The old owner is active on their social medias, they seem fine. They had not been active in the server for a few months(?) so I am not that surprised.
TBH most of the flight rising servers I am in kind of feel like they are dying out. Inactive channels, the few people that do talk mostly seem like teenagers that do not quite understand how to navigate public spaces, everyone else is chilly and it just does not feel like there is much community to be found on discord. I am in 5 or 6 servers and all of them feel this way. It seems like people are leaving for other servers but I cannot figure out what servers they might be... every time I join a new one it feels like the same atmosphere. Or different, but only because there are cliques that only talk to one another. Not to mention there is either a complete lack of moderation (leading to people outright venting in general channels or talking about life stuff in Flight Rising channels), or way too much (a very "No memes in genchat!!" stereotype vibe, except it is if you post any images at all outside respective ((poorly labelled)) channels.) Rant over. The most fulfilling discord communities ATP for me are private close friends servers, which is unfortunate because I would like to engage with the community.
Totally agree with this take tbh. More often than not I find the community in the light flight discord exhausting. It skews younger with people who clearly have no idea how to act socially and scold people for saying perfectly normal, everyday things because they live in this chronically online bubble. The discord also feels like a revolving door, it can't keep a consistent community which says a lot and I'm sure results in that feeling of chilliness you discussed. It's a real problem because the discord servers are where most of the community is nowadays, probably for the worse.
Your "revolving door" comment about sums it up, yeh. I remember back in ye olden days when there were pretty consistently the same people chiming in, and people stuck around long enough that you could make friends with them. It felt like there were adults there, that were funny and engaged. It feels like half the population now is under 17 (or at least acts like it) and it is very draining to try and keep a conversation going. The modmins are doing what they can it seems like, but really, the ship has been slowly sinking since the move from the old server. I almost miss the days when there were complaints that the server was "cliquey", because at least then people regularly talked. It feels like every other person that talks is a new face that will hang around for, at most, a few days. I am unsure how this could be remedied, really. Even remaking the server would just draw the same crowd of teenagers. I feel Light as a flight skews older but it does not seem this way at all, looking at the discord. Before people say "Be the change you want to see!", I have tried and I am tired. Many of us have. There is no meaningful discussion anymore, no server etiquette (people post over one another, especially in dragon share channels. There are three of these channels.), it really is dying and I for one am sad, knowing how it used to be. It feels there is no place for community anymore.
Absolutely agree. It's so difficult to hold a conversation, people constantly talk over each other and any time you get something of substance going someone jumps in with something irrelevant because they can't wait and derail the conversation. 0 social etiquette. I agree with you that there's this influx of people who show up for a few days and then disappear. Even worse IMO is the several people who will take over conversations because they show up once a month and think it needs to be announced every time they look at the discord.
It really does feel like a void people dump whatever comes to mind in, then dip. It does seem like the mods are trying, but it's like using buckets when a flood is coming in. Ultimately, makes no difference. I feel I've only made one genuine relationship out of the discord in the time I've been there, and they're great, but you'd think there'd be room to form more relationships beyond superficiality. There just isn't.
Honestly this does seem like the case to me, coming from someone who's in a few all-flight servers. I think in these cases at least it's influenced by these servers being pretty old? So the initial communities these servers revolved around have thinned out as people have naturally lost interest in the game over time. That's not a bad thing, its normal, but it does mean these servers are having to rely on fresh blood for engagement. So if there's trouble retaining fresh blood then its gonna feel pretty meh.
Personally I used to be a highly active member in one of the servers I'm in, but a few years ago now I lost interest in the game. I've come back since and play on and off, but it isnt the same as it once was. There are some oldies in this server who's seemed to maintain regular levels of activity in it but honestly the majority of the people I remember being really active back in the day don't seem to be around anymore, or barely are at least. The server certainly isn't inactive by any means (over a thousand people after all) but it absolutely is a lot quieter than I remember it being.
NAYRT I feel this, and also - The 3 people that were owners/mods of the old Light server were banned, and to my knowledge haven't returned. So that's 3 dedicated players with lots of friends in the server gone. Could have an impact on retention. I personally noticed a lot less activity, particularly from older players, in the server after the move from the old one
I don't know about legal issues, but the old light server had adult channels including ones that allowed adult artwork. They actually nuked the entire normal art channel to try to hide their existence because the adult channel was mentioned in there.(Apparently, some folks had art only stored in that channel and lost it all at deletion.)
Staff banned the old server from even being mentioned on site, so they had to remake.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Re: Light flight discord mods stepping down again
(Anonymous) 2024-04-26 03:42 am (UTC)(link)TBH most of the flight rising servers I am in kind of feel like they are dying out. Inactive channels, the few people that do talk mostly seem like teenagers that do not quite understand how to navigate public spaces, everyone else is chilly and it just does not feel like there is much community to be found on discord. I am in 5 or 6 servers and all of them feel this way. It seems like people are leaving for other servers but I cannot figure out what servers they might be... every time I join a new one it feels like the same atmosphere. Or different, but only because there are cliques that only talk to one another.
