Is it significant if TMD doesn't crack 1000 new posts for November

[Grand Inquisitor]

Title of post should be suggestive enough for comment.  I see a few potential view here:

(1) November is a month riddled with holidays, midterms and not much big magic news in general, perhaps this is an anomaly.  Novembers average 10% below the historical average anyway.
(2) Perhaps TMD is continuing to move out of the center of the online vintage world.
(3) Perhaps Vintage is moving from a fringe format to a dead format.

Thoughts?

[nataz]

I think that fact that we have 28 different boards doesn't help. I outlined why in the new forum thread. Maybe not the primary reason, but I suspect it plays a part.

Child Boards: Child boards in general are a bad idea, it needlessly separates information under layers of clicks. Depth is your enemy when there is a low amount of traffic. What you really want is something horizontal in design that keeps the idea of promoting the pillars/or regions, without having to click into deeper categories.

It would be different if each category survived as its own little ecosystem, but I’m not sure any of the new child boards alone are large enough to promote growth from cross pollination. All you get is more inbreeding where the people who like Blue control read the blue control forum, and rarely traverse into the workshop forum. If it’s all on the same page, no matter what kind of cubby hole you live in (and let’s be honest here, most vintage players have some sort of comfort zone), you are forced to look at other threads and other deck ideas. This forced mixture of different knowledge, skills and abilities is a good thing for such a small community. It’s good that all the control players have to notice that the tread on TPS or Ichorid is getting a lot of attention.

For an example of why the child board/pillar set up is awkward, look at the Ritual v. Control forums. From a quick glance the Blue control forum has about 3+ new topics each month. The Ritual has about 1 topic each month. Sheesh, the Bazaar forum goes from 2 topics in May with nothing else straight to December. That’s a really slow
turnover of ideas, and by separating  things further it will just make it worse.

...

I’ll close with this. I’m confused about your design philosophy, which in turn makes TMD confusing to navigate. More categories doesn’t make things easy to find, it just makes more things to find. I promise you, if you want to make information more accessible, you don’t add more layers. If a device is too hard to use, you wouldn’t add more buttons would you? Think I-phone not blackberry. Figure out how to make the forums you have really count, don’t just add more forums.

[Ten-Ten]

(1) November is a month riddled with holidays, midterms and not much big magic news in general, perhaps this is an anomaly.  Novembers average 10% below the historical average anyway.

I think it is the combination of being with family on Thanksgiving and early Christmas shopping that contributes to a lower percentage of posts on the month of  November from the lack of tournaments around mid to late November due to low attendance.

Is it significant if TMD doesn't crack 1000 new posts for November?

Depends, will TMD get shut down if it does not meet 1000+ new post for November? If yes, then of course it is significant.

(2) Perhaps TMD is continuing to move out of the center of the online vintage world.

Highly unlikely.

(3) Perhaps Vintage is moving from a fringe format to a dead format.

As long as WotC continues to at least keep modifying the B/R list, Vintage will not die. IMO.

[ELD]

The site has been very poorly managed.  Design a horse by committee and you get a camel.  Design a forum by committee and you get TMD.  TMD used to be my homepage, I'd use it literally every day.  Now it serves almost no function for me.  So long as that continues, I don't expect to be adding significantly to the new post count. 

[Zherbus]

I'm open to suggestions. Bring them on, just don't make it a bitchfest.

Also, keep in mind that doing what I used to do isn't terribly likely. We have to make SCG happy and all. I never really had to make anyone happy before.

[Commandant]

I'm open to suggestions. Bring them on, just don't make it a bitchfest.

Also, keep in mind that doing what I used to do isn't terribly likely. We have to make SCG happy and all. I never really had to make anyone happy before.

Update the forum software to something half decent. If that requires moving the hosting from SCG then do it; I'd imagine there are capable people out there who would be willing to help. My general feeling on the subject mirrors that of ELD.

