State of the forum

[Marshal Davout]

Originally Posted by Paulina

I think another reason why people just aren’t staying on the forum is because a lot of people are using phones as their main mode of internet communication. Unfortunately less people today spend time in front of a desktop or laptop when browsing the internet and are more likely to use their phones instead. When it comes to niche interests less people are visiting forums and more people are visiting Reddit, discord, twitter and Facebook because of their phone friendly user layout. I hate it so much but this is sadly the state of today’s internet discussion outlets. What makes individual forums great is that the communities are smaller and there’s a chance to actually get to know users and their personalities. Twitter, Reddit and Facebook are just so vast and the number of users is way too big to actually get to know users on a one on one basis.

Quite a few of the forums I visited and frequented over a decade ago have moved their servers over to discord. I can’t say I’m a fan of discord. I’ve never been into chat rooms which is basically what discord is. If you want to find information or a comment someone made that had some good content attached to it, good luck because that simply doesn’t exist with discord. While reddit is great for finding answers to a question you may have asked on google, I wouldn’t say it’s great for community and getting to know users. There’s a lot of censorship on Reddit as well. Nobody likes trolls or people creating flamewars but Reddit takes things a bit too far with the banhammer. Twitter is like a large Petco aquarium tank filled with tons of feeder mice all shouting into the void. No meaningful discussion is likely to take place due to so many trolls and bots and you have a limit of what you can actually type unless you’re paying Elon’s monthly fee for a premium account. Lastly, on Facebook you can have groups but these groups are subject to spammers with “witch doctors” from Nigeria asking everyone to send them money on Telegram along with fake widow or widowed profiles “wanting to get to know you better.” Reporting these users also risks your group getting removed. And probably one of the worst aspects, due to Facebook’s strict algorithm to seek out “harmful content” users can find themselves being temporarily banned for saying something as innocuous as “That workout really beat my ass.”

While it’s great Alizée’s early works such as Moi Lolita and J’en ai Marre are still attracting new listeners, I wish they would stick around and give her other stuff a chance too. Her albums 5 and Blonde were a lot of fun!

As for Alizée herself, I think she has obtained her dream and I am happy for her for that. From the days of Moi Lolita, she even said in interviews that her dream was to teach children to dance and become a dance teacher which is what she did. She has a family now and even lets us see the bits of joy she is experiencing on a daily basis as a mother on instagram.

I’ll be honest, a forum like this existing today is rarity. And I really don’t know how it can compete for attention spans and focus of today’s phone user base especially younger users (Gen-Z, Gen-Alpha). Most internet users today have short attention spans and don’t want to actually read or discuss anything on a deeper level. If your posts aren’t less than five sentences the users will just close their tab and move on to the next shortly gratifying piece of entertainment.

I remember there was a user named RMJ and another user who got Alizée tattooed on his back with butterfly wings who were big forum contributors, especially RMJ with his photography. Any idea what happened to both of them?

Gee I thought I was up to date mostly; but Paulina has shown me that I am possibly Redundant ! Ha ! I am an odd user; as I don't use my cell phone much; so I thought that AlizeeAmerica was the Cat's Meow ! Interestingly; when I promote Alizee's videos; I tell people to search for this video or that video; and they find the one video; but they don't seem to find any of the others ? It's like they don't know to click on the channel's Avator to get to all the videos; so they only find the one video I tell them to search for ? Or at least it seems that way to me ?

[Bamagirl]

Originally Posted by Paulina

I can’t say I’m a fan of discord. I’ve never been into chat rooms which is basically what discord is. If you want to find information or a comment someone made that had some good content attached to it, good luck because that simply doesn’t exist with discord. While reddit is great for finding answers to a question you may have asked on google, I wouldn’t say it’s great for community and getting to know users. There’s a lot of censorship on Reddit as well. Nobody likes trolls or people creating flamewars but Reddit takes things a bit too far with the banhammer. Twitter is like a large Petco aquarium tank filled with tons of feeder mice all shouting into the void. No meaningful discussion is likely to take place due to so many trolls and bots and you have a limit of what you can actually type unless you’re paying Elon’s monthly fee for a premium account. Lastly, on Facebook you can have groups but these groups are subject to spammers with “witch doctors” from Nigeria asking everyone to send them money on Telegram along with fake widow or widowed profiles “wanting to get to know you better.” Reporting these users also risks your group getting removed. And probably one of the worst aspects, due to Facebook’s strict algorithm to seek out “harmful content” users can find themselves being temporarily banned for saying something as innocuous as “That workout really beat my ass.”

