The place is 'too political' - oh dear. Not even sure what that means really. He just may've been lurking on threads with criticism or something. Although this place has definitely headed south I do find it the best place to discuss new Devin releases in particular and it's a good source for information. Can't stand twitter and it's very problematic that the linking of his twitter updates to FB stopped about 9 months ago, although I believe that was twitter. When I remember I check out his twitter account every few weeks. I think his more loyal/hardcore fans are here and it's a shame he doesn't pop in occasionally.

To be serious, I interpreted the "too political" statement to be related to the Mod/Admin side of things. I could be wrong of course.

That said, at least Dev still cares about his fans to communicate with them in other methods, so I suppose this place is a good meeting point for fans who don't wish to use other social media.

The place is 'too political' - oh dear. Not even sure what that means really. He just may've been lurking on threads with criticism or something. Although this place has definitely headed south I do find it the best place to discuss new Devin releases in particular and it's a good source for information. Can't stand twitter and it's very problematic that the linking of his twitter updates to FB stopped about 9 months ago, although I believe that was twitter. When I remember I check out his twitter account every few weeks. I think his more loyal/hardcore fans are here and it's a shame he doesn't pop in occasionally.

Criticism doesn't bother him. If anything, too much adulation would probably give him the most trouble. That isn't it, though. He's been in the business for 20 years, so I'm sure he's had waaay more than his fair share of both. It is a shame that he doesn't feel like participating here, but it is what it is. As far as board politics, I can see it. I've seen it happen on every forum I've ever participated in, and even the one I used to own and run. People change, groups form, and sides are taken. I haven't seen anything extreme occur yet on these forums, but things are happening and the vibe has changed. Enough for Devin to notice, anyway. It may seem silly, but whatever he has seen, he obviously doesn't like, and he doesn't have to be exposed to it if he chooses not to. I wish I could do that with so many aspects of my life. lol

Still, I wouldn't say that his most loyal and hardcore fans are here. If anything, they are the ones following him on Twitter, regardless if they like the media or not. However, that isn't a true statement either. Devin's most loyal and hardcore fan could be someone who doesn't even use the internet.

The forum is still here, and the resources it provides are awesome. I hope the info here doesn't ever totally disappear, or I hope it shows up elsewhere if this place falls apart.

To be serious, I interpreted the "too political" statement to be related to the Mod/Admin side of things. I could be wrong of course.

This place has mods? Haha. Yeah, maybe you're right. I do remember the last time he disappeared was around the Ziltoid release when he flipped over something Tracy said here ending up on Blabbermouth being labelled an 'official press release' - haha! Poor fan whomever he was.

And what Pinkham said too especially about the adulation. It sometimes got a bit cringey when people knew Devin was looking.

But it's a great resource indeed. I'm in a few Dev FB pages/groups and the convos as very poor.

And yes, we should be grateful he is so accessible regardless of medium given his profile.

[swervedriver]

^^ I agree with Mr Pinkham. I can't really comment on the board politics thing objectively, but it certainly didn't help anything. That, and the focus has shifted towards social media such as Twitter and Facebook, which makes sense from a business end as there's very little operational costs, and from a user's perspective as there's no threshold to sign up for anything (other than the account someone probably already has). Still, I think this place still provides a better (and searchable) overview of what's going on with Dev than Facebook at the moment. Twitter may be direct and up to date, but if you don't follow that continuously it becomes a mess as well. If those platforms manage to unclutter some of that and become 'cleaner' discussion platforms, then I can imagine the forums becoming redundant. But hey, while that's not the case yet there's still plenty to discuss here, and on our end it's not too hard to manage this place (eg. keeping spambots out) so no reason to give up on being here.

@Meh: hi.

@Meh: hi.

There's one! Howdy

Paul, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. As always, well said sir. It's sad that the forum isn't sort of the hub it was, and I think that was due a large part to Dev posting here. I did and continue to meet awesome people though, and if for nothing else I like it for that. I've sort of began to post less and less as things are myself, as my life is honestly mostly too busy to post here often. Dev is still out there and available to speak to if you want to though, and I think thats awesome.

In my opinion, everything has ebbs and flows. This is one of the longer chunks of time since Dev's posted on the forums, but who knows; he might come back. If Dev has proven anything in his career it's that he changes his mind and outlook constantly not saying that's a bad thing at all either. I still think this is a great community with great people and as long as those great people stick around, even intermittently, it'll stay that way with or without Dev posting. And I think that even if he doesn't ever again that's something he can be proud of; that great fans of his got to and continue to get to know each other through this forum and built a great community along with it.