Has anyone discussed a place for uploading any planning documents we come up with? I imagine we need something secure for the transmission of anything like user profiles or whatever, but a communal place to keep things like art files, project management documents, stuff like that.
I imagine we want everything to be as communally accessible as possible, so if a key member of the team dies or ghosts or something, we don't lose access to all their work.
This would likely be whatever tool we decide on for project management, as you can attach and associate files with stories / epics…
i strongly advise that nothing we do involves sensitive private data such that we need to worry about PII data tenancy. I would even avoid keeping emails associated with usernames.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
+6
surfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
I like both Neo Arcadia and Post Arcadia
I nominate spool for PM, probably synd and dibbit for some kind of managey thing as well. Somebody needs to be the person pulling together the sources of truth
This whole process is also entirely fascinating to watch play out
"I Needed a Forum to Post"
I like the Arcadia options because they remind me of The Longest Journey.
I do think that a big part of choosing the name involves the branding. For the logo we probably want something that abbreviates well to two-three letters that on their own don't step on anyone else's toes, or end up too similar to gross horrible types (as hinted at earlier).
+1 for GDSForum. Are we running whatever name we settle on past the PA folks? I'm assuming they have some sort of veto on the process if they think the name is like, too legally similar or whatever.
Also, should the announcement thread redirect people over here? Feels like there's still people having conversations in that thread that should probably be in this subforum at this point.
0
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
So, to the mods/admins trying to get this off the ground, just a general note that your first order of business should probably be agreeing on how these preliminary decisions will be made, and what kind of structure needs to be imposed. Maybe something like a simple majority vote amongst you all to start with.
It doesn't have to be the long-term solution, and I'm sure you'll want other folks to weigh in on major decisions, but getting the whole project up and running - including identifying which people should be doing what - needs to be done quickly and efficiently. Once the framework is in place, then you can start widening the pool a little bit, including bringing in a different decision-making/voting body for downstream choices.
For example, a good way to get the right expertise to weigh in on certain decisions or areas is to assign a small committee to come together and task them with providing specific decisions/recommendations/considerations. Or if a lawyer should be hired - who decides that a lawyer is needed, and who decides who that lawyer should be? You'll need some kind of process to make those decisions that isn't a giant plebiscite every time.
I feel like you guys are probably already doing something along this path, but I wanted to bring it up just in case it wasn't explicit. This is one of those things where everyone has to agree to the ground rules up front or it can quickly devolve.
GDSforum really only represents one subset of the people in this community, and I'm not comfortable with using it for the new forum's name
I don't even know what it means
It's a joke from D&D when they get too on a tangent someone goes to make a "God Damn Separate Thread" for the tangent to stop cluttering the original thread. And I largely agree that it's a bit to in-jokey to work.
It’s a Debate & Discourse convention when a topic gets broken out into its own thread. I’ve been a D&D regular for like 20 years and just learned last year what it meant.
GDSforum really only represents one subset of the people in this community, and I'm not comfortable with using it for the new forum's name
I don't even know what it means
GDST stands for God Damn Separate Thread. Usually happens if there is a tangent people in a thread get going about that's not like, directly what the thread is about, someone can then go start a GDST about it. The idea of a forum version of that for a non-PA forum is funny.
GDSforum really only represents one subset of the people in this community, and I'm not comfortable with using it for the new forum's name
I don't even know what it means
Explosive Ordnance Disposal
(another D&D in-joke when you get a bunch of people in a row asking / giving the same answer to a question)
zagdrob on
+10
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
edited October 2024
Alright, I still don't see a thread on what the new forums should look like, in terms of super-structure, so I am going to offer my proposition within here.
As the Penny-Arcade forums have now officially entered their twilight period, we’re in need of a new home. We need a new forum and, I think, we ought to take this as an opportunity to shake things up. New forum, new forum super-structure! Below is my proposal for what our new forums should resemble, structure-wise, as we design our way into the future.
NEO ARCADIA FORUMS “Town Hall” [FORUM ADMINISTRATION]
– Forum Rules/Policies
— This sub-forum is strictly for a thread detailing forum rules/policies, in addition to threads announcing new rules/policies and infraction reports (only those on the mod council could post in it).
– Bug Reports and User Issues
— This sub-forum is for bug reports and forum tech-issues, as brought up by members of the community. CHAT SUB-FORUMS
– “The Game Shop” [Analogue Games]
— This sub-forum is for threads on board games, card games, miniature war-games, and table-top role-playing games.
— This sub-forum would have a sub-category dedicated to phalla games and play-by-post games.
– “The Gallery” [Arts n’ Crafts]
– This sub-forum is for threads on user created pieces of art (drawings, models, photography, writing, ect).