I want thank you for the rundown of social media sites. I have heard of Discord,Reddit and of course Twitter, but never use them. Your snapshots of each are wonderfully descriptive!
Also, you are 100% right about FB. I moderate a group and actually got a warning from FB for posting group rules!

[Paulina]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

That would be Jenny, I believe. I sent her a PM back in 2019 or around there asking her if she can share her library of videos she took while at Les Enfoires (she did).

Back then, she still was a fan of Alizee and loved her even though she had been inactive on this forum for a while prior. She got married and had kids and they became her priority.

I suspect that similar things happen to most fans of anybody, not just Alizee.

I did a search for her in the members list and she is here! Jenny_HRO87. Her last post was on 10-01-2022. Understandably, once someone becomes a parent their priorities in life change and their attention is placed outside of their hobbies and instead towards their family.

Originally Posted by Marshal Davout

Gee I thought I was up to date mostly; but Paulina has shown me that I am possibly Redundant ! Ha ! I am an odd user; as I don't use my cell phone much; so I thought that AlizeeAmerica was the Cat's Meow ! Interestingly; when I promote Alizee's videos; I tell people to search for this video or that video; and they find the one video; but they don't seem to find any of the others ? It's like they don't know to click on the channel's Avator to get to all the videos; so they only find the one video I tell them to search for ? Or at least it seems that way to me ?

There’s probably still users out there that are still doing the majority of their internet browsing on a desktop or laptop but Apple made a cultural shift with the iPhone and now many (especially younger users) are using their phones and tablets to browse the web. Instead of using a desktop or laptop switching from different tabs containing individual different websites in their browser it’s now users using a touchscreen phone or tablet and switching from one app to another. A lot of Gen Z kids that I have worked with really don’t use individual websites, instead they switch between apps with the big ones being TikTok, Reddit, X, YouTube, Netflix, Discord and Instagram. Unfortunately, it’s kind of dumbing them down. They don’t really know how to query and use search engines to find what they’re looking for. Then again, they were born into an era where all the information they need is already accessible through these apps. YouTube didn’t have ANYTHING when it was starting out in 2006. Now, you can find almost EVERYTHING on YouTube. Looking for some obscure 70’s French film? Videos taken directly from paid college courses? Or rare interviews of celebrities that were previously only accessible through someone’s recorded VHS tapes? Chances are it’s all now on YouTube. On the other hand, It’s kind of the fisher-price-i-fication of the web. Graphic user interface for touchscreen devices are made to where even the dumbest person can navigate it and this applies to the apps as well. Apps are designed to be extremely simple and low effort to use. Big bright icons that only have a few options to select. So easy a caveman could do it.

I admit, when I got my first phone in 2013 (which was an iPhone 4s) I WAS HOOKED. it became like an extra appendage, almost always on me and never leaving my sight. I was able to browse my favorite sites wherever and whenever I wanted to and I wasn’t confined to the desktop in my room and it wasn’t like carrying my laptop which felt like extra bulk lugging around. However, as time went on, more and more of my favorite sites started disappearing and getting swallowed by Reddit, Discord, Twitter and Facebook. It was cheaper to close the individual forums and instead move them to subreddits and discord servers, but the cost was losing a sense of community and individuality. Yeah, you could move the AlizéeAmerica forum to a subreddit but you will lose individuality of users. Almost everyone has the same avatar, no signatures and no customization of how everything looks (think of the move from MySpace to FaceBook) You also run into the same issue as X as having way too many users and the inability to vet trolls effectively. I should also add Reddit is famous for rage farming, ie people purposely making posts whether true or fake for the mere purpose of making a lot of people angry.

