The death of modified.in

Topics about or relating to the forum itself and how it's run.
Psilocybe
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The death of modified.in

Post by Psilocybe » 27 Nov 2015 21:10

Guys, I know this post is depressing and out of place but this is the only active subforum. I really believe we need a proper obituary for this forum! Something!!!! We need to stop sticking our heads in the sand and admit something really bad is happening (or has happened) here. New players do not exist.

There are very few new good long-lasting footbag players posting here to modified anymore. Even Jorden just called this place a "ghost town". Lets talk about it. Lets get nostalgic. This forum is something I have been privileged to see play out and (barely) be a part of. I'll be the first to admit I'm not even very good - but I know what I have witnessed.

The last time I posted this no conversation occurred which is fucking pathetic. I'll say it. Are we really gonna peel off, one by one, and let this place die without any sort of meta-commentary? Even reddit has meta-commentary.

This actually pisses me off. This forum deserves better. Running this forum costs time and money. There won't be anything like it again. We can extend this conversation to not only the death of modified.in, but to the the death of footbag if you want. I don't care if you just went to a jam and saw a bunch of players, I say we need to admit this sport is dying! Of course I don't need to remind you - if there are no new players footbag will surely perish.

Footbag flourished using the new technology known as the internet and modified.in was the key factor in keeping this sport alive. I propose that Modified.in supports new players - Facebook only supports veteran players. New players cannot find modified.in (do a google search for 'footbag' and find modified.in). If Modified.in is dying, very few new players are becoming pro. If you disagree with this explain why! (Calling all big names!) I would prefer if somebody proved me wrong.

To get conversation started, I'm gonna repost something I posted about 6 months ago:
I think how facebook destroyed modified can be summed up in maslow's hierarchy of human needs. We're all at this forum for a reason. For many of us, modified was the only place where we could talk to other people who played footbag. Unfortunately, many pros DIDNT need modified for that, and that's where we ran into problems.

Maslow said social needs are required for a person to become self-actualized. The fundamental problem is that most players here at modified didn't have many social needs to meet - they likely already had real-life footbag friends. Whatever needs remained Facebook could satisfiy. On Facebook everybody is on a first name basis and everybody is literally friends with everyone else. Its a nice place where pictures, videos, conversations, and publicity could all occur. Non-footbaggers - family and friends - could see your moves now too! You could also stalk your favorite pro and get a glimpse into their personal life and feel like you know them better. This is powerful. I would assert that FB actually meets social needs far more effectively than modified ever could.

Once all the big names were friends with each other on FB, there was simply no reason to come here anymore. They were socially satisfied. I remember a thread from many years back (probably around 2008). They were talking about how great facebook conversations threads were being lost and that concerned people. People wondered if they should be using modified instead of facebook. So, I think as this was happening people intuitively knew there was gonna be a problem down the road.

Its important to note that I speak of all this from an outsider. I never friended anyone from modified on FB. Without modified.in I'm sure I never would have played footbag nearly as much as I did. This place is important. We need new players. I live in Iowa so there wasn't really anyone to play with or talk to. I NEEDED modified. Modified made footbagging possible, plain and simple. Pros and big names did not need Modified like this. Case in point - Vasek never posted here as far as I know.

We had a real bad situation growing: Modified.in was far more important to new players and loners than to pros.

I had a theory long ago on the evolution of footbag. It basically says that instead of survival of the fittest, its survival of the supported. People with other people to play with tend to keep playing. Those that don't tend to quit. In the end what resulted was an overwhelming forum demographic of people who had real life footbag friends and therefore most social needs met. This sounds good but it actually put us in a real bad situation. There were many vulnerable people that NEEDED modified.in for their social satisfaction. BUT, there were vastly more people - the core of modified, the big names - that just didn't need the services that modified provided anymore. And that, folks, is how the stage was set for facebook to ruin us and for modified.in to collapse. I'm absolutely sticking to my premise here: the pros - the pillars of the community - abandoning modified for facebook is directly what caused the online forum to crash. New players, pretty much archeologists at this point, are left with nothing but evidence of a once active past. Most surely stopped playing footbag shortly thereafter.

