Save Home of Poi

To bring everyone up to speed as to why certain names have been brought up, I know almost nothing about it, but suffice to say, there is a history of dramatic incidents on this board. There are a lot of strong personalities here. And I'm one of them. I've also been involved in a few incidents and have been "talked to" by the mods. These things happen even in a healthy, vibrant community.

When these things happened, a lot of people, who were under the impression that HoP was somehow a magical, happy fairyland where nothing ever goes wrong, got rather jaded and left.

Nobody other than the mods needs to know any details about these incidents; I don't know them, either. But if some names get brought up, they are references to these sorts of incidents.

In this case, I think the issue is different. The issue is that people have simply stopped posting. It started last March or so and I honestly cannot identify any incident that triggered it. It was just a slow death sort of thing where over the next few months I began to notice that the entire Social forum would accumulate less than 10 posts in 2 days. And those would usually be in some completely inane thread.

Now, HoP goes through cycles and different times of year are busier than others, but I started to get worried when, come November, the trend had continued. I've never seen a lull so profound last eight whole months and I've been here since 2001.

So definitely the whole "do a search" mentality needs to get toned down. But I'm wondering what other sorts of outside-the-box thinking we can do here. We're all adults and it's our community. So let's work together like adults to save it. Because it once was a thriving happy place in spite of some bumps in the road, and I want to see it thrive again.

I blame this on the fact that I occasionally post a new thread, and since i'm not funny/thought-provoking/popular, it dies very quickly. I'm to blame for the death of HoP!

Indeed. It might well be time to grab the pitchforks and drive you outta the forums.

do i smell mob?

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! *grabs pointy farm tool*

Oh. <looks at registered date>

I hadn't been born yet

Hey Doc heres my input,

i used to post here years ago but cant remember my old accounts password, anyway i stopped posting,

there are far too many smug hippies here who are too full of their own s**t, they all like to pretend they are easygoing kool people but they are really just narrowminded, dry f**kers,

thats one reason and maybe the other one is the whole poi fad has come and gone . . hey maybe it will be kool again in a few years, while you are waiting for poi to become kool again enjoy your empty message board you have all helped create

Poi is much more than a fad for a lot of the people here. I've met some amazing people here, and I wouldn't have found the community unless I'd looked on here and found it a welcoming place to be. If the egos of one or two forum members are enough to put you off a whole forum you've either undervalued this community significantly or you're one of those objectionable egos.

Become the change you'd like to see in the world (oh Ghandi you clever boy) if hateful useless close-minded posts are bad for the community, one might enquire as to the value of posting one?

well said mr joe

Ye, that was just completely uncalled for...I've been around here for going on 3 yrs, now...and it's very near and dear to my heart, because I've not only made alot of friends here...but as alot of you are aware, I met my future hubby here, also...because of my connections here, I've now traveled to the other side of the world and found a wonderful new home...and while, no, I don't play with poi anymore, meeting the performers here led me to my chosen art form of tribal belly dance...and believe me, I am hooked!!!

There are always gonna be 'transient' members on HoP, but it's the ones that stick around, even if they don't come around all the time, that are the ones that are worth even worrying about.

I just checked to see if I'd commented already, apparently not... if I missed my own older comment please ignore!

As one of the culprits who's posted much less recently... to begin with I'm not playing with poi much anymore. That's mostly to do with changes in my life, moving a lot etc.

I was never much one for the techy forums - I looked there when I wanted to learn a move, but apart from giving the odd bit of advice to n00bs I never felt I had much to contribute there.

As for the discussions, I grew tired of it, to be honest. There was too much b!tching for my taste, all the old skool vs n00bs, let's blame member XYZ for something that actually at lest 10 people were involved in, seniors lounge and the resulting catfights just put me off. I'm aware that this happens on most boards, and anywhere on the internet, but that doesn't mean I have to hang around and watch. I tried saying my opinion and making suggestions at the time, but felt that I and some other members (stout and kathain spring to mind) who were trying to go the same route were ignored or talked to in a way that again wasn't anything I'd spend my free time on.

And I was extremely unimpressed with the way n00bs were talked down to frequently by senior members - as I said at the time, if people had treated me like that when I was new I would've deleted my account straight away. Maybe it's the way with a board full of people who feel strongly about stuff, but it was usually very hard to see a discussion that was involved and not moving into being condescending towards some participants.

So now I'm checking the meetups every now and then, I'm still up for the odd festie or meeting the people I've made friends with over the years, and I'm hoping to meet some of you on my world tour. I might be back more at some point in the future, it's not like I'm "ewww HoP sucks" now. Maybe a bit of over-saturation, too, I did post way too much for a while.

