RPGWatch - The End is Nigh

I truly hope RPGWatch can continue to be the way it is. I've discovered quite a few gems that would have otherwise gone under my radar, and it is always a moment of excitement to load the site and see what's new in the RPG world.


@Myrthos If it has to go, thank you for all the work you put in, and I wish you nothing but the peace and joy you well deserve, away from the stress and responsibility that is maintaining the site.

Originally Posted by Eye
This site contains a lot of personal data that is protected by European and Dutch laws. Even if @Myrthos would like to be less picky (which he is entitled to seeing the time and effort spent - you don't hand your baby over to just someone who checked all or some of your boxes) I would strongly advise him to tread carefully. You can not just give away thousands of e-mail addresses, to mention just some of the personal data.

With "right people" I meant someone from the moderator team or other people Myrthos knows. Fair enough, it sounds easier to restart the site under the same URL and store the current RPGWatch content in a repository similar to RPGDot at the moment. One could just have broken usernames there without any personal data. Probably more complex than that…

Are there not "readymade" solutions one could use? Something like: https://itsfoss.com/open-source-forum-software/

Originally Posted by lackblogger
Is it impossible to pass the reins on to someone else?

This.

This site is the second thing I check every morning and has been the best way to discover new games I may be interested in.

Thank you for all your efforts over the years. I've been here since the start. (and before)

I'm not sure where I will go for my regular RPG updates any more! You'll be missed.

Daniel.

Originally Posted by largh
With "right people" I meant someone from the moderator team or other people Myrthos knows. Fair enough, it sounds easier to restart the site under the same URL and store the current RPGWatch content in a repository similar to RPGDot at the moment. One could just have broken usernames there without any personal data. Probably more complex than that

Yup. A siteowner is allowed to archive the contents of a site for his own personal use, IIRC publishing an archive in some form or another officially requires the permission of all posters involved, since you are using it in a different way than they were aware of when posting their text.

GDPR must have added a lot of work when it came out.

Most likely, all of RPGWatch is available at web.archive.org and always will be. Harder to use that way than having a real forum archive with a functional search, etc, though.

"My Watch is ended." -Jon Snow

Myrthos, you have been an incredible anchor for this community. You dedication to the sharing of news of all things RPG related has been much appreciated. You did an amazing job bringing us content on a daily basis.

I have been part of this community since 2012. I am struck with grief as I would be if an old friend had passed. RPGWatch has become my morning ritual for the past decade. In fact, RPGWatch is the first favorite in my favorites tool bar. and from here I know not what shall replace it. There is no other site that I visit more often or more consistently.

RPGWatch will be missed and leave a small hole in the universe that could never be replaced.

Lue.

End of an Era if so, hopefully things can continue somehow or another as this has been one of the few daily constants in online life since…a great many years on back now.

Originally Posted by pibbuR
I have been using PHP and SQL (mostly Oracle and MS Sqlserver) a lot. It's been a while, so I am a bit rusty ATM, but hopefully it wouldn't take long to be up to date again.

No doubt there are watchers more qualified than I. But OTOH I am retired and have all the time in the world.

select w.watcher from watchers w where w.nick in ('pibbur','pibbuR','pibbur who', 'a pibbur','pibbur42','pibbur0x2a') AND w.willing_to_contribute=TRUE AND w.is_competent='MAYBE';

'PS. If I were to contribute it would be for programming and to some degree maintenance only. I'm definitely not administrator or moderator stuff. DS.

Please do

I nominate @HiddenX, @Eye, @Jaz, @Silver, @Gorath, @Corwin and a few others to act as your moderators
I also nominate @Couchpotato to be your newsposter alongside Silver & Hidden.

EDIT: I missed @Arhu and @forgottenlor - sorry.

Unfortunately I haven't heard much from @Jaz and @Gorath for a long time.

The current active staff members are just:
Admins: Myrthos, Arhu
Moderators: Corwin, Eye
News Editors: Silver, HiddenX
Editor: forgottenlor, Corwin

Originally Posted by Pladio
Please do

I nominate @HiddenX, @Eye, @Jaz, @Silver, @Gorath, @Corwin and a few others to act as your moderators
I also nominate @Couchpotato to be your newsposter alongside Silver & Hidden.

This is starting to look like a plan. And let's best not ask them but just kinda stealth them into their new jobs unawares!

Thank you! To Myrthos and the rest of the staff, thank you so much for all the time and work maintaining my favorite site on the internet. I know I don't post much but I've been around forever and I'm on the site every single day.

I'd also vote for a sub-reddit, seems like the perfect solution.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Unfortunately I haven't heard much from @Jaz and @Gorath for a long time.

The current active staff members are just:
Admins: Myrthos, Arhu
Moderators: Corwin, Eye
News Editors: Silver, HiddenX
Editor: forgottenlor, Corwin

Do the teams have to be so small? A different concept, but for example Stack Exchange operates with many moderators who are elected by the community.

With larger teams there would be less work for single individuals, more flexibility (not everyone is always available), and one could keep the quality up by having some sort of way to communicate (own forum, Slack, discord, whatever). If somebody does not follow the common rules, one can give a note and from multiple notes consider removing the person from the admin group.

Originally Posted by largh
Do the teams have to be so small? A different concept, but for example Stack Exchange operates with many moderators who are elected by the community.

With larger teams there would be less work for single individuals, more flexibility (not everyone is always available), and one could keep the quality up by having some sort of way to communicate (own forum, Slack, discord, whatever). If somebody does not follow the common rules, one can give a note and from multiple notes consider removing the person from the admin group.

I don't think we're a very big site though. Not sure there was a need for a lot of moderation. Obviously I could be very wrong.

On a site where an owner is reponsible for security and content the staff can only be selected/approved by the owner not by the community.

We had @Redglyph as news poster and @Ripper as moderator, but both stepped down recently.

Originally Posted by Pladio
I don't think we're a very big site though. Not sure there was a need for a lot of moderation. Obviously I could be very wrong.

Considering that even the politics section mostly is decently civil, I'd say there's not much use for lots of moderators.

I'd be very happy if some sort of solution came out where the community and the sharing of news kept going.

I've gotten to know about a lot of little known gems over the years thanks to people here, and a lot of the posters are helpful and respectful, even when disagreeing about things.

Thanks to everyone who kept it going for as long as it did (and for the last three months as well ).

This place will be missed.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Only other site that shares gathers/aggregate news like RPGWatch is called N4G. They cover console and PC news though it's not RPG focused, and not that easy to comment.

https://n4g.com/

Thanks for the tip. But it's really hard to comment as well as to navigate/browse on it.

Originally Posted by Pladio
- https://www.worldofplayers.de/ - probably the most avid PB community out there but with news and discussions on lots of other games/topics - so would be very useful for some of our member - main issue is they're mostly German - but they've been hyper helpful in English to me whenever I asked and I'm sure too others too. I would assume they'd be fine with a couple hundred migrants.

Isn't there an EN version? I know they can be very supportive when we talk in English (SureAI forum members also are), but I just can't read almost nothing in German, barring the English (and sometimes Portuguese) cognate words.

Originally Posted by shamroxor
Give gamebanshee some love https://www.gamebanshee.com/

Hey, this is more easy to navigate. But… isn't there are many comments there, right? I mean, where is their community?