stopping ForumMaster from destroying BattleMaster

[Atanamir]

Moderator note: I have removed several of the most recent posts, as well as some posts that quoted them. (Sorry, Atanamir, your post got removed as quoting removed material, not because of its contents.) We are getting too personal, and now just repeating things back and forth. Remember: If you're not adding something new to the discussion, you're not helping.

Sorry, but I had no time to read 18 pages before to check if my suggestions about IRC have been already said.
However, as my first post to this discussion, I would like to state again that realm-only channels on IRC and a general #battlemaster channel on IRC are as much OOC as this game can handle, obviously, and is my opinion on how to solve and prevent many problems.

[Vellos]

Sorry, but I had no time to read 18 pages before to check if my suggestions about IRC have been already said.
However, as my first post to this discussion, I would like to state again that realm-only channels on IRC and a general #battlemaster channel on IRC are as much OOC as this game can handle, obviously, and is my opinion on how to solve and prevent many problems.

I think as many people have bad experiences of and opinions about IRC as the Forum. There's no reason to preference one over another in terms of administering the game.

[Atanamir]

I think as many people have bad experiences of and opinions about IRC as the Forum. There's no reason to preference one over another in terms of administering the game.

I was not talking about administration of game.
This can happen here or whereever admins, magistrates, titans like.
You can leave also only Forums open for these things.
But the sole OOC interaction between players works better in seperated places like realm-only channels, as obviously many can't handle IC/OOC.
If some still feel to open discussions in #battlemaster channel and start arguing there...well at own risk.

[Kai]

The reason the d-list never attracted this kind of criticism is because of the flat structure. That every post is always seen by every viewer of the d-list acts as a strong moderation to post topics which affect BM as a whole and not any individual continent, realm or other subset.

Subforums are too effective at filtering and hiding posts. This results in navel gazing conclaves. Continent subforums are especially poisonous, as half of the people there will support anything you say and the other half you hate the guts of, depending which side of the war you are on.

I suggest resolving the forum into a minimalist flat structure. The only subforums would be General Discussion and Development. The parts other than BM (M&F WI etc) don't change obviously.

[Gustav Kuriga]

The reason the d-list never attracted this kind of criticism is because of the flat structure. That every post is always seen by every viewer of the d-list acts as a strong moderation to post topics which affect BM as a whole and not any individual continent, realm or other subset.

Subforums are too effective at filtering and hiding posts. This results in navel gazing conclaves. Continent subforums are especially poisonous, as half of the people there will support anything you say and the other half you hate the guts of, depending which side of the war you are on.

I suggest resolving the forum into a minimalist flat structure. The only subforums would be General Discussion and Development. The parts other than BM (M&F WI etc) don't change obviously.

The reason the d-list never attracted attention was because it was extremely limited in the number of people who participated. It never had anything to do with how 'moderated', and i use that term loosely, it was, just the fact that there were too few people for anything to turn into an uproar.

[Kai]

Oh yeah making it more difficult helps as well. I think you underestimate how many people were reading though.

[jaune]

And d-list was moderated later.

-Jaune

[Tom]

The reason the d-list never attracted attention was because it was extremely limited in the number of people who participated. It never had anything to do with how 'moderated', and i use that term loosely, it was, just the fact that there were too few people for anything to turn into an uproar.

And you, who joined the game in late 2011, know this how?

[Gustav Kuriga]

And you, who joined the game in late 2011, know this how?

You're assuming this is my first account Tom. I've been in Battlemaster much longer than the age of this account. and i dont know whose account you're looking at if it says that they joined in late 2011, i created this account in 2010.

[Geronus]

The reason the d-list never attracted this kind of criticism is because of the flat structure. That every post is always seen by every viewer of the d-list acts as a strong moderation to post topics which affect BM as a whole and not any individual continent, realm or other subset.

Subforums are too effective at filtering and hiding posts. This results in navel gazing conclaves. Continent subforums are especially poisonous, as half of the people there will support anything you say and the other half you hate the guts of, depending which side of the war you are on.

