Calling all Civ Fanatics debaters

[jessiecat]

But then again, there are a lot of old farts on these boards without a clue too.

Care to step outside, sonny?

 

[Angst]

Well, I won't support your project, but I agree that this forum has a good poster standard.

(Not including me)

 

[Pangur Bán]

Unfortunately, lumpthing, you are wrong. Argumentation on cfc ot tends to be characterised by immaturity, incivility and combativeness. It is better than what you'll get on youtube for instance, but is closer to the youtube swear-fests than to, for instance, many of the websites of newspapers, or to any reallife debating or discussion societies where people can't hide behind usernames. When I was younger, I used to be quite active on ot, but these days I have outgrown it too much to find it very enticing.

 

[lumpthing]

Yes I'm sure real-life discussion societies are great quality, but they are inevitably very, very small-scale, temporary and ephemeral (nothing said is recorded). The great thing about web discussions is that they're open to the whole world.

I'm interested in these civilised online newspaper discussions though. Any names? In my experience online newspaper comments are full of rants and conspiracy theories.

 

[Miles Teg]

I'm interested in these civilised online newspaper discussions though. Any names? In my experience online newspaper comments are full of rants and conspiracy theories.

That would be my experience as well. Even at their best, the comment section of any website is generally worse than a forum, because it lacks a well developed community base. The only place this is at all mitigated is some niche blogs, where there's allot of crosstalk between the blogger(s) and the commentators. At it's worse, the comments section is prone to rantings by wingnuts from all sides, with little talk between commentators, and most of that being vicious flaming.

Of course, he was probably referring to published newspaper articles, but the problem there is that you can't actually contribute, just spectate.

 

[.Shane.]

In re: the OP, the most reasonable and easiest thing would be a "good threads" thread. Meaning, an administrator (someone who's consistenly on the forum, is reasonable, and can put aside their own subjectivity) would create a thread that essentially catalogs useful or good threads via links w/in the OP. You could then list them under groupings, etc....

Just a thought...

 

[Earthling]

I'm interested in these civilised online newspaper discussions though. Any names? In my experience online newspaper comments are full of rants and conspiracy theories.

I have to second, third, fourth, or whatever number this. At the very least, anything in the English language that possibly involves free posting is never of much quality at all. I still have yet to see any significantly large community, as CFC is, that holds up to what you imply; naturally a dozen people at a subscribers-only site may be more civil but that's hardly a fair comparison.

Also, I certainly would not have been a huge proponent of the OP's original suggestions because I could see too much potential for bias or frivolousness, but Shane's idea seems to really have merit. Of course, it's been tried similarly on the civ side with stuff like the War Academy and not really held up all too great of late (stupid joke stuff everywhere) but properly implemented such a concept could still work.

 

[BasketCase]

Unfortunately, lumpthing, you are wrong. Argumentation on cfc ot tends to be characterised by immaturity, incivility and combativeness.

Believe me when I tell you--I've been on a lot of web sites where the discussion forums (such as they were) were a lot more immature, incivil, and combative. You'll find some degree of this everywhere.

My theory is, CFC is better than most because Civilization is a game that requires actual brains to play, whereas Halo 3 only requires fast reflexes.

 

[lumpthing]

A forum that tries to be primarily intellectual is
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/

Here's a site you should check out.

Thanks, They both look good from my quick tour (so I guess civfanatics isn't so unique in my eyes now). I will have to investigate them further, especially as they both seem to be undermined by the sheer messy massiveness of the longer debates, which is what Mystery Site will be solving.

In re: the OP, the most reasonable and easiest thing would be a "good threads" thread. Meaning, an administrator (someone who's consistenly on the forum, is reasonable, and can put aside their own subjectivity) would create a thread that essentially catalogs useful or good threads via links w/in the OP. You could then list them under groupings, etc....

I've seen that done a various subforums here. I think it's a good idea but it's not the solution to the main problem we're addressing with the Mystery Site. The big problem that I see is going to a thread with an interesting title or OP but then seeing 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 pages of existing posts and thinking "okay I can't be bothered".

Also, I certainly would not have been a huge proponent of the OP's original suggestions because I could see too much potential for bias or frivolousness

Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what you're getting at.

My theory is, CFC is better than most because Civilization is a game that requires actual brains to play, whereas Halo 3 only requires fast reflexes.

That's what I think too, but I thought it'd be too arrogant to say so

 

[Earthling]

Well, sorry for not elaborating, but insofar as specifics went on the first page, the implication that a "wiki-like" system being what is desired is what I was speaking about. Given the size of the forums I would only expect a mish-mash to develop if cataloging/summarizing/whatever of threads was open to the community at large. And of course, the idea that it's really possible to "summarize threads" seems rather tricky to me, given how difficult it is for people to even agree on what's being talked about half of the time. Shane seemed to have a more concrete if limited concept since I would have greater faith in an adminstrator(s) in small number being able to keep things organized. Like I said, the best analogy I could think of is the civ-Related War Academy type stuff which is decent yet still has it's flaws of outdated or inaccurate material, and that's on a much narrower and simpler field than OT discussion as a whole.