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Add Block » 28 Nov 2015 03:24

Modified is nice, Facebook is shit.

Here people are nice to each other, mostly. Even the pros give newer players props.

On Facebook, a flame war about women clothing and music in competition gets 300 comments in 2 hours while videos with actual footbag seldom exceed 5 comments.
Even below the videos, the people saying nice things are the same people doing it here on Modified.

Modified is the nice part of Facebook
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Psilocybe
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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Psilocybe » 28 Nov 2015 10:07

A nice thing about modified is definitely the anonymity. On FB everything is so personal. I haven't been a part of the FB scene at all, so honestly I don't know what happens over there. All I know is it killed modified.

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by boyle » 28 Nov 2015 12:44

It's not particularly anon when people have their names in the signature. This argument comes around all the time, but I don't think there's much validity. It's been saud a few times, there's more quality to the posts. As for there being no pros posting, I think you will find a couple of Worlds finalists as regular users.

I think in this day and age it's not ridiculous to be using multiple platforms.

I don't think it's dead at all.

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Cass » 28 Nov 2015 14:48

Oh, hey modified!

I still like this place. There's a lot of good information archived in here. I feel that many discussions have simply been played out by this point. That leaves footblogs, which are a great way to track progress and memories, etc.

Footbag may not be exploding but there have been new players at recent events that I've attended. I predict it to continue to chug along under the radar..

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Psilocybe » 28 Nov 2015 21:40

Okay, three replies from actual human beings so far. Thats very good, modified.in.

Lets talk about footbag.org, because I think it is a vital piece of footbag history:

I remember when I first started footbag I used google and found footbag.org. Footbag.org had forums and I thought that was cool. The forum appeared alive. There were thousands of posts and stuff. Little did I know that the footbag.org forums were nearly completely dead - and this is back in 2006 (almost a decade ago!). There was just a small skeleton crew who would respond to the random noob who didn't know better than to post there. Footbag.org pretty much served as a honeytrap for new footbag players.

All the real conversation was at this place with an indian URL - modified.in. I was lucky enough to meet a person in real life who explained this to me. I would have never learned that modified.in was where its at from footbag.org alone. The footbag.org forum operators were so arrogant that they didn't just direct people to modified.in - they acted like they were a realistic outlet for new footbag talent. Steve, you helped kill footbag. Lets admit it. I look at footbag.org now and its exactly the same as it was 7 years ago. Are you kidding me?

Modified.in seems to be about as popular as footbag.org forums were in 2006.

EDIT: I just visited footbag.org forums for old times sake. Its fucking pathetic. Spam operators have completely taken over. Like a toxic mold, it has spread to many different subforums. There are many spam posts that have yet to be deleted. There are no mods to delete this shit, even.

The instant you go to footbag.org, you're an internet archaeologist. It may as well be the darknet. The Footbag.org forums are completely dead. Beyond dead. It is a footbag zombie that needs to be put out of its misery. Nobody is going there anymore. If they are I feel sorry for them. Go look for yourself.

Steve, please take down the footbag.org website. Its embarrasing.
Last edited by Psilocybe on 29 Nov 2015 06:33, edited 1 time in total.

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Nathan
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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Nathan » 29 Nov 2015 01:12

Hmm, I kind of see your point but, then again, you didn't exactly say what you want to happen to modified. What's your suggestion? Get rid of it? Or try to move everyone back here from facebook?

The fact is, FB is better for sharing a quick video or asking a quick question of the community. Many people are already on that site multiple times a day and seeing footbag posts while you're browsing FB is nice. Modified is still good for blogs and longer conversations, and those conversations still happen, even if it's not super frequent.

