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Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

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Certain topics have become known to cause friction among passionate members. We kindly ask that topics relating to these subjects be taken outside the Inn to Websites that specialise in those subjects.

Thus far, these topics are: Recreational Drugs, Religion and Science.

Re: Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

Postby cornixt » Monday May 3rd, 2021 11:29am

Kurgan wrote:Is it a matter of money for an upgrade I wonder? Because maybe we could have a fund-raiser...

Usually it is to do with all the customizations. There are a ton of board plug-ins used on this site and no equivalent for them on newer board software, or no easy way to transfer the data to the new ones. It's possible that none of the old posts can be transferred either, so all of the old threads would have to be just archived. So the question becomes how much stuff can you do without?

Old forum software is also pretty insecure now, the question of upgrading might become moot if someone just hacks in and wrecks everything, depending on the backups.


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Re: Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

Postby Kurgan » Monday May 3rd, 2021 12:04pm

Oh heck no.. the whole reason I come here (other than the cool subject matter) is the awesome archive of knowledge and files!

I was on a now defunct forum where we archived the old threads at one point and it pretty much killed it. The fact that people couldn't go back in and fix links (or apologize for stupid stuff they said) made it worse. Then again nothing lasts forever. If this site ever did go down I'd be one of those who would want a copy on CD/DVD of it all. ;) Archive.org just doesn't do the job effectively with forums.

If the new one can't do the old one justice and will lose all this treasure, I "vote" no!


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Re: Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

Postby iKarith » Tuesday May 4th, 2021 11:33am

Ooh, I might need to find a non-Google way to access that. I should have one but … currently I do not. :(
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Re: Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

Postby cornixt » Thursday May 26th, 2022 11:38am

Facebook has become even worse over the last year. 50% of my feed is now suggested posts and adverts, with comments from the dumbest people alive spreading their misinformation to each other. All the reasonable people have either left or don't comment any more, it's like a cancer.


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Re: Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

Postby HispaZargon » Thursday May 26th, 2022 1:49pm

Yeah, in my opinion Facebook is not the best place to share info about HQ.

Maybe could be useful to share news and multimedia files in an easy way but once those posts are not enough followed by people, they become very difficult to be found days later. In other words, the info there is too ephemeral in my opinion.


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Re: Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

Postby Kurgan » Thursday May 26th, 2022 5:38pm

Twitter doesn't get off the hook for me either, before or after the new management... Forum version of YeOldeInn for the Win (tm)!

A fan friendly place to go to get an share info on the game and have fun rather than feel stressed out like you're on the Jerry Springer Show, an extra on an Infomercial, or a rat in a maze! (rather than a Skaven warrior in The Maze which would be okay)


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Re: Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

Postby Kurgan » Sunday May 29th, 2022 1:03pm

cornixt wrote:Facebook has become even worse over the last year. 50% of my feed is now suggested posts and adverts, with comments from the dumbest people alive spreading their misinformation to each other. All the reasonable people have either left or don't comment any more, it's like a cancer.


You're describing social media in general, but I'm specifically talking about the HeroQuest stuff. It's not the best for that (and that's nothing against the individual fans talking about the game). I don't care to be spammed with people's political beliefs or personal drama, regardless of the platform it's on (whether that's celebrities or people I know IRL), especially when I'm just looking for a friendly chat about a game and some info on playing it. If I'm going looking for it on a political debate forum, that's different, but it tends to overwhelm everything because of crappy algorithms (the fact that drama gets clicks). I use an ad blocker so the other issue isn't such a big deal. But even turning off one's "news feed" and un (or not) friending people I don't know in real life doesn't prevent the tendency for good stuff to still get buried fast if you're not checking obsessively.

So just acknowledging there that some people think certain platforms are good or evil because of how they gatekeep for certain political beliefs or corporations (and this changes with the news cycle which as well, is propaganda to affect how people vote and spend money, blah blah blah). That these forums right here keep that crap down generally is to me a breath of fresh air.

For better or for worse Hasbro/Avalon Hill has chosen to focus almost entirely on Twitter for HeroQuest news (and the annual PulseCon, IF that), but at the very least they send emails out to Pulse members and post the resources on their product website(s) afterward.

Took a stroll through Walmart the other day and saw plenty of Hasbro branded games, but no HeroQuest...


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Re: Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

Postby iKarith » Friday June 17th, 2022 12:15am

The big thing about social media (particularly Facebook) is that old content posted there is effectively lost, but also effectively remembered forever. It's the worst of both worlds, really. It'll be there for eternity … but you won't necessarily have the means to access it.

Gatekeeping, data collection, and the fact that social media sites basically force you to be involved with people in every aspect of their lives or not at all at a time when people are bitterly and violently opposed to anything that doesn't sound like their viewpoint … ugh.

