Forum structure

[DaveShack]

Please post any suggestions you have on forum structure here. Please be brief, no need for long-winded explanations. Just a potential subforum structure with names and perhaps a sentence on what it would contain.

To avoid influencing things too much, I'll hold off on posting my idea for now.

 

[dutchfire]

A sub-forum for each faction?
I think we need Polls for sure, and a general discussion forum and a forum for officials. I don't think we need a RPG forum anymore.

 

[Provolution]

Proposal on forum structure:

I will not suggest to radically refurnish the forum structure, but make a singular major change, and that is to move the roleplay forum out into the game in its entirety from its presently dark corner, and establish two new forums that handle respectively game rules and statistics. There will also be a subforum for reports and so on and a forum for subgames. All private forums will be off-site, unless the moderators will allow them on the forum. Official faction information can be laid out in stickies in the National Forum/Public Forum.

The forum structure would then look like this:

Main Forum (Important messages, Faction Platforms, Faction debates, Faction elections)

Subforums could be:

• National Forum/Public Forum (formerly citizens forum)
• Ruling Faction/Regime/Dynasty Forum(formerly officials/government)
• Votes and Polls (Formerly Polling Forum)
• Game Analysis and Statistics Forum (replace roleplay forum as specialty forum)
• Laws, Rules and Regulations Forum (replace roleplay forum as specialty forum)
• National Factbook and History (organized reporting area with maps, history, gamesession reports and main milestones)
• Subgames

Also, we can invite factions to establish their own private forums at Invisionfree, as we should keep all forums at CFC public.

 

[ravensfire]

Whoa - too many forums there, Provo. That's rather confusing and convoluted.

Main (should contain FAQ, Structure and Summary threads only)
-- Discussion (all discussions, whether game
-- Government (all government threads by ruling faction)
-- Faction (all faction threads/discussions
-- Gameplay (all threads related to playing the Civ4 game (think schedule and instruction threads)
-- Voting

EDIT: Forgot one point - no sub-forums for factions. One, they will (hopefully) change over time, some disappearing, some being created. Keep them in the Faction thread, and keep it simple.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Provolution]

I am still for a separate rules discussion forum, so that it will not distract attention from the main game. I have seen several successful forum games with more than 10 subforums. I did not find the presented forums to be much convoluted and confusing. I think we need the main forum, the national forum, to be void of OOC (Out of character) discussions, as it detracts from the roleplay experience.

Main (should contain FAQ, Structure and Summary threads only)
-- National Assembly (In-character discussions about the game)
-- Regime (may be court, government or other ruling body run by faction)
-- Faction (all faction threads/discussions/nominations/platforms/elections)
-- Gameplay (all threads related to playing the Civ4 game (think schedule and instruction threads)
-- Game Information and Laws (History, Maps, Official statistics, Rule/Law discussions and proposals)
-- Voting
-- OOC (Out-of character forum where non-game or metagame issues can be handled, without ruining the experience in the "National Assembly".)

Secret negotiations over platforms should take place somewhere people can record their doings. This will regardless take place over private message and so on. There is no need for factions to monitor their respective developments of platform drafts until election starts.
This is why Faction Forums should be permitted, but for the sake of orderliness, we can keep these off-forum.

 

[croxis]

I like raven's structure the most, except I would remove the faction forum and have that discussion happen, for now at least, in the main forum. I fear that the role playing and political discussions will become too fragmented. Also fewer discussion forums is better for smaller participants as the size of critical mass is smaller. Adjustments can be made later if we find this unsatisfactory.

 

[AluminumKnight]

I have a couple of suggestions, but as you guys know, I'm not really experienced with this game, so let me know what you think:

First, why have a separate Discussion forum and Faction forum? "Discussion" could be split into "in-game" and "OOC" and the in-game combined with the Faction forum, while OOC gets it's own forum to attempt to encourage roleplaying posts. That's also "Second," OOC needs it's own forum for the number-crunchers and such.

Third, between the ruling faction's own forum/thread, and the gameplay forum, I don't think another forum is necessary just for the ruling faction. The faction's forum/thread can deal with in-faction decisions, and the gameplay thread used to keep track of turns and stuff so that everyone can see what is going on.

