THREAD MASTER'S WAR ROOM: Suggestions for Making the List/Running the Forum

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I would drop it to around 30 or so, I think. 50 was good for the first couple threads, but with the summaries growing by leaps and bounds it makes the thread too long.

Which maybe makes me think that we should move the summaries out of the main thread. Maybe make them separate web pages that we can either host ourselves or ask MarkG to put up here. If we host them ourselves, we can update them ourselves, or we can send updates to MarkG if he does it. The other pages would, of course, be linked in the header of each thread, and maybe the header could include the updates since the last thread, and the pages could archive everything else.

[the Octopus]

Yin, I understand exactly what your powers and limitations are. My concern is that you act to quickly to do things that you can do without asking the rest of us if you should do them. I like my system. I will be happier in the long run if we use my system. What I HATE is things changing every couple of hours. When I went to bed last night, the last I had seen on the issue was "O.K. I like Octo's system. Can I just stick with 1.1, 1.2--2.0, or should I go down to 1.01? Let me know what you think.". There was one post on the topic between that and you changing all of the thread names, by someone who had more or less already made his opinion known. It wasn't clear to me then and it isn't clear to me now what most people wanted. I can almost guarantee that nobody would have said "I think the best system would be for Yin to just randomly change the names of the threads around every few days, you know, to spice things up".

"you are pushing me too hard"

I am pushing you to not act unilaterally, and not without consulting the thread masters. If that is considered inappropriate, then I don't think I want to be associated with the project.

"understand my limitations."

I see, you are somehow limited from just chilling out and waiting for people to discuss something?

"can you please do your best in the future to try to be more constructive when something doesn't go the way you like?"

My concern is not that people chose a system that was other than the one I supported. My concern is that nobody chose anything, except you. Depending on when you edited your post, I thought you said something like "if this is how you are acting now, I don't want to see what you will be like when the big decisions come". That is exactly my point about you. If you weren't willing to let the thread masters discuss something as inconcequential as thread titles, what assurances do we have that you won't go around enforcing your opinions in bigger issues?

When I first decided to be a thread master, I tried to encourage people to agree on some standards, and your response was "wait a little, things will be chaotic for a while. That can't be helped". Now your attitude is "I'm going to Denver, so I don't have time". Frankly, if this project is to work, I think the thread masters need to realize that they have some responsibility to self-organize, and you have a responsibility to not act without support, especially since the power of the moderator is so great.

Please point out exactly what I've said that you find insulting, and also explain why it is not accurate. If you want me to leave, I will be content to do that. There is nothing beyond my desire to see Firaxis produce a quality game that is keeping me here. I will be happy to spend my time elsewhere.


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[yin26]

Octopus,

O.K. I think we both feel better now!

I guess I was too used to when this started and I had to make all the decisions myself or there wouldn't be any of this at all.

Now, as you've said, we have many Thread Masters who should be responsible for deciding these issues. I'll simply implement the majority opinion (after waiting longer to assess the opinion). And, yes, this trip to Denver made me react too hastily.

I aplogize to everybody for the confusion, especially to Octopus. But, Octo, you HAVE to try to not make your criticisms so strongly. I'm listening to you. Trust me.

O.K. Please everybody decide on the number of post before closing issue. Thanks again. This is a huge project with lots of hurdles to get past. I think we just got past one:

"Random Moderator Intervention"

[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited May 22, 1999).]

[yin26]

Just to let everybody know, I've asked Octo to be Organization Leader since he is perhaps the most passionate about keeping things consistent and determining our various systems. His duties, in essence, are simple:

* Trying his best to gather majority opinion from the Thread Masters and other posters. He could do this in his own thread, through e-mail, in this thread, what have you.

* Making sure that I am aware of the majority opinions before I institute any changes.

I have asked him, though, to please put a little sugar on the bitter pill that is Octo's criticism. But, in this case, he was certainly right about my hasty changes.

Octo, can you help me do this? I realize that I need somebody ACTIVELY trying to get opinions because this thread can only help so much...

To be fair, of course, and to abide by the "Chill Factor," if people object to Octo's acting in this role--if he even wants it --please e-mail me. This should be a unanimous decision. In his favor, I will say that he has given a great deal of thought to these issues and will (it seems) be very active about getting opinions, which is vital to the future of this list.

[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited May 22, 1999).]

[JT]

Now I have to pledge allegiance to Octo.

I pledge allegiance, to Octopus,
of the United Board of Firaxis......

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-Civ3 Thread Master of OTHER and UNITS.
"We get the paperwork, you get the game!"

[This message has been edited by JT (edited May 22, 1999).]

[yin26]

JT,

I have to take FULL responsibility for NOT giving you guys at least a two days to decide on these issues. It's a forum, after all, and I was hasty. We are not in a rush, and majority opinion is crucial for this project. My trip just made me want to set things up before I left. My mistake.

However, I simply would just like us all to support each other. We have a LONG way to go, and some of the upcoming list work is going to take a lot of patience and understanding.

C'mon guys! Let's do this thing and try to have some fun!

[JT]

Oops, sorry yin, already edited my message.

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-Civ3 Thread Master of OTHER and UNITS.
"We get the paperwork, you get the game!"

