Well, it’s official: The StarWars.com forums are not long for this world. They’ll go read-only at the end of the month, and disappear entirely come June.
I spent a lot of time on the forums in their early years as a moderator, but they had ceased to be a destination for me years ago, save for the VIP thread in the book forum where Sue Rostoni and others would often drop tidbits of information and answer fan questions.
Still, the forums in their day were a great community and launching (or re-launching) pad for many of us, and I am a little sad – if not particularly surprised – to see them go.
I’ve lived without the Starwars.com forums for quite some time. I’ll certainly miss them being there for when I or other fans want them, but to be honest out of the few times I went there looking for discussion, what I found ranged from sad to scary.
The Starwars.com forums were unique and they will be missed, but there are a-plenty of fan-run forums out there to fill the gap.
I never even used the forums, but I really don’t like starwars.com. I mean, they show us some cool stuff and then they go and lose it. Like pretty much everything on hyperspace? You know, money down the drain – I paid for those damn articles and such, not that they care none.
And their webcomic? Oh god, don’t even get me started. Yeah, it’s written with excellence and drawn superbly. But which genius had the brilliant idea to make it a flash-based comic that hogs up all my memory and is impossible to copy to my drive as images in the event the website crashes?
And what the hell happened to the databank?
Awwwww, this makes me a bit sad for nostalgic reasons. I haven’t been on the forums in years, but I was a mod for a while and I made a number of good friends on the boards.
Dont get me started on the Databank. Ridiculous that the official site can’t get this together, working in tandem with notable fansites. All the info is there – that would make it a must-visit site on a daily basis instead of occasional.
Maybe ‘ridiculous’ is a bit strong. Regrettable is maybe more appropriate.
And the forums etc. Was there all the time in the mid-naughties, but now we have Twitter and Facebook its lost its uniqueness, so makes sense.
@ Forums: Good riddance. Online forums are the past, social networking is the future. They’ll probably shut down their comments as well and bring in the Facebook equivalent (at least that’s what pretty much everyone else is doing). And as for Sue: http://www.facebook.com/starwarsbooks seems to be working just fine.
@ Databank: Doesn’t make much sense updating it with Wookieepedia overshadowing everything else. What TOS should do is shut down the databank and deal with continuity issues or databank type updates in the Atlas fashion: Lengthy background articles with repeated updates instead of that 1990s relict they have online at the moment and which has been out of style for at least 5 years.
@ Hyperspace: I wasted some money on that, too. What I never got is why they didn’t make more use of the LFL archives. There must be tons of stuff there from the OT days, McQuarrie art, handscribbled script changes, BTS footage, whatever. The Making of books for ANH and TESB could easily have gotten a multimedia online supplement. And what did we see instead? Low-res comic strips and forgettable short stories… Two words: Wasted potential.
Dude. Guys. Have some respect, okay?
The Databank is for people who don’t need to know what characters are up to for every second of their lives… Remember elementary school? Remember World Book? Not everyone needs or wants War and Peace-sized entries. It simply fills a different niche than the Wook.
Hell, the forums were (are?) the same way. They were always a little less die-hard than, say, TFN. That’s part of why I liked them in the early days, until they got too n00by even for me. (Or, well… I burnt out on modding and lost all my patience.)
Although I never used the forums over there I did visit the site occasionally and it’s always sad to see a portion of the community’s connect-ability taken away. Star Wars fans are everywhere sharing everyday and without places like forums on various sites they’ll likely loose touch with some of the things that would otherwise be extremely accessible.
I really need to fix although run-on sentences… oh well.
I use the forums very little but in principal I think it’s sad to see them go. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter so now I won’t be able to take part in the “official” community.
You can follow Facebook fan pages without an account. (Try it.) It’s easier than keeping up with Twitter w/out an account. I actually have a few bookmarked since I don’t really check FB more than twice a day.
I far prefer Twitter, but I’m not sure it’s really suited for what Sue (and Leland) were doing on the forums. As much as it pains me to say, Facebook may be the better alternative. Although perhaps a blog (a real one, not blogs.starwars.com) would work the best.
Haven’t used them in a long time, but sad to see them go. And I’m very, very sad that there appear to be no plans to archive the material. I think there’s considerable historical value in them. I hate to see massive chunks of internet culture lost as soon as they fall out of favor. Is the fate of all digital content to be so ephemeral?
It’s almost enough to make me crawl back to the stone ages, when at least I could be reasonably confident that the stone tablets upon which I inscribed my life’s writings would remain readable for more than a decade.
Folks currently terrified that their drunken Facebook photos will come back to haunt them in 20 years will more likely be mourning the loss of all record of their young adulthood when Facebook is acquired by and then sunset by Color.
There’s also the option of not giving Facebook any information you don’t want public anyway. I post the occasional innocuous thing there, but mostly I just use my FB to read FB.
…And hope your friends (or ‘friends’) aren’t complete idiots.
Really? I’ll try that. Thanks Dunc! :D
Toph makes a good point, sad not to see those threads archived in some manner (though sure LFL will do that as a matter of course and store away somewhere).
Got to disagree (respectfully) with Dunc on the Databank. When it started it was as up-to-date as anything else out there, but over the years it’s been surpassed (as noted) by the Wook , which is excellent save for a few Mods with Napoleon complexes.
The point I was hoping to make is that it’s a wasted opportunity – if the OFFICIAL site doesn’t have the best and latest data – given the company produces the actual product – then there’s something going wrong somewhere.
But like a few folks have said (and Leland Chee has backed up by his actions today) FB and social networks are where it’s at. FB is a smart way to replace the official forums. And it’s free (for now, at least).
Still amazed LFL haven’t launched a SW-only version of FB, in association with FB itself (like the failed Yahoo project a couple of years back).
Here’s hoping this is the start of some long overdue weeding.
I guess this is why online media will never truly replace print media. Other than burning books on bonfires, print media is there for the long haul. Online media, with just as much time, effort and thought gone into it – gone with the click of a mouse.
I tried many times over the years to use and like the forums. I just found that the mods were always a little too itchy on the “lock thread” trigger. Seemed like just about every thread was swiftly met with “This is already being discussed over here on this 8000 page, 7-year old thread, please go read this and then decide if your post is still relevant.”
I quickly gave up. They were occasionally a good source of info, but I won’t really miss them.
What a shame. I spent so many good times on that forum. I never even got to say goodbye…
Wow, Hadn’t visited the forums in a few months, though I was still a moderator over there. Completely missed this announcement and was wondering why I could no longer access the forums.
Not really surprised, with no movies of TV shows coming, other than the cartoons, I think the forums had lost their need. That’s why I stopped using them after all.
To the likes of MattDoc and others I would say this. The policy on duplicate threads was made by Lucas Online themselves; first Pauls Ens, then Pabs and finally Bonnioe Burton. We were just the poor saps who had to enforce it and take all of the insults, all for free BTW; we were unpaid volunteers, not Lucas employees!!!
Wow! I was the same. Still modding (if you can use that word!) and went to have a quick look, and it was gone.
Some fond memories, but I haven’t posted regularly there in about 4 years. Still, be missed.
I loved the forums for a few years….it was a great escape. spent most of my time in the Cantina – met some really amazing people. Sad to see its gone.