Finally, I like the idea of a forum dedicated solely to history, maps, demographics, and other information about the nation. I guess another idea is to combine this information forum with a "Ruling Faction forum" to create a government forum. Here's what I'm thinking:

Main
-- Citizen's Forum (In-character discussions about the game. This also includes organization of factions. Factions could run themselves through a thread here or somewhere off-site)
-- Gameplay Forum (all threads related to playing the Civ4 game (think schedule and instruction threads))
-- Votes and Polls Forum
-- OOC
---- Game Analysis and Statistics Forum
---- Laws, Rules and Regulations Forum
-- National Factbook and History Forum (maybe Information Forum?)

I guess the problem I see with this is where the Laws, Rules, and Regulations forum is. If I was a new member coming to check this out, I might just disregard the OOC forum (and subsequently the LRR forum) completely as unnecessary, where in reality it would be useful to look through. Perhaps in the Citizen's forum and Information forum we could have a Sticky that links to the rules?

 

[Provolution]

Yes, the use of all forums should be explained in a sticky. Problem with statistical and legal arguments, is that they may distract too much from the main game, which is why its better to keep them separate. We are not removing statistics and law, but we are putting them to good use as the instruments they should be and remove them as a lasting distraction and lessen their political stress factor.

OOC is for the out of character comments, therefore the opposite of roleplay. This is for game-related stuff that has nothing to do with the story inside the game, meta-game politics if you prefer.

I also very much liked the National Factbook developed by Dutchfire, that good product is worthy a separate subforum, where we can place all quality game reference reporting, cross-linked to FAQ and other subforums where they fit in (Faction Regime threads etc).

 

[ravensfire]

I like raven's structure the most, except I would remove the faction forum and have that discussion happen, for now at least, in the main forum. I fear that the role playing and political discussions will become too fragmented. Also fewer discussion forums is better for smaller participants as the size of critical mass is smaller. Adjustments can be made later if we find this unsatisfactory.

Exactly! We are NOT a large group of people anymore. Start small, and expand it from there. Keeping the discussion forums small helps improve the chances of people noticing and commenting on threads they normally might not look at.

My reason for the Factions being in their own sub-forums is mostly the potential for many threads about the factional rulesets. After all, each faction will have their own version, plus the discussions on it, etc. That will hopefully be a fair amount of traffic (if there isn't, the system is in trouble!), and will help to break it out.

-- Ravensfire

 

[DaveShack]

Regarding the suggestion that factions do their private stuff offsite, I would prefer an open process. If we're going to require inclusiveness, which I think we will have to do, then we should require openness. Obviously we cannot restrict speech which happens somewhere else -- but if you have something to hide then it will make an easy target at election time.

 

[croxis]

I do have a webserver so if we want to do some fancy role playing stuff we can always use that, but moving any forums off site would be bad for our community, especially in moments of small population size.

 

[DaveShack]

I should clarify, my preference is to stay onsite -- moving offsite would be considered closed / private / hidden...

 

[croxis]

I got what you meant I wasn't so much speaking of forums but for things like owning property, duals, calculators and other such things.

 

[Shattered]

I agree with keeping the game in this forum, but it will be hard to include back door policies. But this also allows public access to current faction's deceptions. Backdoor politics are hard to coordinate between single pm's. It would have to be done through subtle RP. This would be a great thing to do.

Now onto the forums.
I have also played in many succesful forum games with many sub-forums. I don't think it will be a problem, as long as we have a stickyd description of each sub-forum. I like Al Knight's idea. Its provolutions in a more orderly fashion. Having subforums, in subforums, would keep the boards nice and clean to an extent. But, I do believe in a forum change regardless of what type of change it is. Time to sweep the ashes of the last game under the rug.

 

[Joe Harker]

No need for too many,

i think what we have now is fine, faction threads should go in the citizens forum, i would also like factions to be open as possible. RP should stay, we had the lacrosse league, the gladiators Grant did, and the PBEM game as well.

 

[Provolution]

I think we need a change of forum organization, to make clear that Faction won the poll. It is not fine what we had for what we need now. I suggest we adopt AluminiumKinghts proposal for a forum structure.

The Lacrosse league, Gladiators and PBEM should be considered sub-games, whereas roleplay will now permeate the entire game, and the forum structure should reflect this. I seriously do not think 7 subforums is too much, as we need to organize ourselves properly. Several forum games fail due to a lack of subforums and the need to rely on complex sticky structures.

