Moved it to the 'Change Suggestions' part of the forum.

I wouldn't read too much into it, we've played one game in three weeks now following an international break and our customary end of season slump.

Pretty much what Mirth says. It's not a coincidence that this happens when our season is over. It'll probably always be like that.

Ok, this is officially the best thread ever created on OMITT, and I've read them all. Fuck me...

I reckon we need the input of a smattering of mad but genial types, and some good gifs.
I'm having trouble sourcing gifs these days.

You used to be such a good giffer too, Ev.

Sicario wrote:

It's a shame, because this place has a great reputation and one of the reasons I joined was because I heard about the great debates and characters on here especially compared to other Arsenal forums which are mostly populated by kids and trolls.

Where did you hear that?

Sicario wrote:

What's happened to this place?

Has Arsenal sucked the love out of you guys!? Seems like the energy of this forum has been completely drained. Less activity on threads, less frequent posts being made, less 'interesting' debates between one another.

I don't know if this is the right place to discuss but perhaps this thread could be the meeting point where we discuss how to improve the forum?

Mods what do you think?

It's a shame, because this place has a great reputation and one of the reasons I joined was because I heard about the great debates and characters on here especially compared to other Arsenal forums which are mostly populated by kids and trolls.

I know a football forum's activity levels are mainly correlated by the performance of the team but I'm sure we can work together to achieve a better forum for everyone.

It's the general agreement that Wenger's done stifling everything else.

This should be moved into Arsenal Talk I reckon. 

Five years ago we were already complaining that all the "debates" had been had ... 

As well as the disappointment of this season, the fact we haven't changed our manager—or our level of investment or even our approach to the league season much in relative terms—means there's often not much to talk about other than the lack of change itself.

We have our own vocabulary for the fluctuations of our season and the quirks of our approach: the Prize™, the race for fourth, the round of sixteen exit, the March collapse, how we wouldn't want to "kill" X, Y or Z ...

None of this is too controversial, I think. Any Arsenal supporter for the last decade has been a spectator of football homeostasis. The club's dynamic is to absorb and accommodate external change factors like increased TV rights income, while ensuring the constancy of outcomes like no other football club in history. 

Every year we don't win. Every year we qualify for the Champions League. Every year, we lose a player or two, we add a player or two, we spend incrementally more money, but never enough to change the fundamentals. And so on, ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

There's other ways of looking at it, more optimistic ways, or ways that focus more on the happy individual moments on the pitch, but this is certainly one way. And since it's the long term reality a gooner inhabits, it's perhaps unsurprising debate and banter are at a low ebb ... 

Sicario wrote:

What's happened to this place?

Has Arsenal sucked the love out of you guys!?

No Arsene has sucked the love out of us.

Wait! Thats not what I mean- Well you know what I mean.

The rational for moving to the Emirates (thats what it is, just a soulless corporate shell) was we would compete better in the PL and CL, well we haven't.
I wish we never left Highbury, I long for the days when we were supporters of an enterprising sport instead of customers of a sporting enterprise.
If Leicester win the league I will envy their supporters so much, it would make their whole life supporting a mid table team worth it instead of what we have- A frozen stasis of nothingness.
Better to live one day as a lion than a lifetime as a lamb.
Wenger has come to symbolise the total failure and pointlessness of this last decade he can't be gone soon enough.

Now thats how to turn a thread onto the subject of Wenger Quincy, look and learn. ;D

And there, summed up in one post by Biggus, is a big reason this forum is dead.
It's boring reading the same people say the same things in every thread.

It is illuminating.

Illuminating of your attitude, because it was Burnsy who first mentioned of how it was the Wenger situation which destroyed all our excitement.
You love to accuse me of being boring but if conflict is the essence of drama the fact is that its me and a few others who spark this forum into life every now and again.

I can't live the button-down life like you. I want it all! The terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles! Sure, I might offend a few of the blue-noses with my cocky stride and musty odors -- oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called "Forum Fathers" who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about "What's to be done with this Biggus?

Yawn
Seriously Biggus you're particularly guilty of making a concerted effort of having the same discussion in every thread.

Well WTF do you want to talk about!
Should Gabriel replace Mertesaker in the centre?
Whats happened to AOC?
Who is our best young player Bellerin or Iwobi?
Will we finish 2nd 3rd or 4th?
What the fuck else do we have to talk about?
The disturbing developments in the US presidential elections and the Middle East????

