do you like the forum split?

[sophie]

I actually have no problem with this decision. I think making the two separate subforums was a good idea. The things I don't like are the

a.) decision to release it on April 1
b.) the condescending, rude, even dickish way in which many of the moderators are handling the whole thing. Come on, guys, you know this forum is full of change-averse posters who will be confused and angry about the whole thing, the least you could do is not be such asshats about it. This to me is the worst part of this whole ordeal. You all should be ashamed to call yourselves moderators.
c.) The lack of PC for OT-JR.

a) will be fixed with time. b) and c) can be very easily remedied; do that and I couldn't be happier.

 

[LucyDuke]

b.) the condescending, rude, even dickish way in which many of the moderators are handling the whole thing. Come on, guys, you know this forum is full of change-averse posters who will be confused and angry about the whole thing, the least you could do is not be such asshats about it. This to me is the worst part of this whole ordeal. You all should be ashamed to call yourselves moderators.

Be fair, it's not all, not by a long shot. But I agree that some have crossed a line.

 

[amadeus]

Nonono.

 

[Smellincoffee]

The transfer of old OT threads into the two new forums doesn't seem completely consistent with their alleged purposes; when I checked in on Sunday I didn't see a real difference between the given threads' subjects, so for now I remain confused as to where a given thread might be. The seeming arbitrariness of the thread split as it stands now (it may make more sense as new threads replace the old ones) makes me think this is a prolonged April Fool's prank, but if other forums (science and technology) are moved back into Civilium the split may grow on me.

 

[Earthling]

Complete failure to address any problems with and the needed merging of Science & Tech, A&E, etc... and it's still likely this is an April fools holdover, so no.

 

[illram]

Ideally this new change fosters an atmosphere where we all vote with our feet. If you prefer a OT-JR atmosphere, then you will hang out more in the FT/OT-JR/Glass Cage of Emotion (my proposal for the new forum's name). If a lot of you prefer that, then a lot of you will hang out there more and not really in the FC. The FC will be populated, in turn, with folks who want a more detail oriented or focused or serious discussion, or whatever. An "RD" level. If that forum ends up withering away and dying, so be it. The FT becomes the new OT, eventually. It's ultimately up to us all, which is why I endorsed this and think it is ultimately something worth trying. I hope this also ultimately serves two camps: ones who want an elevated level of discussion free of stealth trolling and overt strawmanning and being generally obtuse and/or ruining a discussion with quote wars, or what have you, and ones who want a more free wheeling, everyone for themselves level of discussion where "debate" is as much about entertaining oneself as it is about educating or arguing or whatever.

I also endorsed the roll-out on April 1st. Honestly, I thought it would be funny as a reverse not-prank mind blowing prank that would make future pranks that much better as you will forever not know if we are serious or not. Haha. Apparently it did not go over well with some of you, and I am sorry about that, but ultimately, this is a website we visit to procrastinate/hang out with internet friends/rant/waste time on, so in the big picture, hopefully that does not get in the way of what we are trying to ultimately accomplish, which is make this little not-so-important slice of our lives a better place for everyone.

tl;dr, we are trying new things, and trying to make the forums better. That is always our goal. We are listening and trying to incorporate a diverse set of opinions. Let's give this a try and see how it evolves. Ultimately, it may just be that we end up with OT becoming FT, by way of a natural evolution. But no need to close the FC, if it remains in use and if people still want to go there.

 

[Antilogic]

What's cracking me up is how everyone howls for change. Then a change is made (responding to criticism and trying to build a solution that addresses the criticism) and they just howl more.

I promise you there is NOTHING we could do that would make the howling stop, short of shooting the dogs.

Be careful what you wish for.

/maniacal laugh

Was there a huge cry for anything like what was done? I thought the RD idea was good and I don't remember this kind of response to it.

 

[Mark1031]

Was there a huge cry for anything like what was done? I thought the RD idea was good and I don't remember this kind of response to it.

The problem was there was no change in moderating standards for the non-RD threads. Essentially the response to the complaint of overmoderation by some was to keep the baseline moderation and add a supermoderated class to that. Not exactly responsive.

 

[Turquoiside]

Where's the neutral option?

Spoiler :

 

[Antilogic]

The problem was there was no change in moderating standards for the non-RD threads. Essentially the response to the complaint of overmoderation by some was to keep the baseline moderation and add a supermoderated class to that. Not exactly responsive.

No wonder there is an outcry--that wasn't the fix we were looking for!

 

[illram]

I've never seen a very universal "we want this fix" from a large contingent of posters; the only thing I saw a lot of was a push for a sandbox type forum with more hands-off moderating that allowed a more free-wheeling discussion, which is what FT or whatever it is eventually called is trying to provide.

 

[Mark1031]

I thought Ap1 roll out was funny. Oh well its a question of taste. And I like the split but I do agree with this:

b.) the condescending, rude, even dickish way in which many of the moderators are handling the whole thing. Come on, guys, you know this forum is full of change-averse posters who will be confused and angry about the whole thing, the least you could do is not be such asshats about it. This to me is the worst part of this whole ordeal. You all should be ashamed to call yourselves moderators.
c.) The lack of PC for OT-JR.

c. I don't care about but since people want it I see no reason they shouldn;t have it why try to create more animosity. If spam becomes a problem (Big problem that is) then remove the PC.

b. is rather true and unfortunate.

There seems to be a clear bias in the roll out in favor of FC.

eg.

