[OOC] Team Merlot Forums and the Court

ash88

Hail to the King Baby -DN
Joined
Jun 26, 2009
Messages
352
Location
Castle Merlot
Moderation and this Thread
This is a heavily moderated Out Of Character [OOC] thread. Please keep your comments to the topic at hand. If the Administrator feels that a comment should have been made In Character [IC] then he will flag it as such and the King can do with you as he pleases ;)

As you know part of the situation here is that the King, whomever he is throughout the game, has the ability to silence members of the team in his court (aka the forums). This is an important part of our meta game because we don't want the politics of our team to interfere with the actual game.

The problem is that Civfantics doesn't have the ability to give the Administrator, or the King, rights to just delete single posts. Furthermore, as part of their policy they don't generally delete posts. This is reasonable because their policy is based on modern thinking and not the totalitarian government that we are going to be emulating throughout the game.

So we have a couple of options (that I see - perhaps there are more).

1) We move Team Merlot to a privately hosted forum. I could potentially host these, but its a big pain. Mind you we do have a lot more control, security, and tools then. Still... it's a big pain.

2) We police ourselves. I'm not convinced of this - lets face it, if someone puts an idea on the forums and there is no way to delete it then the idea sticks out there. This doesn't represent a Monarchy where the idea is killed. More importantly it makes the forums more of a potential for political-blah instead of a tightly controlled court under the domineering thumb of the King.

3) umm... I'm open to suggestions :)

Keep in mind this one thing - Forum warfare is incedious, and I don't want our team to be bogged down by it, particularly since we have the potential for so much internal struggle as the game goes on.

I'm looking forward to your thoughts!

Cheers :)
 
1) We move Team Merlot to a privately hosted forum. I could potentially host these, but its a big pain. Mind you we do have a lot more control, security, and tools then. Still... it's a big pain.

This is a viable option of course - but ... Why would this be a big pain? If it is a pain for you to host them, I could host them on behalf of the team (provided noone objects to using a PHP based solution like PhpBB or punBB etc). My webserver ain't going nowhere anythime soon, since I use it for my business. I'm sure I'm not the only person on the team who could potentially host them either.

2) We police ourselves. I'm not convinced of this - lets face it, if someone puts an idea on the forums and there is no way to delete it then the idea sticks out there. This doesn't represent a Monarchy where the idea is killed. More importantly it makes the forums more of a potential for political-blah instead of a tightly controlled court under the domineering thumb of the King.

This sounds like a utopian dream. As in, I doubt it's going to work at all. Would be wonderful if it did though. ;)

Keep in mind this one thing - Forum warfare is incedious, and I don't want our team to be bogged down by it, particularly since we have the potential for so much internal struggle as the game goes on.

I agree wholeheartedly. So far, there's little reason to believe there will be much internal strife - yet. But at some point, it's bound to happen. And this is the key to our team too I believe, and is something we should all be painstakingly aware of. Our power lies in the hands of our King, and if the nobles doesn't support the King there will be trouble. And if a King is deposed of, will the person behind continue to bother playing at all? What if it happens several times, that the King is replaced by powerhungry megalomaniac cliques of the nobles? And what potential trouble could powerstruggles like this give our team in the long run?

NB! If I were to host the forums, I would set them up according to the Kings specifications and relinquish the day-to-day running of them to the Administrator (currently ash). Optionally - if you have hosting space but just find the set up a pain, I could be of assistance on your own hosting space, if anyone feels it would give a team member such as myself an unfair advantage to (obviously) have access to the forum database (such an arrangement requires trust in the person hosting, that he or she does NOT abuse the fact).
 
I'd like to think we can police ourselves.

Even if there is internal strife it could be worse. It is at least some expression of opinion which is far better than no expression of opinion, which is what happened to me in the last game.
 
I don't like the idea of a separate forum really, it would just confuse things.

How about we have a zero-tolerance policy for breaking the King's censure? Do it once and the administrator asks the game admins to remove the offending player from our team group - so they no longer have access to the forum. It might be harsh, but it should be an effective deterrent that allows us to police ourselves.
 
Úmarth;9087453 said:
I don't like the idea of a separate forum really, it would just confuse things.

Actually, I forgot to mention it, but this is one of the reasons I don't like the idea myself. I'm very anti-confusion, and having a serperate forum is very confusing.

