When I first joined Taijitu, it was my way of finding a nice, welcoming and cosy community away from the drama and political manoeuvring of other regions. We had an active Delegate, we were doing well recruitment wise, and our activity levels on the forum were good. We had a dedicated player base, Funkadelia, Cozulul, Wast, Letonna, Gulliver, Myroria, Eluvatar, Delfos and myself. There were some others who came in to join us casually from time to time, but generally this forum was sustained by the activity of the 9 of us.
Together we were all important parts of the Taijitu government. Either as carefree Senators (Myroria, Letonna, Cozulul and Myself), loud and vocal citizens/conspiracy theorists (Delfos). There was Wast with his hilarity and daily polls. Gulliver and Funkadelia leading the region, and Eluvatar our chief of law, dryly quoting the law whenever given the opportunity. It was also accompanied by a small amount of RP.
For a while, this was enough. The community hummed along nicely, we all contributed in our own way and things were going good. Taijitu was a home to many of us, and an important part of our lives. I'm not entirely sure what changed that.
I think a big thing was losing Gulliver. Once he slipped off into inactivity and recruiting basically entirely stopped a lot of the community started to slow down. The truth is, there wasn't much to change, in terms of government structure or errors of the law for the Taijitu Senate, and addressing issues of the Founder nation soon became tiresome for us, and we lost interest. One could say that Taijitu almost has the perfect government system. Too perfect even. Another issue was that nearly every referendum did not meet the quorum requirements, so the constitution could not be changed, even if we wanted it to be.
I'm not going to put blame on anyone. I think that game has been played and was clearly wrong. I'm just as much to blame as anyone else for the inactive state that we find ourselves in today. One needs only look and realize that the biggest poster on our forums recently was Unibot, ambassador from the United defenders league to see that this rings true. None of us are doing much to sustain this community that we know and love, and certainly aren't doing much to grow it.
I'm not sure what can be done to fix it. I know Eluturtle will pop up and say recruitment! I know that's important. I think though, we as a community and the active people devoted to it, should consider other ways for us to grow the community. I would not be opposed to throwing out the constitution and holding a convention to redraft a new one. We could do something similar with the legal code. Taijitu needs to become an active player in Foreign Diplomacy like it once was, and possibly in the area of military gameplay as well. I honestly don't care whether the army is Defender only, or Raider only. I just think we need to adapt and change, and do what we can to keep this community alive.
If there is nobody interested in that, then I guess we must resign ourselves to the fact that possibly Taijitu has had it's day. A sad thought, given the region's proud past, and the community it once had. That said, it was my pleasure to have been a part of this community, for even such a short time.
I just thought I would share my thoughts on the situation before us.
McMasterdonia
