- Radical Edward
- |
- Honorable Member
- gamertag: [none]
- user homepage:
Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV
Posted by: Ryno3
The entire website would be chaotic. Believe it or not, not everyone in the world knows of Halo or Bungie. Bringing in heaps of new people is probably not the best idea.
One of the best things, if not the best, is that we were all (98% sounds like a fair estimate) brought here by Halo in one way or another.
But that model and centricity is changing.
This community is no longer solely related to a particular platform/console.
This community may no longer be linked or related to a particular title, franchise or series.
This community may no longer be the easily defined niche that it once was.
Adapt and grow, or risk stagnation and death. This little feature is not a major alteration, it doesn't change the purpose of the forums, it doesn't alter how people use the forums to interact, it doesn't "open the gates" to some unwashed horde of morons. It just makes it easier (and as a result more likely) for people to tell their social networks of a topic within these forums that is of interest to the individual member and invite that members friends/followers/social group to take a look and see if that interest is mutual.
It can be done already, it IS being done already. It is however just a manual process. Not an onerous one, but if it were made into a more simple and as close to a single-click, add a comment, click again and you have externally advertised a potential topic of interest to others (with no internal alteration, notice or change to the topic itself).... I don't see how that is risky, dangerous, or dramatically game changing.
People who have small followings and social groups may, if they use the feature, encourage a few non-members to take the plunge and join our community. A community that has ALWAYS been open to EVERYONE who was interested in being part of something a little quirky, a little odd, a lot of fun and full of other fun, cool, interesting and quirky people.
That's people with typical followings. People with larger than usual followings, to small scale celebrity followings could make one Tweet, one +1 and our membership could jump by a couple of hundred or more. A major celeb making an off-hand "hey, this place is cool, look at what they discuss there!" post to their followers could result in a mass influx of curious, eager, and yes, awkward and uninformed new members. I think that is exciting, not frightening. I think that is potentially one of the best things that could happen to this community, to come out of its "we all like Halo" cocoon and spread its wings in the sun of wider awareness across the Interwebs.
But even if that large scale influx never happens (to the relief of some, the disappointment of others), having an easy method for existing members to "point out a topic of mutual interest" to their network... that is (IMO) neither dangerous, revolutionary, nor earth-shattering. It's a common enough experience around the web that nearly every site uses in order to advertise its own internal and dynamic content.
[Edited on 03.13.2012 9:38 AM PDT]