[MUD-Dev] Re: Mud websites

[J C Lawrence]

On Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:42:03 -0500  
Koster, Raph<rkoster at origin.ea.com> wrote:

> Legend has a website that has won a few awards. It has a web
> discussion board, archives of the in-game lecture series, FAQs, a
> reference section, character bios, links to guild web pages, and the
> game newsletter. And it just about never gets visited by existing
> players.  Does it serve to draw in NEW players? Yeah, probably. But
> for some reason it is not a major contributor to the community. (The
> character web pages are a hit however).

I have attempted to use a wide variety of web based message boards,
from those at various UOL sites, Utne reader, other magazines,
SlashDot, and on.  Several of them I've really wanted to use
extensively for the data they contained.  But, I've been rebuffed
every time.  I don't find them usable, not even slightly usable.  I
can actually use them, with a lot of work and teeth gritting, but the
sheer machination invelved *just* to read a message (What?  I have to
click on that little icon for every single message?) is painful
enough, but to actually post with those horrors is torture.  I utterly
fail to understand *HOW* they get any traffic.  They are almost
mind-numbing to use, to read, to try and follow threads, to post
messages to, etc.

Yet, quite obviously, people do use them, and do post messages with
them.  <boggle>

Perhaps there's a trick?  

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                               Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------(*)                     Internet: claw at under.engr.sgi.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...