Online Communities and the New Wizards Community Site
There are a number of good communities out there if you are an RPG or miniatures gamer so it will be interesting to see if WOTC’s new community section works out. They are a step up from their old forums, but there is so much going on in them I am not sure they will work. They are attempting to replace their old forums, yahoo groups, fan wikis, blogs and they are throwing in Facebook thrown in for good measure. How much of it will work? Not sure, but it nice to see them try a big reach, if they have to pull back some they may still have a big win in the end.
The RPG and Miniatures communities are interesting places. Both hobbies attract smart people but as niche communities you can get around the community pretty easily. The most active places are mostly in forums, but these are also the toughest neighborhoods and often attract the negative energy of the hobbies. For miniatures the most active spot I know is The Miniatures Page, this is great news site and the forums are very active. Sadly the forums there are often the worst place to talk about the hobby. It is filled with old salt types who are hard to please no matter what a company does. There are some good posters there, but if you are looking for a downer, these forums frequently deliver. The RPG equivelent is RPGnet, some great stuff there but the level of personal insults and negativity is pretty harsh. These are valid community types, nothing wrong with them, but I prefer my community a bit more pleasant. I don’ t need all sunshine, debates are fine, but when it gets nasty I tend to go elsewhere.
On the more positive side, I am a big fan of the Twitter RPG community. People are civil, even when they disagree. The small text limit makes people think before they post and the focus tends to be on what is fun about the hobby, not as much on how everyone else is playing wrong. I also like quite a few of the Yahoo Mailing lists, generally the list owners do a pretty good job of keeping everyone honest and calm there.
So back to the new WOTC community, it is trying to cover many of these same bases of these older groups. They have had forums forever, but they are company forums and tightly moderated, I am not sure they will pull many from from the older forums, but the new groups and blogs may very well pull in quite a few from other communities. If WOTC runs this new tool with a heavy hand, I think they are wasting money on the new features, but it is fun to see them give this a try and if they run the site with a light hand I think they are likely to have a hit on their hands.
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You can find me on the new Wizards site here on Twitter I am here.