Official Poll/Discussion on Renaming IOT Sub Forum

[Terran Empress]

Solution: Archive the NES forum. Moving WWW to this forum since it's the only thread that ever gets posted on over there anyways. And since a NES technically never dies, move games over here too as needed at the request of mods. Assuming any of them ever see the light of day again anyways.

Also recognize that it's still just an online game forum and in the grand scheme of things we're all just being silly over a few words and none of this is necessary but if it's going to happen we might as well get it over with.

Seconded, but isn't what you just suggested basically a merger?

note, please don't let this turn into another merger shout fest, i'm just bringing that little thing up.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Solution: Archive the NES forum. Moving WWW to this forum since it's the only thread that ever gets posted on over there anyways. And since a NES technically never dies, move games over here too as needed at the request of mods. Assuming any of them ever see the light of day again anyways.

Also recognize that it's still just an online game forum and in the grand scheme of things we're all just being silly over a few words and none of this is necessary but if it's going to happen we might as well get it over with.

The Moderators don't want to do this.

 

[Angst]

Stop talking about NES. NES should have nothing to do with a renaming. It shouldn't matter to any of you what happens there - why do you even care? Why is renaming this forum while treating the NES forum indifferently suddenly a threat to this forum's culture or pride?

I'm very sure that the NES situation is awkward but it's the NES situation, if you're afraid the NES forum would somehow succeed in an online culture war, and if you're paralysed to do anything with IOT out of fear of this, the NES forum has won this presumed war.

Noon here should care what happens with the NES forum. Don't analyse it. Don't treat it as part of the equation. This is about YOUR forum, what should happen to that forum.

Stop talking about NES. It is a waste of time and completely blocks what this thread is supposed to do.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Stop talking about NES. NES should have nothing to do with a renaming. It shouldn't matter to any of you what happens there - why do you even care? Why is renaming this forum while treating the NES forum indifferently suddenly a threat to this forum's culture or pride?

I'm very sure that the NES situation is awkward but it's the NES situation, if you're afraid the NES forum would somehow succeed in an online culture war, and if you're paralysed to do anything with IOT out of fear of this, the NES forum has won this presumed war.

Noon here should care what happens with the NES forum. Don't analyse it. Don't treat it as part of the equation. This is about YOUR forum, what should happen to that forum.

Stop talking about NES. It is a waste of time and completely blocks what this thread is supposed to do.

But the immigration from NES is what caused this whole debate anyway. If the whole NES not being represented by the name wasn't a factor then I would have clicked "NO" faster than something really fast. I'm sure others feel the same way.

 

[erez87]

Solution: Archive the NES forum. Moving WWW to this forum since it's the only thread that ever gets posted on over there anyways. And since a NES technically never dies, move games over here too as needed at the request of mods. Assuming any of them ever see the light of day again anyways.

Also recognize that it's still just an online game forum and in the grand scheme of things we're all just being silly over a few words and none of this is necessary but if it's going to happen we might as well get it over with.

I didn't ask for any rename, even thou I am one of the NES immigrants.

Leave NES alone :'(

 

[Crezth]

Stop talking about NES. It is a waste of time and completely blocks what this thread is supposed to do.

"I have absolutely no idea what's going on, but damn me if that'll stop me from posting."

 

[Thlayli]

Simmer down now y'all.

I'll be on #nes today if anyone wants to come on and brainstorm forum names with me. It seems like a foregone conclusion that the process is going to move forward to the name-drafting stage, so let's focus our attention on stretching our brain muscles and figuring this out.

 

[Angst]

But the immigration from NES is what caused this whole debate anyway. If the whole NES not being represented by the name wasn't a factor then I would have clicked "NO" faster than something really fast. I'm sure others feel the same way.

Look, even if the migrations have prompted the discussion, IOT is still a misnomer of what's actually going on here (same with NES in the NES forum btw). Just because one thing prompted another doesn't mean that one thing is the centre of the issue - at least not for this thread specifically. This thread is not about a NES merger, it is about renaming IOT. Read the OP.