I suggest resolving the forum into a minimalist flat structure. The only subforums would be General Discussion and Development. The parts other than BM (M&F WI etc) don't change obviously.

Moderate? The d-list? I remember more than one hostile exchange gracing my Inbox, some of them as bad or worse than anything I've seen on the forum, and I wasn't a member for all that long before Tom did away with it.

[Tom]

Moderate? The d-list? I remember more than one hostile exchange gracing my Inbox, some of them as bad or worse than anything I've seen on the forum, and I wasn't a member for all that long before Tom did away with it.

There were two d-lists. One moderated, one unmoderated. Well, they were the same, really, but one with moderation and one without.

[Geronus]

There were two d-lists. One moderated, one unmoderated. Well, they were the same, really, but one with moderation and one without.

I was on the digest version if I recall (which I assume was the moderated one), and I still remember some pretty harsh exchanges.

[Revan]

The reason the d-list never attracted this kind of criticism is because of the flat structure. That every post is always seen by every viewer of the d-list acts as a strong moderation to post topics which affect BM as a whole and not any individual continent, realm or other subset.

Subforums are too effective at filtering and hiding posts. This results in navel gazing conclaves. Continent subforums are especially poisonous, as half of the people there will support anything you say and the other half you hate the guts of, depending which side of the war you are on.

I suggest resolving the forum into a minimalist flat structure. The only subforums would be General Discussion and Development. The parts other than BM (M&F WI etc) don't change obviously.

I'm not sure about flattening the forum entirely, but I do think you're on to something here. If forum users are getting a bit too cliquey posting almost solely on Atamara or Dwilight boards etc. perhaps there should be some sort of merger of the locals boards? Perhaps collapse them into Stable Islands (Atamara, Colonies, East Continent, Far East) and Testing Islands (Beluaterra, Dwilight) and you will hopefully start to see a wider mix of posters and fewer people put-off from participating in discussions.

[Indirik]

I was on the digest version if I recall (which I assume was the moderated one), and I still remember some pretty harsh exchanges.

Either list could have digest or single-message delivery.

We passed the majority of the messages through to the moderated list, until it got bad. Then we were pretty merciless in deleting. If you got a lot of flame wars, then you were on the unmodded list.

[Penchant]

The reason the d-list never attracted this kind of criticism is because of the flat structure. That every post is always seen by every viewer of the d-list acts as a strong moderation to post topics which affect BM as a whole and not any individual continent, realm or other subset.

Subforums are too effective at filtering and hiding posts. This results in navel gazing conclaves. Continent subforums are especially poisonous, as half of the people there will support anything you say and the other half you hate the guts of, depending which side of the war you are on.

I suggest resolving the forum into a minimalist flat structure. The only subforums would be General Discussion and Development. The parts other than BM (M&F WI etc) don't change obviously.

I am not going to say there are never times where for instance the Lurian and D'haran players both all are on the same side when talking about issues regarding between their realms, but that is more of an issue of perspective between the two sides causing them to disagree, not cliqueyness. It also didn't happen often. Lastly, I don't see how removing the organization helps at all as that just makes it harder for those interested in certain islands to find what they are looking for without actually solving anything IMO.

I'm not sure about flattening the forum entirely, but I do think you're on to something here. If forum users are getting a bit too cliquey posting almost solely on Atamara or Dwilight boards etc. perhaps there should be some sort of merger of the locals boards? Perhaps collapse them into Stable Islands (Atamara, Colonies, East Continent, Far East) and Testing Islands (Beluaterra, Dwilight) and you will hopefully start to see a wider mix of posters and fewer people put-off from participating in discussions.

I don't see why people only posting on one island is bad, why should they have to participate on islands they don't want to on? I myself post on Atamara, Beluterra, FEI, and Dwilight. I have actually posted on Beluterra longer than FEI and probably just as long as I have on Dwilight despite never playing on Beluterra, but I don't see how whether I just post on Dwilight or all the boards I currently post on matters.