There are two imperfect options (until a third comes along) - hosting a forum elsewhere, or self policing. I think we can all agree that both have their disadvantages. I want to get a general feeling from people: realizing that you don't like either option, which one do you like less?

This is a viable option of course - but ... Why would this be a big pain?
I appreciate the offer Umarth. I suppose that if it seems reasonable and we get to a point where we decide to host Team Merlot's forums offsite then the next question will be where? It's mainly a pain because having the discussion on the space here it Civfanatics is so easy, so by comparison anything is a pain :) ... inherent laziness ftw.

I'm interested in hearing more people chime in. Which idea do you hate more?

How about we have a zero-tolerance policy for breaking the King's censure? Do it once and the administrator asks the game admins to remove the offending player from our team group - so they no longer have access to the forum. It might be harsh, but it should be an effective deterrent that allows us to police ourselves.
I see where you are coming from, but lets say that we are 150 turns in and someone is in some "grey area" of "speaking against the King." How "grey" is "grey" before we kick them off the team? Also, Kicking someone off the team is serious business imho. We all come from different backgrounds, worldviews, and situations - and we are all pretending to live in a monarchy - something that none of us have never done (I'm assuming :) ) I would hate to have this feeling of being "kicked out of the community" hanging over my head if I misstepped - particularly since it is so easy for us all to misunderstand what people are doing/saying.

Even if there is internal strife it could be worse. It is at least some expression of opinion which is far better than no expression of opinion, which is what happened to me in the last game.
I don't know what happened to you in the last game - it may be a valuable example. My concern is that people don't use the forums as the political game of Team Merlot. Private Messages stop the "self destructive" nature of forum-warrioring. Thats the goal here. The King shouldn't have to run a political campaign on the forums to keep his throne. He should be able to delete (or have the Administrator delete) anything that he wants deleted. Support against the King should be acquired in private when necessary.

Its one of the foundational ideas of the team. The alternative, letting people say whatever they want on the forums, leads to campaigning - and then we might as well be a democracy with political parties.

Self policing doesn't do well with grey areas, and most of the time forum warrioring is grey. "Really Good Move there Mr. King :)" a statement given when a move was obviously not particularly good, for example. Do we self police that? You get the idea. And that is a pretty obvious example. The King really needs to be unshackled to control the public information in his court. imho. If the King ends up deleting too many posts then he inevitably becomes unpopular - thereby bringing about his own demise. By giving the King ultimate power he has ultimate responsibility.

Looking forward to more thoughts on it - I'm thinking it through myself (while I should be planting the garden - don't tell the gf!).

Cheers :)
 
I would like to believe that the people who have joined team Merlot did it knowing well that the King has full authority to do almost whatever he wants to and are committed to that idea. So I would like to think that people would follow orders of the King regardless the situation. For example personally I would gladly delete any offending messages if the King told me to. However, I do recognize that if things get heated and if there will be cliques fighting for the power, the noble idea of following the rules may be forgotten.

I like the minimal confusion of having just one private forum. It also has the benefit of not having to worry about the details on for example security and privacy issues. Another benefit not having a separate forum has is that the discussion would be automatically saved for the future generations. I would therefore hope that we can manage by just using CFC forums, but if other people are in favour of movign the discussion elsewhere, I'd like that to happen ASAP to avoid any further confusion of having lots of stuff here and then other stuff elsewhere.
 
I see where you are coming from, but lets say that we are 150 turns in and someone is in some "grey area" of "speaking against the King." How "grey" is "grey" before we kick them off the team? Also, Kicking someone off the team is serious business imho. We all come from different backgrounds, worldviews, and situations - and we are all pretending to live in a monarchy - something that none of us have never done (I'm assuming :) ) I would hate to have this feeling of being "kicked out of the community" hanging over my head if I misstepped - particularly since it is so easy for us all to misunderstand what people are doing/saying.

Well in that case the task is to eliminate as many grey areas as possible. Keep things simple: you can only be kicked off the team for violating a specific "banishment" order from the King (or maybe for doing so x amount of times) and that order has to be posted in a special thread and PMed to both the administrator and the subject. That should clear up an confusion regarding getting kicked off the team and moves the onus for sorting out grey areas to the king, who has to decide whether an offence deserves banishment or just a reprimand.

And I live in a constitutional monarchy, if that counts :p
 
I don't see a seperate forum necessary, although deleting posts is a usefull tool especially to keep stickied threads clean, but I hope everyone will get this eventually.