[TheShop]

I have never been able to judge the popularity of the Vintage tournament scene- is the decline in new threads corresponding to a drop in overall attendance in the Northeast?  This would indicate format sluggishness.

Since Gush was unrestricted, I have not seen a huge number of new threads...but I am noticing a bunch of new posters.  Could it be that vintage itself has become even more standardized recently?  When I first got on, there were a seemingly higher number of decklists being kicked around...several o which were new developments.  Is it that now we are accepting(and only discussing) the few good standard lists/ideas?

I dont find the site management to be very different from when I first tuned in in 2003-4

[Juggernaut GO]

Forum software wont change anything.  I think it's rather apparent that vintage no longer holds the interest of a lot of people who used to frequent this site.

TMD may have had it's day, but people grew up, got older, moved on to other interests.  I've already been E-baying my collection now over the past few months a little at a time.

Getting rid of the legacy forum probably didn't do any favors.  Any stragglers that would end up here that would play both formats probably just go to the source for their format information, and don't even bother with vintage any longer.

The financial incentive for star city to quit offering vintage and swap to 5k legacy and standard events in the course of three years also probably helped put some coffin nails into our format as well. 

I know I said a few years ago that there is probably only 400 people that actually play vintage in the United States, and now that number is probably 1/2 of what it was.

[Zherbus]

Forum software wont change anything.  I think it's rather apparent that vintage no longer holds the interest of a lot of people who used to frequent this site.

TMD may have had it's day, but people grew up, got older, moved on to other interests.  I've already been E-baying my collection now over the past few months a little at a time.

You're correct. People got older and could no longer live a PTQ lifestyle of driving 12 hour round trips to play six hours of Vintage. There are a few pockets where Vintage is alive, but it's reaching a lot fewer people. While online play doesn't replace the crazy nights at Waterbury, the friends who came together over this game, and the face-to-face aspect of the mind games that Magic brings, it does hold an appeal to some. It could be appealing to those who live in a Vintage dead area or who simply have too much going on with their lives to be able to leave home for very long. It's really why I want to gauge interest in the thread here.

[Will]

Part of the reason it seems that TMD is getting less traffic is that Team Forums are becoming more widespread.  There is less discussion on individual deck strategy than before because it seems that most of the regions (Philadelphia specifically) has a team/teams that talk about new ideas on their respective forum.  

Aside from deck discussion moving elsewhere, Vintage is becoming less popular as a whole (I think) because of the ever increasing prices of cards.  When prices reach a certain point, the amount of people that decide its best to sell their cards and cash out is greater than those who want to buy into Vintage which is only feasible if you buy Dredge first.  

As a whole, I think the under 1000 posts isn't important but the general decrease in posting combined with the expensive buy-in is a really bad sign for the format.  Not saying that I think the format is dead as can be seen by 63 people last weekend playing in Blue Bell but it isn't overly healthy right now either.  A solution I could see is more topics on the actual game (Strategy, Decks, etc.) as well as a the price for cards becoming more reasonable (which won't happen unfortunately).  

[Sextiger]

The forums should really be combined down again, I never check the deck forums anymore because it takes about 30 clicks to find anything.  The biggest factor I think is that there is no improvement forum per say anymore, only creative.  A lot of threads get made for really janky crap that should not exist in the first place. 

[Tha Gunslinga]

1.  TMD overmoderation.
2.  Terrible site redesign.
3.  Loss of Stephen Menendian's articles.
4.  Aging of Vintage player-base.
5.  Key/Vault, Lodestone Golem, loss of Brainstorm, whatever you want to complain about.
6.  General lack of interest/excitement in Vintage.
7.  Lack of tournaments, brought on by poor turnouts.
8.  Higher price of gas.
9.  Lack of new vintage archetypes.
10. Loss of SCG P9 series.
11. WotC's increased focus on Legacy.


Price of cards has nothing to do with it.  Vintage in the US is almost all at least 10 or 15 proxy, and Power 9, Drains, and other Vintage staples have been flat forever.  Duals and such are a bit more expensive than before, but not that much.  People aren't being priced out of Vintage.

