- Streamlining and removing bloat is usually a good thing IMO. There was a point last year when the staff was trying to carefully go through the various subs with that in mind, but IIRC we got sidetracked at some point and didn't really finish.
- Combining "
Suggestions / Feedback" and "
Site Problems" makes sense to me. They're very similar subs. "
Site Announcements" is a much more distinct sub to me. This is why we have an in-box and out-box on our desk.
- The "
Maintenance" sub is one we've actually done a lot of work on the past year or two. All the various questions and answers have been meticulously labelled by maker, machine, and whether the issue has been resolved, that work done by Charles and I.
The point of all that of course is to form a sort of 'database of solutions' that can be searched up by anyone on the web. Sure, DaveH is our current expert (bless him!), but there have been several others helping out through the years. In fact, the new progress bar below user ID's indicates individual solutions found, which usually comes from maintenance issues.
I think what would be useful as a next step is to show people at other venues the solutions we have. To do some 'highlights' and 'roundups'.... that sort of thing.
- Definitely agree that "
Sales, Swaps & Needs" isn't used anymore, and should be closed at the current time. Whether it's best to keep it as a potential resource or retire it out of view is a different aspect.
- Personally I don't mind the newsfeeds at all. Whether you're strictly a real-life pin player or a 'virtual only' player, at least some portion of what's in the newsfeeds will tend to resonate, I think. It would be cool to hear some other peoples' opinions on that, though.
- "
Other Pinball Simulations" has a real point to me, because, y'know... FP & VP aren't the only games in town. For example, if people want to talk about Zen games, Farsight, Pro Pinball, etc, it's nice to have a space for that talk.
- That said, there's some subs there that really don't need to exist as unique subs at this time. At the very least they should be bundled in to more top-level subs.
- Side note: am I completely delirious, or did someone add "
FP" and "
VP" subs under "Other Pinball Simulations"?? I'm sorry, but... LOL!
- I'll go ahead and agree that the forums in general have become more 'stale' over the years. Indeed, back around '19-early '20, when this site was in danger of going down, I was arguing on VPF that PN should be preserved and valued, even if it's got a 'museum quality' to it. Of course it's picked up a lot since then, but either way, PN does have a certain 'curated / archival' aspect to it IMO. Which I still think holds lots of historic value at the very least.
- Also, I think it's good to remember that much of the pinball content on
Facebook (and/or whatever else) were essentially built on the backs of the forums. For example, the comprehensive spreadsheets of tables regularly updated there? (technically hosted on Google Sheets IIRC) Yeah, those listings in fact point to forum downloads 99% of the time.
- Also, FB's thread structure is bare-bones to the max, and the various forums have much richer thread structure & tools, plus are much better at in-depth, comprehensive discussions. Indeed, when I google pin sim & maintenance issues, I've never seen a single publicly-available, useful topic pop up on Facebook. No, usually I see answers on Pinside or VPF, and sometimes even here at PN.
- Lastly: yeah, FB may still be hugely popular with an older set, but honestly, it's a nauseatingly disreputable, predatory site. Users are literally & transparently just dollar signs to the shareholders, anything you share is now their copyright, and that site will take money from almost anyone at all even if it harms the public good. For example, propaganda which turns elections or encourages anti-vaxxers. They really are disgusting.
True-- I always appreciated the fact that I could use FB to look up my HS classmates and old friends I'd lost touch with over the years, but the problem is, every moment of that process you're also being manipulated in one way or another, whether you realise it or not. Even trying to get a vanilla, uncurated stream (i.e. without manipulation) of your FB friends is way harder than it should be.
So yeah, FB may have an upper hand at the moment, but the day that godforsaken, awful site dies certainly won't hurt anyone other than the grifters in charge.
Anyway, guess the latter section is my rant for the day.