Originally Posted by Bamagirl

I want thank you for the rundown of social media sites. I have heard of Discord,Reddit and of course Twitter, but never use them. Your snapshots of each are wonderfully descriptive!
Also, you are 100% right about FB. I moderate a group and actually got a warning from FB for posting group rules!

No problem! I’m glad a could give a picture of what these alternatives are like. Forums like this are an absolute gem, they’re difficult to find and even if you do find them they are lacking users and are often ghost towns with hardly any recent posts. I would REALLY hate to see this site go away or get sucked into the mentioned alternatives which is why I’m willing to chip in some money if I can to still keep it running.
I have joined a few groups on FaceBook and honestly the conversations just lack depth. Not to mention I rarely see a user post more than once. My FaceBook feed seems like it’s 90% ads now. Friends do post but I actually have to click on their profile to see updates they have made.

[CleverCowboy]

Originally Posted by Paulina

I’ll be honest, a forum like this existing today is a rarity. And I really don’t know how it can compete for attention spans and focus of today’s phone user base especially younger users (Gen-Z, Gen-Alpha). Most internet users today have short attention spans and don’t want to actually read or discuss anything on a deeper level. If your posts aren’t less than five sentences the users will just close their tab and move on to the next shortly gratifying piece of entertainment.

100% correct. I see this is real life everywhere. Go into any waiting room and everybody is looking at their phone. Short attention spans and lack of depth equals minds that can easily be influenced and controlled. Try to start a real conversation and you get funny looks, and that includes family, especially the younger family members. Maybe the younger set are afraid of saying anything against the approved narrative or utter a banned word and be canceled.

Because of this and other reasons, I have pretty much zero social media participation. I have an FB account like everybody but rarely go on. I have an IG account and I only follow Alizee and a few other accounts associated with Alizee.

The chat box on this site used to be used often up to 2018. The admin at that time liked to small talk and he drew an audience. The problem was that we were hurting for new threads and posts and some of the chats could have made great threads. Scruffy and I started encouraging members to post instead and we had some success at the expense of the admin. He got mad about it and left the forum.

We've had some threads on giving the forum a makeover, and one of the topics was the need for a chat box because removing it altogether was a thought. The younger members liked the chat feature. In fact, some suggested moving the site to Discord and one created a channel already. I have never been on Discord or plan to. Chatting takes your full attention to participate and would be a nightmare to moderate. Plus there was only so much going on in Alizee's life at that time to talk about, so either there would be little to no chatting or members would find something to argue about.

This forum is full of great threads and well thought out posts. I spent a LOT of time reading through the history and got to "know" members that I never directly interacted with since they left before I joined. Since I've joined, many of the members that are still here or have come and gone I would consider as friends. It's pretty crazy to think about that, but that is the power of forums and the written word. On FB, the meaning of "friends" mean little. A few of my FB friends have THOUSANDS of friends. How is that even possible? It takes time to make a friend and more time to keep a friend.

I really would like to see this forum keep going. Shutting it down would be like closing a chapter in my life that I don't want to finish.

[Magnetic Lili]

We may tell ourselves that the website is outdated and does not encourage us to use it. It's all true. However, when we follow an artist, the most important thing will always be new content, and Alizee has given us very little of that in recent years. This forum is a real treasure for new Alizee fans, but the lack of new content can effectively kill even the greatest fascination. An example would be an Alizee fan from Finland who registered here about two years ago and seemed to have a real obsession with Alizee. I checked that the last time he logged in here was almost exactly a year ago.

So we see that without new content directly from Alizee, it will be difficult to increase traffic on the website, and we can't count on that, because she already leads a different life.

I think it is also important that users who visit us from time to time mark their presence in some way, just like Paulina did above.

Maybe we could make a list of users who would be able to help/replace Mr. Scruffy in the process of financially supporting the forum?

[Marshal Davout]

Originally Posted by Magnetic Lili

We may tell ourselves that the website is outdated and does not encourage us to use it. It's all true. However, when we follow an artist, the most important thing will always be new content, and Alizee has given us very little of that in recent years. This forum is a real treasure for new Alizee fans, but the lack of new content can effectively kill even the greatest fascination. An example would be an Alizee fan from Finland who registered here about two years ago and seemed to have a real obsession with Alizee. I checked that the last time he logged in here was almost exactly a year ago.