Not to mention there is either a complete lack of moderation (leading to people outright venting in general channels or talking about life stuff in Flight Rising channels), or way too much (a very "No memes in genchat!!" stereotype vibe, except it is if you post any images at all outside respective ((poorly labelled)) channels.)
Rant over. The most fulfilling discord communities ATP for me are private close friends servers, which is unfortunate because I would like to engage with the community.
Re: Light flight discord mods stepping down again
(Anonymous) 2024-04-26 05:53 am (UTC)(link)Totally agree with this take tbh. More often than not I find the community in the light flight discord exhausting. It skews younger with people who clearly have no idea how to act socially and scold people for saying perfectly normal, everyday things because they live in this chronically online bubble. The discord also feels like a revolving door, it can't keep a consistent community which says a lot and I'm sure results in that feeling of chilliness you discussed. It's a real problem because the discord servers are where most of the community is nowadays, probably for the worse.
Re: Light flight discord mods stepping down again
(Anonymous) 2024-04-26 07:11 am (UTC)(link)Your "revolving door" comment about sums it up, yeh. I remember back in ye olden days when there were pretty consistently the same people chiming in, and people stuck around long enough that you could make friends with them. It felt like there were adults there, that were funny and engaged. It feels like half the population now is under 17 (or at least acts like it) and it is very draining to try and keep a conversation going.
The modmins are doing what they can it seems like, but really, the ship has been slowly sinking since the move from the old server. I almost miss the days when there were complaints that the server was "cliquey", because at least then people regularly talked. It feels like every other person that talks is a new face that will hang around for, at most, a few days.
I am unsure how this could be remedied, really. Even remaking the server would just draw the same crowd of teenagers. I feel Light as a flight skews older but it does not seem this way at all, looking at the discord.
Before people say "Be the change you want to see!", I have tried and I am tired. Many of us have. There is no meaningful discussion anymore, no server etiquette (people post over one another, especially in dragon share channels. There are three of these channels.), it really is dying and I for one am sad, knowing how it used to be. It feels there is no place for community anymore.
Re: Light flight discord mods stepping down again
(Anonymous) 2024-04-26 04:10 pm (UTC)(link)Absolutely agree. It's so difficult to hold a conversation, people constantly talk over each other and any time you get something of substance going someone jumps in with something irrelevant because they can't wait and derail the conversation. 0 social etiquette. I agree with you that there's this influx of people who show up for a few days and then disappear. Even worse IMO is the several people who will take over conversations because they show up once a month and think it needs to be announced every time they look at the discord.
It really does feel like a void people dump whatever comes to mind in, then dip. It does seem like the mods are trying, but it's like using buckets when a flood is coming in. Ultimately, makes no difference. I feel I've only made one genuine relationship out of the discord in the time I've been there, and they're great, but you'd think there'd be room to form more relationships beyond superficiality. There just isn't.
Re: Light flight discord mods stepping down again
(Anonymous) 2024-04-26 02:21 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Light flight discord mods stepping down again
(Anonymous) 2024-04-28 06:46 am (UTC)(link)Personally I used to be a highly active member in one of the servers I'm in, but a few years ago now I lost interest in the game. I've come back since and play on and off, but it isnt the same as it once was. There are some oldies in this server who's seemed to maintain regular levels of activity in it but honestly the majority of the people I remember being really active back in the day don't seem to be around anymore, or barely are at least. The server certainly isn't inactive by any means (over a thousand people after all) but it absolutely is a lot quieter than I remember it being.
Re: Light flight discord mods stepping down again
(Anonymous) 2024-04-28 07:01 am (UTC)(link)I feel this, and also - The 3 people that were owners/mods of the old Light server were banned, and to my knowledge haven't returned. So that's 3 dedicated players with lots of friends in the server gone. Could have an impact on retention. I personally noticed a lot less activity, particularly from older players, in the server after the move from the old one
Re: Light flight discord mods stepping down again
(Anonymous) 2024-04-28 08:04 pm (UTC)(link)The 3 old mods were ip banned. They couldn't come back if they wanted to. Iirc the closure of the previous server potentially involved legal matters.
nayrt
(Anonymous) 2024-04-29 03:54 am (UTC)(link)Nayrt
(Anonymous) 2024-04-29 12:21 pm (UTC)(link)Staff banned the old server from even being mentioned on site, so they had to remake.
Re: Nayrt
(Anonymous) 2024-04-29 02:14 pm (UTC)(link)