Submission in Queue for 3 Months

[littlelum]

I don't want to be that guy, but I made a submission to the main site back in April, a ROM hack, but it still hasn't been processed yet. I'm fine if it gets rejected due to only being one level, but if that's the case, I'd rather have it be "officially" rejected rather than submit in limbo.

Also somewhat related, I submitted a game about 3 weeks ago. I know the format is a little unusual, but again, if that's an issue, I'd rather have it be rejected outright instead of permanently sitting in limbo.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I know that sometime processing submissions takes a while, so I apologize if I come across as rude or anything like that.

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[Vitiman]

I don't think it's a great look that not a single staff member has replied to this yet. Even if there are justifiable reasons for this being held up in the queue for this long, communication with staff is the whole point of this sub-forum. I'm far from a complaining-all-the-time-type when it comes to how MFGG handles its business, but even I think this is fairly disappointing.

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[Mors]

Most of the current community activity is on Discord, and we do respond questions asked there fairly quickly. If anyone has any questions about really anything MFGG related feel free to just ping me there and I will answer as soon as I can.

The sad reality is that in the modern age, forums are a bit of a dying medium. Like, MFGG's userbase has always been on the younger end, and the younger generation these days just prefers to use Discord, so that's where our focus is. It's just way more convenient, everyone has a discord account, and joining a server takes no effort, as opposed to making a whole forum account which is a bit of a commitment for most people!

I think there really is a discussion to be had on this though. Like, should we reconsider our approach? Is it worth revitalizing the forums with more focus, or would it be a better idea consider phasing it all out? You know, as opposed to just abandoning it to be lurked by a few oldheads and no one else, with little staff involvement outside of banning the bots...

About the queue, we are also a bit understaffed at the moment, and really a lot of our QC members we have aren't properly equipped to deal with the hacks section. Looking at the hacks queue, it seems to REALLY have piled up, and I'm right in the middle of a crunch period for a commercial game myself so I don't have the time to help with it too. In hindsight it wasn't exactly the best idea to branch out to ROM hacks when the QC already had so much to deal with, but what's done has been done and I don't fault the past MFGG staff for wanting to branch out, I was on board with it too.

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[VinnyVideo]

Hindsight is 20/20, but part of me wonders if adding a hacks section wasn't the best idea, since processing hack submissions takes a bit more time and know-how than processing stand-alone games. Another part of me wonders if it's good to have multiple sites hosting these things, considering just how fragile some ROM-hacking communities have been.

I disagree with the assumption that the "community" has unanimously moved on to Discord. Judging from forum topics like this one and this one, there's an appetite for the forums to be a vibrant place.

Moreover, every indication I see is that the MFGG Discord's activity level is a tiny fraction of what it was 3-4 years ago. The #general-chat channel has 24 messages in the past 24 hours. I remember on the unofficial Skype groups of less than a decade ago, I'd often go to bed, check again in the morning, and find 1,000+ new messages waiting for me! While September is traditionally a slow month for MFGG, the MFGG Discord seemed pretty sleepy in the summer as well.

MFGG's audience is considerably older than it once was. That's not the end of the world - having a calmer, more mature crowd can be a good thing - it's also true that we oldsters usually have more responsibilities and less free time than we once did! I suspect younger teenagers - historically the lifeblood of sites like MFGG - might be harder to engage with forums, Discord, and other text-based media. MFGG is the opposite of TikTok.

It's tougher to be the admin of any online community than it was 10 years ago - especially a Mario fansite. However, it's important for our current staff to be active and engaged in every part of the site. I can understand how some of the discourse around fangaming can be a bit demoralizing (not to mention the ever-growing bot problem), but if you're an admin and you don't have the time or motivation to participate regularly, it's important to promote new people who'd be enthusiastic about helping out.

MFGG would benefit from some discussions about the direction it's going. But we'd also benefit from fixing some of the obvious problems that are within our control - for example, going five months without a Twitter post isn't great, and going two months without a mainsite update is really bad.

Course clear! You got a card.

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