Forum Update and Reorg

Such a feature brought me straight to your post without having to wade through a bunch of pesky "forums."

Just make one big forum (with the Blue Room still hidden and separate). People could just tag their threads as "Red Room" if they want no rules, "Techforge" if they want technology talk, "Media Central" if it's about media, etc.

No, that would lead too easily to getting confused. Besides, the difference in debate style would tend to sort things out somewhat by topic, which is not all bad.

Fair question, the Help Desk is for technical issues, reporting problems, a place to ask questions or otherwise get some help.

No restriction going on whatsoever. Had I closed this thread or moved it to another forum I could see your point.

Not only am I not restricting/killing discussion I am actively participating.

I've long been for reorganizing the board.

First off Ancalagon isn't my opponent and secondly I have not misrepresented his position.

Exactly. Right now there is a big incentive to post your thread in the RR... you want people to post in it. When you consolidate into a couple active forums instead of a dozen dead forums people won't be forced to post everything in the RR and for the most part topics will self sort.

And isn't that the WF way? Less Moderators forcing policy on everyone, more of letting people post where they want with the Mods only stepping in if someone accidentally posts a thread in the wrong room or something.

What would you suggest for a new lay-out?

The more you overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

Certainly a fortune cookie worthy reply!

Is this the general idea? I think this would cut it to the bare minimum while keeping all the important bits.

Wordforge

• Free Speech Forum (Everything -legal free-for-all)
  
• Moderated Forum (Everything - No trolling or flaming)
  
• Hidden Personal Discussion/Blog Forum (Blue Room)
  
• Archive Forum (For saving important and memorable threads/events/Memorials)
  
• Administrative Business Forum (Help Desk/Announcements/Board Discussions)
  
• Staff Forum (Shelter)
  

Sounds good to me. RR rules, GR rules, BR rules as they stand now, in the appropriate forums.

Go for it. But I think it will wreck the board. You'll have half the board dicussing topic A in FSF and half dicussing topic A in MF and never shall the two meet.

The libs on this board will love it. They won't have to talk to people who don't share their opinons.

Although why not just keep Archive a subforum of Moderated Discussion like it is of the Green Room? Not a big deal either way, just wondering.

[edit] I would also suggest that like the Blue Room the Shelter be Members Only as well. No need to air our dirty laundry.

The staff room will remain hidden and staff only. Hidden rooms are pretty much automatically members only.

The archive is seperate because just two forums looks too small and uninteresting for a BBS as much as no traffic does.

Honestly, I don't see how doing this will make any difference at all except to make things more chaotic and finding the things you want to talk about harder to find.

I'm not against trying it, it can be changed again after all, but I am skeptical that it's going to be some major boon for the board.

But keeping them separate is not "some major boon to the board" either. "Major boons" are pretty much a pipe dream and if anyone thinks that any change is supposed to be some magical trick that will make Wordforge incomparably better than it has been, they are living in a dream world.

Well I have no idea whatsoever if the board software would allow it, but were I WF King for the Day, I'd have the font page look something like this:

Banner.

Short paragraph centered and only half a page wide along the lines of:

Welcome to Wordforge! We are a general discussion board that tends to focus on politics, religion, science fiction, technology and multimedia. The [Unmod forum] has very few restrictions on posting (hyperlink to FAQ section dealing with Red Room) whereas the [Mod forum] has rules against blatant flaming and trolling. Check out both rooms, find a discussion you like, dive in and enjoy!

Then after that have Unmod but instead of just the most current topic, have the top three.
Mod, again top three topics.
Admin, announcements.


Then when you logged in, have the [Blue Room] appear underneath Mod, and then the Shelter and Archive underneath Admin.

That is a possibility. However on another forum I am on where we instituted consolidation not only is this not a problem, but people are posting more than they were before (by a significant amount, not just seasonal fluctuation).

Good on you for not being afraid of change, and Async answers the 'major boon' skepticism better than I can.

Overthinking a mundane topic that doesn't require any protracted navel-gazing sessions makes certain people feel smarter.

Just because some people want their cellphone circa 1999 doesnt mean we should set up the board according to those guidelines.

Where's media central? Techforge?

The idea is to separate by posting style instead of topic.

You'd discuss everything in either the non-moderated or moderated forum aside from blogs, board business or issues and an Archive for memorable stuff.

I think that idea is...dumb. What other board does that? A nice room and a not nice room - topics be damned.

I don't want someone flaming up my media central thread...but I don't want to post it in the dead zone that is the "moderated forum."

Whatever. I couldn't give a tiny rat's ass anymore because if I say things are just fine as they are, as they have been for fucking years, it will make absolutely no difference to the topic, none.

With that I bow out as having said what I had to say.

It's not like what we say matters.

What everyone says matters.

It's just impossible to do everything that everyone wants.

All we can do is try to decide what's best for the board, what might be worthwhile to try and see and what is completely impractical and do the best that we can.

Is it perfect. No. Will it ever be? No.

All I can say is bear with us, provide input and try to enjoy yourself or find someplace else that is to your liking.

Wow. After being here near ten years I can't believe you actually said that.

If Lanz is of the same mind on this then I'd like to hear it from him. I sure as hell won't stick around somewhere I'm not wanted.

I can make an extensive list of people who have left here, damned good posters who had interesting thoughts and concepts who left for one reason or another. Some silly some not so silly. This discounts death.

Lanz invited me here and I have enjoyed being a part of it from day one. I have always respected his wishes considering he pays the bills, as with any who have owned it before, but not only that but because I consider him a friend.
He can do with it as he sees fit, that doesn't bother me.

I'll say it again, there is nothing wrong with the board as it is. Just because someone wants to claim they had a say in the way the board is as a backdoor admin wannabe gloat does not sway my thinking in this, in fact it enforces it. I see folks who abandonded this place in here rignt now doing just that.

The most recent people who left didn't leave over rep but if you want to tell yourselves that go right ahead. Some of us caught on to the real reasons and didn't use rep as the scapegoat.

I've never in all of these years been disrespectful to you in any manner shape or form. In fact I have always defended you, yet here you are inviting me to hit the bricks.

I am dissapoint.

Get out.

























I'M KIDDING!! I hate when ANYone leaves. Especially when they do it because "OMG you're not running the board the way I want you to!" But I'm also not going to beg people to stay if they don't want to. On the other hand, how many times has someone stormed off in a huff only to come back some time later?

I don't think that has ever happened.

For a whole board. Not one I know of. Actually that is one of the things I like about Async's idea, it's novel. Why NOT try something new? And then after a couple months if the desired effects aren't achieved you can always add some boards back.

Well that's kinda the point. Right now with all non-RR posts spread between a dozen rooms they are all kinda dead zones. Combine all those into one and there will be much more activity. The idea is make the board the board as a whole lively.

For those against board updating and reorganization:

If you aren't against the concept, but just aren't sure about Async's plan, what would you like to see?