What makes you leave?

BuffyElevated

BuffyElevated

Scooby
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Messages
12,181
Age
44
Location
Tennessee
Sineya
Over the years, I have joined and left a lot of different forums. I've always been a message board person, and I love the feeling of online community when you find a great one (like BB!!!). I have my own reasons for leaving the ones I have, but I wonder... What is it that drives you away or turns you off in a forum?
For me, it's rude members and staff who act holier than thou. I cannot stand when people are exclusive or cliqueish, or act like they have to try to belittle someone else just to prove a point. And a staff that doesn't interact with the rest of the board? Forget about it... In most forums, we all start out at the same level, and I find it rediculous when staffers act like they're above posting with the members in discussions, or if they post mostly in the VIP sections or whatever.
Without mentioning other forums by name, let's discuss. I'm interested in hearing your responses.
 
I was just always put off by the rudeness of other people, or places where asking a question got you jumped all over. So many so-called support forums are like that. I think especially in the "beginning" of the internet or at least when I was first on message boards, people used them to be able to act the way they couldn't in real life, so they got their kicks by telling off other people or ganging up, starting fights. People didn't treat others as they would if it was someone in real life. Sadly I almost think people have started taking how they act online and acting like that in real life.
 
BuffyElevated
BuffyElevated
[No message]
Nix
Nix
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K
kndizzle
[No message]
I've never been in that situation before where someone or more than one person has made me want to leave a board. So I can't really say. This is first board I've consistently keep coming back to.
 
In all my years of being on various message boards, I have been lucky - perhaps 'blessed' would be a better choice of words - enough to not have encountered what HisMrs and Darla have both stated [I'm sorry, I have no idea how you do mentions].

Personally, in the past I have sort of 'collected' message boards. Now, I have trimmed them way down because they were all active and I couldn't possibly have posted on them all regularly. That made me leave some of them.

Another board I have left was mainly due to the fact that every single time I went on there, and it was quite often, there was hardly anybody on there posting.

I'm actually considering leaving a board I'm on right now because I feel that the board is a waste and that really sucks because I see so much potential in it too. 🙁
 
Most of the forums I have joined, I am still a member of. I come and go depending on my level of interest in the forum subject. Generally the only reason I dont visit so much is when there isnt any active discussion. When there are fights or rudeness I leave for a little while and then come back when it all blows over - it always blows over. Just the ebb and flow of forum life.

One of the horse forums I am on is unbelievable with the amount of bitching that goes on. I have never seen a forum like it. And because it is a local forum, many of these people know each other in real life. Any forum argument now pales in comparison to that place! The mods think they rule the world and topics and posts are deleted without explanation. But I still visit every day - even just to get the latest goss in the horse world. And they all come together when people are in crisis or needing assistance. The recent bushfires proved that when total strangers were helping move and house horses that needed to be evacuated. We forget all about the bitchy fights when you see that sort of compassion.
 
H
Harley
[No message]
The only forum that I had left was another Buffy forums It was my first intro into forums and we had alot of fun discussing Buffy and playing games. That was when it was at the height of its popularity, IMO. Everyone and their moms were on that site. No fights or anything. We were mature 14 and 15 year olds! But then everyone started growing up, and we started to drift away from the site. Now, out of all the people that I knew, only ONE remains. And even she doesn't frequent the forums like she used to. It was just that we grew up, and therefore unable to be active on the site 24/7.
 
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That site was so much better before it became "tv.com" lol. It all went downhill when certain people would take over a show's page and use it solely to advertise their own site while not allowing anyone to add any other links lol
 
L
Living Dead Boy
totally. :)
Darla said:
It all went downhill when certain people would take over a show's page and use it solely to advertise their own site while not allowing anyone to add any other links lol
Click to expand...

Hmmm.... Sounds like a couple places I know of. LOL
 
I was on a board I dearly loved with people that w3ere family to me when mine was somewhat MIA in my early teens. I loved that site. I did a LOT of work for them. But, it slowly evaporated. No one keeps in touch anymore. The board's even gone.

Then came another one. My first fandom board, actually. That went the way of the other one. The first one I was on for about 6 years, the latter around 4. They both kinda died, but we're trying to revive the latter. The administrator and I are trying to comw up with ways to get the old gang back, and attract new members. I left that board for a long time, but when I joined here, it made me kind of ache for there too because this place mirrors how that place was. The only difference is, this place has been around long enough that I don't feel like it'll fizzle out. 🙂
 
I've been on 2 forums way back that I left. One was because it was too difficult to make friends as people were in their groups and would not entertain or help newbies. The other, well that's a long story but lets just say the admin turned out to be a liar, self obsessed and a bit unstable!!
 
