Dexterity Forums Officially Gone

[Mike Boeh]

http://www.dexterity.com/forums/

We hope the community continues here just as strong, and Steve, thanks for putting the link there. I know I speak for everyone when I wish you continued success in your new endeavor.

[Nikster]

I second that..

[Gmicek]

Tell me again, why did he get rid of them? Has he said why he wouldn't just make them view only so people can refer to them?

[Sean Doherty]

Tell me again, why did he get rid of them? Has he said why he wouldn't just make them view only so people can refer to them?

There must have been a business reason? Maybe he wanted to see how much traffic the site was getting from non developers; or their was a bandwidth cost? It seems very strange to give up something that brings in so many people and takes so little time to maintain. Most of the moderation of the site was being handled by other people?

Very strange? I am really going to miss the forums? So far the traffic here has been a little lite; I hope people are able to find there way.

[Mark Fassett]

He calls 800+ posts and 220 new members in a week a little lite... One thing I'm glad to not see anymore is all the dweep posts. I know it wasn't a lot, but two or three a day... just noise, like probably any other lost traffic.

[Sean Doherty]

He calls 800+ posts and 220 new members in a week a little lite... One thing I'm glad to not see anymore is all the dweep posts. I know it wasn't a lot, but two or three a day... just noise, like probably any other lost traffic.

Sorry, but the 220 new member comment is just wrong! How about if I took 220 and subtracted the number of old Dexterity members? The little lite comment comes from the number of post views. Generally, I have seem more post views in the past?

Edit: Wording to strong.

[Gmicek]

Sorry, but the 220 new member comment is just stupid! How about if I took 220 and subtracted the number of old Dexterity members? The little lite comment comes from the number of post views. Generally, I have seem more post views in the past?

We love you too.

[Mike Boeh]

Actually, if you look at the volume of posts per day, it is very similar to where Dexterity was. It will just take some time to build up the member base.

[Mark Fassett]

Sorry, but the 220 new member comment is just stupid! How about if I took 220 and subtracted the number of old Dexterity members?

Actually, I did look at the dex member base - over the two years it was alive, there were about 1250 members. Of those 1250 members, ~750 of them posted less than 10 times. Which leaves only about 500, many of which are probably not active any more. Seems to me that getting 220 in the first week is pretty good, since it seems like most of the active posters moved. Any forum move is going to result in a loss of members. Just the nature of people. I think your claiming my comment about 220 posters being stupid is a naive position, seeing as it's obvious you didn't really do any research beforehand.

Oh - and before you get all huffy - I did the research before dex closed because I was making a bet with Dan about the number of people that would come over by the time Dex closed. I was only off by about 20 people.

[Dan MacDonald]

I guessed around 100 or so :o so I have to say I've been very pleased with the amount of traffic we've seen. Virtually everyone I know who posted on a weekly + basis moved over here so I suspect there will be very little change in the amount of new topics/posts.

There have been a lot of good threads and discussion here in the few day's it has been open, even without the old content, overall I'd say it's been a pretty sound success.

[Sean Doherty]

Stupid was to strong; and I retracted it before you posted. However, you took my post and turned it into something it was not. All I said, was :


So far the traffic here has been a little lite; I hope people are able to find there way.


Which means that traffic is little lite compared to dexterity; my numbers are based on post page views. You said yourself that some member loss is going to be expected. I expect that most of the dexterity members will find there way given the link to this forum.

I still don't see how you can claim 220 new members; they are not new members; they are primarily existing members that transfered. Even if I use your numbers 500-220 is a net loss of 280 members. That said, I still think everyone will eventually find the new site; it is likely there are a lot of people on vacation this time of year.

[Sillysoft]

Tell me again, why did he get rid of them?

My bet is that he wanted to force himself to move on to new things. Sort of like quitting your day-job can force you to get serious about working on your indie game.

[Mark Fassett]

If you look back at what I first said, I did inlcude a statement about post count, too. 800+ posts in the span of a week - more than 100 posts a day. Seemed about right on target with a typical dex day.

As far as the word "new" goes - I consider this a "New" forum. It's not the Dexterity forum, and never will be. So any people that show up here, while they may be members of the "Indie" community, are still new members of this forum. The forum doesn't have any of the dex data, so it can't really be considered the same. The only things similar are the people who are running it, and the people that are visiting.

