How to fill the queues

[Prism]

The administration has to first give a shit. They do not, not even remotely.

The queues falling off a cliff and the site dying out are a wonderful little inevitabilities, and anyone actively trying to recruit or retain players are just sadly fighting the losing fight in ignorance. Let them try if they want but bless their lost souls, hospice is the way.

Zoraster took a vacation in 2020 and it never ended. He doesn't care, no he's not going to pass it off to someone who does, and you're stupid for even thinking anyone wants to play forum mafia in 2022.

[Prism]

I'm hype for Team Mafia 2022, I'm sure the team has put in a lot of effort reworking it this year.

Mini Theme queue which is the lifeblood of the site is completely dead with 0 attempts to revive it on the part of the listmods, either through queueing or a design contest. I wanted to design something (ex. a Persona 5 theme) to throw in there but instead I decided...

Let's do a Large Theme, it probably won't fill but it's worth a shot! I'm the only one queued in two months.

It's sat in the empty large theme queue for 18 days. I made the mistake of waiting on T-Bone once in the MU Championships voting, I made the mistake of waiting on him twice, I'm not falling for this again and waiting on him a third time ever again.

[Prism]

If your view of the administration is as stewards with 0 responsibility to try and galvanize queues, encourage setups, and recruit/retain players, then it is not their fault. I do not believe this, and think that while a hands-off approach might be passable when the site is running, it is inexcusable when it is not.

In their view I'm sure that at least half of the site death and queue slowdown is just a reflection of "the internet/userbase not really wanting forum mafia anymore", even as another site thrives.

While my main criticism is of the queues/playerbase, part of this is entangled with my miserable experience with MU Championships. The administration actively got in the way/effectively sabotaged MU Champs voting only to try to blame it on "the community not really wanting it or putting in the effort", even as we begged the modteam to help organize. It required me to unilaterally step up and essentially strongman it, outline a robust voting system that could be trusted even if I couldn't, and finally AniX (as a discussion mod, bless their soul) deciding to throw me a bone and help out.

It was appallingly negligent. I think their approach to queues/playerbases is the same, and post 5 was all concrete criticism/measures they could take and not at all abstract (TM 2022 w/ lower numbers, queue/contest it for Mini Theme queue, check the Large Theme queue once a month). These are small changes, but there are much larger ones related to site visibility/driving traffic.

[Prism]

I don't really blame zoraster for not keeping tabs on each individual queue. I absolutely blame him for watching playernumbers and queues completely fall off a cliff without thinking that perhaps some sort of intervention or change is in order.