 

[Angst]

Save the Amur Leopard!

*click*

Page Not Found (404)
The page you have requested has not been found. Check the address you have entered, use the search at the top or click on home to locate the page.

Irony.

 

[gangleri2001]

Oh! You all are so smart and cool I would love to *CENSORED* your *CENSORED* for the rest of my life.

Now... Would you mind to join my website?

No.

Tenchers

PS: Do you belive in life after love?

 

[lumpthing]

Yeah I was worried my post would come across like that. But my opinions on CivFanatics forums are honest and my experience here is honestly part of what inspired me to create the site. If you want to believe I'm just making it all up that's up to you; I can't prove you wrong.

 

[lumpthing]

Do you have a web-page up for your project or some-such?

Somewhat late reply, but here it is: yoomoot.com. I also wrote an article elsewhere, which talks, more eloquently, about the same problem I talked about here.

Well, sorry for not elaborating, but insofar as specifics went on the first page, the implication that a "wiki-like" system being what is desired is what I was speaking about. Given the size of the forums I would only expect a mish-mash to develop if cataloging/summarizing/whatever of threads was open to the community at large. And of course, the idea that it's really possible to "summarize threads" seems rather tricky to me, given how difficult it is for people to even agree on what's being talked about half of the time. Shane seemed to have a more concrete if limited concept since I would have greater faith in an adminstrator(s) in small number being able to keep things organized. Like I said, the best analogy I could think of is the civ-Related War Academy type stuff which is decent yet still has it's flaws of outdated or inaccurate material, and that's on a much narrower and simpler field than OT discussion as a whole.

Aha. Well with yoomoot the conversation is structured right from the start, due to the format – it's not about someone going in an summarizing it after the conversation has taken place.

 

[lumpthing]

The site is live. If you're curious tell me your email address (on this thread or by PM) and I'll give you an immediate invite.

 

[Azash]

CFC used to be more intelligent than it is now, I'd say. Seems like everybody's run a bit out of subjects.

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

Anyone else noticed that the quality of discussion here is much higher than on other sites? Most other popular forums and commenting threads I've come across are dominated by "im boooooooorrred LOLZ!!!" type posts or, if the topic is at all controverisial, argument-less foaming-at-the-mouth rants. Here, there is a crazily high level of general knowledge and people seem able to disagree while remaining constructive and civil. I seriously don't know of any other forum where people with such a diverse range of opinions talk about such a wide range of things to such a high level.

This leads me to find it sad that the ultimate destiny of all these highbrow discussions is to sink to the bottom of the thread list and from there to oblivion. A community like this has the potential to be a wikipedia of discussions, somewhere you can either look into an existing discussion or start a new one and get a range of informed, intelligent responses back.

The only thing stopping it from becoming that, in my opinion, is the disorganization engendered by today's web forum designs. Whenever I come across a big discussion that started a while ago I just can't be bothered to trawl through the pages and pages of posts to understand everything that is being said. What I would love is some way of quickly getting the gist of what's being said and how all the posts relate to one another - something that makes forum discussions as easy and quick to navigate as Wikipedia articles. This would not only make it easier for latecomers to engage with the discussion but would also transform the discussion into a permanent, accessible resource, in the same way that wikis are.

The reason I bring all this up is because I'd love such a Wikipedia of discussions myself and over the past several months I've been working with a few other people to actually make it happen; we've developed a new kind of forum which keeps things organised and quick to navigate. In a few weeks we'll be inviting people to the private beta version and I was wondering if any of you lot would be interested in taking a look, saying what you think and, if you like it, pioneering the community.

So, anyone interested? Agree that more could be made of the discussions here?

UPDATE: site website: yoomoot.com. It's invitation-only but if you let me know your email address (on this thread or by PM) I'll invite you immediately.

What you see is what you get. Don't see? I see.

Anyway, I too found out that in other forums like this, can be challenging for new-comers like me; especially when you got veteran posters who are more reluctant to argue about many things like here. I guess this place is for people that love controversies and have a lot of bs to argue about them.

 

[kulade]

CFC used to be more intelligent than it is now, I'd say. Seems like everybody's run a bit out of subjects.

Naw, we just realized the old subjects were pretentious and didn't get anywhere.

 

[lumpthing]

Update: I launched it: yoomoot.com.

 

[azzaman333]

I am the master of debating.