one month in - opinions on the forum split

This split is accomplishing it's goal very well; and that was to begin the decline of OT. Activity is down and will only continue to go down as time goes on, until there's barely anyone left and there doesn't need to be any effort to moderate it. (Not that much is being put into it at the moment, either. )

 

The split should have been done this way:
The chamber: heavily modded, even logical fallacies are grounds for dismissal.
The tavern: un-modded, only racist, sexually explicit, or threats should be grounds for warnings or bannings.

Eventually, the chamber would have, I think, a good hardcore membership or 20 - 100 people, who knew how to have a debate without logical fallacies. The moderation wouldn't even be necessary, because most trolls would already be banned from it.

The tavern would also require little moderation, because just about anything would go.

It would also be nice if the chamber required verification, meaning you have to wait a day for a moderator to verify that you have read the rules, and understand you can be banned for breaking them, before letting you post. I really don't appreciate it when debates are broken up by some noob walking in and spouting a bunch of crap, where it is obvious he didn't even read any of the previous posts before deciding to throw in his own worthless two cents.

I know it can be done, because I have seen it done elsewhere. I want it to be done here because I am a history major, and civ is a community of people more interested and aware of history than the general population. But trying to have college level discussions with a half-ass moderation system is a formula for failure.

And I know there are a lot of people that know me, that are thinking "OMG, NeOmega is one to talk!" Yeah, well, I really resent having every single debate that ever happens here being torn down to elementary level discourse. I really resent people who come to these forums and write uneducated opinions. But more than anything, I really hate it when people build strawmen then demand I defend "my words". So when I run across these miserable little fools, I just call them out on it, and get warned or banned for it. But the moderators are too clueless to know an insult when they see one.

And there are many here who also think generalizing insults are acceptable. "people who say that are..." when it is just internet speak for, "I am not allowed to attack you directly, so I will say 'people who think like you (insert insult here)' instead, so the moderators will not get me for attacking the arguer."

It's all the same, and I've brought it up before, only to have some people disagree that they aren't the same.

So now it's
Me: I am educated on the subject
them: people who say that are just full of themselves
Me: Go screw yourself.
Moderator: NeOmega - warned for trolling!

 

That would have been much more ideal, but the split was doomed from the start. From being announced as a joke on April Fool's Day (really? what was that meant to accomplish? ) to shifting a large majority of activity to the tavern; which in turn caused the main focus of OT to become even sillier threads than we saw before.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with the topics in the tavern, but they are not topics from which long discussions with any substance can be had, and there is just simply not enough activity in the chamber for it to be successful. This is all leading up to a serious decline in OT participation, and eventually, it being more or less dead. Worst of all, I do not see how this was not planned out to occur this way, because there is no other logical outcome for the OT split based on the way it was handled and the way it is developing. IMO.

EDIT: I replied before that giant edit, Neomega.

 

Okay, I am starting dislike the split, too. It just cripples serious topics and as a consequence OT as a whole. Sure, serious topics also tend to know less non-serious or disruptive posts. But when the price is minimum activity in serious threads, the gain becomes pointless.

 

Why would anyone even read a Chamber thread if it is known to be unlikely that I will have posted in it?

 

Because a very small chance is better than none. Who would take the risk of missing one of your posts?

 

I think you just answered your own question.

 

Too late, the presses are up and running.

Seriously, though, I haven't seen much change besides the aforementioned decline in quality and quantity.

 

I'm surprised to hear you say that - I think the Chamber threads that I've seen you post in are much better quality than they would have been in Old OT. I really like the Chamber because it filters out a LOT of crap. Also, and possibly related to that, it seems like the Chamber has a more European character than the Tavern, which is great.

I don't mind that quantity has gone down, because quality has gone up. And the Tavern, to me, retains the same character as Old OT (though with fewer posts), so I think it's be best of both worlds.

 

I like that I can choose what kind of Traitorfish I'm in the mood for.

 

I don't think topic separation is a good thing. The old OT was a melting pot of both serious and light-hearted threads which balanced each other out, and everyone had their serious or light-hearted take on the subject.

So, should we start putting "BRING BACK OT!" on our sigs? Worked with postcount, so why not?

 

Moderator Action: More than one month has gone. New thread here.