As Travis said, and as I've been telling people, there are only a few hundred serious Vintage players in the US, serious meaning, to take a totally arbitrary measure, that you've attended, say, 6 Vintage events in the last year.  I mean, how often do I test?  Never.  ICBM has fragmented, GWS is gone, and the golden age of Vintage is past.  It was fun while it lasted.

[nataz]

3.  Loss of Stephen Menendian's articles.

#3 is a good point. I wonder how much traffic Steve drove to TMD

[JACO]

Is it significant if TMD doesn't crack 1000 new posts for November?

No.

While TMD is certainly one of the main sites for Vintage news and discussion, the amount of forum activity isn't some great bellweather that will tell you Vintage is dying. Most development that I've seen occurs on team message boards now and in email threads among tighter/smaller groups of players. That's a shift of information gathering and discussion, which in my mind is perfectly reasonable and can be expected as the average Vintage player ages and grows more technologically adept at using the Internet.

The thing to be concerned about is the shrinking size and frequency of Vintage tournaments in the USA. It seems like European Vintage tournaments have been holding steady from my informal analysis, but in the USA most pockets of the country are seeing declining numbers. This is due to a myriad of reasons that we can individually hypothesize, but I don't believe price of the cards is the driving factor (proxies in general invalidate and hedge against this).

Summary: Tournament attendance, not TMD activity, is what you need to keep an eye on and be concerned about.

[Demonic Attorney]

Is it significant if TMD doesn't crack 1000 new posts for November?

No.

While TMD is certainly one of the main sites for Vintage news and discussion, the amount of forum activity isn't some great bellweather that will tell you Vintage is dying. Most development that I've seen occurs on team message boards now and in email threads among tighter/smaller groups of players. That's a shift of information gathering and discussion, which in my mind is perfectly reasonable and can be expected as the average Vintage player ages and grows more technologically adept at using the Internet.

The thing to be concerned about is the shrinking size and frequency of Vintage tournaments in the USA. It seems like European Vintage tournaments have been holding steady from my informal analysis, but in the USA most pockets of the country are seeing declining numbers. This is due to a myriad of reasons that we can individually hypothesize, but I don't believe price of the cards is the driving factor (proxies in general invalidate and hedge against this).

Summary: Tournament attendance, not TMD activity, is what you need to keep an eye on and be concerned about.

This.  As a Vintage player since 2004, I've seen the rise of teams slowly eat into TMD's share of discussion on Vintage strategy for years.  It almost seemed like, when I first came to TMD, the website itself was a "team" of sorts for the regular posters.  As the community grew, I think two things happened.  One, it became more profitable to keep information confined to smaller groups, because discussing tech on TMD exposed it to more prospective competitors, and this led to the rise of team secrecy.  As JACO said, this left us with innovation starting among smaller/closed player circles and not TMD.  Two, as the community/the site grew and underwent changes, some regular posters fell off.  This was due in large part to many players growing up and taking on competing responsibilities.  In a smaller number of cases, people opted out because the mods didn't make TMD into what they wanted it to be. 

As for tournament numbers, which I agree are the important metric by which to gauge the health of Vintage/TMD, I'm ambivalent.  It's no secret that Vintage in New England isn't what it was in 2005-2006.  But then again, Waterbury pulled in around 125 players, no small feat.  But more importantly, I think Vintage is shifting geographically more than it is disappearing entirely.  The clearest example of this is Europe, which has marquee events that draw over 200 players, and regular events that also pull in sizeable crowds.  Even in terms of the U.S., there is now N.Y.S.E. and Blue Bell, where in days gone by there was The Beanie Exchange, YMG, and Mykeatog's Mox.     

Taking some random (the first posts with attendance figures that come up in my search) samples from Results, the Beanie Exchange got 49 players in May 2005 for a Mox tournament, during what's considered to be part of Vintage's ascendancy, at least in New England.  In November of that year, Beanie Exchange pulled in 34.  Compare that to Blue Bell, which in April of this year got 47 players, and in August, 39.  Mykeatog got 31 people in July 2005, while N.Y.S.E. got 25 attendees in August of this year.

