Soooo, Not Killing The Forum Huh?

[fleurravenbooks]

Discord is great idea, just not for everyone (including me ) and even if they don't close forum, it will die slowly, you can't do anything regarding tech problems via forums ( but i must admit that one of staff members here informed me when ticket went towards devs) , a lot of promotions are discord only, people will slowly but surely go there and then it would be useless to keep up with forums, i already noticed that we don't get much activity as just few weeks ago

[VibrantFox]

it's just disheartening to see and makes me less motivated to join in on events purely because of this hard push for discord. i'm already opting out of joining inksgiving this year (for this and a few other reasons) so it's only a matter of time before i dip out further. like i don't hate tapas as a platform or a community but god are some aspects growing to be really irksome...

[Kann]

Not gonna lie. A lot of decisions Tapas is making lately make me kinda sad and hopeless about this place.

[arxianfall]

Cost cutting and abandonware. Discord channel is shit confusing. What's the difference between "tapas" and "tapas community tabs"? Is one for for users plus and one for plebs?

Sort your categories and give them names that make users understand what they're for instead of brand slapping everything.

[ar-ninetysix]

Literally just having as simple as "Reader" or "Creator" in the title of the categories would have been the easiest way to let people know the difference

[HGohwell]

I really don't think how the discord is run is really the problem though. A lot of discords will actually tell you what the channel is when you click on it. Like so:

You'd see more but I have the sidebar open. Lots of discords have simple channel names and you'll get used to it. Hell, I am used to my servers and I'm still never sure if I want to post in Writer-gen, Writer-only or Gen-gen. Just like on the forums, sometimes you're not sure which category is best to post in.

The discord and how it's organised and run isn't the issue to me, nor is whether people will use it or not. They're different platforms used for different styles of conversations and discussions. People prefer different things.

The discord can be as well or as badly run as it likes, my issue is that everything goes to discord while Tapas says it still cares about the Forum and is actively trying to force people onto discord. When was the last time there was a forum only event? And don't think we haven't notice Tapas now locks every post it makes because it doesn't want to interact with us here. Tapas makes a post and directs us to discord and locks the post while claiming it still wants to encourage the community here, just without every talking to us apparently. That's the issue to me, not whether it's a well run server or not, because if it's not well run it'll die naturally.

[DiegoPalacios]

The fact that they removed the tech support category from the forums was a massive red flag

[VibrantFox]

Tapas now locks every post it makes

this specifically is a big detail that's been standing out to me next to everything else

like i keep trying to give the benefit of the doubt but it's really odd to me that discussion isn't being encourage in both places and merely ushered over to discord. like if it's something to do with moderation or staff of something being spread thin between the two platforms i'd feel it better for them to just be upfront about that than subtly/not so subtly trying to send us to discord. and maybe i'm being quick to assume what the situation is but it really just goes back to the whole transparency thing.

like tapas ought to know it's community by now and how for the most part at least we try to be receptive to things so long as it's been explained to us. we managed to work our way through explanations on tapas coins and then the transition from coins to ink, the addition of novels and so on so more clarity in the explanation of the discord and where the forums stand in terms of lifespan or longevity would be nice rather than all the smoke and mirrors we're getting now. like any time tapas has been weird about communicating things it's always had negative consequences so here's an opportunity to at least try to repair that by just being straightforward but it feels like they wont.

i will say it looks like the most recent thread for inksgiving is open but i imagine most chat traffic about the event is happening on the discord

[vothnthorvaldson]

My feeling is that Tapas knows very well what the community wants, but they do not want that community anymore. They are trying to buy time, so they can grow a new, less picky community that corresponds more to their new, very different vision for Tapas. And thus, get less impacted by the unavoidable, but probably slow, departure of the old community.
In a while, new users won't know Tapas used to have more options, more freedom, more postive feedback from Tapas. They will only see stuff like Tapas has a better comment system than Webtoons or such things. They will be content with it, not because they are easier to please than us, but because they don't know how it was before.

