General resource boards dropping like flies

[synpastel]

I've noticed a LOT of resource boards (a thousand fireflies, caution, etc.) are starting to drop off like flies. They're closing their doors down and the only ones I'm aware that are still going strong on tumblr resources (a lot coding, a lot you have to pay for), admin junkies, or RPG-D.

Is the community just "growing away" from community boards and perma moving to places like discord or tumblr?

 

[Cory]

I have a Jcink resource board and I gained 30 members this month alone, so I can only speak on my behalf that I don't think it's necessarily a dying trend. As for them closing down, people are mostly in it for the money these days I suppose, so if they're not making any bucks behind their project they'll likely forsake it someday.

I have noticed many people do indeed use social media for resources these days and I'm sure it's a good way to promote your resources.

A lot of times a resource board for a forum software isn't always necessary because the official forum offers an all-in-one platform that gives users the ability to not only seek support but share their resources as well. Or, they simply plop their resources into some type of database offered by the forum software and they have full control of it from there.

 

[synpastel]

Like I genuinely feel like a writing resource community board would help so many people (roleplaying, being an author and publishing books, script writing, ghost writing, etc.) but I am nervous the board would fall flat on its face because so many people are preferring to move to places like Discord and Tumblr

 

[Arantor]

This is the toxicity of the Jcink scene turning in on itself. Other scenes exist and are much healthier, though likely less relevant.

Some are also harder to find because they’re on Discord, some are invite-only to avoid the toxicity, and because it’s actually really hard, often utterly thankless work, that toxicity kills faster than anything.

I continue to be amused by the reaction on the tea blogs because they’re a major cause of it, and yet the loudest complainers.

The Jcink community ecosystem, at least for RP, has made it perfectly clear that it wants to be a monoculture where no fresh ideas or expressions of thought are permitted, and anything that looks suspiciously like a new idea will be hunted down and caught. All the while complaining that everything’s the same, that there are no new resources etc - it’s very simple: if you drive away new ideas, eventually you drive away anyone who might care to make and share even not so new ideas.

There are rumours of 5 new resource sites starting. I will believe it when I see any of them. It’s been at least 2 months (because that conversation started when Caution announced its closure, not now it’s almost here). My guess is that for the whole of 2024, 2 of those 5 will materialise and 1 will last a month before giving up due to lack of traction.

 

[Reverie]

It's weird to see these changes. I definitely don't see as many resource communities anymore. I wasn't aware of the toxicity presently occurring on Jcink and if this is true, then that probably is a big downer. I think the designers/creative minds that formerly were on them probably have moved on in their lives somehow though too. Often time our creative users end up having a creative outlet outside of the online world and perhaps are making a living off of it.

I love Cory's community because it really is just about sharing the resource. There is no drama there as it is a place to come ask for help and find new resources to use for your community.

 

[Arantor]

I think the designers/creative minds that formerly were on them probably have moved on in their lives somehow though too.

There's a lot of side channel discussion atm about how coders are entitled because they *dare* to try to impose rules about how things get used, vs the 'I bought it so I can do whatever I like with it' attitude, and of course there's a lot of question/debate around conformity and groupthink.

The toxicity is in no small part what killed off JCC and ATF, one only has to glance at the tea blogs to see the utter hostility of the wasteland going on.

 

[TwitchisMental]

Yeah I have noticed this too. There was a forum dedicated to renders that went down awhile ago... I was sad to find this out. It's name slips my mind currently.

 

[Cory]

I love Cory's community because it really is just about sharing the resource. There is no drama there as it is a place to come ask for help and find new resources to use for your community.

Thanks for the kind words, I just like doing what I do as a hobby and not necessarily something I make money from or make a career out of. I am kind of passionate about this type of hobby.

It seems this topic was mainly lured to the closure of Jcink resource boards and not a lot of other forum software resource boards, so if we're referring to specific forum software, then I think there's probably still a lot of other forum software that has resource boards available and continue to grow.

 

[Husk]

I think if you look outside Jcink, you might find better luck. I mean, look at that super popular spicy forum. It's strong and healthy and has nothing to do with Jcink.

I've also found that what Arantor says is correct. Nobody wants anything new or innovative. Trust me, I've seen it and I've struggled with it. I felt sort of forced into using Jcink for a while because I felt nobody would join anything unless it was on Jcink. But the way I handle rules/community/etc is wildly different than the norm and it didn't matter. Jcink peeps weren't going to join because of that. So I've left that whole RPC behind and have been working with my husband and best friend on our own software. It's not perfect but it's functional and we're adding new stuff everyday. I love seeing it grow.

Will I ever go public with it, though?

Nope. Because I've been burned so many times that I don't even want to be a part of the RPC anymore, Jcink or otherwise.

SO yeah, I think I'd try something new and not go with Jcink if I wanted to do the whole resource thing but that's just me.

 

[Reverie]

Thanks for the kind words, I just like doing what I do as a hobby and not necessarily something I make money from or make a career out of. I am kind of passionate about this type of hobby.

It seems this topic was mainly lured to the closure of Jcink resource boards and not a lot of other forum software resource boards, so if we're referring to specific forum software, then I think there's probably still a lot of other forum software that has resource boards available and continue to grow.

While there are support forums and they provide some resources, I think they were more so wanting to point out the lack of just resource forums. I think the point of this thread was pointing out the closure of many that were around and lack there of somewhat of new ones.

I remember the old days where resource forums popped up semi frequently and were lively.

 

[Cory]

I remember the old days where resource forums popped up semi frequently and were lively.

Yeah, there was a lot of competition back in the day and maybe more creativity to go along with it, just due to the sheer amount of people that were interested in forums at the time. Even though there were multitudes of resource forums on ZetaBoards as an example, a lot of them became popular or at least had decent activity.

 

[Arantor]

So there's several threads here.

Forums come and go in general, that's a given - and the trend is for forums in general to close rather than open; natural attrition accounts for some of it, the general decline of forums explains some of the rest of it.

The thing about resource forums, they broadly come in two flavours - platform based or genre/interest based. The platforms in general long since coalesced around their core support community, and general forum attrition has done a number on it (e.g. there are fewer SMF resource sites than there used to be), but I think that's more of a specific confirmation bias - they've been broadly in decline for years and to an extent mirror the general enthusiasm of forums as a whole and the enthusiasm for a given specific platform. For example there are still plenty of XF resource boards about.

Resource forums popped up regularly because forums popped up regularly - as interest collectively in forums declines, the interest in resources for forums declines, as night follows day.

The ones that are interest based, though. Some of that has the general attrition problem, but localised towards the RPC scene specifically in recent times has seen a very sharp decline - quite an outlier compared to the general attrition and decline.

In that scene specifically, there's partially a move towards Discord based resources rather than forums (even some of the advertising Tumblrs gave up and moved to Discord), plus the insular nature... it was always a ticking timebomb. It's just recently had a few high profile explosions of personality that set a few major site closures off.