– “The Arcade” [Digital Games and Technology]
— This sub-forum is for threads on computer/video games, MMO coordination/chatter, technology [previews/reviews/repairs], and more.
— This sub-forum would have a sub-category dedicated for Live Play threads and forum-crafted game guides.
– “The Suburbs” [Life n’ Junk]
— This sub-forum is for threads involving general life elements that don’t necessarily fall into the other sub-forums. Threads on jobs, cooking/food, home repair, fashion, traveling, weather, and more.
— This sub-forum would have a sub-category dedicated for threads asking for help/advice
– “The Library” [Media Discussions]
— This sub-forum is for threads on movies, television, books, music, podcasts, web-comics, professional wrestling, anime, and all other popularly consumed entertainment (that aren’t games).
– “The Debate Club” [Politics and Current Events]
— This sub-forum is for threads on military conflicts, elections, contemporary news, and general politics.
– “The Gym” [Sports]
— This sub-forum is for threads on different sports, following live games, and questions involving general athletics.
The thematic idea for the new forums is built around a town, Neo Arcadia, with each sub-forum representing a location within that digital community. Now, you likely have some questions, so let me try to address them in advance:
– “Why don’t we simply port over the current super-structure of the forums we use now?”
— Well, I think we can all agree that our current setup has some *issues*. We have sub-forums that are ghost towns. We have sub-forums that are tied directly to Penny-Arcade. We also have a rather public schism between two current sub-forums and I personally think porting that over does nothing in trying to resolve that in-community feud.
– “What about posting styles? On-topic and off-topic styles don’t mesh!”
— I don’t think this is an actual problem, or at least not a huge one. For as much as SE++ is known for tangents (“every thread is secretly a food thread”) it does tend to actually stay on topic for threads dedicated to specific subjects. I personally think the separation of the forums into these two modes is the root cause of the schism that has developed, in addition to letting sub-forums have their own chat threads. If we want to encourage full-use of the new forums, we have to force folks to step outside of their neighborhoods.
– “If we adopt this new super-structure we’ll kill our developed sub-forum communities!”
— We should take this exodus as an opportunity to try to come together and unify. Separate tree-houses simply isn’t sustainable when we don’t have a corporation paying the bills. We’ve been allowed to calcify in separate neighborhoods because there’s been no greater need for us to cooperate together, as a distant third party has handled all the actual logistics & maintenance of the forums. But moving forward, we’re the ones having to keep the lights on and as such maintaining a sub-forum cultural division is only going to present itself as an obstacle when it comes to pushing forward.
I really like that layout. I agree with Magell that sports fit nicely in another header (I like the suburbs).
I'm sure we'll still have some division, but I do think having one Steam thread, one NBA thread, etc., would be a nice idea. The areas of the forums aren't nearly as different as they were when I originally joined, so I don't think the "culture shock" would be as jarring as it would have been then.
I don't know if sports needs its own sub forum. They're technically analogue games and could go there or the suburbs
Sports could also end up in Media for a large chunk of it, since it is discussing entertainment events people either attend or watch on TV.
And also in this format I think "the 'burbs" would handle fitness, working out, etc.
True, but it's definitely funnier to pair sports and board games
Greek tradition (And Arcadia is the ancient Greek home of Pan, God of Wilderness, Satyrs, Flutes and huge Schlongs, confirmed dead) demands that Sports and Debate are combined: They believed you couldn't be a good thinker without a rocking bod.
Of course, we'd need to exclude "watching sport" from sports, as that didn't count.
Moderation needs to be on point with merging everything together. While calling people out and dunking on them might be cathartic in the end it creates treehouses and cliques and just creates more animosity. That's a fantastic way to kill a fledgling community. I hope we can agree to leave this shit at the door and maybe the whole "yeah but what if they're a nazi?" can be best left to the mods to get them taken care of instead of making a public spectacle of it in a siloed thread on either side of a demarcation line.
+9
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products, Transition Teamregular
I think my only issue with it is how many subforums there are.
It is already pretty drafty here. I think the Lets Play, Phalla, Play by Post and other stuff could collapse into the main subforum instead of categories, and we can do thread typing so that Phalla threads could have a tag on them.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Games and Tech could be seperated... They're not that similiar. And Moe's Stupid technology tavern came because there is a need to talk about tech seperate from games.
Also, how is the Help and Advice forum doing? I feel it has a place, even though it might not be that lively.
+2
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
If you mash se and dnd together without addressing why they cant stand each other a lot of people will not migrate.
I have no idea why people keep trying to shake everything up. If the point of this product is to preserve the community, why would we be trying to completely fundamentally change the community?
Why are we trying to mash multiple subforums together that have been distinct in style and somewhat in membership for like decades at this point? What's the goal here other then to make everyone less comfortable with no upsides? We ain't paying per subforum are we?
