Roland

I don't enjoy Alex Wakeford's writing. I hope he gets better but the storytelling here is just all over the place.

What the hell.. I'm glad you guys don't do clans anymore.

I’ve been thinking recently about why I (and others) seek to join a community initially, and why we have different levels of involvement in those communities. Personally, some communities I’m in, I’m very engaged. Others, I just read and pay attention (commonly called ‘lurking’) but rarely engage. Clearly, I joined all of those communities at some point for a reason, and understanding the reason might lead me to understand better how to build new communities. My initial assumption is that there is one key element in why people join a community, both online and offline: a shared interest. This shared interest could be a hobby, knowledge, a political belief, a love of a particular region, survival or fandom. Sure, this seems somewhat obvious, but it occurs to me that the shared interest doesn’t fall into the same category every time. A person who wants to learn more about fly fishing is seeking advice, where a person who is a fan of BTS just wants to talk about how awesome they think the band is. Persons in both groups had a shared interest, but are seeking different rewards in joining their groups. It seems to me that people join communities to either: converse with others who have the same interest learn more from others who have the same interest feel a part of a ‘tribe’ - which can take on different meanings dependent on the shared interest. I am curious about this because when seeking a community, we have to either find one that already exists or build it ourselves. I’m also not sure if people join communities to advise or teach others; this may be a blind spot for me personally. In order to build a community, we have to understand why people would join a community - at least it seems to me that would be critical, because understanding why people would join a specific community will help a community builder work to ensure that the community was actually providing what the ‘joiners’ are seeking. To put it another way: If I was interested in learning more about woodworking, and I joined a woodworking forum, I wouldn’t find much value if all the posts/conversations in that forum were about poker or bitcoin. I’m also curious if there are other reasons besides ‘a shared interest’ that is common across communities. Not everyone wants to engage in conversations in a community, which is why some people join subreddits and forums but never comment. But they still join because there are interested in what others are saying about something they are interested in.

Related to these, I think there are cases where the main participant in a discussion is working through a problem that they expect will take them some time to work through. Doing so out in the open and asking for input/feedback/help along the way can help keep the context of their journey in one place and make it easier for others to have that context available when they jump in to provide help. There may be examples of this kind of thing in support forums or in learning based communities. I think another type of discussion that can be valuable to have in a forum are “inclusive decision making” topics. For example, when you are planning to make a change in a community or in a project a community has interest in, sharing intentions or proposals with or without alternatives and inviting input of feedback for a period of time, then making a decision which can be recorded with in context. There may be examples of this kind of thing in “meta” categories about how a community governs itself, community projects, and forums that create space for product feedback, for example.

This is a good laundry list. I would break it into a few sections Poor Software Capabilities Not mobile friendly Lack of rich text options Difficult login Bad search functionality Tech is old Poor culture People who want to “win” or change minds vs. have a discussion Lack of appreciation for contributions Poor Management / Moderation Dominating voices Harassment / spam with no moderation No leadership Poor Mechanism Design Annoying notifications Bad architecture Lack of engagement No usage It’s only staff talking Stale/stagnant discussions No responses or reactions Inactivity Other - May be in eye of beholder or just part of a rich community Boring content It wastes people’s time Lack of variety Lack of recognition for effort as a poster Too hard to find (This may be forum software) Google having faster/better answers than the forum (this may be lack of engagement) Also the undo button is missing. Stuff like that is a hinderance, but I know its a thankless job for the administration here.

Good insight into the costs, can you break it down? How can I donate without subscribing, Its just easier for me to do one time ya know instead of every month. Also can you share more details to the subscriptions perks? Thanks, what you're doing here is amazing. Its god's work and I see it coming alive by the day, slowly but surely. Have only been here for a little while and now all these unfamiliar names, units and visitors I see online are active watching. Its great that a platform like this can exist around Halo I hope you get to completing whatever it is your trying to do before inviting everyone to join.

What even is this LMAO

This is pretty cool, it looks like they also brought back a Halo 5: Guardians Warzone map too I want to see how that plays on Infinite

I'm not apart of too many forums but I thought that its usually endless, like we just keep talking for eternity. If there is a max rank and its based off posts and other stuff is there an end to this? Is it worth working up to and posting?

Game looks great honestly

Just a shot in the dark, I see a lot of those here in random questions and discussions but if anyone knows anything please fill us in!

Civil war over Elites? Last I heard ONI was trying to subvert the UNSC and distrusting of the elites. I don't think many people cared about the elites that much post war, not sure how they economically recovered from losing entire planets though. Meridian was gone and after the Created that would not have changed so much. First one makes more sense but also its Battle Royale!? Dropping from the sky in an ODST pod just makes so much sense. I didn't even think of the armor plate mechanic I think I've seen that in PUBG? or CODWZ? In any news we need one for Halo but probably not going to see it for awhile

What does [-] RESERVES mean? It is displayed under my name and to the side of my forum profile in the forums.

Not the biggest fan of this map. Definitely inspired by Countdown but they should have added a more truthful remake.

Hey Accessing, This thread is the only feedback one I could find its pretty buried. I have given a good few hours now scouring through this site as a Halo fan and its very overwhelming. The forums especially for the UNSC and ONI are very large and with great depth. The information collected altogether is monumental, this is an insane passion project you and staff have here. I implore you to really look into what better ways people can navigate and be funneled to areas that are trending, wanted or just easier to talk in and find out what all of this is about. I also think the mobile friendliness is a necessity. A concept you might like as this site also blends into some real world coaching is the acronym for Roger in an order "Roger that" Received Orders Given Expect Results, Roger that is simply said but in more meaning to it than what we all know it to be. As ex-military and avid reader its fun to see this site have many other concepts working or not and especially around Halo. I hope to catch you on Discord sometime soon.