And fyi I have talked with plenty of native IOTers who have simply felt it would be healthier for IOT in the long run to be renamed - browse the thread, the voices are here. And NinjaCow, you don't feel IOT needs to be renamed, and that is fine - others actually do, these are people whose names I don't recognize who browse the IOT subforum, therefore I assume they're from IOT. I am not talking on the behalf of you NinjaCow, you are more affliated with the forum than I am, therefore your voice is more important than mine: but this thread is not about merging the forums. If you then don't feel a renaming is in order, that's perfectly fine, and it's more important than what I want.

My post was mostly in response to post #120 which I feel overvalued the importance for IOT of whether NES is dead or not - as though there's a competition of which forum survives longer, and as though that's important at all. No offense to Terran Empress; she feels that IOT is a heritage that should be protected, and I can sympathize with her, that argument in itself is very valid and should be taken seriously. But whether NES survives while doing so? Why do you care? Do you really feel it is important whether NESing lives or dies? This is a matter for IOTers only, it is a matter of the IOT forum - NES is completely irrelevant here, or it should be, because IOT is worth that much. IOT is a great tradition that evolved independently of NES and shouldn't concern itself with NES at all, you don't need to "win" over the NES forum to prove yourself.

Here's what leif said:

To answer your question, we are not actively considering archiving the NES forum.

This thread is not about that. It is about whether this community wants to rename their forum. Can we please come back to that subject?

This is not about NES. This is about whether IOT wants the mods to do something or not. All in the interest of IOT.

I have absolutely no idea what's going on, but damn me if that'll stop me from posting.

You're quite right. Do educate yourself. ( )

 

[Red_Spy]

Simmer down now y'all.

I'll be on #nes today if anyone wants to come on and brainstorm forum names with me. It seems like a foregone conclusion that the process is going to move forward to the name-drafting stage, so let's focus our attention on stretching our brain muscles and figuring this out.

Currently the poll is only at 52/47. Given how large of a change this would be to the subforum, I don't think having a slim majority means the rename is inevitable. Something like this would need a rather clear answer to leave no room for debate. With only a little bit more than half supporting it at the moment, we don't have that yet.

 

[Thlayli]

Oh definitely, not that the rename is inevitable. Just that the process can go forward.

BSmith said that the final poll at any rate would have IOT go up against a challenger, and that vote would probably have to have a significant majority in favor of the rename to be adopted.

 

[Crezth]

You're quite right. Do educate yourself. ( )

If you think NES has nothing to do with any of this then you literally have no idea what's going on. It's not just a matter of NES migration prompting discussion (though NES migration is certainly the proximate cause of this round of debate) but it's also a matter of the wider fate of indescribable strategy-roleplaying games on CFC. This is especially true now that all NES activity consists of playing games on the IOT forum on the one hand and whining about NES's treasured heritage of half-assed single-pass unedited stories and quickly-abandoned games being spoiled by people who actually do stuff.

Of course, this is an old critique, and invites a panoply of witticisms from the peanut gallery about how little the critique takes into consideration unquantifiable variables such as invisible activity, so far be it from me to bore everyone with that as usual - the point, that NES is inextricably tied up in this despite what delusional fanatics insist, remains. So, frankly, while I can be annoyed with individuals who have professed (for years) a hatred of IOT and all its doings suddenly pretending to care about IOT and all its doings, I can't really deny that those individuals have an actual vested interest in what IOT does because IOT has moreorless subsumed NES in its entirety. So, you know. A classic case of doublethink. A sort of tacit acknowledgement of the supremacy of IOT in determining the fate of the hobby (and yeah, it's pretty much just one hobby) even while they crow on about NES and its terrific heritage.

 

[Thlayli]

Whether or not IOT has subsumed NES or NES has subsumed IOT is at this point an academic distinction. About 40-50% of the people voting in the poll are NESers or have played in NESes. Several of the most active and productive threads are being run by NESers.

Returning to the matter at hand, however, if we can first achieve a rename, a merge (which shouldn't really matter in this discussion) could later be discussed IF the rename serves to reconcile all of the various factions to one another. Some people are clearly not interested in this, but it's in everyone's best interest.

