Space10045, The Chinese curse is "May you live in interesting times;" and we certainly do! Yes, Cybertown has changed with the times. For its very survival it has become a pay site. We will, unfortunately, see much more of this in the future. While all of us do like the idea of a free site, we come down to economics. Someone does have to pay for the servers, other equipment, the online bandwidth, telephone lines, etc.
In our world of online fun, volunteers who pay for their subscriptions complete many tasks. In some cases these subscribers are donating even more money to pay for the subscriptions of others! Cybertown is growing according to the statistics, but how many new subscribers? We just do not know; here at CVN. However, we can see how many new people try out Cybertown. Since the beginning of tracking, over 1,043,968 have subscribed to Cybertown as of this writing and it changes daily.
Let's look at the issues you bring up: A time of troubles, Pay site limiting members, event attendance, too many hoods/colonies, too many activities held at the same time, less plaza conversations.
A time of troubles?: Is it a time of troubles? Is it a time of opportunity? Is it a time of experimentation? The answer is an unqualified yes. Life, whether real or virtual, is all of the above. I see undocumented, unstated changes continually happening in Cybertown, just as they happen in real life. As always the members of Cybertown will try out new approaches, new possibilities and experiment with different codes, activities, and ideas as we develop the future of the Internet, now! IVN is our new player/owner and from what I hear from the Colony Leader level, they are actively involved and participating! We look forward at CVN for more hard news from IVN!
Is the pay site concept limiting members?: Yes, it is true. We are helped by the open policy for people to try it for 30 days, and other ideas being put into the effort. Pay sites are always limited by the willingness of people to put money down. Yet, we pay big bucks for movies, music, cable and satellite TV, Internet, …and every crazy thing under the sun. Cybertown is a fun, friendly, learning set of opportunities where you can meet some of the greatest, neatest people who are active on the Internet. You can make friends from all over the world, from the comfort of the computer you are using. Not bad for $5.00 per month, or less on an annual basis.
Event attendance?: This is something everybody needs to look at, me too! We have lots of events out there. They need to be advertised, made known in some central forum. Simply using the calendar, CVN Weekly, are just two ways. What is the best way? Something simple, easy to use that allows people to invite other people. We are trying a corkboard in the weekly. No clues if that will work! It is our new effort.
Too many activities held at the same time?: Yes, this is always a problem in any place where a lot goes on every day. There are always choices to be made. Likewise with meetings, club events, etc., it is impossible to not have more than one event. Online times are variable and WE are a city, with lots of work to accomplish! However the suggestion of coordinating activities is indeed an excellent idea. The live event feature is also a great way to let people know a major event is happening. One possibility is a couple of set times for the beginnings of major events.
Too many hoods/colonies?: Personally, I do not think we can have too many. There are lots who want to experiment at being colony and hood leaders. There are so many great ideas, and until we try them, we shall never know what will work. There are also many peeps deserving of promotion. It is a difficult decision.
Less plaza conversations?: To check this I stopped by. Many people do just peek in and go their own way. Well, I do remember the plaza being the big chat site. I also remember flooding, nonsense, few efforts to really communicate, and difficulty finding people to answer questions. Now so many of these issues are fixed to some degree, reasonable conversations can actually take place in the plaza.
Finally let me touch on one thing that makes Cybertown great. As I was beginning the updates for CVN weekly, various friends contacted me with stories, one-liners to add to a page, Suggestions and a fix for our weekly front page, that has gotten mangled-by me-over the years, and just plain nice conversation. LOL Life really does not get better than that!
