Off Topic reorganization

[Plotinus]

The points about post count are taken on board.

I've turned on post count for both forums.

I've also changed the names a little. They are now Off-Topic - The Chamber and Off-Topic - The Tavern. It seems that we couldn't quite get a consensus on the names, but I think these reflect what they're for as well as any.

I think LucyDuke's idea of allowing posting, but not thread creation, in the old Off-Topic is quite good. I'd be happy to do this. There are two reasons I haven't. The first is that it seems to me that most active threads there have now been moved. The second is that I haven't yet worked out how to do it. (Most vBulletin actions that you'd think would be fairly straightforward turn out not to be.) If there's still demand for this let me know.

On the question why we didn't just keep the old Off-Topic and add a new forum, we did think of doing that. But we felt that closing it and fully replacing it would send a better message about how we want a new start with Off-Topic. In practice, the Chamber has the same rules as the old Off-Topic, and when we were discussing the change we thought of that one as a fairly straightforward replacement for the old Off-topic, with the Tavern being the new one with different rules. The idea is that (some) behaviour that wouldn't have been allowed in the old Off-Topic is still not allowed in the Chamber, but it is allowed in the Tavern, so you now have a choice which forum to post in depending on what kind of moderator oversight, and accordingly what kind of members' behaviour, you want.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Sweet, maybe now people will stop complaining about their post count.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think you should leave one month for people to propose which theeads they want moved to the two new forums, and then erase the old off-topic. Seems more stylish that way.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

The old OT will not be erased. Lots of history in there, as well as the oh-all-so-important PC.

 

[Kyriakos]

I mean "Erase" as in archive it somewhere, out of the front of the site

 

[Mark1031]

The points about post count are taken on board.

I've turned on post count for both forums.

I've also changed the names a little. They are now Off-Topic - The Chamber and Off-Topic - The Tavern. It seems that we couldn't quite get a consensus on the names, but I think these reflect what they're for as well as any.

I think LucyDuke's idea of allowing posting, but not thread creation, in the old Off-Topic is quite good. I'd be happy to do this. There are two reasons I haven't. The first is that it seems to me that most active threads there have now been moved. The second is that I haven't yet worked out how to do it. (Most vBulletin actions that you'd think would be fairly straightforward turn out not to be.) If there's still demand for this let me know.

On the question why we didn't just keep the old Off-Topic and add a new forum, we did think of doing that. But we felt that closing it and fully replacing it would send a better message about how we want a new start with Off-Topic. In practice, the Chamber has the same rules as the old Off-Topic, and when we were discussing the change we thought of that one as a fairly straightforward replacement for the old Off-topic, with the Tavern being the new one with different rules. The idea is that (some) behaviour that wouldn't have been allowed in the old Off-Topic is still not allowed in the Chamber, but it is allowed in the Tavern, so you now have a choice which forum to post in depending on what kind of moderator oversight, and accordingly what kind of members' behaviour, you want.

Thank you for a reasoned explaination and reasonable position.

 

[Takhisis]

Sweet, maybe now people will stop complaining about their post count.

There's never enough of it!

The old OT will not be erased. Lots of history in there, as well as the oh-all-so-important PC.

Maybe we could merge the Tavern into it?

I mean "Erase" as in archive it somewhere, out of the front of the site

Nooooo! Neveeeerrrr!!!!!!

 

[Camikaze]

Maybe we could merge the Tavern into it?

If any forum were to be merged into it, it'd be the Chamber, given that's essentially meant to be the equivalent.

 

[Takhisis]

Hmmm, no. Make every thread in the old OT have Tavern rules and whenever someone bumps a thread (like, Ask A… and such) it can be moved into Chamber (ugh, what a name) if needed.

 

[LucyDuke]

The points about post count are taken on board.

I've turned on post count for both forums.

I've also changed the names a little. They are now Off-Topic - The Chamber and Off-Topic - The Tavern. It seems that we couldn't quite get a consensus on the names, but I think these reflect what they're for as well as any.

Thanks for giving pc a shot. It didn't make much sense to me to preemptively remove it and tell people to go spam.

Someone ought to organize a proper nominating/voting on names, 'cause honestly "The Chamber" is just not a good name.

I think LucyDuke's idea of allowing posting, but not thread creation, in the old Off-Topic is quite good. I'd be happy to do this. There are two reasons I haven't. The first is that it seems to me that most active threads there have now been moved. The second is that I haven't yet worked out how to do it. (Most vBulletin actions that you'd think would be fairly straightforward turn out not to be.) If there's still demand for this let me know.

Thank you. I think it's really important, Cutlass had a few good points about it too in one of these threads.

All the active threads there have been moved because the ones that haven't been moved are too locked to be active. Plenty will be worth bumping.

https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/usergroup_managing_forum_

This is where I found it was doable.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Plotinus

One thing that struck me yesterday about post count. Allowing garbage posts to count towards post count indicates that post count doesn't matter much. Reserving only 'quality' posts to count towards post count sends the message: "post count is important people, can't pollute them by also counting inferiour posts". Just a thought.

 

[Plotinus]

Thank you. I think it's really important, Cutlass had a few good points about it too in one of these threads.

All the active threads there have been moved because the ones that haven't been moved are too locked to be active. Plenty will be worth bumping.

https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/usergroup_managing_forum_

This is where I found it was doable.

I was doing that, but it wasn't working. However, I've now worked out what I was doing wrong.

It should now be possible to post in existing threads in the old Off Topic forum, but not to create any new threads. Please use this to bump threads you'd like the moderators to move to either of the new forums.

I'll turn it off again in a week or two when people have had a chance to make their requests.

 

[Cutlass]

I think turning it off would be a mistake. The issue is not that there's a bunch of threads we want to bump now, but that there's an occasional thread that we want to bump from time to time. If I search for an old thread on a topic, and I have something that I think it makes more sense to add to the current one rather than make a new one, then it works better to have that option.

 

[LucyDuke]

Thank you for turning it on!

I don't see why it would need to be turned off anyway. The forum still appears to be closed from the Colosseum, and it's pretty clearly dead to anyone that might stumble on it. Cutlass covered why it's good to have it left on.

 

[JollyRoger]

This appears to be a moderator conspiracy to protect a segment of the OT population from the bad prediction bump. Can the mods please review each thread in the closed OT for predictions and move any that have open predictions to the Tavern?

 

[The_J]

All 58,482 threads? Sure.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

A go-getter. I like that.

 

[Takhisis]

Just leave it on and sort it out as it comes. After the initial rush you'll only get a few of those bumped every now and then.

 

[JollyRoger]

All 58,482 threads? Sure.

That's only a few threads per moderator.

 

[Plotinus]

It's certainly not going to stay open - we want to make it clear that old OT is being replaced, and besides, we don't want new members stumbling across old threads in there and bumping them years from now. I'll close it fully again after a week. After that time, if people do think of other threads that could be reactivated and moved, they can simply PM a moderator or report a post in the thread with the request.