You tried too hard to redefine what a forum is with this place and kind of tripped over your shoelaces. It worked in 2008, it's not workable anymore. You're too big.
It was smaller, yes, but still on day one you needed moderators. Every single forum on the internet needs them. You should feel a bit ashamed to hear that even 4chan has them. Yes, /b/ is a moderated board. You also need a rule-based framework for those moderators to operate on. The social constructs you rely on at the moment don't work. Yes there are common courtesies you should adhere to in all social environments, but how do those courtesies serve to build an environment of constructive, useful, insightful and amusing discussing? Unwritted common understandings should not be relied upon unless your community is made up of around 5 people.
So there's point one. Get some moderators and some rules. Rules can be based on your little understandings, but they also need to include clauses about worthwhile contributions, meaning practical points about how the forum should look. You really shouldn't be allowing these one word, content-free threads and posts to conintue. They're wasting valuable bytes in your database and they're wasting space good discussions could be taking place in. How you choose your mods is up to you. You could pick them from the community, but be careful and be sure to vet your candidates for a week or so before announcing them. You could also dedicate staff to the job. Okay, you all fulfil some moderation roles as it is, but moderation is dependent on you actually bothering to log in. You need people with hours assigned to moderation, it can't default to back turned.
The rules need to, in some part, define what your community is about. I think this is primarily a classic gaming enthusiasts' forum with tinges of DRM-free revolution. Or at least it was. Okay, so sure, GOG isn't a values based service anymore and will probably have a DRM-like client or some other scheme in a year or two. But no matter how the service changes the community is separate. The rules need to be positive, by the way. The word "DON'T" should not appear anywhere in them. Nor should it appear in unconjugated form, either. Encourage people to be positive and constructive rather than discourage them from being idiots. Idiots don't know that they're idiots so they won't stop being one if you tell them to.
Finally you need organisation. It is not appropriate anymore to a) dump all non-specific-game-related discussion into one area with a max thread view of 50 and b) to list your entire 700+ title catalogue in one big thing and expect specific game forums to be easily found. Group that shit alphebetically. To solve point (a), stick a damn off topic section in there. Include a GOG-specific section and maybe a General Gaming discussion area. Whatever you do - for god's sake - you need a bloody off topic section. Trevor likes to tell me that General Discussion is off-topic, if that's the case, where is on-topic? They can't be in the same place.
Writing this I feel like I'm teaching grandma to suck eggs. You should know how to operate a forum. You've been on forums before.
It is utterly terrifying that GOG is the one forum on the entire internet, given how much it represents, that fails to provide the basic fundamentals of a constructive and accomodating community discussion area.
You're still very proud of this place. And I assure you that in its current state it is losing you sales. It's giving you negative publicity. From a buisness point of view you must do something about it. At the moment you're kind of like a posh restaurant specialising in grand dishes in a seedy part of town whose owner is scratching his head wondering why his windows keep breaking and why no one is buying, not realising it has everything to do with the crack den across the road and the thugs who mull around in the street just outside the door.
I'm glad you've decided to take some action on this, anyway. Even if it is a few years too late. You should have revamped the forum as soon as Gamerager turned up. That should have been your first indication that there was a problem. Sadly you failed to respond, but it's good that you are now doing so. I'm sorry to name names but I think he was such an exceptional case and the whole thing was such an exceptional failure that it needs explicitly pointing out. Learn positively from failure.
And anyone I've managed to offend with these words feels rightly so. I don't care. The forum's current rules are trust-based social constructs, and you've spoiled the forum by breaking that trust. GOG wouldn't need to take any action at all if you could have just been constructive this whole time. Sometimes you have to acknowledge that you've done something wrong. GOG are doing so now, I'm sure you can too.
Anyway that's my two and a bit cents. I'll be back to check out the updates in a few months, I expect.
