callout post: light vs shadow
hi – im a shadow member who moved over to light. i am personally curious as to light vs shadow in terms of structural differences; for that i turn to the comparison between the two flight’s forum experiences
—– general discussion——
shadow: 6 threads, including 1 obligatory mod-intro thread.
stickies:
a note on necro-ing threads.
newbie introduction thread
shadow-themed resources (art, banners, etc)
light:4 threads, including 1 obligatory mod-intro thread.
stickies:
an address to newbies & transfers.
light’s link hub (addressed as services/guides)
light’s registry to ping users with certain roles.
—– sales ——
shadow: 6 stickies.
art club thread (gathering for artists)
lair expansion initiative.
an adoption center for dragons
swipp’s user swap item stand; looks like there’s freebies?
dom101 thread, but for newbies
dom archives (rly neat guys)
sticky count: shadow has more, and imo a few of these stickies are redundant or may be merged together for more cohesion/cleaner forums. light’s stickies are shorter, neater, also their emphasis goes to sales forums (they’re cash oriented, after looking around for a bit. i can see that)
liveliness: shadow feels kinda dead, where light is more active. goes w/o saying that light has more active members, but also even if shadow has a bunch of active members too, they’re definitely not talking much
general discussion: re shadow, i dont think posting in a 750-page intro thread is very homely/friendly, and there’s no official greeting thread/message for new members which makes it feel unlived in/uncontrolled, also the newbies intro thread kinda feels like a link hub as well, which feels kinda strange imho – for light, they’ve got a psa to newbies and transfers, i especially like the social section that explains and links the slack/irc, clean gd also helps emphasize on the discussions happening w/ users
sales: re shadow, i personally dont know why the l25-rentals are there, nor the art club – i especially like the lair expac initiative, though whether its to be stickied in the first place is debatable – sales is more light territory though, baldwin mats trading is new with the intro of baldwins cauldron, and swipps stand feels like a nice easy way for newbies to experience trading and/or having a bit of pocket change in their hoard – really like the raffles psa thread
dominance: no clue why shadow has 8 stickies, good job on dom mentors + battlestone bank, very concerned at the dom101 threads (why are there two of them? the one targeted towards newbies doesn’t really address how the dom system works in shadow (teams vs militia vs lone wolves) while also disjoining newbies from more experienced users, which may feel degrading? also the other’s header is changed to recent dom psa’s, so its not even a dom101 from a glance) – light’s small number of stickies also helps in emphasizing events made during dom, which are always [tagged] (i appreciate that) and the dom101 thread really communicates the flight’s goals and aspirations, absolutely lovely
more notes, but now more personal and not based on forum stickies:
im a big fan of light’s ping registry honestly, because it’s a really easy way of signing yourself up for knowing what the community is doing and it works for nearly everyone and everything in the community because it’s targeted for everyone (and everything) in the community – great job light
while i personally understand the adoption center’s role, idk if i’d put it under sales in shadow’s terms, especially stickied
there’s actually a lot of things in shadow’s forums that don’t give off the feeling of dom-oriented (which is okay! its definitely not the way to go if the flight wants to go in a more-dom-please direction, and its not very efficient either because at this point i cant tell what the flight wants to do – it might as well be plague’s wasteland lorewise)
treasury wise i dont know how much shadow has, but i know what light is doing (kudos!) which makes the system very transparent – i really like how you guys have an investor, the existence of their position + efficiency is personally my favorite part about joining light
s/o to shadow’s mentor system because having a personal mentor is good help – id definitely suggest cobbling together a definite dom101 and a centralized dom strategy plan though
also what is up with teams vs militia hub vs lone wolves? the latter’s images are broke btw
light users asking for how they can help out in the dom community gets a bit of helpful replies, while on the rare occasion that shadow has them there’s only a simple paragraph + direct answer at best – the thread is ignored at worst, i am personally worried about that – re shadow, your mentors can also reply to them to give advice btw
deep respect to two of the dom sticky threads in light that were made by the same person because it shows that you guys either have a committee dedicated to dom or you are all really active – both of which are great
its quite confusing for shadow to know what is happening in their dom weeks, at best team hubs and lone wolves are more active – in light there’s a designated thread (with a tag!!! also a standardized naming convention) for conquests, and it makes everything so much easier to read up on
also shadow keeps remaking team hub threads so uh thats a thing
light actually has chats for buying/selling fodder and im personally very impressed im in love with your organizational skills
light knows what they want (money) and they’re structurally organized for it, which makes their spirit unconquerable and infectious, so kudos to that!
if shadow wants to change from being the one pitied/picked on, they’re definitely going to have to go through structural changes (and stay organized!!! please) the more accessible and transparent information and organizations are the better it feels to be working with them
also focusing on a thing that defines shadow is good to building a flight reputation – light has their money, arcane has their world building, lightning has their spreadsheets – if all shadow has is edge, look to the future and rock that edge hardcore!
tl;dr: op pokes holes into the organization of light vs shadow’s forums, light is a dope flight because they know what they want and build their flight’s lifestyle around getting what they want, shadow needs to start from scratch, come together and ask themselves what they want, and what it is that shadow can offer that is unique to shadow. and then go for that. after cleaning up their forums.
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