Off-topic forum for people wanting civil discussion of the important topics.

vs.

The Internet. Serious Business. A more lightly-moderated forum for your off-topic discussions, not really designed for serious debate.

So the basic tone is. OK you annoying, unserious, air-heads you can have your forum but with no PC, and of course you still complain.

Why not just.

Strictly moderated forum for more in-depth off-topic discussion.

and

Lightly-moderated forum for off-topic discussion.

I see many srs discussions in FT. You think people can;t have a srs discussion w/o a moderator? Amazingly I've had them all my life.

 

[Turner]

Hey mods (&/admins), isn't it possible to set the permissions such that old OT is open to post in existing threads but not post new threads? We could do that, then when a thread gets bumped just move it over to a "live" forum. That means less fuss for us getting a mod to move a thread in order to bump it, and no particular mod has to worry about opening a particular thread on request. Just keep an eye out for bumps (easy) and pick the appropriate new forum. (I'd suggest defaulting to OT:SRSBZNS unless it's a super crappy thread, to minimize postcount loss.)

This would solve my biggest ongoing grievance with the new system. Please do it.

The idea is to shift OT into a new direction. Yes, a split one, but new directions none the less. By closing the old forum we're trying to move away from what OT was from the moderator's viewpoint - a place that was a chore to moderate and often brought a lot of mod burnout. We realize there are a lot of valid discussion worthy threads still in OT, which is why we're asking that you report the posts and we'll gladly move them to the FC or FT (and I do agree, those are horrible names) where the discussion can continue. But just splitting a new subforum off to try and shove some of the OT stuff would not really be a new paradigm, it's simply another poorly executed attempt to relive some moderator headaches and ultimately would have zero net change.

We really want to change OT for the better. We want to foster serious discussions in an environment where trolling, flaming and spam are not prevalent. So we figured maybe if we gave a lighter-moderated forum where spam was tolerated, it would relieve the pressure and not have so much spam in the serious discussion part of the forum. We also figured since we were tolerating spam more, we could give an environment where some trolling and flaming was allowed, but not so it was detrimental to the discussion. We figured we could set up a forum where such things were tolerated more than they previously were. So, close the old OT, bring the discussions over that people really wanted to continue, and move into new directions.

We also looked at the infraction system. Not closely, but decided that we could try something different. I personally don't think the infraction system works well in the OT environment. We decided that the best options were to delete outright or ban outright, not play a system where trolling and flaming was tolerated and even condoned with a slap-on-the-wrist system. Does that mean that infractions are going away? Not right now, we'll see how the new system goes, and tweak from there.

So consider the FC the 'Red Diamond' forum, where serious discussion is encouraged. Yes, it will be slow. Yes, it won't see much traffic. But the discussions in there will evolve into a lesser moderated area as people realize that limited trolling and flaming is tolerated and spam can be largely be ignored. And those that do cross a line either have the posts deleted or are simply removed from the forums for a period of time.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I voted "Yes" but it should really be a "Sort of."

I do like the general idea of having certain threads where we can sort of goof around in (The Taberna threads), threads for hardcore debate (RD in Civilium) and something in between (The rest of Civilium.) I think the choice is good.

I don't like having to click back and forth. And I don't like the no postcount in Taberna (Not because I need to pad my count, because I really want to know how many I have. See my compromise solution in the other thread.)

I'd prefer to see Jollyroger's "Anti RD" thread with very laid back rules and only the most blatant offenses being punished (I'm ignoring the whole PDMA thing and whether or not that's a blatant offense, but I'd agree "More strict" VS "Less strict" should have nothing to do with the PDMA rule.) I do think, however, in the "Anti-RD" threads, the obviously silly and not truly intended to deceive moderator impersonations/joke comments toward certain actions should be allowed in the "Anti-RD/Taberna" threads.

Though I prefer the split to not having any choice for a laid back thread at all. So I do "Reservedly" like the change.

 

[Narz]

No. It was un-needed.

I do not care about post count, for what it's worth. Join dates are a much more fun way of determining elitism, anyway.

Better recognize!

I agree with Mise that the names are goofy.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

I like it if it ends up serving its purpose--one OT forum for serious discussions and the other for fluff discussions.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

My initial reaction was in favor, but that has sharply reversed itself, for reasons that Owen Glyndwr and Joecoolio have enumerated. Also, I resent the idea that serious discussion cannot be had in any environment other than a heavily policed one with strict, ruthlessly enforced rules. And that's what the moderation in that forum is: ruthless, not rigorous. It's going to implode on itself in the same way that OT has been slowly doing for years, largely because of the poor moderation habits in the direction I just described, and have elaborated upon more eloquently and exhaustively in the past.

 

[Turquoiside]

But was the point of the split to increase intense discussion at all? It seems like there was plenty of it already in OT and that the change wasn't designed to affect that. Rather, the point was to lessen overall moderation by creating a section with looser restrictions that we formerly had. For now, most of the threads are gravitating towards to lighter side, but I'm sure in time we'll begin to see the opposite happen. As I see it, the looser standards in the other section aren't ideal for the level of discussion we used to see in OT. Once that's understood, more likely than not we'll see that this change was a good thing.

 

[ZeletDude]

Honestly I really don't like it.

 

[North King]

The names are pretty stupid and confused at a glance (as both start with "Forum" and end with "um"; most other non-Civ fora can be distinguished pretty easily).

But the idea is a good one.