On the policing issue, I hope it does not come to a point of needing to kick someone out and I don't see how it will tbh. We are capable of moderating ourselves I think.....and I think that if we ask one of the admins to delete something they will.
 
if other people are in favour of movign the discussion elsewhere, I'd like that to happen ASAP to avoid any further confusion of having lots of stuff here and then other stuff elsewhere.

There are good points on both sides of the discussion, but I do agree with you wholeheartedly Aivoturso - this needs to be laid to rest ASAP. I fully recognize the time that people are putting in to making some cool things happen and recreating that on another forum will take more time the longer this drags out.

I'm torn on how to resolve it.

My feeling at this point is that if a good number of people on the team don't forsee a problem and feel that through self-policing and asking people to delete their own messages we can enforce our meta game then I'm inclined to keep the forums here. We don't know what the political landscape of the Team will be like. A good point was made: everyone here has signed up for this.

If in 6 months time we are in a political nightmare of a forum war, and the predicitions about our team crumbling under the weight of its own internal strife appear inevitable, well, live and learn :) Team Merlot will have a private forum set up before the game starts in the next game.

I'm not 100% on the issue yet, but this is my leaning after reading the good discussion here from everyone (thanks for making it). Any strong advocates for the private forum still have time to build their point with me and everyone. Inevitably I will make the call and be accountable for it - so if it all ends up going horribly wrong you will have the satisfaction of knowing where the finger should be pointed :)

On the policing issue, I hope it does not come to a point of needing to kick someone out and I don't see how it will tbh. We are capable of moderating ourselves I think.....and I think that if we ask one of the admins to delete something they will.

I think we will be pretty muck on our own. I will post my Private Message to the moderators about this so that we are all on the same page. Essentially though the "deleting of posts" goes against their principals - which I can respect; they are a free speech/democracy based forum. Not at all like our Monarchy/Totalitarian little group :) :

ash88 said:
Is it possible for me to get the ability to delete any post on the "Team Merlot" sub forum, preferably with a "moderator action" replacement?

I can go into details as to why this is important - I'm not sure how involved you are in the BTS MTDG but our team is founded around a totaltarian government and censorship is part of our meta game. You can read the initial recruitment post here.

If I need to address this with someone else I am happy to - just point me in the right direction.

Cheers :)
Sorry, the forum software doesn't allow deleting.

By the way, we're not fond of deleting posts as a principe. Your wishes in this go against the basic fundaments of this forum. You'll have to find a different solution.

Anyways, for the sake of resolving this lets give another couple days for anyone to make their point. I will close the issue Tuesday evening EST.

Cheers!
 
There are good points on both sides of the discussion, but I do agree with you wholeheartedly Aivoturso - this needs to be laid to rest ASAP. I fully recognize the time that people are putting in to making some cool things happen and recreating that on another forum will take more time the longer this drags out.

I agree too - this needs to be laid to rest ASAP indeed. In general it seems most people want to keep our internal discussions here on CFC, so that's what we're most likely going to do.

My feeling at this point is that if a good number of people on the team don't forsee a problem and feel that through self-policing and asking people to delete their own messages we can enforce our meta game then I'm inclined to keep the forums here. We don't know what the political landscape of the Team will be like. A good point was made: everyone here has signed up for this.

If in 6 months time we are in a political nightmare of a forum war, and the predicitions about our team crumbling under the weight of its own internal strife appear inevitable, well, live and learn :) Team Merlot will have a private forum set up before the game starts in the next game.

While this will come out as overly cynical - and quite possibly some people might think of me as a weirdo for saying so, I nevertheless would like to mention it just in case. Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts wrote in one of their books : "Never underestimate the human capacity for stupid, petty and illogical behaviour".

Now - back to my general outlook of positivity on things, in honesty I doubt we will run into much problems. But, there is always a but... ;)

I'm not 100% on the issue yet, but this is my leaning after reading the good discussion here from everyone (thanks for making it). Any strong advocates for the private forum still have time to build their point with me and everyone. Inevitably I will make the call and be accountable for it - so if it all ends up going horribly wrong you will have the satisfaction of knowing where the finger should be pointed :)

I don't consider myself a strong advocate of the private forums - but having a private forum opens up countless of options to us. For instance the segregation of the forums into different parts for easier reading (e.g. IC for the RP'ers, OC, and General Tactics/Strategy section). Moderating would be easier. Private Messaging would not neccessarily be restricted to 100 messages.