Not to promote anything here, but I belong to a forum called "ar15armory." As you can guess it is a forum about guns, however I have never posted there without receiving a reply in literally 5 minutes, the community is *very* vibrant! I attribute it to the diversity of forums, obviously it's about guns, and I know half of you hate them, but take a look: http://www.ar15armory.com the forums there are very diverse from funnies to cooking to politics. Maybe home of poi needs a few more forum areas to spark interest in things, I don't know.

or become more popular than firearms?

the 28th amendment: A man has the right to spin Poi...

Hey everybody did the news get around of a guy named Butcher Pete!

Hey everybody did the news get around of a guy named Butcher Pete!
[/quote]

huh?

btw i found dad and completed the main quest over the weekend. was fun, but so short! and agreed, rediculous ending.

Wouldn't that be nice?...

*this is the opinion of a corn-fed, Carolina farm girl...turned hippie*

Yeah that could be as well, but the members there don't die off, they stay and talk for whatever reason, and a lot of the posts have nothing to do with guns.

Hi doppleganger, I had a look at the site you mention, and yes it seems very active.

I didn't have time to look around too much, but just wondered, and you may not know, how long has the site been going for? Cause I sometimes wonder if the HoP BB slowish sort of death might because it's old?

or not so much old, but been around a long time, and newer shinier things are now taking people away from hop?

I also wonder about (completely unfounded in fact) the number of members here who now run their own sites and forums and therefore no longer just come here to 'hang out', they have a new home of poi so to speak...

/ah well, I'm just rambling and avoiding work....

In other news..
Matt made a post on Spherculism talking about a change in the site.. huzzah!

If we were to compare my posting habits of now with those of about 6 months ago you'd see a massive difference... 6 months ago I was posting pretty much exclusively in the technical section, now I drift ever more toward the social section, mostly because theres not a whole lot of activity in the technical section.

Anyone know about why this might be??

http://www.homeofpoi.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/880567/Theives.html#Post880567

I'll just leave this here...

That thread is a great thread. A proper old school thread that even has Cantus in it! I LIKE that thread. It made me laugh and everything.

Don't get me wrong, its full of some lulz... but with talk of flame wars and suchlike?

BOund to scare of newbs if you ask me.

TBF FRD, your sig is pretty scary to newbs too

whereas I've been wanting to have an online laser gun war because of yours... *ducks behind horse and cart* pew! pew!

Well to my mind, newbs who come flaming in like t.r.o.l.l.s with wild accusations of robbery, who are given some helpful advice from members and a full and decent answer from the head of the whole thing within 6 hours, have been treated quite well. If this person wants to 'belong' apart from not buying something then mouthing off in such an out of order way, they could apologise, contribute something positive, say something witty and/or otherwise act like someone you'd want to have around.

I'm not finding anything much positive in this woe is me the boards are quiet business. So what if the boards are quiet! Technical text has been long supplanted by acres of helpful vids here there and everywhere. A whole swodge of people have gone onto other pursuits, like getting married and earning livings etc, Facebook rules the world and meanwhile there is still a manageable community here with minimum of what I remember as pages of bounciesand threads about dross like tv shows.

Fair 'nuff. I remember one episode with a certain Cough and a huge chunk of bunary code. That was an epic win, and most unpleasentness seemed to stop after that.

You make it seem as if hippies are the only ones who spin poi. They aren't.

Hippies are humans just like other groups and sub-cultures. And within any human sub-culture, whether it's hippies, punk rockers, gays, burners, white supremacists, Southern Baptists, or birdwatchers, there are going to be people you don't like and who are ego cases, stress cases, and full-on nutjobs. Unfortunately, idiots are a large and powerful tribe with a vast influence on human affairs. Heck, the last 8 years have even seen one in the White House!

So I don't think that's it.

Doc: Birdwatchers are not really watching birds you know. They are making you think that while they observe humanity in preparation for the invasion of their alien overlords....

For the rest, I agree.



More videos?

Curses, they're on to us! Fortunately, it sounds like our secret bird-attack training sessions have gone unnoticed.. so next time he goes outside the problem will be solved..

I agree about the 'more videos' comment by the way, though it does seem odd that at a time when the number on vidoes online is increasing so rapidly, less seem to be making it to HoP.. I also spend time on www.contactjuggling.org and there the video section seems to be one of the most active.. here its one of the quieter areas..