I am primarily lurker on this site, so take my statement with a grain of salt, as that status does directly relate to my diatribe. I originally came to this site to get feedback on my own fangame and look at the fangames of others. After a bit of research shortly after joining the site, I noticed that Minus World had branched off this site when its members were seeking a less focused, social community. That seems reasonable. If one wants a social forum with no apparent focus (besides the slight gaming one, though internet communities in general tend to be bent that way), one can join Minus World (if one explicitly is interested in the community around Minus World) or one of the many hundreds of forums on the internet. What is MFGG's purpose? Is it about fangaming? Or is it a community-focused forum that happens to have several subforums for fangame-related material? Under my impression of how the site works, those who are joining the site should logically be joining it because either/and A: They have a game, art, music, or any other resource related to fangames that they want feedback on. B: They enjoy fan works and want to provide the aforementioned feedback. If something is tangentially related to fangames, it seems reasonable to discuss those in that context. Is fan work going to be intrinsically tied to one's identity or political beliefs? I like the idea of a specialized forum acting as an [i]escape[/i] from prejudices, what with everyone's identity being safely hidden behind a chosen username, avatar, and typing style, and one can generally expect any attempt at rational political discussion on the internet to result in derailment by extremists, trolls, or trolling extremists. I was originally a regular on Mushroom Kingdom Fusion Reactor (or Fusion Fangaming, Fusion Gameworks, or whatever-it went through a lot of name changes). That forum was primarily focused on Mushroom Kingdom Fusion, a fangame heavily driven by the community surrounding it. When Mushroom Kingdom Fusion went belly-up after an assortment of devteam politics and people losing interest, the Reactor lost its purpose. Without the original mission statement unifying the community, there was little left to discuss. There were a couple of other fangames in development alongside a few stubborn regulars clinging to the forum, but that failed to stop the forum's decline. A bit after MKF's demise and during the subsequent decay of its forums, I jumped ship to MFGG to promote my fangames. Now, MKFR died because its mission statement had been voided. MKF was gone. What's happening with MFGG? Are fan works [i]over[/i]? Is there nothing to discuss, nothing to post? Does there need to be a fundamental change to the style of the forum that clearly defines its purpose?

[font=Comic Sans MS]I always thought it'd be cool for sites to come up with a specific Mission statement. No one ever wanted to sit down and figure it out but it'd be great to work one out for MFGG[/font]

It's About The Fan Games™ because any other response would be admission that the split was a mistake

I am currently running a server focused on a certain franchise that is currently working out a new mission statement. One would serve MFGG well.

[font=Comic Sans MS]of note, Minus World wasn't branched off of its own accord (though I did agree with the split when it happened), constant disagreement between the active staff and former staff in the staff forum lead to the active staff leaving and the former staff taking the reigns with the condition that they start from scratch. It's a pretty interesting event, and I think overall it's been great! Minus World had a rocky start but finally found its true footing.[/font]

i assume the Main Site is meant to be purely content focused. pages there can only be generated by a staff member and they only exist based around a fan game, sprite, etc. however, the forum is obviously meant to be more discussion focused, since members can create their own threads about whatever topic they desire.

I can only speak from personal experience, but I joined this forum to share and get feedback on Mario sprites. I knew this site had a bit of a kiddie rep, but it's one of the best places on the net to share Mario-centric content. Not VG-Resource, because that site is dwindling in activity. Not PixelJoint, TIGSource or Pixellation, because those have a focus on original works. MFGG is THE site for Mario sprites and games. As for how the casual side of the site goes, I think that's a more complex question. There is a diverse mix of both young and old people here. Some are just getting into fangaming while others have been in the community for years. It's difficult to say who the community is for but I think we should accomodate everyone if that is possible. Keep forum rules lax enough for older members to have freedom, but keep them strict enough to not turn away newer, younger members. Personally, I'm more interested in the artistic side of things. I joined Starmen.net to share a hack. I joined Bay12 to share a tileset. I'm on TIGSource because I'm making a roguelike. When I have little to share, I don't generally participate in the general chat side of things. I know there is an audience for that, however.

[i]My[/i] purpose in MFGG was to get feedback, show work, give feedback and appreciate work. Or that's what I felt was MFGG's goal; now I'm not sure what it wants to be anymore.

I joined here because I enjoyed both playing and making fangames, and I wanted to show and get feedback for my game. I also wanted to interact with the community in the form of talking about fangames or joining Minigame competitions. In my early days I didn't even care about GC despite visiting the site almost daily. So if MFGG was like 3 days ago when I joined I doubt I would spend more than a week here.

[quote="VinnyVideo"]At its core, MFGG is a community for making, sharing, and discussing games, especially fangames based on the Mario universe.[/quote] This is what I wrote about a month ago. MFGG's primary purpose is about making games, especially Mario fangames. It's our "core competency" - it's the thing we do better than anything else we do, and it's the thing we have to be good at in order to be successful as a community. However, the community is still an important part of MFGG, and having a vibrant, friendly community will help attract people who are interested in making and playing games. (I've thought about making a more in-depth mission/vision/core values thing, but I've never gotten around to doing so.)