Would it be better if Vintage tournament attendance was increasing?  Yeah.  But we're a niche format that basically never had corporate sponsorship outside of the erstwhile SCG P9 tournaments.  I think it's unreasonable to compare our event turnouts to those of sanctioned formats, and that includes Legacy.  I don't really think it's a big deal that monthly events aren't pulling in 50+ people, much as I'd like for them to be, and I don't really know what any of us could do to make that happen anyway.   

Two final points.  One, I'd ask everyone to try to avoid the temptation of seeing the health of Vintage in your area as a barometer for the health of Vintage everywhere.  I fell into this trap about a year ago when I saw the decline in the New England tournament attendance, but Matt Elias corrected me by pointing out that other regions in the U.S. saw an increase in player turnout during that same time.  Two, and to bring my attention back to the site in general-- my personal vision for TMD focuses on quality over quantity.  I'd rather have 5 great posts in a month than 500 contributions of 4chan images, "I lol'd," political proselytizing, and most of all, generalized bitching about the site because it isn't run to one particular individual's personal satisfaction.  I won't pretend TMD is exactly where I want it to be even according to the "quality" metric, but I just wanted to say that I'm almost never concerned with the question of "how can we have more participation" as much as I am with "how can we have better participation?"

[Grand Inquisitor]

"how can we have more participation"..."how can we have better participation?"

This site loses because its mods don't see how these are related.

[Demonic Attorney]

By all means, help us understand.

[LotusHead]

This.  As a Vintage player since 2004, I've seen the rise of teams slowly eat into TMD's share of discussion on Vintage strategy for years.  It almost seemed like, when I first came to TMD, the website itself was a "team" of sorts for the regular posters.  As the community grew, I think two things happened.  One, it became more profitable to keep information confined to smaller groups, because discussing tech on TMD exposed it to more prospective competitors, and this led to the rise of team secrecy.  As JACO said, this left us with innovation starting among smaller/closed player circles and not TMD.  Two, as the community/the site grew and underwent changes, some regular posters fell off.  This was due in large part to many players growing up and taking on competing responsibilities.  In a smaller number of cases, people opted out because the mods didn't make TMD into what they wanted it to be.  

I've been stifled from posting more because I lack a local team now to test with. (scars draft is too much fun for locals, as is Standard dreams of greatness).

I play shops a lot, but am willing to take up other decks, but I play what I am most comfortable with (last few tournies have had lotsa new ideas maindeck).

But one thing I know for goddamn sure, is that many more people read TMD than post on it (based on my local meta. Just look at LSV's TMD post count for example).  But people do follow tmd, and care about Vintage.

Yes, Vintage is a fringe format, but it is still the Grandest Format none-the-less.

Poverty has kept me from at least 3 tournies in this year alone (Usually, there are 1 or two each month here).

EDIT: I would rather have basically quality posts/discussions than what is the norm for say, YouTUbe comments.

[CHaPuZaS]

Is it significant if TMD doesn't crack 1000 new posts for November?

It seems like European Vintage tournaments have been holding steady from my informal analysis, but in the USA most pockets of the country are seeing declining numbers.

As a side note, the tournaments here in Spain are starting to suffer that, and assitance is going down.

[Royal Ass.]

I agree that there are probably too many discussion categories.  I'm not sure if I like how all the "archetypes" are split up in the deck discussion section.  It makes things kind if insular.  For instance, I play blue mana drain decks generally so I tend to just check that thread instead of reading about other decks.  If all the decks were in the same section I would be more likely to read about other decks and archetypes potentially engaging in their discussion.  Over at the Source they have more general sections (Established, Developing, Creative) and all the decks are in the same section with clearly labeled thread titles.   Just a thought.