[tfs99]

>>>>> JT

Re: numbering

Octo was advocating the so-called "decimal" numbering (i.e., 1.0, 1.1, etc.). I was advocating the 1, 2, 3 or in your case I, II, III numbering. I knew there were others who preferred the I, II, III. That's why I spoke up for it. Just wanted to be clear.

I can understand Octo's irritation with the switch, switch and now switch again on the numbering. It can get a bit confusing, but then again, things are still quite new here and in a state of flux so it's for the best to remain open and flexible to change.

>>>> Bell

Re: summaries and thread length

I pointed out the problem of ever-expanding thread length a few days back. I advocated going to seperate summaries then. I still think it's a good idea.

It's simple to include a link to a summary topic in the header of every fresh topic. Then people can go peruse the summary at their leisure, and not be forced to download the summary every time they want to read or post new comments.

Not everyone has super-fast connections (me included). And there are still a lot of folks who don't even have 56k. But I don't want to push this too strongly, lest I end up with a buncha arrows in my back.

Civ3 n ... Ted S.

[the Octopus]

I want to apologize for my "tone of voice". While I think that the content of what I said has merit, I was probably not very diplomatic about presenting it. Sorry. In my defense, I just saw The Phantom Menace, so yin was probably on the recieving end of some emotions that should rightly be directed at George Lucas .

After dinner, I'll try to summarize the current issues regarding standardization. Right now, I know we need to decide on:

1) Thread naming/numbering
2) Thread header/disclaimer
3) Where to summarize
4) How to summarize (probably won't agree on anything yet, but I think we should start commenting on each other's summary styles, so we can see what's good and what's bad, drop the bad stuff out of our own styles and use other's good stuff)

Anything else? I'm thinking of starting a new "standards" thread, and e-mailing all the Thread Masters in case they haven't been watching the fireworks in this thread.


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[tfs99]

Perhaps this is not the best time to bring this up, but ...

<soapbox>
I am a little disturbed by a tendency of some, but certainly not all, of the TMs to bend the discussion and also to craft their summaries in such a manner as to give prominence to their own ideas. I base this on personal observation of some of the summaries posted thus far.

I feel we must be extremely careful not to do this in the slightest. Otherwise the inevitable result will be increased cynicism and decreased participation in what so far has been a fruitful process. I wouldn't even write this, except for the fact that these feelings have already begun to nibble at my enthusiasm for this project.

A good way to be sure we don't "drift off course" is to go out of our way to focus on the ideas of others before we turn to our own ideas when summarizing. I think every idea should find it's way into a summary. I don't even think it's right to take several similar ideas and attempt to roll them into one.

We must include every idea, no matter how small, nor how inadvisable or we run the risk of having this list degenerate solely into a conversation amongst ourselves.

I would even go so far as to suggest that Summary Editors could (or perhaps should) be used to review the process. I am realistic and recognize that egos play a big part in this. And I hesitate to trod on anyone's "turf". But let's face it, nobody's perfect and we may need to give this some consideration.
</soapbox>

Civ3 n ... Ted S.

[the Octopus]

I have just posted <a href=http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum28/HTML/000039.html>Standardizing the List Process</a>, as yin discussed. I would really like to see all of the thread masters in that thread. I am going to mail all of you, and I'll keep nagging you if you don't make your opinions known. We are a group of people who hardly know each other brought together for a single purpose with a poorly understood organization. We need to be able to bring ourselves together and make sure that we can all work together to put together a really great list so that Firaxis can make a really great game.

Ted: I'd agree with your sentiment in that last post, but I'm not sure if my support would do more harm than good to your cause .


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[the Octopus]

With yin out of town, I think we all need to be on the lookout for people starting threads that should really be posts in one of the already established threads. We can't shut threads down like yin can, but we can at least say "hey, try this thread instead".


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[the Octopus]

I've got the first rough version of my little script running, and you can get it <a href=http://www.cybcon.com/~octopus/civ3-thread-master/thread_parse.pl>here</a>. The details of how to run it would vary depending on how you run perl on your system. It takes as command line arguments all of the files you want to parse, and then spits out both a count of the number of times a particular poster has posted, as well as a comma separated list of all of them (suitable for posting at the end of a summary ). I don't know how much better it'll get, since this pretty much suits my needs...


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[LordStone1]

I know nothing about *.pl or perl formats, and I'm pretty sure not too many people around here do, either. Show us how to use it.

[yin26]

Hi everybody:

I've managed to get a few minutes on the computer here at the convention--I'm trying to soak in all that's happened in 30 hours or so. Wow--a lot of action!

Octo,

My sincerest thanks for trying to get a consensus here and for the PERL script. Try to nag people in a nice way ( ), but we absolutely do need to get the lines of communication flowing more smoothly. I'll be much more active about feedback after June 3--so please bear with me...Ocot: I'll check my email now to see if you've come up with any majority opinion on thread closings and so forth.

Does 30 posts seem about right to everybody for closing threads?

Oh, I'll also close this thread now because it's too damn long...On second thought, this War Room is set up in a lot of links around here, so I'll have to wait until I have more time to update everything. Sorry.

[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited May 24, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited May 24, 1999).]