Yes - people who dislike forums are unlikely to participate in them. :-)
Which is fine, and I wouldn't try to force anyone who doesn't like forums to participate in them.
And that includes you. If you really dislike dealing with the forum so much, then I was completely serious earlier: either use just the dev team part, or even set the dev mailing list back up, and ignore the rest of the forum. Let Indirik, I, and the rest of those in whom you have put your trust manage the forum for you, and you can get on with what you actually enjoy doing.
Good, I'll speak for myself: The forum has fantastic parts like the helpline and quite often the general discussion. It has some really !@#$ty parts where people shout at each other and create a highly toxic atmosphere and no matter what you say in defense of the forum now, that topic has come up several times and these cases exist and are real, stop being as one-sided on the other side as you accuse me for the other.
I'm not being one-sided. I agree that there's been some really awful stuff on the forums. I've never tried to deny it. But I've also said, and a lot of others have voiced similar opinions, that the solution to that awful stuff is better moderation—an improved mod policy, more crackdowns on trolling and flames, and at least some general guidelines for the players on what's expected of them regarding the forum. Until we've tried that and it's failed, closing down the locals is an unnecessary overreaction.
And then there is the effect of the forum on the game. The forum DOES create an "in group" of people who are more in-the-loop, better informed, more connected than others. Please don't deny that the sky is blue.
I never did.
There is an effect like that. However, for various reasons that we have discussed several times before (mostly in relation to IRC, but also in the ForumMaster thread quite recently), I believe that that effect should not be an overriding concern. Like I said in that other thread, BattleMaster does not and
can not exist in a vacuum, and trying to pretend that it can is not a useful way to proceed.
The benefits the entire game gains from the connections people forge on the forum and IRC outweigh the detriment the small increase in cliqueyness creates. And while I cannot deny a certain amount of bias in this quarter, I do not believe the increase in cliquish behaviour is anywhere near as strong as you seem to think it is.
