Forum split?

With the new anti-spam measures taken recently (namely restricting PM's to members with at least 5 posts) a number of forum gamers have lost the ability to PM, which is pretty important in forum games. At the moment, there's a thread where these people can post and get their privileges re-instated but it creates work for the mods/admins and it's more of a quick fix than actually solving the problem imo.

So, I'd like to request that the "Forum Games" forum be split into "Spam Games" and "Non-Spam Games" with the non-spam games having post count re-enabled. Spam games could be defined as any game where the average post consists of less than one sentence, or maybe any game where complete sentences aren't needed. I don't know, that'd be up to TF to decide. Heck, it could even be games where PM's are needed and games where they aren't.

I'd also suggest that members with less than 5 posts could just have their PM boxes be extremely small, like has been done at this forum (they give all new members an inbox with room for only ten messages). If that's still an issue, maybe they could only receive PM's until the requirement has been met making PM spam impossible.

Anyway, that's my suggestion for dealing with the problem. Is it remotely possible?

I kinda like the idea, 'cause it would rectify the situation, but enabling post count in forum games that are designated non-spam would create an obligation to make posts in those threads non-spammy. Which may, at times, be quite difficult. Discussion/posts can get quite off-topic and spammy, whilst still being beneficial, even in non-spam game threads.

Yes, I for one would like to see the forum games posts count. I wouldn't have been in this situation if they did. Thanks.

And it doesn't help that posting in the forum games area doesn't work towards your post count.

Support.

I think it's a sound idea. Lately I've noticed the forum games section to be more 'cluttered' for lack of a better word, and the 'quality' games (ie, NOTW, mafia, Diplomacy, etc) seem to end up buried under the not quite so, erm, 'quality' games. Recently there's been a few people that didn't even notice a game has started. I don't know if this is the result of the main page being so cluttered or not, but I think it bares mentioning anyway that it can be difficult to pick out when something has started or not just by looking at the main page. On another side note, I know the Lazy-NES series received a lot of scorn from the NES forum gamers just because the game was in the spammy forum games sub-section. It having it's own spam free section along with the diplomacy/NOTW games might help in attracting more serious players, though a move out of the main forum games section might attract less total players. As far as what games are considered spam and not spam, I'd break it down to this one thing: if the game requires intelligent discussion to play, then it's not spam. All else would fall into the spam category. Is that a fair assessment, or am I leaving something out?

CCRunner said:

With the new anti-spam measures taken recently (namely restricting PM's to members with at least 5 posts) a number of forum gamers have lost the ability to PM, which is pretty important in forum games. At the moment, there's a thread where these people can post and get their privileges re-instated but it creates work for the mods/admins and it's more of a quick fix than actually solving the problem imo.

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I've had to change permissions for three people. That's workable.

The problem is that people are unaware that they don't have PM privileges, so someone might have to tell them that they need to get PMs activated. That's a bit hard when you can't actually PM the person to tell them where they need to post, or to tell them that they don't actually have PMs. I just have to hope they happen to come across it in thread, and then subsequently post in the Lost PMs thread.

There are several games that have been created on CFC (or at least are being run here) that have as much value and Merit as NES games.

I do believe a split between "serious forum games" and "silly forum games" should be created. The "serious" games certainly have value.

An i'm not even involved in these games, but I can see the effort people put into them.

Perhaps an alternative solution would be to have it so that GMs request PM access en masse for everyone in their game that needs PM access, so the responsibility falls on the GM rather than on each individual that may or may not be aware of their lack of PM permission.

We have lost nearly all the old NotW game threads except NotW I because that was in the Civ4 mod forums. It's actually very disappointing because each NotW game has different abilities, items, etc and it is very interesting to see the old ones!

If the forum is split, would this mean that NotW game threads are retained?

Those games died cos they deleted all the old game files..

They didn't value them, and needed space.

In future, if placed in a seperate folder, recognising their value.. they would be safe.

I think i prefer the current solution with a single category for all forum games. I guess just for the sake of less clicking to get where you want.

Abaddon said:

I do believe a split between "serious forum games" and "silly forum games" should be created. The "serious" games certainly have value.

An i'm not even involved in these games, but I can see the effort people put into them.

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Even the DYOS threads?

i'd agree with this

I agree with this, the current situation is very problematic to us mafia and NOTW-players. And to a few of the other forum gamers as well. BL is right about the Lazy-NES's, they were not spammy but just ended up in a spam section. And they DO require PM's. There hasn't been any in a year, but we might be able to get one started if we could get serious players.

I agree.

Wouldn't it be just as easy to have the people make 5 posts in a normal forum?

CivGeneral said:

Even the DYOS threads?

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Yes, even those. Even if I think they were destroyed and ruined by certain posters (who mods sadly are unable to punish even when they recognised the problem), I cannot deny the effort that some put into them.

Do not forget, until they were ruined DYOS were in OT!

DaveShack said:

Wouldn't it be just as easy to have the people make 5 posts in a normal forum?

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I suppose, but that would largely be spam. I mean, isn't posting for the sheer purpose of raising one's post count discouraged, or in fact, not allowed?

I should have said, 5 topical posts.