Why isn't there a unified english-speaking Key community?

[Aspirety]

I love what you guys are doing here to try and unify the english-speaking visual novel community, but lately I've been feeling the absence of a community specific to Key's visual novels. The fandom is huge, but it's very scattered. I look at websites like http://www.keyfc.net/bbs/ and http://vnkeyfanclub.com/home.html, and wonder why nobody has made an English-speaking equivalent. I want to do something about it, but I'm having trouble getting started.

My first idea was to create a subreddit. Instead I found one already existed, /r/key_visual_arts, but it's pretty empty. I've been appointed a mod of the subreddit in the hopes that I can get it active, but we're off to a slow start.

Much less promoting it, I'm more interested in people's thoughts. Why isn't there a unified english-speaking Key community, and do you think one could possibly exist? Do you want one to exist? And if you do, do you have any suggestions about how one might get started?

[HackaFreak]

I wanna say something about english speakers being generally difficult to unify since there's such a large variety of us.

I mean, I'd imagine most people that visit that Vietnamese site are probably Vietnamese and living in Vietnam.  Though I don't know anything about Vietnam.

Or english speakers, for that matter, so I probably shouldn't say anything.

[REtransInternational]

It's not really "try and unify the english-speaking visual novel community" here, but more "build a new VN community culture" - and for the same reasons we split off from the old VN community, there likely wouldn't be one specific for Key either.

[shcboomer]

I feel that this would be a worthy endeavor. I've always wondered why we don't have such a community already, as you noted those other foreign examples.

[Nosebleed]

English speaking is a very relative term. 

Are you talking about native english speakers or just  anyone that can speak english?

Even though Key is extremly popular if you make a site dedicated just to Key fans it'd probably be small in comparison to a wider VN community. I prefer a unified community that can discuss things freely about VNs which are more broad than just one particular and specific theme. And there's only so much you can talk about Key before it gets repetitive. Even though i love Key of course I prefer a wider and more accepting community with other things to discuss.

If this were to happen it'd probably end up like the Misaka Network

[Aspirety]

I mean anybody who speaks English. The only thing keeping me out of the existing communities is the language barrier. And looking at said communities, it's clear that they can be easily kept alive as there's always new Key-related news to be shared, whether it be game or anime details, merchandise, events and so on. There's been plenty of communities built around niche video games, I don't see why this can't be applied to Key.

[Nosebleed]

I don't have anything against it don't get me wrong, I just don't feel very appealed by the idea. But i know you can make a community for ANYTHING. There's probably a website dedicated to chatting about potatoes and whatnot.

[Down]

 

There's probably a website dedicated to chatting about potatoes and whatnot.

 

Pretty sure Lewycool is admin there.

[shcboomer]

I mean anybody who speaks English. The only thing keeping me out of the existing communities is the language barrier. And looking at said communities, it's clear that they can be easily kept alive as there's always new Key-related news to be shared, whether it be game or anime details, merchandise, events and so on. There's been plenty of communities built around niche video games, I don't see why this can't be applied to Key.

 

I feel like maybe you should start one up, I think it's a pretty good idea. I'd join at least.

 

Pretty sure Lewycool is admin there.

I would not be surprised...

[Kanpachi]

I made a Key fansite thing many months ago, but it didn't attract many members and didn't even have a proper domain. 

If someone made a proper Key community I would join. 

[Jiharo]

I love the Japanese Key community.

[Flutterz]

It's hard enough to get an active English-speaking community around VNs, it'd be even harder to get one around just Key.

At least that's the way it seems to me.

[Nosebleed]

It's hard enough to get an active English-speaking community around VNs, it'd be even harder to get one around just Key.

At least that's the way it seems to me.

Pretty much this.

I'm going to stick with the potato community.

[Yukiru]

I think there isn't one because they would run out of topics, they would probably end up with a huge general discussion board and only talk about VN when there are news on Visual Art's/Key. Though i would gladly join such a community.

 

That Misaka Network is wonderful idea~ 

[InvertMouse]

Key is definitely large enough that it could warrant a unified community. As mentioned in the thread, though, I guess the potential overlap of news will lose a lot of interest. People can just go to what already exists.

 

In terms of VNs in general, here in Sydney, the anime community is growing (6000+ attendees for a con last year). The majority of fans, however, have no knowledge or care for VNs unfortunately.

[seventhfonist425]

 

 

There's probably a website dedicated to chatting about potatoes and whatnot.

 

Pretty sure Lewycool is admin there.

 

I would not be surprised...

Just what kind of reputation does Lewycool HAVE here...?

 

I'm assuming part of the reason might be the fact that there's a lot of down time between novels. There's not really enough keeping the community together after sometime. Maybe if more things (fun things) happened, then it could stay together. But I dunno really. I haven't really spent time on those things to say for sure. How long has Fuwanovel been around? There's probably a reason for it staying as long as it has compared to those English Key sites that eventually died down.

[Kanpachi]

Key is definitely large enough that it could warrant a unified community. As mentioned in the thread, though, I guess the potential overlap of news will lose a lot of interest. People can just go to what already exists.

 

In terms of VNs in general, here in Sydney, the anime community is growing (6000+ attendees for a con last year). The majority of fans, however, have no knowledge or care for VNs unfortunately.

 

I noticed this year at an Irish con awareness of visual novels seems to be growing. We had a visual novel panel (with a big focus on Key) and a guy selling VNs, which has never happened in previous years. From speaking to a lot of them it seems that Katawa Shoujo is the reason VNs have caught on here.