The biggest thing I have noticed that soakerdom needs to stay alive is stability. What happened two summers ago? Why did we all of a sudden see the loss of so many members and a huge loss in veterans? Well, I’ve talked to Dux about it, he knows what im talking about. There were a couple of things that ended an up slope for us.

The first huge thing which was the catalyst was the fall of WWn. WWn held so many veterans and members, when it went down we lost many regular people. Most of them knew about SSC, everyone did. However there was a sort of cold war waging between the boards. Not that Doom and iSoaker were fighting for supremacy, but the members at that time were very divided on what forum they used. When WWn went down, so did many members. Some did not want to go to SSC while many others were lost and confused now that it was gone. There were members who made the transfer to SSC, but not enough in my opinion.

Many people know that the iSoaker forums were created soon after, however no one knew about them at first. iSoaker wanted to ease in the forum as apposed to throwing it out there. Many old members did not stick around long enough to discover the new forum, and we lost many during this time.

While this is occurring, many soaker websites are up. When WWn fell there was no more communication. People did not have a reason to look at their websites. As they left the websites died too.

What else happened? A lot of things that occurred at SSC turned away many members. First of all was the change from .org, to .net. Many people were confused after this. Some actually never came back. A few, not a lot. Next was the change to vBulletin. I for one had to get my password changed after the switch, and didn’t bother doing it until a couple months after. Many members hated the new feel of the forum which turned many of them away from it. Many other members just never got their password renewed. With this, many SSC members were lost.

So what am I trying to say with this mini article which looks back at the history of the past 2 years in soakerdom? Stability. Mainly on the part of the forums. I’m not saying we need a lot, but the ones we have shouldn’t make huge changes. What I highly suggest is that we don’t make huge changes. Keep everything the way it is. It’s how SSC and WWn thrived and it will be the reason for the return of large membership.

I completely agree that stability helps, but part of the loss of membership might be due to the fact that members lose interest. Even for the people who are veterans at SSC, there are many who haven't visited in quite a while; and more importantly, the member population at SSC (now > 700) is far larger than that of the old boards (to my knowledge, at least). Nevertheless, I don't doubt that the terrible instability turned off many members.

^Check how many of those members actually post, and how many have more than ten posts. It's quite sad actually.

As far as the article goes, it was short but good. Actually, a lot of websites began to fail, and members began leaving before the fall of the second WWN. Remember there were two of them, a first and second. I felt the first WWN had a lot of holdovers from Aquatica and still had that feel of a new hobby with fresh content. However the fall of Aquatica was really, in my mind, what started the gradual downgrade of quality soaker discussion. SSC began to pick up a community during the time of WWN, but it was never big. When WWN fell, SSC picked up a lot of the members, because there was no where else to go. WWN had failed twice, and members were reluctant to join any Invision board. The introduction of the iSCF, is in my mind, a ghost of WWN. Even though iSoaker will try and discourage thoughts of this, when I think of a forum that best resembles what WWN was about, I think of iSCF. However, it is not as popular as WWN, nor do I think it ever will be. The discussion at iSCF is better only because there is not as much of it as there is at SSC. Now that may sound harsh, but it's just my opinion.

SM has turned into a pretty large set of forums, larger at least than I think Nibordude or Duxburian predicted it would be. When I joined, I joined to get away from the heyday after the fall of WWN. I didn't post much after joining iSCF until I joined SM. Sm has still retained the almost invisibility among newer members, members who don't take enough time to thouroughly read anyone's reply and learn of SM's existence. I am glad for this, although this has led to the misconception among many 7th generation members that SM is an elitist forum based solely on the development of homemades and modifications. This is untrue, but it keeps away the members we wouldn't want here anyway. Duxburian's article (or rant) over at iSCF brought up a lot of good points, but was flawed in one major area. The evolution of any type of community is through the actions of all of the members of the community, and unfortunately we can't stop the way new members act. I think that SM is now sometimes trying too hard to change the perception of homemades at other forums, when we should be focusing our attention on ourselves. Do not make a mistake, I'm not saying we should close ourselves off from other forums and let them rot with newbs. However, I think that we need to focus more on the interests of SM. We've become the 3rd largest forum on the internet. It shouldn't just be about size though. Let's concentrate on quality discussion because only through quality discussion will we spur true interest in "hardcore" water battles.