Also, FB might be home to some silly arguments but modified was as well back when it was the forum of choice. People will always find something to argue about, and putting up with the flame wars is part of being in an online community.

I absolutely disagree that modified is currently what the footbag.org forums once had been. The user base is entirely different, in that almost everyone who posts to modified nowadays are active players who I've met or at least know of. Footbag.org never had that. It was always Steve and a bunch of noobs.

As for the sport dying, eh, not really sure about that either. One thing we don't see much of is young kids taking over the sport in a coupe years anymore, a la David Clavens or Vasek of the 2000's. I'm not really sure why. But the sport is still progressing and jams in many places are getting bigger again. I know you said not to mention that, but it's true. NYJ last year was huge. Obv. we've had some trouble (worlds 2013 was certainly shockingly small) but I don't think modified's fate is entirely related. I think it's safer to say that footbag hit something of a fad status sometime around 2004 (and not for the first time, pretty sure there was a similar one in the 90s but I was like 5 then so idk..) and we've been left with a tight-knit and passionate (but small) community. Which is fine by me.

Edit: your point about .org is well taken. I do not suggest new players visit the site. luckily searching youtube for footbag how tos/tutorials works well

edit 2: the big names never frequented modified much. Forums have always been for the up and comers who are addicted to the sport and want to immerse themselves in it. Honestly, I think the ease of FB has attracted a lot of great players to comment more. You can go from browsing your aunt's cat pictures to watching a one minute shred vid and quickly comment "good stuff, keep it up." I can think of half a dozen BAP players off the top of my head who comment on FB on the reg who were rarely on fizzied. and that's pretty sweet exposure for newer players. like boyle said, both FB and fizzied have their place

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Psilocybe » 29 Nov 2015 06:55

Nathan, you're right, equating modified and footbag.org would be a mistake. Footbag.org forums I doubt ever had the culture or life we had here. Its pretty strange though - it shows there being over like 35 thousand posts there. Was it alive at some point?!? Who knows. Is that where everybody hung out until modified.in was born? The weird thing was that in 2006, the place seemed alive, but it wasn't.

The problem with modified is that while there is a wealth of old information here, new players can't even find this place.

I wonder if there is just any way we can trash footbag.org and move modified.in and all our skeletons to footbag.org. Lets make this forum public. Basically just change modified.in's URL to footbag.org. Why not? Nobody posts here anyways. Since nobody posts, the transition would be pretty harmless. This way, people can actually find this forum without having to go through FB.

Hell, hackrifice can join the fun too. Gotta admit, its kinda funny that place is still around.

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Allan » 29 Nov 2015 10:23

TL;DR BRO, DOYOUEVEN!!??

I'm seriously trying to remain calm and collected in this response, but I don't know that I'll succeed. I really, really want to approach this with humour and compassion, but things have been said that have insulted me deeply and I'm sorry in advance if my emotions get the better of me.

Hey Psilocybe what's your name again? You've been around for a while, and I feel bad that I can't put a name to your handle. When did you last attend a tournament and talk to people in person about this stuff? What do you do for a living? Seriously, please answer these questions. I'm very curious to know what--exactly--gives you the impetus to make posts like these.

While I truly and sincerely respect your obvious passion, not only do I very much disagree with your assessment of the situation, I think you're being very much more part of the problem than you are of the solution (especially since you've proposed no actual solutions and not even really defined the problem). You're definitely not helping to encourage more participation by writing these negative posts decrying how our community is DYING!!! OMG!!. The story of Chick Little comes to mind.