On another note I've always disliked the whole "Full Member" "Adept" "Basic User" system.  It comes off like some sort of secret men society.  It reminds me of Boyscouts with ranks and merit badges in shit.  I was only ever in Boyscouts for the camping and fun stuff, not the jerk off rank system with advancement tests etc.  I think it fractionalizes people and does very little to differentiate intelligent commentators from "Basic Users".  I've read stupid remarks posted by "Full Users" and "Adepts."  Plus there seems to be no benefit to having one of these advanced titles other than you can post in some obscure forum sections that get like 1 post every 6 months. 

In terms of tournament attendance, I think a lot of this has to happen on the local level.  However, it would be nice if WoTC gave this format more attention.  Maybe the Mana Drain could draft some sort of official statement and give it to Wizards begging for more support.  It could be like the Port Huron Statement for Type 1.    I don't believe that the "type 1 community" has ever come together and spoken with a collective voice and spoken to Wizards.  Yeah we bitch about restrictions but that's not somethign we can all agree on.  We can all agree to support this format.  I think there should be a Mana Drain Statement about the format and where we want to go with it in the future taking into consideration the policies WoTC has taken against us.   Do we just wither away as a format w/o at least making a case for our continued existence?

[Tha Gunslinga]

The Basic User/Full User/Adept/whatever system is a bad idea.  Half the Vintage World Champions are basic users.  Half the Adepts are there for what appears to be no reason.  I would just reset everyone to "User" or "Moderator" or "Admin."

[Sextiger]

The system has always been pretty dumb, I recently asked for an upgrade because hell, why not.  My post has been sitting in that forum for weeks with no response at all.  The forums should be open for everyone to post in. 

[TopSecret]

As far as TMD design goes, I would suggest this tree of categorization:

1) Tournament Announcements and Reports:
     a) Tournament Announcements
     b) Tournament Results

2) Deck Discussion

3) Community Forum

For the tournament part, I'm not sure it even needs to be split up at all.
People could just post things as either "[Announcement]" or "[Results]"/"[Report]".

Then just make everybody a "User" besides the moderators and allow everyone to post wherever they want.

[Zherbus]

The Basic User/Full User/Adept/whatever system is a bad idea.  Half the Vintage World Champions are basic users.  Half the Adepts are there for what appears to be no reason.  I would just reset everyone to "User" or "Moderator" or "Admin."

The system has floated away from what I had once in place, but the system did work fine at one point. Also, keep in mind that being good at Magic doesn't equate to being at all useful on the forums. Just the same, your point is sound: It's not working right now. We are talking about the current user system now.

Keep the thoughts coming. I'm reading all of them. 

[vassago]

As far as TMD design goes, I would suggest this tree of categorization:

1) Tournament Announcements and Reports:
     a) Tournament Announcements
     b) Tournament Results

2) Deck Discussion

3) Community Forum

For the tournament part, I'm not sure it even needs to be split up at all.
People could just post things as either "[Announcement]" or "[Results]"/"[Report]".

Then just make everybody a "User" besides the moderators and allow everyone to post wherever they want.

I think this is a god idea, but I do think reports and announcements should be kept separate.

Furthermore, I think deck discussion should be split into 2 subcatergories :a)Primer's &Discussion of recently Top 8'd/winning decks(call it what you want) and b)Creative. I know this sounds a lot like how it used to be, but hey I thought it was a good set up.

Another new idea, you could include a database similar to what Deckcheck.net was. I dont know if youre willing to put in the time or effort for it, but I think it would bring a lot of traffic here. Make it viewable to logged in members with more than three posts maybe? I dont know, but it could be something worth doing.

Just a few thoughts

[Rico Suave]

The site can only be what the community will make it.  It's not going to create useful discussion on its own.  Someone has to take the time and effort to create it. 

If you aren't going to do it, who will? 

[TopSecret]

Furthermore, I think deck discussion should be split into 2 subcatergories :a)Primer's &Discussion of recently Top 8'd/winning decks(call it what you want) and b)Creative. I know this sounds a lot like how it used to be, but hey I thought it was a good set up.