Anyway, this is a silly thing to argue about. :) It does help make the forum look busier, though :)

[Sean Doherty]

My bet is that he wanted to force himself to move on to new things. Sort of like quitting your day-job can force you to get serious about working on your indie game.

Kind of like the burning the bridges section in his development papers. Interesting, I guess if it works, he will be able to write a paper or a book on how he gave up the development forums to do this or that?

[Nemesis]

To me, it feels pretty much like the Dex forum.. it has most of the old members that were active on Dex and some posts have been copied over too.

@Sillysoft:
My take on things is a little more pragmatic: The Dexterity forums were taking up a considerable amount of bandwidth and were contributing little to the Dexterity business. Also, the forums were 98% about generic indie game development and hence pretty much out of scope for Dexterity's core business, which is to sell its own games.

I think there's only so much one can do to contribute and share before it becomes a financial / personal burden. Having said that, I still feel we should thank Steve for what's he's given. Despite the forum's exile, it is mostly thanks to him that this community was born.

[Coyote]

Wasn't he talking about starting a new career as a professional motivational speaker or something like that? Maybe killing the forums was part of his move to that.

[oNyx]

Actually, I did look at the dex member base - over the two years it was alive, there were about 1250 members. Of those 1250 members, ~750 of them posted less than 10 times. Which leaves only about 500, many of which are probably not active any more. Seems to me that getting 220 in the first week is pretty good, since it seems like most of the active posters moved. Any forum move is going to result in a loss of members. Just the nature of people. I think your claiming my comment about 220 posters being stupid is a naive position, seeing as it's obvious you didn't really do any research beforehand.
[...]

Yes, the activity of the users is always similar to this one:
http://people.freenet.de/ki_onyx/stats.gif
(more than 15k users with 4 or less posts were cutted off)

So... yea, the number of active members is one or two magnitudes lower than the number of registered users. And the distribution looks always like you can see on that graph (ok a graph of this board right now would look pretty weird ;)).

[Sean Doherty]

I think there's only so much one can do to contribute and share before it becomes a financial / personal burden. Having said that, I still feel we should thank Steve for what's he's given. Despite the forum's exile, it is mostly thanks to him that this community was born.


Kind of makes one think about the things we do that have nothing to do with our core businesses? Maybe it would be better to take this unsaid advice and focus on our own core business? Clearly, I have some thinking to do!

[Nemesis]

Well.. aside being a community, Dex, and now this forum is also an opportunity to share knowledge, gain contacts and so on. Therefore someone who is in the biz (or like me, aspiring to!), will always find this place valuable.. unless of course you spend only 10% of your time working and 90% in here! :)

In case of Steve, he's now venturing into new waters (a career change in a sense) and hence needs to focus all his energies in his new venture.

[David York]

Is there a place where the old information is archived, or any plans to move the data over to IndieGamer? I need to look up a bunch of stuff that was covered in the past, and I'd hate for us to have to re-create all the old threads.

[Mike Boeh]

It's all in Dan's hands... He is the one working with SteveP on this....

[Kai Backman]

One important thing the new forums have done is to reactivate many older members who where dormant before the closing of the Dexterity boards. I think this is a very positive move, I personally feel more responsible for the well being of the community now that it is officially one and not part of a specific company board. Independent of how Dan manages to transfer the data we are building a new base of knowledge for this community.

[Greg Squire]

I like to officially thank the hosts and admins of our new forum here. I believe they are:

Mike Boeh
Steve Verreault
Dan MacDonald

I learned about the Dexterity forums just as they were moving (so I never posted there), but I have seen this to be a really helpful community. I hope it continues to be a place where us Indie’s can help and support each other. Thanks for offering your time and resources to make this happen!

If this forum is ever in danger of going away again, please let us all know. I’m sure the community would band together and help out in any way needed (even financially) to help keep this place together

Again, I and lots of others (I’m sure), Thank You!

[BarrySlisk]

Hey..

Took me a while to figure out where you all went.

I have been without internet for 1½ months (still without but vacation is over so I can surf at work)..

[Quest Engine]

What's the status of the official effort to get an non-privacy-policy-violating archive of the dexterity forums? Is the effort under way? Is there an ETA? Is there anything I can do to help?

[Dan MacDonald]

We will be working on setting up the archive this week.