Your perspective towards footbag.org is completely and utterly ahistorical and ignorant. I don't even know where to begin to correct you. You're bashing (hard) something that you obviously don't understand, and I have no idea why you feel the need to insult the very people who are in a position to help you. Do you think we don't read what you're writing? Do you think calling me (or Steve) arrogant is going to make me or anyone want to spend more time working for you/the community? Or don't you even realize who runs/manages/pays for this place? I guess you're not alone in completely forgetting that it was me along with Steve who founded .org/forum. Our reasons for doing that were genuine and sincere. We were trying to help. We failed miserably. But we tried. Thanks for completely dismissing our efforts and time, while not even trying to understand why we did it. That feels fucking awesome :oops:

Are you really expecting to be taken seriously by people who have actually put in time and work and money to make our community what it is? Or are you hoping to attract a ground-swell of newbies who will revolt and overthrow the "old guard"? :lol: Good luck with that! What is your goal in telling Steve he "helped kill footbag"?? Like, that is probably the most offensive thing I've seen someone post to these forums in years. Get a fucking grip! Do you want him to quit? Do you want me to quit? Do you even know who we are as people and what we've done for footbag? I don't think you do. You couldn't possibly and then say the things you have. I really don't think you should be calling anyone arrogant at this point, as you're obviously calling the kettle black. And that is simply the most polite, non-belligerent way I can think of to put that.

Footbag.org (and our community in general) is much, much more than the forums, and always has been. The forums are really only a small part of what goes on. They barely even matter in the grand scheme of things. Do you even know (no, you obviously don't) that .org is actually under active development? Just because you can't see that development up front, does not mean that it's not happening. Maybe if you took some time to participate in the community beyond declaring it dead, you'd have a better idea of what's happening and our what our priorities are.

For example, did you know that the software that runs .org--that Steve is currently writing/updating/developing (spending 100s if not 1000s of hours of his personal time)--has managed and run the World Championships for the last several years? "Tournament In A Box" is genius, and has contributed more to supporting and developing this community in the last several years than every. single. forum. post. ever, combined. Shut it down indeed. Sheesh! What a stupid fucking suggestion. It may not have a modern design, but if you think a modern design will magically grow the sport 1000x, take a look around here for a minute and tell me the same; shit, take a look at craigslist and tell me that modern designs make a website successful. Put simply: you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Perhaps--perhaps-- .org/forum should be shut down (simply made read-only), but that's absolutely it. The rest of that site serves a vital purpose to our community. Yeah, it could definitely use a new coat of paint; nobody would dispute that. So, Psilocybe you're a full-stack developer who is volunteering your time and skills to make that happen? No? Oh, I see! You want someone else to volunteer their professional skills and a 1000 hours of time for free. But I suppose they'd better be careful to do it up to your standards, or THEY'RE KILLING FOOTBAG!! OMG!!!

In a nutshell, Steve has been focusing his time and energy on projects that actually affect and support the players that play and make the effort and commitment to travel to tournaments in our community, instead of continuing to support all the know-it-all blowhards who literally do nothing for our community but bitch and complain on the forums about how bad everything is. Apparently, supporting those people continues to be my job :roll: I'm joking about that, because I really quite like all the people who still post here and there, and I'm happy to continue developing our tools and participating is a positive, meaningful way. These days it's all about quality, not quantity, and, honestly, I prefer this to the shit-show flame wars that happened in the period you're so nostalgic for. Personally, I think that those days were the problem that "killed" our community. And you want them back :cry:

Do you really want to help grow the sport? Shut the fuck up about how bad it all is, and do something positive and constructive for the community that has a real effect. Can't think of anything like that? then simply shut the fuck up, period.

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Add Block » 29 Nov 2015 10:54

I kinda like digging through the forum. I used to read old topics before going to bed to help me fall asleep and I've read most of the forum. If I need specific information, the search function has always been very intuitive.

When I started playing, .org was already not active, and unfortunately the site has always been really slow for me. That said, I'm pretty sure it was or still is full of useful stuff, it's just a little hard to navigate through. Modified is more user friendly.