[jensrichard77]

The community has grown too big to have us discuss how Tapas should run their business. They don't need to please us anymore. Tapas have taken control of the community and I would have done the same thing if I was running a business growing this big.
This is the new Tapas, where we do as they say and follow the candy they toss in the direction they want us and we are the ones pleasing Tapas in hope of promotion now.

It was fun as long as it lasted, but time had changed. Even this Inksgiving has very little traffic at the forum, that usual is where we all are posting like maniacs when it's on, but the post with the most traffic are the ones that gives ink for insta following. Even here we see how we are moving from the forum to other platforms. We are also changing.

[vothnthorvaldson]

Yeah.. a pity art is seen as a low quality product though.. the situation is like if a gourmet restaurant was making enough money to expand/open new locations, but decided to become a fast food franchise because it's more profitable, forgetting their success was due the quality, and that other bigger fast food franchises are there already. Not just a pity, a fully disgusting choice in my opinion.

[jensrichard77]

Trying to keep up with the chat in Discord, to find people who I can support and some who might want to support me.
My lokal time is 12:22

This is under 2h. I can't keep up whit this, sorry, but I have a series to work on. That's where i put my time, because I'm a creator.

[HGohwell]

Even this Inksgiving has very little traffic at the forum, that usual is where we all are posting like maniacs when it's on, but the post with the most traffic are the ones that gives ink for insta following.

That's because all Tapas' actual inksgiving support is on the server, and their pre-hiding the link promotion of the forum was that the forums were a place to promote, not a community, so that's how lots of the new members see the forum, meaning all new people see is promotions, meaning they think it's the norm to just promote. And the bigger names who are really trying to make a living have no real choice but to go to the discord server to get the support from Tapas.

like if it's something to do with moderation or staff of something being spread thin between the two platforms i'd feel it better for them to just be upfront about that than subtly/not so subtly trying to send us to discord. and maybe i'm being quick to assume what the situation is but it really just goes back to the whole transparency thing.

This is the thing really. And like, the folder forum members skew older. We're not kids who're blowing things out of proportion, a lot of us voicing out concerns are adults. Actually adults, not freshly 18 years olds. If they simply said they were focusing on the discord because all the mods are there, fine. If they say they're phasing out the forums, sure they're losing the thing they had over similar sites, but at least it's honest. If they're keeping the forums, but aren't going to support them anymore, say that. I'd rather they give us bad news up front than keep telling us we're panicking and being silly and paranoid about it only to give us no reason to trust them.

It's like "no discord isn't out favourite child we love both of you" and then going "here, discord have the forum's promotions. huh? you want something forum? no, you don't get anything".

[InTheEndlessMidnight]

I'm only part of a small writing server of around 20+ people, and even sometimes it takes time to scroll through the messages but it isn't impossible to get caught up. With the discord I just simply don't bother period, just dropping in whenever I want to.

[KennethLopezJr921]

As someone who prefers discord more than the forums, I think this is a very poor decision made by tapas. They've got to understand that there are millions of people out there that still use the forums. In the beginning I didn't mind because the discord was relatively new but now it does feel like tapas might be trying to kill the forums. But I hope that isn't the case

[KennethLopezJr921]

Also I will like to point out the tech support chat on the discord was altered to where you cant actually type anything in. All there is is this

[Kelheor]

Because it's only there for creating a ticket

[HGohwell]

Idk how creating a ticket works exactly, but I would think when they're asking you to provide details of your problem, you should be able to type and tell them the problem? Especially since that screen shot is them asking you to provide specific details. Or are you expected to contact a mod or put your problem in a different and then it'll pop up in that channel?

@KennethLopezJr921 usually that means you don't have the right role assignment though.

[Kelheor]

It creates a personal chat with support where you can write and add anything like in the usual chat, and they will answer there too. After the problem is solved, they close this chat and it simply dissapears. So if one wants to save the whole conversation for any purposes, it's better to screenshot it.

[DiegoPalacios]

I had to mention tech issues other people had on the "general" channel because the ticket system didn't allow me to write or share a link.