Hey folks. Whoa, it's been a while since I've even created a thread here. Wild. Now that the band is back, and we have a new album coming, we are trying to think of ways to engage the LPA community beyond whatever the album cycle has to offer. The forums and the Shoutbox are great spaces, and I don't believe we have any intention of changing those. But, I'm personally wondering, are there other things you want to see? To elaborate, there are a lot of ways for us to be talking with you and creating spaces for you all to engage with one another. Between streams, Discord, social media platforms, and the like, we have a lot of tools. But beyond the forums, is there more we can be doing to engage with you, or more we can offer in terms of media through which you all can engage with each other? In addition, are there other things you'd like to see on the forums or elsewhere? In the past, there were some annual traditions, between LPA Awards and the like. Are there things you'd like to see again? Or do you have new ideas? If you have thoughts, feel free to share them here!
Hello @Louis and Staff, first of all I am happy you still want to keep this forum alive. LPA has always been a special place for me, truly - so I will try to be as constructive and helpful as I can. _________________ Honestly, I always thought community gathering events like the Monthly Mix-Up, or even the LPA Awards were great way to pull in a lot of old and new faces. So you might want to consider having those reappear, especially when the new album comes out and a bunch of new people might register onto this website. I think a great way to engage with people would be to have selected live-shows and livestream them and chat with users, maybe on youtube. Like a monthly / bi-monthly concert live-stream. (I dont know if thats allowed, like legally but its just an idea). Or truly anything to keep some kind of "consistency". Especially outside the forum itself to draw more members in here On another note I'd like to add that creative space could be benificial. Besides music, we have a lot of talented artists like, painters, people that draw, songwriters, poets, also musicians like producers, singers and more. - And there are more out there that are Linkin Park fans specifically - i think it would be beneficial for the forum itself to promote once in a while cool artworks, cool songs, beautiful texts or pictures outside this place, like youtube, X (twitter), IG or TikTok i guess. Like just with the MMU, a monthly artwork competition or anything like that, really. Of course these are just theories and I dont know if it would actually help the forum to be more engaging with people - but i think it could help. If you are asking about engaging with fans outside the forum (but even inside, it doesnt matter). We all love LP because they mean something to us. In all seriousness, LPA reached LP themselves quite sometimes so i feel like it would be a cool thing to share what fans think of LP and what they mean to them on social media posts. They would feel heard, even if not from LP themselves, at least from fans like us. On the forums side, i think the "Session" thread is amazing to talk about LP, although i think we really need to draw more attention to threads like this with more people. Now with FROM ZERO being out soon, there is a chance to hop onto the momentum and gain some new members and be active again. One last thing I'd like to point out is - The forum still seems to be rather semi-active. Some forums havent been touched in months. "Your Projects", "Side Projects", "Chester Bennington" and such. People coming in here seeing this would feel like this place is more inactive than active, that might make people not stay here. id do something about that. All in all i think we have a great opportunity to jump on the hype train and show people that WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK. And not just LP - but everyone of us. I hope i could give at least a little bit of insight. Thanks for reading!
I don't have any solid answers, but I have recently noticed that LPL seems to have more consistent activity coming in. This made me curious, and when looking it seemed like there were just more news threads being posted regularly. And I don't mean to try comparing the two sites. It's just made me wonder where the difference was. So I guess my only suggestion is maybe consider lowering the bar for what's considered worthy of being its own thread? Or just posting more for separate things (Brad's IG post announcement, Rob's departure, etc). We've had several interviews from Mike and the band but only the Zane Lowe one has merited its own thread. Creates more opportunity for focused discussion rather than having to skim a thread to see where someone posted about Brad, KROQ interview, and so on. These are just my off the cuff thoughts.
I always loved the twitch streams we did for different occasions, maybe the band blesses us now with more stuff for this. Did we ever had some kind of listening partys, if not, its gonna be time for FROM ZERO (or other releases for other artists, idk). Or some kind of anniversary streams would also be nice. I actually dont know if it would be possible to manage, but i guess some kind of LPA related giveaway events would also be kinda cool, combined with some kind of contests. Or some Some kind of gaming sessions together (like Minecraft, LoL, etc.) would also be nice i guess. With a LPA discord ofcourse. Thats it for now, i will try to think about other stuff too
Hey all. Just want to say I appreciate this feedback. We've been talking through some of this stuff. No real developments at this moment, but, conversations are happening. So, thank you.
Ok, I have more to say actually lol. I was being more reserved before, but I’ve decided that honesty is the best policy. Want to preface this by saying I appreciate that y'all are asking for feedback, and I have no idea what y'all are talking about or have planned currently. I'm just calling things as I can see them; I just have a lot of thoughts that have been simmering for like 6 years. Spoiler: A lot of rambling about the past and so on... It’s hard for me to admit, but I feel like LPA has been on the backburner for the past 7 years, maybe longer. It's becoming increasingly evident we’ve lost the reputation we once had, and it hit home for me when Mike shouted out LPL in London yesterday and not LPA. That was just the latest in a string of moments I've noticed over the years where the band has name-dropped LPL, and we’re left out of the conversation. And to be honest, it kinda hurt. It made me sad to see us being forgotten like that. I’ve always felt more at home here than any of the other fan gathering places (LPL, Reddit, Discord, etc). While I have an account on LPL and was active there for a time, it’s the community here at LPA that’s always drawn me in. The people here are special, and I’ve loved the interactions and discussions we’ve had over the years. But things don’t feel the same anymore. It doesn’t feel like this is an exclusive place with its own identity—it feels more like we’ve become a reactionary fan site, with no real connection to the band. And that’s not how it used to be! I think we need to turn things around and rebuild what made this place special. LPA should be a place that engages with both the fans and with the band in meaningful ways. If I recall correctly, LPA used to focus on news, while LPL handled live shows and archives of that side of things, right? But now it seems like LPL is covering everything. We’ve lost our niche, and with it, a lot of our relevance. There has to be some way for LPA re-establish itself as a key part of the Linkin Park fanbase, because right now, it feels like there's no reason for someone to come here over LPL (sorry...again just saying it like how I perceive it, I really don't want to play a game of LPA vs LPL but I think some comparisons need to be made). My opinion? We need people who are posting exclusive content, hunting down demos or collabs, discovering new things about the band's older content—something to give new blood a reason to come here. I can’t even remember the last time we had a major exclusive. Was it Tasty Gas Station Breaks? I just don't know what incentive is there for people to choose LPA over LPL if we don’t have anything unique to offer. In all honesty, if I have a serious question about the band, I find myself going to LPL because it doesn’t feel like this is the place to get answers anymore. It saddens me greatly when I see Mark at LPL flying to these arena shows and building exclusive content while we barely hear from some of the LPA Team once a month (or more...there are some on the team I've probably only seen here a handful of times since I joined in 2014). And I get it—priorities change, life happens, and maybe some people on the team just aren’t able to be as involved anymore. I have no hard feelings about that, but it’s disheartening when it at times seems like there are only two people keeping this place going. Maybe the team needs some new faces? Again, I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes. I want to see LPA thrive again. I have rewritten this post like 20 times at this point because I know I should say it but I hate confrontation. So there it is, please take it as you will, and know that I support this site and will help promote it in whatever endeavors you guys choose, because LP is so back and it's time for LPA to be so back as well.