You could just as easily propose a merger of the IOT forum into the NES forum, on the grounds that the NES forum was the first roleplaying game forum to exist, and therefore has precedence, as well as being approximately 3-4x larger by aggregate postcount and thread count. You could make that argument, but it would anger a lot of people! So we're not making it.

A merge before rename (of IOT into NES or NES into IOT) smacks of factionalism and hegemony, and inevitably will cause hurt feelings. Forging a united, communal identity through a rename creates the conditions for a merge to later occur. Create a forum where the NES exiles feel like co-equals rather than refugees, and then you'll have accomplished your merge in all but name only.

 

[Nuka-sama]

Thlayli why not go into IOT chat to discuss a new name for the IOT forum? :/

 

[Thlayli]

I come on IOT chat sometimes. IRC is more intelligible than chatango, but I can.

 

[Nuka-sama]

Thanks

 

[Angst]

If you think NES has nothing to do with any of this then you literally have no idea what's going on. It's not just a matter of NES migration prompting discussion (though NES migration is certainly the proximate cause of this round of debate) but it's also a matter of the wider fate of indescribable strategy-roleplaying games on CFC. This is especially true now that all NES activity consists of playing games on the IOT forum on the one hand and whining about NES's treasured heritage of half-assed single-pass unedited stories and quickly-abandoned games being spoiled by people who actually do stuff.

Of course, this is an old critique, and invites a panoply of witticisms from the peanut gallery about how little the critique takes into consideration unquantifiable variables such as invisible activity, so far be it from me to bore everyone with that as usual - the point, that NES is inextricably tied up in this despite what delusional fanatics insist, remains. So, frankly, while I can be annoyed with individuals who have professed (for years) a hatred of IOT and all its doings suddenly pretending to care about IOT and all its doings, I can't really deny that those individuals have an actual vested interest in what IOT does because IOT has moreorless subsumed NES in its entirety. So, you know. A classic case of doublethink. A sort of tacit acknowledgement of the supremacy of IOT in determining the fate of the hobby (and yeah, it's pretty much just one hobby) even while they crow on about NES and its terrific heritage.

Eh, I think that you're either mixing me/my position up with other people, or you might just be terribly unclear about what part of my activity here you're critiquing, or you might not be critiquing at all but be yelling in front of me about other peoples' annoying activities which I happen to understand. Of course, some older NESers might have interest in a forum renaming and some people want to politicize this around a merger and some NESers might be a pain in the ass in one way or another. Personally I might have hated IOT at some point but I honestly don't remember, I think I've been positive to neutral most of the time, I've found the NES pride ridiculous since before Symphs megabreak, back when NESing was going strong. I'm pro-merger becasue I think all this srsbusiness and tribalism is ridiculous, although recently with the NES forum dead slowdown I've been more reluctant because there's really no point merging a dead forum with a live one. Also there's a reason I stress that IOT "natives" should have more say in this than I do. This renaming is not solely propagated by glorious conquest / victim complex doublethink, there are actually IOTers that don't find that the name properly communicates what the forum is about, and that it has hurt interforum traffic and acquisition of new blood in this forum. (Although this problem was mitigated just a few days ago when the forum description was changed.) Bringing in NES politicking is detrimental to this thread's purpose (whether it be people for or against the merger) and significantly hurts serious IOTer discussion of IOT renaming. I don't personally care one way or the other, I think a renaming is practical, but I get why people wouldn't want to do it, there are plenty of reasons not to. The work I did for renaming this thing was mostly because it is so damn difficult to actually think up a new name - my thread should perhaps have waved a huge sign of "I DO NOT ACTUALLY FULLY LIKE ANY OF THESE BRAINSTORMED SUGGESTIONS" or "I DO NOT ACTUALLY WANT TO DECIDE FOR THE IOTERS WHO HAVE STAYED HERE FOR WAY LONGER THAN ME" or "THIS IS TO HELP THESE IOTERS WHO HAVE WISHED FOR A RENAME FOR SOME TIME BUT HATE ALL PRESENT SUGGESTIONS" or "I'M TRYING TO BE ACTIVELY PARTICIPATING IN THIS COMMUNITY BY DOING WORK FOR IT". Are there certain forum power structures that can be analyzed and dissected? Sure. But it's a bloody forum game community, the whole point of this thread is for that community to evaluate itself with or without migrants and all this rambling about NESing takes away the spotlight from the rambling about IOT this thread is supposed to be.

