Time to amend the Off-Topic status?

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Lancer
If you think that's what's been done then you don't know enough. If I made a post that the Israeli attack on Lebanon was an act of aggression then you might assume that I don't know about the endless rocket attacks, that I don't know enough.

Imagine how it would have felt if I suddenly began writing something about ME threads or Mobius, in what is supposed to be a totally unrelated thread, dedicated to site technicalities.

I spent quite alot of time thinking about improvement suggestions and writing them down.

You have every right to post what you want, and to mention your discontent with s moderator. However, the topic being NOT about moderators - it detracts from the issue.

Your post is also likely to make this thread appear more "controversial" and generally - in my feeling - will distract Mark and Dan's attention from what I feel are some important suggestions I have made and spent a good amount of time writing down.

This is why I feel annoyed at your post above. No judgement made about your relationship with any person.

Cheers.

[Lancer]

Sorry if I caused you any dificulty.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
It began with stripping post counts from the off topic and then having Stories & Diplomacy and other fun stuff stripped away (or limited) by the mods and admins (as Siro points out). So an us v. them mentality arose from the off topic folk and still continues.

As one of the few people who posts regularly in S&D, I find this somewhat disingenuous. MarkG is right that the current stuff in S&D would be hopelessly lost in the OTF. If people in the OTF are interested in S&D stuff, why don't they just post there?

I understand your point about many smaller forums fracturing the community, but I'm just not seeing the kind of interest that would justify such an argument. With the way things are going in the OTF and S&D forums, We'd have to continually bump threads every day to avoid drowning them in everything else that gets posted in the OTF.

[DrSpike]

I don't really care either way but would suggest that it is the views of S&D regulars that should take priority over solely OT posters. If there is significant overlap then there is obviously a stronger case for moving back to OT.

[Cyclotron]

My observations have been that the current posters in S&D post infrequently at best in the OT, and that posts advertising current S&D stuff in the Other Games forum (where many OTFers often post as well) met with little, if any enthusiasm.

I believe that if OTFers think that adding S&D to the OTF would boost activity (something I doubt), they should first demonstrate that they actually care about what's going on in S&D in the slightest. There's no point in relocating S&D to the OTF if the OTFers don't care and the S&Ders just get lost in the constant deluge of threads irrelevant to S&D.

[MarkG]

Siro, thank you for taking the time to write your observations. I will look into them in the coming days

Also thank to the comments of the S&D community

[Lancer]

(Both of them)



It's easy to split forums, a pain to put them back together as people resist change. My main concern would be for the OT as I believe that OT people might be more likely to post in stories threads if it's there which adds traffic and interest. Besides, I've never had a Stories thread deleted, that would be different at least.

Maybe it's best to leave things as they now are regarding S&D and the OT, and just go out for a beer.

[Lancer]

If my post ruined anyones day, yeah you know, real sorry.

[VetLegion]

First, I'd like to say that when I discuss improvements, I don't neccessarily think that something is wrong. I am fascinated by online discussions and their technical aspect is very interesting to me.

The administration should have relatively detailed statistics so they can know whether there have been dramatic changes in any of the fora. It is my impression that the OT has indeed slowed down, don't know about others.

I agree with Siro partially. Splitting the forums too much is not good. Here is why: the very strength of forums is high concentration of content, as compared to branching thread systems ala Usenet. This is important because on the same number of readers, hyperorganized Usenet has much fewer participants than forums. I'm talking orders of magnitude.

Second factor is user specialization. I think that people tend to spend their forum time in an 80-20 distribution, 80% of time checking their "main" forum, and only 20% for the rest. Coupled with the fact that everyone has a "main" subforum, you get lower overall participation.

Of course, there's this other principle of "build it and they will come". But the controlled experiment of the History Forum so far shows that ony OT people use it. Sometimes "they" take a lot of time to come, it seems

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Cyclotron
As one of the few people who posts regularly in S&D, I find this somewhat disingenuous. MarkG is right that the current stuff in S&D would be hopelessly lost in the OTF. If people in the OTF are interested in S&D stuff, why don't they just post there?

I understand your point about many smaller forums fracturing the community, but I'm just not seeing the kind of interest that would justify such an argument. With the way things are going in the OTF and S&D forums, We'd have to continually bump threads every day to avoid drowning them in everything else that gets posted in the OTF.

There is a reason that S&D was seperated out. Because people were complaining there were too many S&D threads on the off topic. There were a ton of them. And I do think that if there were moved back, you'd see a number of off topic people who don't stray into other fora come back to stories and diplomacy as they did when they were in the off topic.

I mean, really, remember the days of the Coffee Shop and Excellent Adventures? Many off-topicers participated who haven't strayed into the S&D forums.

[Grandpa Troll]

It would seem to me, as educated and adventurous as many in OT are, If I wanted to go to another forum to participate I would, why cant people here simply do the same?

I been listening to a lot of bellyaching, I am merely stating, why not simply got to the various forums?

Maybe its the manager in me, we have an "Issue" and here is a "Solution"

Gramps

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I mean, really, remember the days of the Coffee Shop and Excellent Adventures? Many off-topicers participated who haven't strayed into the S&D forums.

I remember, but I never participated

I think part of the problem is how ill-defined "Stories and Diplomacy" is. I think of the Coffee Shop as something quintessentially OTF; when I "discovered" S&D maybe a year ago, it was entirely NES games. I don't really know what was considered S&D back in the day because I was an almost entirely "on-topic" poster. What you have in mind as something to be revived is very different, it seems, than the S&D that exists now and the few threads that I fear would drown in the OT.

MarkG has just said that for the next week we can do stories and diplomacy stuff in the OT. I'd like to see what you and others have in mind as what OTF is lacking that a merge could provide.

Also, we could make a temporary merge - have a mod move the active threads in S&D (there are 2-3) into OTF, see what happens, and if it turns out to be just a headache then we can move them back.

Speaking of which, is there a moderator for S&D? I'm reasonably certain nobody ever checks in (at least, nobody closes things at 500 as is usual). Not that we are hugely active, but it might be nice to have some mod with S&D in their domain to do thread editing, closing, as neccessary.

EDIT: Since you and others post a great deal in the OTF, you could even put this in your sig:

MarkG: for the next week people are free to post stories in the OT. please spread the word!

[MarkG]

yeah since apparently not many people noticed, i'm extending the deadline for another week

[Heresson]

I support any demands pointed at site owners.

[LordShiva]

I disagree with any demands supported by Heresson.