This topic contains 12 replies, has 10 voices, and was last updated by 
PD8 2 years, 2 months ago.
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<span style=”color: #ff0000;”>Warning : Rant ahead.</span>
Not sure if anyone else has noticed, I suspect you have but with the closer of the monkey forum on MX.com and the release of 1.0 and this site the already small brl community has once again been shattered and split apart, personally I think this is terrible as it only continues to hurt the user base and shows a trend of ever decreasing user engagement.
None of us want to see things fail or die off but every time you take a user base and split it in half your literally killing yourself and it’s something I see happening here and it’s something that in all honesty and in my own humble opinion should not be allowed to happen.
Mark, is there any chance you could put some serious thought into unifying the now three communities into a single cohesive well designed site, I think bringing the talent that’s hidden away in each of the three websites together would be an amazing thing and something I would love to be a part of.
I know that one of the massive things some might be worried about is the loss of the old posts, just archive them, take the current forums throw them into an archive and get on with the new, no one is suggesting deleting the old forum posts, and it would be a logistical nightmare to migrate all those old forum posts over to a new forum so just don’t bother with it, just archive it all link to it from the new sites navigation for easy searching and it wont be long before the new forums start to fill up with new content, just like the MX2 forum is.
My biggest fear is monkey 3 and a further site, further fragmentation of an already small community, and before some one says that wouldn’t happen, hes done it three times already what makes you think he wont do it again. ?
TLDR : Mark please make a single website to host all brl products, monkey 1 & 2, Max, B3D with a single combined forum for all because all this community fragmentation is slowly killing us.
</rant>
I agree and I was surprised there was a 2nd website for Monkey2 … and still not sure why it was done. Don’t know how best to combine them or if Mark has a really good reason to make another break.
Already said/written many times before (in any of the BRL’s forum :D!)
Sure, there are ‘technical’ limits: each site has an own forum, this one (site) is based on WP, the others no. So a joining between different databases is really complicated.
The most logic solution should be an unique ‘entry point’… then the user could decide to follow ‘legacy’ products (BlitzMax/Blitz3D/BlitzPlus) – Mx1 or MX2.
Some advantages?
- Just ONE gallery (for example) with all the projects (just add a tag for clarify what products is used – Blitz3d/Bmax/MX…)
- One repository for every products: a ‘download’ section
- One site where post announces/news – for everyone, not only for Mark (no needs to make copy & paste!)
- One ‘support me’ page
- One site to manage!
To be honest remember this site is very hard, typing it harder (monkey2.monkey-x.com)…
I suspect remembering the site is the easiest aspect. :O)
– Splitting it up on three sites surely decreases the community.
– All the content scattered on different places, logins, …
– It’s kind of working but pretty looks feels different too (with weird downtimes).
0 Dunno how reliable/secure/… the other sites are.
+ I guess Mark is happy with it because it’s easier to manage.
+ I prefer him working on m2 (desktop) instead of doing web stuff.You should have a look at how hip tools ‘in this range’ are being offered these days. No way Mark is gonna go such a route, and i think it’s okay.
I didn’t invest my money in monkey2 to listen to people rant about crud. That’s what the blitzbasic forums are for.
way to insult the people that made what mark does possible…. nice work… keep it up…
o.O
@Simon Armstong
As you invest, i guess you’re interested in a success of m2 too.Some reasons for success: a) a great product, b) that people know about it, c) that there is a need for it, d) transparency, e) communication (dev to users as well as a helpful, interesting and active community), and g) some luck.
I guess m2 currently is supported by a number of people who also frequent the BlitzMax forum. Nothing against an opinion but it can come around a little bit weird, especially when you’re still posting there or locking threads, sometimes based on your moods.
Back to this forum, especially in the early days (when stuff doesn’t work or it’s harder getting infos from a doc) it’s quite important having great support from the dev(s) and an active community in order to progress and have some fun.
This also can be an indication about the health of a product for people from outside. I appreciate when you’re in a helpful mood or post some code because i’m curious and they can cover interesting aspects to learn from (instead from the docs). Sharing stuff can be fun and inspiring.
A person will program in whatever language they use and prefer regardless of what the forum for said language looks like, how many members it has and probably won’t notice all the pink and purple.
A programmer programs. A programmer with nothing to do likes talking on forums.
Productivity is the point. If you allow things, like the OP has mentioned, to hinder how much you can accomplish each day productivity wise, then you are thinking incorrectly for what you perceive your purpose to be; a programmer.
That is why programmers who live in the shadows accomplish wonders while those like the OP hinder themselves with stupid, non-relevant activities, much like starting threads like these.
Harsh, but true……………..
Feng shui
I total agree with you except I do need a little more then just program.
For example that correct nice font in the editor, or that background color and syntax color.These things make it (for me) more fun to program.
But at the root level, its the idea of making (program) that thing you want.
(using a good documentation / forum with feedback)I am sorry I caused insult.
I would consider it an insult to blitz users and monkey1 users to pull their respective communities from under them a bit too “utilitarian” for my liking.
Diversity is a good thing. The monkey1 community may not be growing but it represents a small group of hard working game publishers that rely on the knowledge base and local knowledge.
Monkey2 could be a future upgrade path for monkey1, blitzmax and blitz3d users but at the moment I think the reality is Mark has been very wise to allow the respective communities their own homes, free of undue disruption.
Activity on the original Monkey forum seems to be dropping fast. I assume part of it is that active posters are coming here instead.
I don’t like fragmentation
Activity – even if it’s not relevant to a user’s particular issue – helps keep up motivation and confidence.
In the future when monkey2 has established itself as the canonical replacement for all of the previous BRL products, I would love to see a unified portal taking over all of the old sites, archiving all of the old sites and bringing all of the community under one tent.
Until that happens though, I would agree with the people who say that it’s a moot argument. I do somewhat lament the fact that the monkey forums have dried up in post quality and quantity lately as the community has been split up once again, however as I’ve learned the language I feel that I don’t need to for help that much anymore, I only miss the community itself which has mostly moved to over here. Since I’m still waiting for an IDE that gets me the same convenience level that jungle did for monkey X, I mostly lurk here, but there seems to be life in the mx2 forums waiting to blossom out when it’s “ready” for primetime.
P.s. all of you mx2-interested peeps should check out the monkey chatroom on Skype sometime..
Symantics , the low number of “voices” says it’s all I’m amazed compare this to lemon64 forums traffic ?
i really hope monkey 2 replaces m1 and gets the GUI max stuff but with visual window tools and a hundred posts a day on the forum within a couple of years
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