from said forums, but all our information is stored in one central location and we only have to make edits to one place instead of 3-4. For the Park, for example, we would still have separate subforums for Main RP/Individual RP/Missions, but within each subforum, those threads would be linked to the main info hub instead of existing as separate threads across numerous forums. Each forum would have links to the same threads on this main hub, obviously.

I have a feeling that sounded really rambly and redundant so instead of trying to explain a point I think I've already made, I'll go ahead and get myself to bed like I was planning on doing nearly an hour ago now lol.

 

Okay, here's a follow-up question for everyone.

If, theoretically, we closed the Pe2K Branch. Would that change your vote?

 

This sounds like what URPG needs. I would love to see this implemented at least for certain threads, such as Refpedia/Judgepedia/Parkpedia, Project NUKEM, AUCTION ROOM (though I would support a new forum having a separate auction with the same Pokémon for the duration of its Dojo League), etc. It would also allow freedom from any staff of a particular forum who aren't URPG staff from meddling in staff affairs.

As for HKim's question, in some ways I feel that the pe2k branch should be left intact somewhere as a reminder of our history, even if it's no longer used. If DoH's idea is implemented though, it really doesn't matter how many forums we're on.

 

The only problem with DoH's suggestion, despite the fact that it is much more efficient, is that it doesn't really establish a presence on any of the forums that we reach out to. Like I said, its great for efficiency, but keeping up-to-date, separate threads is more of a political move, making them feel like they have their own separate place on each forum. Granted, some threads, such as the RefPedia, etc could be moved to a central location just like the Gym/E4 thread. Basically, anything that normal members would not be posting in can have a central location. Anything else must have a single, separate thread on each forum. As for the Auction House... we'll probably need to think of something new, but that's only because of the nature of the Auction house. That, or we could alter the way it operates entirely.

 

I'm only suggesting moving threads (or in some cases like Project NUKEM, just the list) that are updated regularly (if not regularly, still things like the Refpedia that need to be accurate universally) and universal, plus the auction house because of how problematic a system it is right now. I'm not saying to move every forum battle/contest to a separate forum, and I don't see a need to move park runs there except maybe the Main RPs, I don't know enough about Park to say anything on that for sure though. Pokémart would be on each forum. Basically, only lists (like NUKEM and gym leaders) and info threads would be on a centralized forum, anything people post in they could still post in on any forum (possibly including the centralized forum). I personally don't see this causing problems, but maybe I'm missing something.

 

I misinterpreted what you said then, we're basically on the same page.

 

While I don't really know much about the last expansion, it seems like it could be a real learning experience. For example, if you're going to expand, perhaps a larger community that suits URPG more userbase-wise would be more beneficial. For that reason, I think that Smogon really is the best option. However, I don't think they will overly welcome the URPG. The URPG could pose potential competition with their own CAP, which is surprisingly similar to the URPG mechanics-wise, and there are very few, if any, things on Smogon that originated on other forums.

Out of curiosity, did we even get one permanent member from TPW?

As for cutting out the weaker forums, I don't know. It should be up to the active people who started off there I guess. Hardly fair for BMGers to rule out places we have less of an affiliation with.

If the URPG is to expand, I just think it should be approached with a lot of time and drive from all of the members.

 

We got a solid few members from TPW/PWN, who look to stay for a reasonably long while.

I mostly agree with Syn, btw.

 

Smiles, Felly, and Towel came from TPW iirc, but don't quote me on that b/c idk for sure.

As for centralizing threads, I must have worded my post badly or something. Like I said, we'd still exist largely on the forums, with Park posts, battles, and general URPG stuff happening on their separate boards. Only the informational threads would be hosted on a separate hub, rather than existing separately over several forums. This way we only have 1 set of threads/posts that needs updating, rather than 3/4/however many forums we eventually branch out to.