Lots of text to read. Must focus. Have strong feelings to share. Must make sure they are an actual response. lol
I think I will start... with Wolfeman's comment. And, fair warning for all that follows, this will probably end up lengthy and have a bit of stream of consciousness about it. So, I mean, continue at your own risk.
"how is it going to solve the lack of involvement by members or help CGA to grow?" I think this is the big question. I agree with Tek that it's better to have a modern forum than a dated one, but there is a bigger issue here. There certainly are some newer members that have stuck around, but many of the mainstays today are people who've been here longer than I have. So, why the shift in forum activity, and is that to be taken as indicative of the state of this culture we've created?
I'm not so sure that forum activity should be thought of as chief. The reality is that most of the games we play either have internal communication (like Guild Wars 2) or are part of a larger service in which much chatter takes place (like everything in Steam, Battle.Net, etc.). There are people I rarely see posts from here, but I talk with them on a significant level every week (and one of them in particular I've spoken with about church planting...with seriousness of contemplation at least equal to whimsical joking), and that was a direct result of the CGA community. I'm immensely grateful for what CGA has been for me.
But CGA forums have become... a vague contact point for me now. The connections made here are very important, but the forums have not been the primary channel by which they take place. On the one hand, this makes sense. I think, on the whole, you can communicate better and more naturally/honestly in person, over Teamspeak, etc. than over a forum. On the other hand, I've seen in myself a shift away from community conversations and toward two-person dialogues.
For the CGA to thrive as a community, I think both elements are important. I'm not sure that we need to have set times for group gaming sessions to thrive, but I think creating an inviting, lively group-community is important, and forums are still, in my opinion, the most practical way to do that. You get anonymity that Facebook groups can't offer. You pay nothing to participate. You get to interact on your time. It's just rock solid. And I think keeping IRC (or something similar) open is good, along with Teamspeak, of course, for real-time communication. Can't tell you how many times I've hopped on Teamspeak at the request of others just to sit and chat. And I think when you have these things in place, the more one-on-one dialogue will naturally come out of it as people continue to take interest in the well-being of each other, and it's in this context that I think the mutual-challenge of living out salvation can be strongest.
So, there are my thoughts on the liveliness of CGA. Do I have a fix to bolster activity here? Nope. I've been checking new posts more frequently, though, and adding comments, even if not particularly meaningful ones, to threads where I see fit. I think seeing more of that in general could help.
Now, to the issue of cost, yeah, that's a new fee to shell out hard earned Simoleons on. I'm not too worried about setting it as a fundraising goal, though, especially if it's presented as an important-but-secondary goal. And, while it is money, it's not really a huge expense. I mean, it breaks down to a little over two dozen members offering five bucks. That's not bad for a major overhaul of our forum system, and it's a small expense for a major step in the direction of getting our community's tech to be a bit more contemporary.
Now, as to Tek's comments, first of all: You're a fine leader, Tek, and I mean that in the praising sense of "fine." You, like many others, are busy. Like ATown said, life, wife, job, and kids. Still, never once have I thought you a poor fit for the shoes, and your determination and vision continue to be remarkable and key to CGA's continuance as a meaningful internet-based ministry. But you're not alone. You have a team, and my high praise to the other leaders (formal and informal), too. The other leaders get to share the burden of helping CGA thrive--the hard part of the job description.
Not looking to claim the mantle of being a leader around here, but I could say the same things you have about investing in this whole shindig. I could have posted more. I could have done things differently. And so the laments go. But the reality is that we can't change the way things have been. (We should also not fool ourselves into assuming that any one of us is so powerful in influencing all the folk here who also have lives, wives, kids, jobs, schools, etc. to suddenly present a visibly thriving community.) There's not point in beating ourselves up, only in getting up and moving forward. I'm not saying that means you have to stop posting on PAD forums to post here. I'm saying that we, the community, get to rediscover
together what it means to be a missional community functioning in our little subculture of gamers connected through the internet regardless of lot in life.
As to the rest of your post, I'm on your page. It's a good goal to update our software. As a manifestation of the church, we should be able to offer something PAD forums can't regardless of what tech we're using, but it is still good to remove obstacles for people. Remove the barrier of entry, so to speak.
And the vision you have for CGA's continued importance as a significant ministry is excellent. It's a vision I can still totally get behind.
Ursen's post of honestly pointing out that it is significant for his personal ministries is just another testament to this vision having already made (and still continuing to make) a real difference.
It is my humble opinion that CGA is still a long ways from having reached the end of its merit. It's just a time in which we have to put new effort into demonstrating intentional missional community.
But we can do that together.
.