It's really just a forum about discussing fan games and their development. Does it have a general chat section? Sure, but so does practically every other forum on the planet, because such a thing is necessary for the community to continue in the long run. MFGG's forums were basically on the verge of death when it didn't have a general chat section. It's no different to say, SMW Central being about Mario ROM hacking and having general chat forums in addition to that. Or other fan gaming communities being the same. As for Fusion Gameworks (the site you said you left after Mushroom Kingdom Fusion died)... well that's one that was almost entirely built upon a single major project. When a site is like that and said project dies, it's always going to be tough to keep people interested, because that's all they really care about. I mean, it certainly can happen (I've seen single subject forums switch to more general purpose ones after their original focus being irrelevant), but it usually depends on a very strong sense of community that the reactor never really had.

When Mario Fan Games Galaxy was first created, it had a focus on fangames but it did offer a lot of other options to foster the community and help it grow. When MFGG decided to drop all forms of community interaction except fangames, I disagreed completely because the community was just as important as the fangames. I understand why they did it, they were trying to force people to make more fangame content, and sure for a time that probably worked well. However, as anyone saw there was nothing to keep the community together. A sole focus on fangames eventually led to burnout and people moved on. What I don't understand is clinging to the "fangames or gtfo" ideal when it was no longer working. I'm surprised that the community seems to be very low priority here and that we're [u]still[/u] just taking baby steps to work on building a community again. A spiraling decline in activity should inspire a sense of urgency, in my opinion. It is going to be EXTREMELY hard to encourage people to join a fangame only community these days, especially when you consider the high profile fan games that are getting slammed with DMCAs and CADs from companies and said DMCAs/CADs make the news. It's going to be even harder if you continue to turn people away for an exclusive, strict mission statement that doesn't allow the community to grow and develop. If you aren't willing to adapt to the world around you and make some significant changes quickly, MFGG may die in a couple years if not earlier. I really don't think anyone here wants that.

[quote="VinnyVideo"][quote="VinnyVideo"]At its core, MFGG is a community for making, sharing, and discussing games, especially fangames based on the Mario universe.[/quote] This is what I wrote about a month ago. MFGG's primary purpose is about making games, especially Mario fangames. It's our "core competency" - it's the thing we do better than anything else we do, and it's the thing we have to be good at in order to be successful as a community. However, the community is still an important part of MFGG, and having a vibrant, friendly community will help attract people who are interested in making and playing games. (I've thought about making a more in-depth mission/vision/core values thing, but I've never gotten around to doing so.)[/quote] great post vinny, i think that statement pretty directly captures what mfgg is/should be you've earned a tusk buck [img]http://i.imgur.com/qz3FdoH.png[/img]

I always saw MFGG as a game development-centric site first, community second. That being said, I [i]am[/i] in agreement that a good community is almost never, inherently, a bad thing.

[font=Comic Sans MS]I've given it some serious thought and I realize that the notion that the community and the fangames are separate things is an entirely false dichotomy, and just plain ridiculous when you give it any serious thought... [size=200]MFGG is a user-submission based website[/size] MFGG is a host of content created by others. Without others to create the content, you might as well be running a blog or personal gallery- nothing wrong with that, but obviously you're going to lack the Power of crowd-sourcing the site's content to fill in the gaps. When this notion of a community/fangame dichotomy is taken to the forums, even a forum with fangame only sections, it falls apart all the same- unlike a website which is built out with specific sections and content in mind, a forum is nearly 100% community contributed content. So I think being a friendly, welcoming, fun, and well-managed community is not only a good thing to have but necessary for MFGG to mature as a website. I agreed with the split in the past, but I really felt that the community that MFGG had just didn't mesh well with the staff's direction. I don't regret that at all and think it really did turn out for the best, but it seems like with the attitudes and unspoken mission statement that MFGG staff have, the conditions that lead to the split will continue to happen and I don't think it's much of a solution to do again and again.[/font]

@Super Mario WTL Why do you have to write your every post in comic sans? The font is really blurry and difficult to read. MFGG is a more serious, fangaming oriented community, while Minus World is the looser (not loser, it's not a typo), more laid back social community. I guess one of the future aims for MFGG would be to reunite MW and MFGG to restart the currently dwindling community? I digress. MFGG is the place to go for the people who want to make, play and get feedback on their creations, be it fangames or not. sdsfds it sounds like i was going to write a really long and serious text here but i'm really tired

i don't think anyone is necessarily pushing for the split to be reversed, but it's totally fine for there to be overlap. there already is as it stands. the way i see it regarding the community, much like Mario said is that without the users, there are no submissions. making the board as community-friendly as possible is absolutely the first step to increasing fangame development- people come here because they like mario and making your own mario games is insanely appealing, especially to younger users. we can't just keep things as they are and expect new blood to just roll up on our doorstep, that won't happen. the best way to go about this is work out all the kinks and issues the site has as a whole- not just bugs (making the board more accessible has been a goal for a while now anyway) so that we don't run people interested out, whether it be intentional or not. once that's all done and settled, we can supply them with tutorials and resources that will allow them to work amongst themselves and eachother to make fangames and whatever else they'd like to make. so basically, i see MFGG having its purpose as a gateway- it's using the mario franchise as a means to teach game development, art, music, etc in a familiar setting that both old and young users will understand. it's not entirely about the fangames- the fangames are merely the output here.

[font=Comic Sans MS]Yeah just as a clarification, I don't think anyone from the Minus World wants to undo the split- although there are members who'd love to participate in the MFGG community, we really like our site! I just don't think another split or bringing MFGG to the conditions that brought out the last split is really something that helps MFGG in the long run.[/font]

What would a split even accomplish? Who would actually want to leave, and why?