This isn't necessarily a bad idea. But from what I've observed in the past, I don't think having proven and unproven deck areas is that helpful. If people want to see what's top 8'ing, they can just check the tournament results. If they want to talk about a winning deck, then they can make a thread for it. With only one deck forum there is a risk of having bad ideas crop up, but I think the solution that promotes discussion is to just allow the bad ideas to sink to the bottom of the forum over time. If a thread has relevance or merit, it will stay near the top of the forum.

[Zherbus]

The site can only be what the community will make it.  It's not going to create useful discussion on its own.  Someone has to take the time and effort to create it. 

If you aren't going to do it, who will? 

I could sit in front of you all day spouting off screen names that this has happened with. So many people staring down their noses at the quality, bitching "TMD lololol", but doing nothing about it. There are supposed to be Interesting-Content Gnomes or something.

I'm going to do what I can to turn this ship around, but I'm not close enough to the format any longer to create 90% of the content like I did in 2002. Someone else has to do it.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Explicit moderation of logical fallacies and use of rhetoric over application of (suggested or existing) frameworks for talking about vintage should reduce flaming and prevent disagreements from devolving into shouting matches.

Create a social environment suitable for critical discussion of the paradigms used to construct our understanding of Vintage.  Example: Moderate knee-jerk negative reactions to "Dark Confidant and Drains could go together."  Also moderate knee-jerk negative reactions to "Grey Ogre and Sorrow's Path could go together."  While the second is obviously incorrect, there exist strong and easily voiced frameworks for that understanding.  The first one takes statistical analysis of the actual damage dealt by Confidant and the number of cards it will net.  The problem is that these situations are not easily distinguishable.  The only reasonable ways to do so are clear applications of present frameworks (which may be wrong) and testing.  The most negative unsubstantiated tolerable comment should be "put up or shut up:" an offer to fairly test the idea.  If something is patently absurd, it should simply be ignored.  Ie. "I won 1000 games in a row with Gray Ogre.dec!"  The rational for that culture is pretty simple: it produces the fastest change in understanding while still requiring evidence.  This would make TMD relevant for actual discussion of Vintage outside of tourney results.

Change the culture from "unpopular is bad" to "wrong is bad."  When someone says something blatantly uneducated like so:

because people want to WIN tournaments, not merely t8 them.

Moderate it!

[Tha Gunslinga]

Explicit moderation of logical fallacies and use of rhetoric over application of (suggested or existing) frameworks for talking about vintage should reduce flaming and prevent disagreements from devolving into shouting matches.

Create a social environment suitable for critical discussion of the paradigms used to construct our understanding of Vintage.  Example: Moderate knee-jerk negative reactions to "Dark Confidant and Drains could go together."  Also moderate knee-jerk negative reactions to "Grey Ogre and Sorrow's Path could go together."  While the second is obviously incorrect, there exist strong and easily voiced frameworks for that understanding.  The first one takes statistical analysis of the actual damage dealt by Confidant and the number of cards it will net.  The problem is that these situations are not easily distinguishable.  The only reasonable ways to do so are clear applications of present frameworks (which may be wrong) and testing.  The most negative unsubstantiated tolerable comment should be "put up or shut up:" an offer to fairly test the idea.  If something is patently absurd, it should simply be ignored.  Ie. "I won 1000 games in a row with Gray Ogre.dec!"  The rational for that culture is pretty simple: it produces the fastest change in understanding while still requiring evidence.  This would make TMD relevant for actual discussion of Vintage outside of tourney results.

Change the culture from "unpopular is bad" to "wrong is bad."  When someone says something blatantly uneducated like so:

because people want to WIN tournaments, not merely t8 them.

Moderate it!

This is exactly what I don't want.  More moderation.  Also, we do not need big words to talk here.  Please try to use small ones when you do not need the big ones.  It is hard to read your posts, much less make sense of them, when they appear to be at a graduate school level.