I would agree with Allan, that your assessment is fairly harsh. At first it seemed like you were going to propose a way to fix the problem you've described, which I'd like to read. If you don't have a possible solution, just stating problems is usually not a good thing.
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Allan
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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Allan » 29 Nov 2015 11:19

Allan wrote:Do you really want to help grow the sport? Shut the fuck up about how bad it all is, and do something positive and constructive for the community that has a real effect. Can't think of anything like that? then simply shut the fuck up, period.
I already regret saying this. I'm sorry. My intention is almost never to try to shut down any sort of dialog. Please always communicate when you have something to communicate; negative or not.

I do feel that we should "be the change" and all that, but it's not my place to try to shut you down. You hurt my feelings and I reacted poorly, forcing me to dilute my argument with belligerence. I'll try to do better next time :)

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by C-Fan » 29 Nov 2015 11:50

Late to the conversation since I was offline for Thanksgiving, but Allan basically wrote what I was going to here:
Allan wrote: Do you really want to help grow the sport? Shut the fuck up about how bad it all is, and do something positive and constructive for the community that has a real effect. Can't think of anything like that? then simply shut the fuck up, period.
For real. Host a tournament, start a club, do some promo work, show up to a tournament, or at the very minimum at least PROPOSE a solution. Showing up once every 5 years to complain vaguely about the sport while you've never made any effort to do anything... come on bro.

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by DC Clinks » 29 Nov 2015 17:34

To your point about not even being able to find modified through Google, click this link: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=footbag+forums

It might just be because of my own personalized search history, but for me modified.in is just a few links behind footbag.org and reddit.

I can't really speak much as to the internet history of footbag as I started a year or so ago and so missed out on the "golden era" of footbag.org and modified.in that I guess you're talking about several years ago. But I am a relatively new player who is pretty active on this forum and to a lesser extent on the Facebook group, and I definitely agree with Dan and Allan's comments about quality over quantity of posts. For my own footblog I try to post at least a few things every weeks or two that most people will find entertaining or funny, and I can definitely see that kind of attitude in other people's blogs as well.

I'm not really sure if anything more than that kind of attitude being present is really required for the stability of the online community. As long as there is quality posts on both Facebook and Modified being posted by a decent number of people with some amount of frequency (as there is now), I don't really see the whole "community is dying" argument being valid.

As to how this sort of issue is "fixed" (I'm not really convinced by your argument as you've presented it), I recognize the importance of proposing a solution to a problem rather than just stating that there is one in somewhat vague definitions. Besides what Ken has already suggested, I'm not too sure what more can be done to promote the liveliness of the community, in particular the internet community you are discussing. Maybe make more of an effort to cross-post videos and discussions between the two mediums? That's just one possible idea that could be implemented I suppose. Dunno. I like Modified, I like the Facebook group. I don't really think they're dying or suffering from a massive gap in expertise/skill to the extent that you've suggested. My 2¢ as a newbie.
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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Psilocybe » 29 Nov 2015 22:34

Guys, I absolutely love all the passion in these posts, especially you Allen. Modified.in hasn't seen this in a long time. I love that footbag.org, it turns out, is still evidently being used by people? Awesome, I'm glad Steve is keeping footbag alive in all its old PHP glory. As always, all hail Steve. I'm sure all the kids with their twitter, instagram, and vines are just dying to play footbag these days - kids that don't even know what a forum is anymore.

I dont play footbag, isn't that obvious? I haven't in many years. I have children - its not gonna happen. But maybe I should just host a tourney. We'll call it the Iowa opens and I'm sure about 2 people would show up. It would be awesome!

So....why am I doing "this" - this terrible atrocity using my time to post to a dead forum, insulting people who have never frequented here anyway, and pointing out the flaws of what is actually happening to said online community? I guess, because I can. I've given it many years and it looks like nobody else will. Nobody else has meta-commentary and I think, if left to its own devices, modified.in will just slowly wither away within the next 5-10 years. I'm worried that with absolutely no commentary - without the very conversation we're having occurring - modified.in will just one day 404 away.

