Bo B

I'm not sure how I'm being passive aggressive and I've literally said it isn't what I wanted to hear but I'm grateful for the responses. I'll leave my contributions to the topic here but thanks again to everyone for the input. Maybe we'll cross paths in real life and get the chance to play. It sounds like a few of you would like the chance to shoot me haha.

It isn't what I wanted to hear but I appreciate you all taking the time to say it. Just to clear things up, I'm not trying to 'steal' people from you. If I was, this certainly isn't the way I'd go about it. When things open up, I invite you to come take a look around. Don't worry, having a play around over there won't mean you're cheating on your forum wives haha. I haven't said this place sucks. You're getting defensive for no reason. That said, if you want help with your wine bar, give me a shout.

Thank you for being a bit more constructive with your comments. I appreciate the time you've taken to type that out.

If the only reason people are gravitating back is because thry are being forced to i.e. no alternative, that kinda highlights the point I'm making. There is certainly a need for the longer form format, I'll admit. I wonder if there would be a way to build onto this. So that the huge archive of info can be saved but we'd still have a modernised interface for those that want to use it. 🤔 Haha! There are certainly more time effective ways to generate members than sitting on a forum thread replying to gatekeepers.

That's a fair comment. Thanks for sharing. Would you say that as time goes on, more people are trending towards forum style UI or the pages/newsfeed style UI that we see on platforms like Facebook, insta, Twitter. Or maybe something else entirely? I'm not really here to fight any particular corner to be honest. I'm interested in working out if we can do something better for the wider community. Maybe forums are the answer. Maybe they aren't.

You have such a strange and ugly attitude. I guess that's another problem with forums and pseudonymous users too. Hope you're OK.

Thanks to those of you that have submitted interest. I'll email you individually to say hello and share some next steps. I realise that suggesting change is hard for some people but I hope to see you soon. Just be open to the idea that maybe this isn't the pinnacle of human interaction online. If anyone else is interested, the form will stay open for a while longer. https://forms.gle/3XmzrtZzgYtp6AAaA

You're assuming a lot there but thanks for the constructive comments. Keep up the good work. I guess time will tell but I believe there is demand for it. The beauty of being able to develop from the ground up is that we don't need to settle for second best or wait for some third party development team to implement changes. If there is demand for a feature, we can build it right into the platform. I'm not going to show my cards on a public forum just yet, but stay tuned.

Great! But good UI shouldn't require a lesson in how to use it. It should be easily accessible and obvious, not buried away and to be brutally honest, formatted horribly. Have you tried using that game sites map on mobile? I genuinely had no idea about those areas of this site. It's a symptom of the forum structure. Lots of cool things buried away. Bashing new features into a dated forum structure is part of the problem. By the way, I really appreciate you engaging with me on this.

Haha I'm getting mental images of @Tackle running around his airsoft game site with a RIS (real imitation spear) because guns don't exist in his world.

For me forums lack in the following ways: 1. They are topic focused rather than people focused. 2. Threads get messy when people have a conversation. I can't for example reply to you without quoting your message and posting onto the main thread. 3. We can't easily introduce new features. I'd like to see a UK map of airsoft sites, with the ability for sites to register and give us updates on gamedays, share events to an events calendar and give notifications to those that want it. Profiles aren't that intuitive and it's difficult to how different info and fields to different roles e.g. A gamesite owner will want to use the site in a different way to a player. 4. Honestly, forums just look outdated. Not such an issue for older players but for Gen Z, it matters. I'm sure there are plenty more reasons that we could come up with and I'll add more as I come across them.

Thanks for the reply. Facebook is probably the closest in terms of user interface. Options we have as a community currently are restricted in that they force us to adhere to a very rigid format e.g. discord, WhatsApp which makes it hard for us as a community to grow into the space. What if we want to do XYZ but Discord only allows ABC? Example: it's great for live chat but not great for displaying a map of UK gamesites. Why not build something that we can mold exactly how we want? If you want XYZ, you get XYZ. Haha I can see how that would be frustrating. I guess it boils down to time and/or money. What I would say is if we can prove a demand for it, airsoft businesses will be interested in using the platform to connect with players. It could self fund relatively quickly. Thank you for listing the tools you use. It highlights my point pretty well. Why not roll these into one platform specifically built for airsoft. Some of you will have built up libraries of tools, sites, groups (like yours) over years. Newcomers don't have access to a single resource for airsoft. It's difficult to find things, and it doesn't really need to be.

Thanks for the reply. The mvp is built on WordPress. It obviously isn't a perfect solution but I think as a proof of concept it will suffice. It allows us to relatively quickly plugin and play with additional features without spending months in custom development. Popular features can then be worked on and improved, whilst unpopular features can be slashed. I am but a man with an idea and a little experience in web design. I would certainly love to bring people onboard that are a) interested in the idea of creating a dedicated space for airsoft without the limitations of existing platforms and b) have some experience in the area. Experience might look like community management, web development, content creation, marketing. I understand that there will be defensive positions from people here, but I'm genuinely interested in improving what we have.

Keep them coming Yes, developing one purpose built platform that allows for everything we need, rather than using some sites for this and others for that, makes sense. Thank you for your response.

Hi guys and girls, I fell down the airsoft rabbithole just over a year ago and I bloody love it! Something I've heard lots of times at game days is that players are struggling to find certain info and share things e.g. hearing about new game sites. Since starting out a year ago I've found myself split across a few different groups, apps and websites and none of them are really purpose built for airsoft. We seem to have a big community split over loads of small groups, apps and websites. On top of that existing social media is cracking down. I've already been in a couple of FB groups that have closed because of rif talk. I'm sure you have too. Don't get me wrong, the forum format works great for some elements, but not so great for others. So, a very small group of like minded players are developing a new social website, built specifically for all things airsoft. We have a 'minimum viable product' hashed out and would like to open it up for a small group of beta testers. WE NEED YOU! If you're interested, please complete the following form to submit your interest. https://forms.gle/3XmzrtZzgYtp6AAaA If you're interested in helping in any other way, feel free to submit a form entry or get in touch with me. We're hoping to get a good variety of the people, opinions and criticism on board at this early stage so that development can be community led. Cheers, Bo