Like, maybe you condense some of the really inactive subforums or something. Just for the sake of not having completely dead random subforums.
But there seems zero reason to try and turn a project about keeping the various communities here together into a plan to restructure everything till it's unfamiliar and people with different expectations who don't interact now suddenly have to all play in the same sandbox together.
Why bother? What are people even trying to achieve and why?
If you want to combine DnD and SE you need to do the holiday forums more often first. Like introducing cats, you can't just throw them together you need to do it slowly or it'll be a nightmare.
If you mash se and dnd together without addressing why they cant stand each other a lot of people will not migrate.
Also SE++ and D&D have been separate for a LONG time now and were separate for reasons that have nothing to do with personal issues people might have with other forumers. There's always been drastically different styles of posting and expectations of discussion at work and people naturally sorted themselves into one or the other or did a bit of both here and there based on what kind of discussion they preferred. And all of that is still there. Why shouldn't there still be both options?
I have no idea why people keep trying to shake everything up. If the point of this product is to preserve the community, why would we be trying to completely fundamentally change the community?
Why are we trying to mash multiple subforums together that have been distinct in style and somewhat in membership for like decades at this point? What's the goal here other then to make everyone less comfortable with no upsides? We ain't paying per subforum are we?
Like, maybe you condense some of the really inactive subforums or something. Just for the sake of not having completely dead random subforums.
But there seems zero reason to try and turn a project about keeping the various communities here together into a plan to restructure everything till it's unfamiliar and people with different expectations who don't interact now suddenly have to all play in the same sandbox together.
Why bother? What are people even trying to achieve and why?
Because there are way fewer users than when the boards were designed and it's stupid to keep siloing everybody.
There aren't that many differences and we can have different threads for different vibes.
I want to get rid of it. It was good for a bunchy of edgy teens and twenty year olds, but we're adults now.
I'd like to keep the spirit if not the actual rule. Sometimes an asshole needs to be called an asshole, but generally speaking that does not create a good environment for discussion. Glorious Edict is far less subjective to enforce than "We are adults, act like it".
I don't know what it could be replaced with and we have recently seen that having such a clear, objective rule has it's own problems.
I have no idea why people keep trying to shake everything up. If the point of this product is to preserve the community, why would we be trying to completely fundamentally change the community?
Why are we trying to mash multiple subforums together that have been distinct in style and somewhat in membership for like decades at this point? What's the goal here other then to make everyone less comfortable with no upsides? We ain't paying per subforum are we?
Like, maybe you condense some of the really inactive subforums or something. Just for the sake of not having completely dead random subforums.
But there seems zero reason to try and turn a project about keeping the various communities here together into a plan to restructure everything till it's unfamiliar and people with different expectations who don't interact now suddenly have to all play in the same sandbox together.
Why bother? What are people even trying to achieve and why?
Because there are way fewer users than when the boards were designed and it's stupid to keep siloing everybody.
There aren't that many differences and we can have different threads for different vibes.
There are enough users right now for any of the major subforums to keep on going here and now. There's no reason to do anything but just port those over and call it a day.
I have no idea why people keep trying to shake everything up. If the point of this product is to preserve the community, why would we be trying to completely fundamentally change the community?
Because these forums are shutting down in less than a year after suffering a prolonged period of benign neglect, on the heels of multiple substantive discussions across several months trying to address underlying and systemic issues with forum management and culture that were shelved before any useful feedback could be iterated upon.
It serves no one to maintain the status quo that got us into this situation in the first place, and any insistence to the contrary isn't only unhelpful, it's actively turning a blind eye to the circumstances that put us in this predicament in the first place.
I have no idea why people keep trying to shake everything up. If the point of this product is to preserve the community, why would we be trying to completely fundamentally change the community?
Why are we trying to mash multiple subforums together that have been distinct in style and somewhat in membership for like decades at this point? What's the goal here other then to make everyone less comfortable with no upsides? We ain't paying per subforum are we?
Like, maybe you condense some of the really inactive subforums or something. Just for the sake of not having completely dead random subforums.
But there seems zero reason to try and turn a project about keeping the various communities here together into a plan to restructure everything till it's unfamiliar and people with different expectations who don't interact now suddenly have to all play in the same sandbox together.
Why bother? What are people even trying to achieve and why?
I think a big part of it is that we assume the audience goes down with a transition. If you assume that - there is no reason to have gaming discussions in the SE equivalent. There is no reason to have NBA threads in two places, splitting the already small community discussion. Legos are in D&D, toys have a thread in the comic area, and SE has a place to post your recent stupid purchases. I think in any project like this, you should always step back and make efficiencies when you can.