So we see that without new content directly from Alizee, it will be difficult to increase traffic on the website, and we can't count on that, because she already leads a different life.

I think it is also important that users who visit us from time to time mark their presence in some way, just like Paulina did above.

Maybe we could make a list of users who would be able to help/replace Mr. Scruffy in the process of financially supporting the forum?

I'd be willing to help financially to keep the Forum up as one of the users.
I went to the Home Page and the Donations section; but that uses Paypal and I don't utilize that at present, so I don't know if I would want to go there ! If there was someplace I could send a check or subsidize the forum some other way I would do that ( Hopefully for only part of the cost ! )

[Paulina]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

The chat box on this site used to be used often up to 2018. The admin at that time liked to small talk and he drew an audience. The problem was that we were hurting for new threads and posts and some of the chats could have made great threads. Scruffy and I started encouraging members to post instead and we had some success at the expense of the admin. He got mad about it and left the forum. We've had some threads on giving the forum a makeover, and one of the topics was the need for a chat box because removing it altogether was a thought. The younger members liked the chat feature. In fact, some suggested moving the site to Discord and one created a channel already. I have never been on Discord or plan to. Chatting takes your full attention to participate and would be a nightmare to moderate. Plus there was only so much going on in Alizee's life at that time to talk about, so either there would be little to no chatting or members would find something to argue about.

Here is my thoughts on chat rooms and chat boxes and Discord: They’re great for bringing people together for just shooting the shit but they don’t promote real in depth discussion about the main focus of whatever site they’re used on. You can post images and video links in Discord but you can’t search for them later like you can in a forum like this. I used to frequent a very popular anime forum back in the day. We had a chat box above the forum for people to use when they didn’t have real in depth discussions to talk about. It wasn’t so bad because these users still used the forum and made posts. In addition it wasn’t A TON of users using the chat box either. There are some chat rooms and Discord servers that have so many users that it’s like a bunch of feeder mice moving frantically in a box. So many people are talking at once you can’t keep track of any of the users or their comments. You just see a username and comment for a brief second and it’s immediately replaced by another in the next second. No coherent discussions can take place either.
I like the way the site and the forum looks however I can see some users probably wanting a more phone friendly layout. My only complaint is the lack of a video section with subtitled videos. There are A LOT of Alizée interviews out there and a lot have never been translated. As for users not making as many posts as in the past it’s understandable because Alizée really isn’t making music anymore and isn’t making as many TV appearances like she used to. I think the latest thing she has done is a small appearance on The Masked Singer. She does make posts on instagram almost daily so there is that.

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

This forum is full of great threads and well thought out posts. I spent a LOT of time reading through the history and got to "know" members that I never directly interacted with since they left before I joined. Since I've joined, many of the members that are still here or have come and gone I would consider as friends. It's pretty crazy to think about that, but that is the power of forums and the written word. On FB, the meaning of "friends" mean little. A few of my FB friends have THOUSANDS of friends. How is that even possible? It takes time to make a friend and more time to keep a friend.

There was someone from Norway that I met on this forum back in 2008 and we are still friends today!
One of the ways of making friends online back in the day was using forums like this and then after figuring out the personality of the users you could try becoming friends with them on a messaging application like MSN messenger, AIM, YIM or IRC. I have friends that I made back in 2004 on other forums and we still amazingly talk to each other 19 years later. I have even met up with a few of them in person in real life. I don’t think a chat room application like discord can offer the same thing.
When I first started using FaceBook I was in high school and it was for adding people that you knew and were friends with in real life. People starting using it to add not just friends but acquaintances that they only met for a minute at an event or get-together as well. That’s why you’ll see some people that have over 2,000 friends, they don’t actually know all of these people they just add them because it makes their E-Penis look bigger. There were a couple people in my high school who would try to add EVERY single person at our school who had a facebook account. It was just to make them look more popular than they actually were. People used to say if you only had 50 friends on Facebook then you were a loser. It’s funny looking back, because at one point in time people who communicated a lot through the internet were considered geeks, losers and nerds. And now, the majority of the population is now primarily communicating through text and online outlets. It’s just now the discussions have gotten shorter and dumber due to a lot of forums closing down and getting absorbed into the alternatives like Reddit, Twitter, FaceBook and Discord.