For me, usually it's because the forum becomes inactive. I still visit quite a few boards, but I don't log in. I just check for anything interesting or any updates. This is the only forum I post regularly at nowadays.

It's hard to stay at a board that is dying out. It's like a miracle that a Buffy board is this active considering the show has ended. Usually most boards (especially tv or movies) need something "happening" in the media to keep it alive.

Hype is important~
 
Usually lack of time. lol
If the subjects and/or the people is interesting enough I often can find the time though so perhaps I should say lack of interest makes me leave.

But a big turn off is too much negativity. I want to come to a forum and discuss/read about the things I'm interested in and love. Hate it when all people are doing is talking about the stuff they don't like.

In my experience negative threads also much more often leads to rudeness between member which also sucks. So when a forum turns too negative the fights also gets more common.
So for me it's important that a forum manage to keep the spirit high to be fun and interesting.

/SK
 
If the mods are rude/aggressive or if there's too much trolling usually.

The only forum site I've left is a festival one but that's only because it's not festival season for a while and there's only so much you can talk about your dream lineup. I'll go back to it in the summer.
 
I'm not a board person generally. I always feel like an oustider when I join a board and that no one wants to interact with the newbie lol so I usually post alot for a few days, get very little response and end up leaving.

Here probably would have been the same but [MENTION=9740]Tome[/MENTION] reached out to me and once I had friends on the board I got way more invested in staying. Which I'm glad I did because this site is awesome!
 
I've been a member of quite a few forums over the years, and I've never had any real trouble in any of them. Sure, there are a few less than pleasant individuals occasionally, and there are the "I've been here from the very first, so I'm something special" types, but generally, the good people far, FAR outweigh the bad. Also, I'm just too old and stubborn to let anyone run me off as long as I'm interested in the subject and feel that I have something constructive to offer to the group or something to learn from them.
 
BuffyElevated
BuffyElevated
:) Great attitude to have, WA.
The big thing for me is staff. I can't stand a rude staff. When the staff starts acting like they're better than the members because they are, I start inching for the door. I also hate when the staff abuses their power. Like when moderators moderate posts not because it needs to be moderated but rather because they want to censor thought. Also going along that same thing.. if the members have no voice. For example, if as a member, I feel I have been wronged by this or that staff member, I want to feel like I can say something about it without being banned.

For all of these reasons, I love BB. The staff here seems to be really in check with reality. No one thinks they're like god because they're the moderator on a Buffy forum. And for the most part, they're nice and helpful. And on the off chance that they're not... you can say something about it and it's ok as long as you're not rude and mean about it.


Another thing though that makes me hate a forum... is when the moderation like doesn't exist. It's why IMDb forums always suck so much. Moderation doesn't exist there... so people are just rude and mean.
 
There's only one other forum I've loved as much as this one, and it closed down years ago. I used to post there all the time and made friends there that I still keep in contact with to this day.

I cried so hard the day it was closed down, I remember it so well!

I've joined and left several forums before because often I found them boring, they had such a high number of members that my posts didn't even make a dent and I never interacted with anyone. I've left a forum because of lots of rude people/trolls trying to be funny, and I've left because I hate any kind of confrontation, and when I fall out with someone online it sucks as much as it does irl, so I'd rather just leave and be sad about it haha.
 
Right now this is the only form I actively participate in, (I'm registered on another "Buffy" forum but don't go there often because I don't really like the vibe for some reason and I only have time to really get into one).

Other than that, I used to belong to the original Buffy "posting board" in the 90's and I left because I just got too busy, and started to drift away from the show for various reasons, (ridiculous, I know!)

So I really don't have much experience when it comes to this stuff and I've never left because of the climate of a forum. I can tell you what makes me come back to this one, though: it's the sense of community. I feel like, after a while, we all know where everyone stands when it comes to ships, characters, favorite episodes, etc, and we start taking that into consideration when we get into discussions. I love it! Also, I really, really, love to debate things, if you haven't noticed. I don't get to do it very often in my line of work, and this is just such the perfect community for that. I feel like people really let each other express themselves thoroughly and then we can all say "agree to disagree" in the end, without any hard feelings or risk of being banned. In short, the folks here are civil! Also, people here are really opinionated, and really articulate. Those things are really important to me in a discussion forum!
 
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