The few who remain include:
Ttech (though he was actually always rather innactive on the forums till he became a moderatore, as he was busy with the IRC channel)
George (obviously)
Betel (Sort of, he seems to be popping in and out)
Periculi (Like Betel, though atm I presume he's busy modding, considering how enthused he was over all the new stuff in 1.04 since the last version he used, which IIRC was .99c)
Gambit- (mostly on IRC though)
d1gdug (I think he was 1st gen, from UTF)
Evilbob (sebenko in IRC) was on IRC for quite some time after he became innactive on the forums, though he too seems to have disappeared recently
Fossaman came back once or twice in early '10 IIRC, and Yugi was here for a few posts a few months back, but other than that, its been complete silence.
It's almost as if there are generations:
0th generation: pre-UTF times, when the game first game out. This can be seen in how for example all the bug-reporters have their actual names listed. I presume they were emailing george directly. Some of them went on to start UTF. The community was centered around George.
1st generation: This generation was composed of the people who joined during the days of UTF. From what I can tell, it was an active and lively, community, not all that different from the current levels of activity. At this point, the community is nolonger being directly administered by george, but rather the individual administrators of the community sites (the old modding site and UTF).
2nd generation: This simply marks the transition from UTF to OTF; activity rates were still high, things were continuing as usual, but new users were usually fleeting, at best. I joined towards the end of the 2nd Generation. With the community moved back the OTF, the community became George-centric once again, though those with influence back UTF who migrated over still retained that.
3rd generation: And then, there was a sudden lul in activity. New users slowed to a trickle, as george got busy and was not able to keep up with activating new users on a semi-regular basis as he did before. It was here that many people from the 0th and 1st generation who were still active seemed to leave all within a short period of time. Activity declined sharply. This created something analogous to a power vacuum. George was busy with developing the game and RL, and the influential old regulars had mostly left. The community was still reliant on George, but it was not really centered on him at this point, given that he was busy developing the game and with his job.
4th generation: The power vacuum of the prior generation resulting several things filling it. First off, George appointed Gambit to Admin. Now that gambit, who was readily accessible on IRC by the regulars, was capable of activating new members, there was something of a revival, even if it was slight by comparison to generation 1/2 days. The forum was also restructured, and the Tinkerers group was also created. Given that the community was being again empowered through this manner, a new group of 'regulars' began to form. Realizing that filling the leadership-activity void that was left was a good catalyst for increasing activity, I began to try various methods of stimulating the community into higher levels of activity, just as frequent posting, modding competitions, and in general being extremely active myself in a constructive manner (as a result of this policy, my posts account for nearly 10% of those on OTF). With influence over the community in the community's hands, at least due to unofficial actions, the community became centered on the regulars, who were capable of much more quickly responding to the needs of the community, given that at least one regular was usually around at any given time. While it was a significant improvement over the prior generation in terms of activity levels, there was a large way to go until generation 1/2 activity levels could be reached. There was still only so much gambit could do, especially given he was still fairly innactive, as george was.
5th Generation: The current generation: This started with the promotion of the regulars to administrative and moderator statuses. With the power to directly administrate the community; primarily in the regards to OTF account activation, things have picked up significantly, bringing activity levels to something that hasn't been since since the days of UTF. This change essentially brought back the old community dynamic that had been present back in the days of UTF, by making the community nearly completely self-managing. Thus situations now could be acted upon as soon as they arose, as opposed to having to wait for gambit or george's avaliability.
So this is my experience; how I see the community as having evolved in 6 distinct phases. I myself had little experience with generation 2, having arrived towards the end, only second-hand experience with generation 1, and no experience with generation 0, other than what I have been able to glean from various sources (ie, change-logs, analysis of dates, scraps of information here and there etc.) - all of it interpolated.
My experience of generations 3 4 and 5 however are much more detailed, and I see them in light of my own experiences and actions: as you see, and also very much from the perspective of one of the regulars, attributing the changes in activity to our own actions. Though I must say it is most likely not a coincidence
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
But I'm curious; what is your experience, and your perspective on the history of the community? How do you see it as having changed and evolved?