That desiccated senile old dog shit controls everything about the club we all love and care about and won't piss off- There is nowhere he hasn't spread his diseased tentacles and infected.
Give me an aspect any area of our team and I'll tell you how he's ruined it, there is only one subject that 99% of Arsenal fans are interested in- When is going to fuck off!

For me personally all the enjoyment has been sucked out. I went all Colin Firth in Fever Pitch celebrating the winner against Leicester and for the first time genuinely believe we might go on and win it. Then the United and in particular Swansea game utterly broke me and I've barely posted since. I've felt as angry and irritable over football over the last few weeks as I can ever remember.

When visiting my Spurs supporting parents over Easter I even had a rant at them about Wenger which they enjoyed. They have been pretty cautious not to say anything this season having learned their lesson from "mind the gap" every week that other season and the only comment I've had from them all season was something like "we're really enjoying the Premier League this season it's very exciting" a couple of months ago to which I didn't rise and just responded with something like "yes it's all very close" and left it at that. But this time couldn't stop myself rising to a comment along the lines of "I don't know why Arsenal fans are complaining, they're in the top 4 as usual. What more do you want? All you have ever known is success."

Though I check in here and read the latest a few times every day I just can't find the energy to say anything myself. I just want him gone and there's nothing else I can be bothered saying. After Swansea I went into football media lockdown and didn't even visit here for almost 2 weeks, just couldn't face it. Probably didn't help that it came during a tough time when my partner had been in ICU the previous week and was still recovering.

Biggus wrote:

Sicario wrote:

What's happened to this place?

Has Arsenal sucked the love out of you guys!?

No Arsene has sucked the love out of us.

Wait! Thats not what I mean- Well you know what I mean.

The rational for moving to the Emirates (thats what it is, just a soulless corporate shell) was we would compete better in the PL and CL, well we haven't.
I wish we never left Highbury, I long for the days when we were supporters of an enterprising sport instead of customers of a sporting enterprise.
If Leicester win the league [/b]I will envy their supporters so much[/b], it would make their whole life supporting a mid table team worth it instead of what we have- A frozen stasis of nothingness.
Better to live one day as a lion than a lifetime as a lamb.
Wenger has come to symbolise the total failure and pointlessness of this last decade he can't be gone soon enough.

Now thats how to turn a thread onto the subject of Wenger Quincy, look and learn. ;D

Really? Well, we've had many days as lions. If what you say is true then you would have just shut up after the Invincibles and we wouldn't have to listen to you bring Wenger up in every thread.

@Invis That's how I've been: seriously embittered since United and Swansea. The sheer gormlessness of the surrender this season really has capped it. Felt like it happened because we're Arsenal and that's what we do: lose. The prospect of another two or three years of Wenger, and watching another decent crop of players waste their careers is demoralising. 

@ Willie. WTF are you on about??
The Invincibles was 12 years ago!!!
That's ancient history as far as football is conserned.
You feel betrayed by Wenger just like the rest of us but you still love him and can't stand me criticising him, but we all know he is responsible for the situation not me so that makes it quite pathetic some people insist on making every thread about me even when it's not me who mentions Wenger first.
I have come to symbolise all that hurts them just because I'm usually the one that keeps pointing it out. 
You're shooting at the messenger just because you don't want to hear the message. 

@ Invis, sorry that you are going through a bad time of your life and the team seems to add insult to injury, I went through a similar time and this too will pass.

Forum is dead because I assume many assume the season is dead. It will liven up on the last day when we're a point behind Leciester.

Biggus wrote:

Well WTF do you want to talk about!
Should Gabriel replace Mertesaker in the centre?
Whats happened to AOC?
Who is our best young player Bellerin or Iwobi?
Will we finish 2nd 3rd or 4th?
What the fuck else do we have to talk about?
The disturbing developments in the US presidential elections and the Middle East????

That desiccated senile old dog shit controls everything about the club we all love and care about and won't piss off- There is nowhere he hasn't spread his diseased tentacles and infected.
Give me an aspect any area of our team and I'll tell you how he's ruined it, there is only one subject that 99% of Arsenal fans are interested in- When is going to fuck off!

We have a few variations of Wenger threads, it's not toomuch to expect that all the venom, bile and rants against him are confined to those threads.
Allow those who want to discuss other subjects, however irrelevant they appear to you, to do so.
You don't, it's boring, that's it.