 

[Crezth]

Are there certain forum power structures that can be analyzed and dissected? Sure. But it's a bloody forum game community, the whole point of this thread is for that community to evaluate itself with or without migrants and all this rambling about NESing takes away the spotlight from the rambling about IOT this thread is supposed to be.

Wh- are you being serious? Are you being real with me right now? How are you going to disparage the analysis and autopsy of forum communities and then immediately segue into a point about forums evaluating themselves without "migrants?" How the hell do you expect them to evaluate themselves without reference to relevant historical examples? Don't you think analysis of NES could be extremely valuable to a community like IOT, especially since IOT was not only already extremely similar to NES but now even contains a growing "ex-NESer" population? And you yourself are going to, first of all, not play any IOTs or even make an attempt to mingle outside of this thread, and then suggest "Imaginary Worlds Community" as the new name. Good God, if I was an IOTer I'd be extremely annoyed with you.

Yeah, it's a "forum game community," but that doesn't mean we have to shut our brains off when discussing it.

 

[Thlayli]

That's the thing, if we continue to work on the paradigm that this forum 'belongs' to the IOTers only, or that IOT is better than NES, well...you can see how unhelpful that is to forging a common identity.

I mean...aren't you fundamentally engaging in the same type of forum v. forum factionalism that you criticized in NES, but from the other side? You, angst, and myself all agree that the forum should be renamed, so we should channel our energies into accomplishing that rather than bickering.

 

[Angst]

I have issues connecting to chatango, which I have attempted several times today, as I want to talk to the IOT community, but of some reason the site doesn't work for me. That said, some glimpses present themselves and I did see what you typed some 30 minutes ago. Just fyi.

First of all, you're just flat out wrong. I'm playing two IOTs right now, actively writing stories, composing music, doing a little flagwork too. The reason I'm not playing more is because I do not have the time. Before that, like two months ago I think, I published a number of game suggestions in the Argentina thread which caught almost no attention, which is why I didn't proceed and create the games (Which is totally okay and understandable, people don't tend to pay much attention to would-be mods that haven't made a name already), but I already tried to do my entry back then and become part of the community. IOT seems to have the energy and inspiration that I've missed for quite some time in NES. The only reason I don't consider myself an IOTer yet is because I don't really think I deserve it at this point.

The "Imaginary Worlds Community" is one of many bad names I tried to look up, I presented it because it was sufficiently descriptive, as part of a longer word finding process. I'm a wordsmith but not in English, the work performed was pretty much just looking up words through a synonyms thesaurus, which might or might not have saved other people (read: actual IOTers) time if they wanted to work such a name out.

I looked over the thread again and found that many (not all) prorenamers in this thread were often previous NESers, at least, which surprised me, I think the crowd was more varied in another thread. (Although several stated they wouldn't mind a new name per se, they just hated the suggested examples...) Seeing as very few comment on my (limited) work, I guess my work isn't that well spent, so I guess I'll just spend my time writing stories and stuff then - unless someone actually shows up and suggests for me to continue. That said, your disposition and tone is reeking of the problems that I think plagued NES so much in the end, which surprises me a bit, you more often than not seemed like one of the reasonable parties. I don't get why you're actively fanning fires, or why you're (seemingly) grouping me with the problematic NESer parties, casting me as some culture appropriator when I actively try to just present my work with no ethos in it whatsoever - the positions of authority here should be older IOTers. I'm honestly baffled at what you're trying to do. If the "native" IOT crowd doesn't like my work, they should come out and tell me, but you're raging about culture appropriation, and while you aren't even an IOTer, you actively speak on the behalf of them.

 

[BSmith1068]

Moderator Action: Less bickering, personal snipes, and forum vs. Forum dialogue. More constructive discussion please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889