At least with reddit (another social media site that has some of the gatekeeping and other negatives), you can go to the HeroQuest space and interact with HeroQuest fans on the topic of HeroQuest and you need never care about their faith, their politics, their favorite sports team, what they do for a living, etc. If you _want_ to care about those things I suppose you can … but it's not pressed upon you as a condition of interacting with a person other than the most casual of levels.

I don't use Reddit either, but it's a better social platform for HQ stuff.
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Re: Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

Postby Kurgan » Friday June 17th, 2022 12:12pm

Exactly. When I go to the Inn I don't want to be asked "so, do you agree with my personal politics or that of my parent corporation?" and if the answer is yes I'm going to get to talk HeroQuest and have fun, but if the answer is no, I'm going to be treated as a villain or not allowed to participate. As long as I shut my mouth about those divisive topics that have nothing to do with the game, I can carry on without a care.

A person can search around the web and find people whose opinions on other topics you might find despicable, and yet they love HeroQuest as much as you do, maybe even more. I don't need to know a person's private life to make a judgement whether their homebrew rules are any fun or their miniatures look good. I still will play with people I disagree with on topics I'm passionate about, because it's the game we have in common, and that's not some kind of endorsement of their beliefs anymore than they are endorsing mine. And certainly having to pay homage to some corporation and their pseudo-beliefs is not something I'd ask of anyone who joined a community I was in charge of that was about gaming of all things! Then you have platforms that without endorsing a specific creed, can nevertheless create a mob mentality in which those creeds are endorsed anyway, and once again it gets in the way of the enjoyment. And of course all of the advertising and manipulation that would be present regardless of the ideological underpinnings or ethos which is very off-putting and annoying. Plus companies have a tendency to censor material that is negative towards their advertising goal, so there goes the honesty and openness.

That's why social media as it is currently construed will never be a satisfactory replacement for places like the Inn, no matter how "convenient" or popular they might be in comparison. So even if the Inn related FB groups are based directly on our community, the FB experience can also tarnish that ability to enjoy and participate without that scrutiny and nonsense hanging overhead or lurking in the background. I shouldn't have to keep the page open and constantly refresh to avoid missing something "important" that will vanish within a day or so if I don't keep glued to the scroll.

The HeroQuestFans community was created in part to provide another avenue to discuss stuff, but at the same time it's harder to find stuff, and some people might not enjoy my content from Twitch and Youtube (which, like it or not, is the focus of the site, although our painting and crafting communities have grown by leaps and bounds and we have great conversations nearly every single day), so it will similarly never replace something like the Inn. I'd have to create a forum that does everything the Inn does and invite everyone to it, and why would I do that? Exactly.


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Re: Why I left all three HeroQuest groups on Facebook

Postby iKarith » Monday June 20th, 2022 3:39pm

The thing about that … before everyone knew everything about everyone thanks to social media, we didn't. You got to know someone because they were involved with something you were and … they were people, normal people. If you found they believed things you didn't, you already had gotten to know them and so they weren't necessarily "evil" for thinking differently, just "wrong".

These days anyone who thinks different from you is not "wrong", but automatically "evil", "worse than {Hitler,Stalin}", etc. I'm pretty sure there's folks that are "left-wing" here, and I'd guess they're both fairly sure I'm in the other one. Because there's only allowed to be two? You'd think the Europeans at least would know better, but nah, not so much.

I do have some pretty strong opinions about a couple groups that actively made things worse/scary/violent a couple years ago now because I abhor that kind of thing on principle. And I've got a problem with people making accusations where literally X or not X are both "proof" of some grievous sin because apparently they read minds and know that either one is some kind of secret code for what you actually believe …

But even those are enough on social media to get you labeled, branded, and of course, othered. And there's folks who can, have, and do set out to utterly destroy your life over such sins in their own deluded minds. Gotta say I've experienced that coming from one direction than another … but where I live I'm exposed to one faction in far greater numbers than the other. I know they both do it, and I'm personally sick of it.

We can't avoid these things seeping in here now and then because we can't really shut out the world. We are just getting over the scary parts of a pandemic after all. And then now there's a madman who decided to make his best effort to start WWIII as soon as he thought he could get away with it. Even if you could expect people to leave the politics at the door (you can't completely), those are some pretty heavy world events. It's hard to turn them off, especially if you know people affected by the pandemic or either side of Russia's crimes.

In my own case, yes, yes, and yes, though I am pretty fortunate. I know people affected by covid, but anyone I'm close to has recovered pretty well, having avoided it until they were vaccinated against older, more deadly strains. And my Ukranian friends lost homes/neighborhoods, but they got out. My Russian friends are Internet users and never fell for the propaganda and lies. (I worry about one young Svetlana in Moscow who's likely to get herself arrested mocking Putin in big and showy ways in public—be careful and be safe Sveta—but otherwise I'm damned fortunate!) Still, we can't really expect people are gonna be able to turn that off.

But we can offer them a chance to step away from that for a few minutes and enjoy a good game battling monsters and digging for loot. And that's worth something.
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