[Noppo555]

Originally Posted by Magnetic Lili

Maybe we could make a list of users who would be able to help/replace Mr. Scruffy in the process of financially supporting the forum?

I could help a bit, since it would be a shame to see the forum go, even though I don't participate as much as other users.

About the forum, I've been thinking the landing page should be completely reworked and new sections should be added, like photos, videos and magazines. I believe we could spread all the content through multiple Google drive accounts, so there's no cost in hosting the albums.

I have a simple design in mind that I could translate to Figma and maybe do myself.

Another thing - I believe there's free forum software other than vBulletin that we could migrate the forum to, so there's no licensing costs; it would all boil down to just hosting and storage costs, so I believe that's a better future proof solution than paying for such an old vBulletin version. This forum is not mobile friendly, which might deter zoomers from visiting and witnessing history.

[CleverCowboy]

Originally Posted by Paulina

I like the way the site and the forum looks however I can see some users probably wanting a more phone friendly layout. My only complaint is the lack of a video section with subtitled videos. There are A LOT of Alizée interviews out there and a lot have never been translated. As for users not making as many posts as in the past it’s understandable because Alizée really isn’t making music anymore and isn’t making as many TV appearances like she used to. I think the latest thing she has done is a small appearance on The Masked Singer. She does make posts on instagram almost daily so there is that.

There is a vBulletin phone app, but requires the forum be at least version 5. We are stuck on version 3.8.4. I am in 100% agreement we need something phone friendly. Today you can pretty much do everything on a handheld device so laptops will probably go the way of desktop computers, into the dustbin of history.

Personally, I still prefer a desktop with multiple hi-rez monitors. But I'm in IT, and IT folks need the extra computing horsepower and multiple monitors. Maybe the phone chips will advance to the point where it can serve as the main CPU for a workstation and support multiple external monitors. Just plug it into a docking station. But I am getting ahead of myself!

Edit:

Originally Posted by Noppo555

About the forum, I've been thinking the landing page should be completely reworked and new sections should be added, like photos, videos and magazines. I believe we could spread all the content through multiple Google drive accounts, so there's no cost in hosting the albums.

I have a simple design in mind that I could translate to Figma and maybe do myself.

Another thing - I believe there's free forum software other than vBulletin that we could migrate the forum to, so there's no licensing costs; it would all boil down to just hosting and storage costs, so I believe that's a better future proof solution than paying for such an old vBulletin version. This forum is not mobile friendly, which might deter zoomers from visiting and witnessing history.

It might take some searching, but we have had multiple detailed threads about revamping this site and exchanged ideas, etc. The landing page is, of course, where the most focus was. As it became more apparent that a whole new platform probably would not happen at that time, just changing the picture would be a big win. However, even that did not happen.

We thought of starting from scratch with a whole new site, but that would mean losing all the history and that idea was dropped. I still think our best bet would be to upgrade to vBulletin 5+ and let vBulletin host (prices are very reasonable). They will even convert an older vBulletin site to the new version and retain all its history for free, but they have to host.

They do not allow any 3rd party software, so we would lose our chat box and there would be only so much we could do with the landing page. But we cannot win them all.

[Marshal Davout]

I Freaked Out ! As last night I could not access Alizee America for some reason; maybe it was local or something; so I imagined all sorts of things ! I got "Server Unavailable" or "Server taking too long to answer" messages. But I could access all other websites ! So since I have become addicted to AA And Alizee; I would just like to reiterate I would see if I could come up with $25 a month to keep it up, if that is what it takes for as long as I am still kicking ! I would just need to know where I could send a check or do it some other way. [ How else am I going to date all of the French, EU, NATO, and other Girls all over the world in their Clumpy Shoes , when I make it to Europe and elsewhere if I do not have it ? Ha ! ]