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Hello again, IDW!

Leadership has never been terribly open about relaying site stats, so here's what's going on. As many of you have noticed, the site is a bit quiet. Where are all the posts? New threads? Other people?

Right now, the Initial D Arcade Stage section is dominating the forum by a very solid margin. As in, it's had about 20,000 hits since January 1, 2012. The music section follows close with just over 14,000 hits. In third, Off Topic has about 9,500 hits. The other sections seem to be making cursory numbers. Hell, the staff section has only 147 views since January 1.

As for actual posting stats, the past few days have shown the highest posting activity this year by far. We're lucky to see more than 30-40 posts per day on average. March 29th spiked at 164 posts, before slowing down gradually.

New member registrations have been keeping at a steady single-digit clip for many months. Interestingly, there was a brief spike in registrations over the weekend. I don't know what to chalk that up to.

So what does this all mean?

Quite honestly, it means that IDW is slowly dying. There hasn't been any new core content (in this case, the Initial D anime) to bring in more members since mid-2006. A huge amount of prominent, active members have left over the years. Heavy amounts of infighting, favoritism and bullying have deteriorated member relations. It's not pretty, and I'll admit that I was part of some of the less than honorable practices of earlier days, but that doesn't mean all is lost.

Right now the site is severely lacking in the field of member relations. Remember the old days where everybody knew everybody else? Nowadays, I have no idea who the majority of the people signing in are, and that sucks. When I returned to IDW last week, I noticed some new people that are open to discussion, but nobody is willing to talk to them. What's up with that?

I'll give you a challenge, IDW. Find a new member you've never talked to before, and get to know them. You'd be surprised at how much you'll have to talk about. Embrace the new generation of IDW! Let's all work together to make the entire membership as wonderfully meshed as it was back in the old days.

I watch you when you sleep,
///TESSOU///

I'm a fresh faced Initial D white-belt. Speak to me my friends.

A challenge I will accept it! So new guy above me how are you??

I am great now that us noobies have been made popular by our good friend here.

That's awesome! Can't go wrong with newbies.

See? It's this kind of dialog that needs to be happening more often. Too many times, I see a new member ask a question, only to have one of the veteran members go full-on intimidation mode on them.

Fostering a sense of camaraderie and community will benefit everybody in the long run. Think about the image you're all putting out there for potential new members. Do you want them to remember you for being a reclusive bully, or as a mentor?

To all the new members of IDW, I implore you to step out of your shells and start posting. I don't care how stupid you think your questions or comments are, or how we will perceive them. You should never feel afraid to speak your mind.

I'm still in your shoes ATRUM_Neto! You've actually been here longer than me. To become part of the community you have to immerse yourself. Don't be afraid to talk to me if you ever need any help. No joke, but I really want to get to know everyone here. Join us in the facebook group! Tune in to our radio shows! Post up stuff as long as it's not spam! Get involved!

Honda_CG2 is a pretty cool chick. I like her, everybody should talk to her. As well as talk to me and the other members. Remember. This a forum, a community and a place to learn. It's like school but without homework or annoying teachers.

Oh Al, everyone is cool. Not just me and you! Group discussions are what we are going for when we are on the forums. So don't limit yourself to just posting in one thread! I implore everyone to check out all the sections and post up your opinions on what you think is interesting! Shoot, if you're feeling brave; go post up a pic of yourself on the member's photos thread! That's how I really became a part of the community!

In terms of date, I've been around, occasionally lurking. But when it comes to activity, I've been on WME more since I played more MT until recently. But yeah, definitely not limiting myself, just gonna get in there and make myself know (in a good way of course ).

I have been a lurker for a long time because I never find a thread to participate.
At first I was afraid to say something because I were worried to violate a rule.

I still have an unanswered question: on the project wiki site, it is stated that Perry isn't the first registered member. So, who is it, then?

That would be karasac, who has an earlier join date. He joined on August 29, 2002. Perry joined on September 15, 2002.

That makes karasac the true member #1, even though the member numbers show otherwise.

I once had that fear or breaking all the rules whenever I posted too. Just be brave and post. Be respectful, chances are you're not doing anything wrong.

Anyways to answer your question. Perry was the second member to join the forums. The first member was someone by the name of karasac. He hasn't been seen in a year or so, and he hasn't posted in forever. I'm not really sure what his history is since it was way before my time. But it's interesting none-the-less right?

EDIT: Tessou, beat me to the punch again.

This post has been edited by THE_HONDA_CG2 on Apr 3 2012, 12:21 PM

Was he the initial big bang that formed these websites?

I have asked about the origins of Initial D World once before. The resulting thread was quite interesting (thanks to Perry!)

http://idforums.net/index.php?showtopic=36748

I read through the posts, but I guess my real question was who actually set up the forums. Was it #1?

I think if you have contests with prizes it would generate more traffic. When Apex Carver did that, traffic spiked....just a thought.





Casey

I'm looking at ways to make a contest work efficiently, and at the same time waiting to see how site activity pans out before I'd roll anything out.

Challenge Accepted guise. Sup I'm Orisue

To think I was THIS close to winning that WMMT3 OST...

Unfortunately my last interaction with AC was over that contest where he took what I said out of context




Casey

Any chance of getting the music section going again like before? I seem to recall a lot of new members and donations so the site could buy SEB's.

He took freaking everything out of context.

You mean the Revival Project? Not likely. Japanese CDs are hella expensive, so I don't think we'll be doing that ever again...

If people like you continue to contribute, I do not see why not?

Taken from your post.

I do not frequent music anymore, my taste in music has moved on. However, I may visit just to pick up the Version 3 soundtrack, I found myself humming it at work the other day.

It wasn't a cost-effective program, and it didn't work as intended. At the end, the CDs bought were to be auctioned off to members, but very few members actually cashed in on that portion, so there is still a fair amount of CDs still retained by IDW that were never purchased.