Forum Watch.

Each month we examine in depth part of AL's community. This time around it's the chatroom. A bit out of date (it was written a month ago) due to delays in this edition, but it still partly applies.

#animeleague, is dying all that bad?
Submitted by FreeSaiyan.

Is the chatroom dying? Activity has hit new lows; at the graveyard hours it can struggle to get even three or four members. What is causing this? And more importantly, what could be it's long term consequences?

Undoubtedly the chatroom was affected harshly by the 9/10th crash. The change of it's location from irc.animeleague.net to irc.zirc.net with no way to inform members of this address change resulted in several users thinking it'd simply been taken down. Meanwhile school has reduced the ammount of time that people can spend in the room to a pittance. Both are harsh, but then the entire forum has gone through similar events. Why has it affected the chatroom far more?

In a way these two events have been a catalyst for a third more painful event; the breakup of the old guard within the chatroom. What started as one or two well known #ALers vanishing has gradually accelerated. Sygzgy, RaGe, Makia, FaerieFortune, Carmen, KyrieAlasia and even Sace. Have you seen these people on much lately? Massive personalities have simply vanished, leaving voids in their wake. This process might even accelerate as other old guard members start to wake up to their friends vanishing. If your friends are not in the room, then why bother chatting?

However, it's not all doom and gloom for the chatroom. These events might be for the best in the longer run, for changes in the atmosphere and how people behave are occuring. What was once an extremely close knit, highly cynical crowd, disliked even hated by many outside ALers is starting to become more moderate, tolerant outward looking, and newcomer friendly.

This change can be traced to the old members not existing in such overwhelming quantities to slap down newer members for behaving in ways they deem unacceptable. In some cases old can even be outnumbered by new. Also, many of the remaining old guard realise a need to change their approach and attitude to those who are not part of their circle of friends to bring in fresh blood.

Several older chatroom members are admittedly wary of these changes. This has not been helped by some newcomers not appearing to be very intelligent; net speak (u, r, 2, your) has become more common. However, there has been no major backlash as of yet. Many observers have been stunned at this relative tolerance to netspeakers. Could this be proof that attitudes are becoming more accepting? Or will the inevitable backlash occur, with traumatic results?

A backlash could conceievably occur in two ways. Either the remaining veterans could all get together and agree to quit the chatroom in a united protest against the newcomers, or they could return to mocking newcomers and make them feel unwelcome. The former is unlikely due to not all veterans disliking the changes. The later is more likely, though many veterans are beginning to come around to the idea of change being necessary for survival. An alternative that seems the most likely is that veterans try to school newcomers to act more intelligently.

For better or worse, the atmosphere is beginning to resemble the main boards more. Backlash or not, change will be necessary in order to survive. Those unhappy with it will leave, while the rest will adapt to the new atmosphere. What we are seeing in the chatroom is social evolution in action. The necessary changes required to survive in a new environment can be resisted, but not put off forever.