Soak On

BTW Sorry to hijack this thread with my own mini-article.

For those who have doubts, the loss of veterans last year was too large to be natural. We have a skeleton of what we had the year before. WWN is most of the reason. iSCF was intended to be the successor to WWN without being the successor to WWN. In fact, I have an archive of the original July 2004 skin, which was near identical to WWN's, minus some colors and the such. Just think of how large that forum would be now! Notice how Water Talk failed to produce that same effect. IMO, a board like that could only survive with at least iSoaker behind it. Water Talk failed to get strong support.

The only way we could recreate such a massively popular forum today would be a joint project between the major forums. Basically, a big central board with all the heavyweights behind it. However, I'm not sure if such a forum could avoid an Aquatica-style fate.

The current system is actually the most stable that things have been in a long time. We've been locked into the status quo for long enough that we have a serious shot at another 2004 style mega-activity year. I agree with Nibordude 100% that stability leads to prosperity, as members grow to like the way things are.

I've been applying new SEO to each SM page I make. Evidently, as shown by the Douchenator article, it is working. The domain and hosting switch appears to have been a major boost for SM. We can finally shake off the dust and roll ahead with the 2004 goal of making a popular site and set of forums. That is, if I can get the new forum to work so the conversion can take place. [If someone can get the forum to function, I may give that person the admin CP when the conversion is done. ;) ]

While SM might have been elitist once, it hasn't been in ages. While we could use more activity, I do like the fact that the rule-less, punishment-absent system still works. I haven't warned anyone since early 2005, and we still have not had to draft a true rules set. However, with the new domain, hosting, and SEO, we are going to get a growth spurt this year. Hopefully, we can keep this a place where members know how to behave and at the same time a larger place to exchange new ideas.

I always blamed the online decline of older members on the retail soaker selection. I'm a veteran, and am only looking at contemporary soakers out of sarcasm. Yes, there are APH and modded soakers(modding now alot myself), but if there is nothing realy great coming out as in "new exiting soakers", at least from a guy who is used to 90s soakers, then there is not much to talk about. Its like with old TV shows, you buy the DVDs or watch the re-runs of 90s shows, but you don't want to talk about whatever shitty reality TV show is on right now. Personaly, I can't blame many veterans to call it quits when it comes to online soakerdom or water guns all together. The veteran decline starting in 2003-2004 is not coincidental when looking at the "retails finest" around that time.

I take a lot of what you said as an insult, and a lot of things you have said in the past here and on other places. It seems that if people don't do what you do then you think they are noobs and 12 year olds, why don't you just stop being horrible. And from what you said about members thinking this is an elitist forum, and you being glad that those members aren't there, I'm taking that you mean me for that matter, as well as a few others, which is very insulting. How would you like it if people did that to you, you don't seem to realize that people actually have their own fun life to live, and not just let it revolve around you and your offensive crap that you say about them, some of us can't help that we can't or don't want to mod or make homemades for various reasons.

I don't understand what it is with you and 12 year olds as well, you were that age once, we all were, and just because you don't think they are as "hard core" as you, it doesn't mean to say you can tease them. Just because some of us like Monster XL's and you don't doesn't mean to say that we are 7 year olds either like you said on the iScF before, just learn that people have different tastes and styles in soaking.

Once again, your the one who seems to like to pick on people like me, just because you have a higher place in soakerdom makes you think your so special, to me, your just a big headed offensive individual who likes to bully members in leagues lower than you.