One day, modified.in will just be gone and that will be that. I haven't even posted here in 6 months. I haven't even lerked in 6 months. In that 6 months I completely forgot about modified.in. I think we all know the experience. I'm worried about a future where everybody forgets modified.in, forever. Even though it appears I am trolling, in some way modified.in lives on in me and is important. Its more important to me than people who have just forgotten about modified.in altogether.

Look at hackrifice. This is a website which approximately 3 unique people have visited in the last 5 years. Is it doing anything for footbag? Absolutely not. You can visit hackrifice and be 100% certain that you are the only human being there. But, we could claim that Eric has done more for footbag than I ever have! Hackrifice taught me moves and I loved their videos. Who cares? This is not some pissing contest. Hackrifice is currently doing nothing for footbag all while appearing to be doing something.

A very simple action at this point is getting rid of the .in url postfix. Why do we have an indian postfix anyways? Somebody, please explain this to me. We cannot afford to be "secret" anymore. The .in postfix is no longer endearing or cool.

Lets get real, admit footbag is in its death throes and compensate to elongate its life. Lets make modified more public. Even though I don't play I can make suggestions. Lets get rid of subforums which do nothing except make this site look even more vacant. We need to consolidate the resources we have into something that can actually be noticed by people. Footbag needs to change its strategy, appeal to new players, and stop catering to this "old guard" which I am evidently so against.
Last edited by Psilocybe on 29 Nov 2015 23:35, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Nathan » 29 Nov 2015 23:10

Psilocybe wrote:Look at hackrifice. This is a website which approximately 0 people have visited in the last 5 years. Is it doing anything for footbag? Absolutely not. But, we could claim that Eric has done more for footbag than I ever have! Who cares? This is not some pissing contest. Hackrifice is doing 0 for the footbag community, all while appearing to be doing something.
Still don't get your point. Yes, Erik has done more than you for the footbag community. I learned half of my 3 and 4 adds directly from his website. Up and comers today could still do the same thing, granted the trick tip videos aren't streaming but they're still there. What's your point about "appearing to do something?" It still serves as a place to find a lot of great videos from the Winnipeg club, and if Erik wants to keep the site alive that's his choice. It's not hurting anyone. Yeah, maybe he could upload all his trick tip vids as instagram posts or start a fucking tumblr instead. But maybe he doesn't want to. Does that mean he should delete a website he spent years creating?

And what's up with the whole meta-discussion? Most people who still frequent modified still kick, or at least are enthusiastic about footbag. That's clearly not the case for you anymore... but don't blame us for not wanting to join in a pessimistic nostalgia-fest about how the people who've done the most to promote the sport should be doing even more.

Keeping modified alive does nothing to stop the promotion of the sport. If you want to promote it in different ways, get off modified and go do it. But since you already said you won't, you have to understand that a bitter former player railing against the people who've worked hardest in footbag doesn't come across well. You might think that you're exposing the "hard truths" of the decline of our sport, but you've never hosted a tournament, never started a website, never done a big promo... why would guys like Ken and Allan take you seriously?

In summation.. thank you Allan. :)

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Allan » 30 Nov 2015 07:15

I moved this into the meta forum yesterday and just now removed the shadow topic from footblogs.

I would advise everyone to simply not reply to this thread; don't feed the troll anymore.
Last edited by Allan on 30 Nov 2015 08:11, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Removed idle threat to lock/ban as unhelpful.

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 30 Nov 2015 09:15

I know you said to not reply, but as a late-comer to the thread, and since the topic is kind of near and dear to me, I want to say a few things.

Allan, you're the man. You're the axles to this footbag car we all ride in. You're an invaluable part of the community.

Footbag is not dead. In fact, I'm predicting another surge of freestylers in 2016 or 2017. Shortly, I'll explain why.

I'd also like to add, if people are concerned with there being few players, HELP ME RECRUIT FROM INSTAGRAM! I just messaged 2 guys on IG recently. Turns out they lived 15 minutes away from Zach Hoffa and I. We took them to their first event at PSU (Turkey Jam) and they're hooked and learning quickly. If you want a future of footbag, go recruit.

