Wehre is evryone?

50 players in league structures was just a rough estimate of how many people join channel and play their games on a regular basis, didn t know it was that elusive and difficult to understand. One glance at the ranking shows there it s less players than for example 2 years ago. There are hundreads of reasons for hundreads of players who used to play but quited. Some of them come back some won t. If someone expects site to grow and numbers of new fans to keep joining month after month rather than the opposite I d say he lives in a different reality. SWOS generation enters the age when various obligations don t leave much time for playing their beloved game, sad but true.

Nobody said your post was difficult to understand. HairFu raised a question and the answer was pretty clear.
Nobody said that the number of users is expected to constantly grow.
Some people have other things on their minds, what about the ones that are here? It s not just a question of numbers after all.

Some people have other things on their minds, what about the ones that are here?

I am one of those who are here, de facto.
And I have no problems to find an opponent, help a newbie, or have a nice conversation with a fellow member in a private chat.
Maybe it s considered as unnormal if someone does not have a problem. But that s just another mirror of today s societies.

I am one of those who are here, de facto.
And I have no problems to find an opponent, help a newbie, or have a nice conversation with a fellow member in a private chat.

Neither do I and I m not pointing at you or anyone else specifically. I agree with HairFu that there seems to be less participation nowadays whenever you try to organize something or just play single matches; that s not like saying it s impossible or that nobody cares, it s just harder (I think because there are less people and the general attitude is different).
Surely while there have been better times for this community we can still do our best to help who s new, try to keep them interested in the game, etc.

About the presumed problems I don t think it s unnormal if you don t have any of them; of course we have different views, that s what makes the world interesting.

different playing styles makes it interesting too

i am coding coding coding .... and so on

but next year i will be on 3 tournaments at least for sure ^^ to talk play and do something other


in the beginning of the website i never thougt, that so much players are playing such a long time ^^

There is one question remaining:
What do you want to talk about in the public chat? About sunny weather?

SWOS wise, there is not too much left we haven t talked about yet over the years.
And almost every conversation about the game is documentated in various forum topics around here. Even triple standing headers, as an example which goes into extremum.
Rules wise, it s about the same.


And as I mentioned earlier in this topic I prefer private chats for private issues. So does everybody else, I suppose!

(Exclaimer: This (long, sorry!) post isn’t criticizing any one individual etc., please don’t take it that way.)


The one thing I totally agree with is the lack of participation in friendly tournaments etc..
I ve tried to organize a few (as the above mentioned Nations Challenge which I cancelled due to a lack of feedback), some work, some don t. It’d be great to see some more spontaneous things happen (e.g. DjowGer’s cup a while back), and more non-nation based friendly tournaments. I miss the (one-evening) tournaments. As you all know I try to create tournaments etc. for different focus groups, and some which are a bit different (e.g. 3 Stars/ 4 Stars, Unfriendly League, E-League, One Half Cup etc.). I’d like to see more outside-of-the-box things, like Lobo’s Great Escape Tournament, in which everyone can participate (you can all still join until the 21st by the way ). To combat the problems new players have, maybe create a new league (which would show up in the main Tables page) which is only for new players (winner gets promoted to the lowest tier of ASL?). Keep the ideas coming to help keep the swos-flame alive!

One thing I ve noticed is how people sign up for things, play a few matches....and then it all grinds to a halt. Quite a lot of players don’t seem to be bothered to find opponents, and just wait for the organizer to make decisions. This rarely happens between players of the same nationality….why? It can be irritating for both player and organizer, and that can’t be good for our community. Respect plays a role too (e.g. the topic concerning a player remarking that his game against a new member was “easy”, or people posting smiley’s/ hahahaha when they win etc.), but I believe that these instances are few and far between. A bit more effort to eradicate this, could go a long way.

I use the chat a lot, but to be honest I’m another person who almost always talks “in private” with other members. If these conversations counted towards the channel stats I think I’d be even higher up the “talks too much”-rankings than now . Last Sunday we even created a new channel in which the seven of us talked about various subjects ranging from Bosnian folk music to asking why Bulgarian and English footballers rarely succeed in a foreign country. Since Hesus left I can’t remember many public conversations in the chat. But maybe this is all just a reflection of these forums. What do we really discuss here….just about nothing. And all discussions are almost always in a non-English language. And I’ve seen a lot of conversations end with a remark like “It’s not a problem” etc., which don’t really promote discussion (but is this a bad thing?).

Another thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of non-active players still hold admin privileges on the main site, this forum and the channel. Maybe it’s an idea to revoke some of these rights (I know there are a lot of players who do constructive things behind the scenes) and maybe transfer them to some new members. I’d also like a page / topic in which everyone can see who does what. For example…seeing as I spam uhhh I mean post a lot, a lot of new players think I’m an admin which I most definitely am not (and no this isn’t an application). A bit of extra transparency would be good, just like in the selection process for Sensi Days 2011. Who was in the decision-making committee, how much were they paid (that really is a joke, I know nothing about who bid etc. but from what I could tell it all looked excellent, congratulations Bulgaria ), etc. etc.. Let people know which active people do what.

Do I think something’s wrong with the site, NO! We all know ElMichaJ is busy revamping the website, and this might be a good moment to start thinking about the way forward. I whole-heartily believe that this site, and this community will flourish well into the next decade (in which we get faster-than-light internet communications for 0 delay matches ) thanks to the dedication of the people who created this site and to this day maintain and improve it. Good work guys!

We have to state that the chatroom does absolutely fullfil its purpose:
The purpose to arrange matches! First and foremost on a competetive basis (league, cups, ooo).
Maybe we have little problems with frequency sometimes, but alltogether it seems to be fine. And that is a fact since many years.
So we have to say: The chatroom does the job! The main job. It was founded by us just because of that!

If people say it s dead, it s quiet, etc etc. I have to answer them: There are millions of other chatrooms where you can talk about the weather. Just join them as well.
IRC programs have the possibility to connect to multiple servers, and rooms. Just google for the topics you want to talk about:
- weather
- life, death
- politics
- sports
- porn
- ...

I really don t see a problem here. I only see easy and productive solutions, if someone feels lonely or too untalkative!
This does not mean that I do mind to have a nice talk in #sensible. It s just that I don t think the main-channel log determines if this place is dead or not. This is just non-sense to me!

For all SWOS related things we have this forum, where EVERYTHING is documentated and easy to find with the search function. And links can be forwarded easily by C P!

@ Rock: If you are looking for event-ideas, you better check the ones which were already organized. You can get a huge amount of inspiration, ranging from David-Hasselhoff-Handsome-Man-Cup to Sunday-Coffee-Cup!
Check: sensiblesoccer.de/index.php?site=turniere_ergebnisse (page needs 15 seconds to load!!!!!!)

Another thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of non-active players still hold admin privileges on the main site, this forum and the channel. Maybe it’s an idea to revoke some of these rights (I know there are a lot of players who do constructive things behind the scenes) and maybe transfer them to some new members. I’d also like a page / topic in which everyone can see who does what.

Please name them! Who do you mean and who do you think could take over?


@ Dimetrodon:
About frightening new players:
- Every new player needs someone who helps him. Those are mostly our most distinguished users (gentle guys like Rock, xflea, dzem etc etc.), or an admin. And I am sure all of them are telling new players not to worry about loosing etc etc.
- If I introduce a new player I always take Once Lobos or any other inferior team!


Anyway, enough for now!