Anyway, because I'm not going anywhere fast in soakerdom I'm out of here, although the big reason why I may as well go from soakerdom is mostly because of YOU, wetmonkey442 (if that's what you class yourself as), there are a few other members who have caused this a bit, but its mostly YOU! You show no respect for other people who are not your kind or style, perhaps you'll learn not to be so harsh one day. And don't you even dare say that I am getting moody like last time, this is it, well done, I hope your happy for driving me away, which you probably will be, as will many others.

*finger twitches towards ban button*

First of all, I never mentioned you by name nor did I infer that the post was meant for you in anyway. Secondly, you completely mis-understood what I meant. Nowhere in my post did I ever say that I thought more people should have more "hardcore" water fights. If you actually read what I wrote (i'm assuming you didn't), then you'd know that I'm actually against trying to influence the way people fight. You mistook my post to be some sort of belligerent article, something I'm totally against.

You shouldn't be part of an online community just to get a higher status. You should be part of an online community because you're truly interested in whatever hobby that community endorses.

Finally, your reply had nothing to do with the original article that Nibordude post, while the reply I made was relevant. Please try to keep replies on topic in the future.

Don't listen to Wild Boys - he wants to start a fight. Wild Boys, I take what you say often as an insult, yet I don't try to make a fight out of it. That's how you should handle those situations. I won't say much else about this because I do believe that you, Wild Boys, know very well what I am referring to.

Other than that I have little to say aside from this: Aquatica was not as good as some of you believe. Speaking as a former member of Aquatica, honestly I believe that we are doing much better today.

I'll take THAT as an insult! :P

However, at the same time, I completely understand where that feeling comes from and, sadly, Ben/Doom was merely witness to the time Aquatica was already headed towards its demise. The first year or so of Aquatica was a golden time of membership interactions, discussions, site developments, etc. IMO, Aquatica sadly HAD to go in the later years since it just carried too many skeletons from earlier made naive decisions and lack of experience at running a larger online forum properly. The problems facing Aquatica were further amplified by a general reduction in stock soaker power and influx of 'random' members. Meh... I've babbled on that past of Soakerdom history too much, though. I miss WWn, though. Were it not for the server problem, I would have preferred to have it around more than the current iSoaker.com Forums.

I like the current general feel of the online Soakerdom communities. I do wish there were more sites being developed, but then as noted by others, part of the problem is the fact that stock soakers are not as highly regarded as they were in the past. Sometimes, though, I wonder whether members are sometimes too quick to cut up a stock soaker instead of looking for ways to get the most of what is available. I think more effort is needed to adapt gameplay to the various levels of water blaster power available (from stock to modded to homemade power levels). To tell a new member that there's no point in having a water fight if he/she only has a SS Defender or that he/she needs to at least buy an old CPS soaker from eBay is a good way to get him/her to abandon water warfare altogether.

IMO, all levels of water warfare need promoting and means to make the transition from simple FFAs to more hard-code OHK battles described.

As for the whole stability issue, I don't think any forum admin has ever wanted instability in their forum(s). However, as technology progresses, things change and some set-ups just cannot remain as they were, forcing board upgrades and changes. One notable change in my memory is the morphing of Yahoo Clubs to Yahoo Groups. This change in the function and feeling of Aquatica forced SSW and I to look for other options to escape the problems of Yahoo Groups. This lead to forum jumping which is never good. Oh well.. didn't have the funds/access/knowledge back then to set up a forum on our own properly.

Past is past. If anything, past mistakes should be analyzed and learned from, hopefully never to be repeated. I still build iSoaker.com as I believe in the fun and the future of water warfare. I can only hope others around Soakerdom do, too, and are willing to go through these tougher times with the desire to bring about better water wars for all interested.

B)

I think you know what I mean, and you know I didn't mean anything negative towards you. I've read a lot of the posts at the Yahoo Aquatica and I would definitely agree that the first year or so was golden. However, when I came around there definitely was some problems. Hopefully we'll never run into such a situation again. Given what I was part of, comparatively right now is pretty damn great.