I think if Evan and Nick, in Freedomfootbags.com, play their cards right, they could easily be one big reason footbag surges again. If we got Dragonfly and Bomb Footbags on our side, we might even get a leg-up. So many footbaggers are fans of them. If they were directly linked to our actual community, this sport would really be poppin'.

Anyway, sorry, I had to reply. Allan, if you want o move this somewhere else, feel free. No one has to reply to this. Just think about it, please.
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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Allan » 30 Nov 2015 09:34

It's all good :) I just woke up to those replies and was being morning grumpy. Now that I've had my coffee I'm able to laugh at it. I just don't want to turn this into a flame war, but since everybody else seems to be taking it in stride except for me, I'll just stop replying and y'all can carry on :)

And THANK YOU to everyone for the kind words of support! For being dead, this community sure has a lot of love and support. Keep up the great work.

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Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Psilocybe » 30 Nov 2015 10:14

Its weird. I've been using the wayback machine to gather hard data on my hypothesis that this place is dying. I'm honestly willing to admit I'm wrong if that is the case.

From the numbers, this place appears to be alive:

For the past year, lets say:
421268 - May 17, 2014
428452 - august 1st, 2015

Thats like 6k posts a year.

Comparing that to 2006, a far more active time here:

212937 - Apr 2, 2006
244942 - Apr 18, 2007
thats only 32k posts a year

Okay, so the the forum is 5x more inactive than before. Not bad.

We can get finer detail by looking at close dates:

418900 - feb 10th, 2014
421268 - May 17, 2014

Thats 2368 posts in 90 days, so 27 posts a day. Yeah, I call bullshit. Even today, right now, I can manually count all the new posts within the past WEEK here and its something like 20.

The statistics on this website seem highly dubious.

User avatar
Allan
Posts: 933
Joined: 30 Aug 2003 20:44
Location: Victoria BC

Re: The death of modified.in

Post by Allan » 30 Nov 2015 12:31

Ugh. I can't help myself. It's a slow day at work too, so ...
Psilocybe wrote:I've been using the wayback machine to gather hard data on my hypothesis that this place is dying.


The stats from this board are indeed highly dubious and relying on them to prove anything is absurd. We had a pretty major spam problem for years. It heavily skewed the stats to fictional usage that never really happened. For example, before I reset it, there was a stat that said that at one time there were 297 users on the board at once. Probably 270 of them were spammers. There's nothing that can be done about this that wouldn't take unreasonable amounts of time to fix, thus rendering the board stats pretty close to useless for the comparison you seek to make. The data for more recent years are certainly more valid since I've fixed the spam problem, but comparing them to 2006 is not fruitful.

I read every single post made to this forum, and while I'd say that 27 posts a day doesn't sound correct (but not too far off), I don't see much reason to doubt that there have been that many posts in the past 90 days. Conversations do blow up every now and then and there are quite a few chatty people around here; people discuss stuff in their blogs that you'd never see if you weren't paying attention. If I were more inclined, I'd dig deeper into the stats and see if there's anything truly amiss. But I don't really care, and you're definitely not doing anything to make me care. Just the opposite, really.

Nobody here is denying the fact that participation is down; like, way down. But you're saying that because usage is down so much, our sport is "dying." It's hyperbole and false. Chicken Fucking Little. If I were being generous, I could see how a cursory look at things might suggest this, but really only to shallow people who are so completely out of touch with the community that they are incapable of seeing the bigger, evolving picture.

You are writing about this as if you are both intimately involved in the community and competent enough to render a valid opinion on complicated issues of technology. It is clear to me that you fail miserably on both points, rendering your opinions on this entirely moot and more than a little aggravating, especially when you couch your criticism with such contempt and disrespect. You can't even spell my name correctly when it's right in front of you :roll:

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