Main
-- Citizen's Forum (In-character discussions about the game. This also includes organization of factions. Factions could run themselves through a thread here or somewhere off-site)
-- Gameplay Forum (all threads related to playing the Civ4 game (think schedule and instruction threads))
-- Voting
-- OOC and Sub-games
---- Game Analysis and Statistics Forum
---- Laws, Rules and Regulations Forum
-- National Factbook and History Forum (maybe Information Forum?)

If members of factions do want off-site activity, then let them. PMs, MSN and emails are already there, so there is no need to make such a strong censorship on the rights of self-organization. Factions should have the right to develop their platform undisturbed from spies, threadjackers and idea thieves. Too often I have seen candidates taking someone else idea and presented it as their own, due to said openness. I much rather would prefer a system where a multitude of factions presented their various ideas in each election, possibly by posting their platform to an election official, or posting the platform up to a deadline, which would make it hard for the other faction to build in new concepts by proofreading and adjusting to a competing platform just before elections. If we want a political simulation, at least it should be fair to those that originates the platforms voted over.

 

[DaveShack]

And what of the faction members who give their ideas to the faction but get no credit when the platform is revealed? How can they prove their contribution if it is not visible to all? I will treat any faction which does not use public discussion with a high degree of distrust. That's my opinion, I'm sure others feel differently.

I was hoping to hear inputs from more people. Strider in particular hasn't posted anything.

 

[DaveShack]

We don't want low activity and barely visited forums. I would like to suggest:

Main
-- Citizen's Forum (In-character discussions about the game. This also includes organization of factions. Factions could run themselves through a thread here)
---- National Factbook and History threads (there is not enough here for a forum of its own)
---- Faction threads (ask for subforums if enough info develops to be confusing)
-- Gameplay Forum (all threads related to playing the Civ4 game including schedule, instructions, game analysis, and statistics)
-- Voting
-- Laws, Rules and Regulations Forum

 

[AluminumKnight]

We don't want low activity and barely visited forums. I would like to suggest:

Main
-- Citizen's Forum (In-character discussions about the game. This also includes organization of factions. Factions could run themselves through a thread here)
---- National Factbook and History threads (there is not enough here for a forum of its own)
---- Faction threads (ask for subforums if enough info develops to be confusing)
-- Gameplay Forum (all threads related to playing the Civ4 game including schedule, instructions, game analysis, and statistics)
-- Voting
-- Laws, Rules and Regulations Forum

I approve of this system to start us out. I didn't consider how small of a community this really will be at first. We can always reorganize if it gets too big. Especially, I like the combination of Gameplay and Statistics forum.

As for the privacy/openness issue, I think that's something that each faction will have to address themselves. If a faction does not leave it's policies and ideas open for everyone to see, they won't attract new members or support, and probably won't do very well. However, Provo has a point in that factions may want to protect themselves against idea-stealers and such. I guess you'd just have to try and find the right balance.

 

[Provolution]

We don't want low activity and barely visited forums. I would like to suggest:

Main
-- Citizen's Forum (In-character discussions about the game. This also includes organization of factions. Factions could run themselves through a thread here)
---- National Factbook and History threads (there is not enough here for a forum of its own)
---- Faction threads (ask for subforums if enough info develops to be confusing)
-- Gameplay Forum (all threads related to playing the Civ4 game including schedule, instructions, game analysis, and statistics)
-- Voting
-- Laws, Rules and Regulations Forum

Sounds very good to me, a fine balance between the presented options, and as people told we can decide to expand if activity and number of people increases. We should still have a last OOC and subgames forum, with metagame political rants, OOC comments to the game and so on, as a security vent we can displace postings that are within forum rules, but outside the forum area. Here we can also place the Lacrosse League and other goodies of various minigames invented by the players.

For classified platform development forums, a fair and attractive faction will surely attribute their creative members with the outcome. If I had a faction, I would as my first thing post all what we did in that forum as soon as that faction leaves power, in order to add to the history. But until then, the level of competition prohibits much leaks. However, a faction should still be honest and candid about its motives, but should not surrender well-thought out plans to the first unscrupulous and opportunistic bypasser, or leave such ample time to undermine a frail but brilliant concept before it is carved out in stone.