I think we will be pretty muck on our own. I will post my Private Message to the moderators about this so that we are all on the same page. Essentially though the "deleting of posts" goes against their principals - which I can respect; they are a free speech/democracy based forum. Not at all like our Monarchy/Totalitarian little group :)

Since we do have the option to edit our own posts here, an option would be: if the King sends you a message where he asks you to delete a post, you should comply. The post in question should then be replaced with something alike to "This post has been deleted by the order of His Majesty".
 
although deleting posts is a usefull tool especially to keep stickied threads clean, but I hope everyone will get this eventually.
For the last one we had the benifit of having two mods on our team (not quite the case here) and posts were deleted when necessary. If we ask, I'm sure they'll come through.
 
I would not be in favour of a new private forum at this point in time.

I am in favour of keeping of keeping stickied threads clean.

Rather then delete the post completely, can it be moved or, if not the King can ask that the author to repost it in a more appropriate thread and to edit the original down to 'moved post'.
 
I also think a case can be made for a 'minor hall' or whatever, next to the Great Hall, where aspects of the current turn can be discussed, such a next moves.

At the moment, turn move options, strategy and maths, all get commented on in the West Tower, so tracking specific discussion on a turn can get lost amongst other debates.
 
Agreed with Hercules. The West Tower has become a bit crowded.

I don't think forum moderation is a problem. We can easily enforce "banishment by order of the King" when it is necessary. And if treasonous posts end up being visible for a while, so be it: even in a royal court, a madman has the ability to run around denouncing the King to anyone who happens to hear. He does not have the right to do so, and should not expect to keep his head on his shoulders for very long afterward, but he has that physical ability.
 
I also think a case can be made for a 'minor hall' or whatever, next to the Great Hall, where aspects of the current turn can be discussed, such a next moves.

At the moment, turn move options, strategy and maths, all get commented on in the West Tower, so tracking specific discussion on a turn can get lost amongst other debates.

[offtopic]

Please remember this is a highly moderated OOC thread - as per the first post.

Suggestions about the current Kings forum structure are well outside the topic. If you have suggestions, complaints, or praise for anything the King has done you should start another topic. We are speaking here Generally about whether we want to move Team Merlot to another forum. :)

It's my responsibility to inform everyone that comments on this topic (and all responses) are open for IC response, and to request that another topic be started if you wish to continue discussing it.

No harm, no foul beyond that. It's easy to go off topic. That's why they pay me the big bucks to drag things back on topic... ... oh wait... :)
 
2) We police ourselves. I'm not convinced of this - lets face it, if someone puts an idea on the forums and there is no way to delete it then the idea sticks out there. This doesn't represent a Monarchy where the idea is killed.

Actually I don't see Monarchy like that.

No King has ever had the power to change history really, so I don't think the King should have the power to delete posts. (Forum-tidying/reorganising for OOC reasons is fine).

The power the King has over his subjects is to exact punishment, not to change history. Posting in the forums is the only way we have of speaking, and what is said cannot be unsaid. Ergo I think the King should be able to imprison/execute subjects that displease him with what they've said. Since we don't actually want to lose team members, "imprisonment" would entail removing the player's posting rights to the Team Merlot Forum until the King says otherwise;and "execution" means the same, until the King is deposed.

I would say "read only mode" rather than lock people out of the Team Merlot Forum altogether because we don't want to lose the player altogether; when the King relents (or is deposed), we want them back. Of course this is potentially open to abuse through PMing, but it seems the least worst option to me.

I'm guessing we would need the assistance of the CivFanatics admins for this, but I hope it could be done without moving to a new forum. I would expect moving would reduce participation due to confusion and hassle-factor.
 
Actually I don't see Monarchy like that.

No King has ever had the power to change history really, so I don't think the King should have the power to delete posts. (Forum-tidying/reorganising for OOC reasons is fine).

It's more about who the King allows to join court. IRL the King can use all kinds of means to have people silenced, none of which are transferrable on the forums. So it's a representation of that...

In anycase, after hearing the 2 different points of view I'm (less than) content to have the forums stay here. In the spirit of "not dealing with a problem unti lthere is a problem" we will see how it goes.

Cheers.
 
Top Bottom