Edit: Maybe an alternative is to be stricter on topics in each area to avoid the one-off oddly placed discussions.
I have no idea why people keep trying to shake everything up. If the point of this product is to preserve the community, why would we be trying to completely fundamentally change the community?
Why are we trying to mash multiple subforums together that have been distinct in style and somewhat in membership for like decades at this point? What's the goal here other then to make everyone less comfortable with no upsides? We ain't paying per subforum are we?
Like, maybe you condense some of the really inactive subforums or something. Just for the sake of not having completely dead random subforums.
But there seems zero reason to try and turn a project about keeping the various communities here together into a plan to restructure everything till it's unfamiliar and people with different expectations who don't interact now suddenly have to all play in the same sandbox together.
Why bother? What are people even trying to achieve and why?
The more broken out the forums the less active each one will be, or at least it seems that way to me. The more posts in a thread, within reason, the more content and discussion can be read and posted about in that same thread. As someone who reads both, the majority of the content in the equivalent threads is basically identical. The book threads, movie threads, whatever, are almost the exact same. It just makes zero sense to have two separate threads about the exact same thing with the exact same posting style.
Gamertag: KL Retribution
PSN:Furlion
+3
surfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
I can agree with arguments for and against restructuring but the biggest, most important thing about it is we have like six months before it needs to be decided one way or the other, and it will likely need to be officially decided at the top (and imo "the top" is the mod council)
If your worry is time crunch then just port the forum over mostly as is and deal with any population issues that might arise afterwards.
Fundamentally restructuring the forums is at best a stretch goal and much more like a completely separate goal from preserving the community that currently exists.
I have no idea why people keep trying to shake everything up. If the point of this product is to preserve the community, why would we be trying to completely fundamentally change the community?
Why are we trying to mash multiple subforums together that have been distinct in style and somewhat in membership for like decades at this point? What's the goal here other then to make everyone less comfortable with no upsides? We ain't paying per subforum are we?
Like, maybe you condense some of the really inactive subforums or something. Just for the sake of not having completely dead random subforums.
But there seems zero reason to try and turn a project about keeping the various communities here together into a plan to restructure everything till it's unfamiliar and people with different expectations who don't interact now suddenly have to all play in the same sandbox together.
Why bother? What are people even trying to achieve and why?
Because there are way fewer users than when the boards were designed and it's stupid to keep siloing everybody.
There aren't that many differences and we can have different threads for different vibes.
There are enough users right now for any of the major subforums to keep on going here and now. There's no reason to do anything but just port those over and call it a day.
Also: Without getting into it, I cannot accurately express how much, personally, I would prefer if SE++ and D&D could remain separate spaces on the Internet.
But, as multiple people have pointed out in this discussion, that isn't a tenable long term solution if we keep having to deal with a dwindling use base, and we don't even know if we can just port those two separate communities as-is to whatever platform ends up hosting us next.
It's also a bad idea because if we don't actually try to address the cultural and social schism that has formed between these two communities, we are actively building our new community on a compromised foundation. And if that's the case, then what exactly was the point of trying ton preserve this community if we just end up back where we started?
I have no idea why people keep trying to shake everything up. If the point of this product is to preserve the community, why would we be trying to completely fundamentally change the community?
Why are we trying to mash multiple subforums together that have been distinct in style and somewhat in membership for like decades at this point? What's the goal here other then to make everyone less comfortable with no upsides? We ain't paying per subforum are we?
Like, maybe you condense some of the really inactive subforums or something. Just for the sake of not having completely dead random subforums.
But there seems zero reason to try and turn a project about keeping the various communities here together into a plan to restructure everything till it's unfamiliar and people with different expectations who don't interact now suddenly have to all play in the same sandbox together.
Why bother? What are people even trying to achieve and why?
Because there are way fewer users than when the boards were designed and it's stupid to keep siloing everybody.
There aren't that many differences and we can have different threads for different vibes.
There are enough users right now for any of the major subforums to keep on going here and now. There's no reason to do anything but just port those over and call it a day.
Also: Without getting into it, I cannot accurately express how much, personally, I would prefer if SE++ and D&D could remain separate spaces on the Internet.
But, as multiple people have pointed out in this discussion, that isn't a tenable long term solution if we keep having to deal with a dwindling use base, and we don't even know if we can just port those two separate communities as-is to whatever platform ends up hosting us next.
It's also a bad idea because if we don't actually try to address the cultural and social schism that has formed between these two communities, we are actively building our new community on a compromised foundation. And if that's the case, then what exactly was the point of trying ton preserve this community if we just end up back where we started?
The point is to end up back where we started though. Like, the purpose of this whole project is for the forums to continue at a new URL.
And D&D at least, while getting way less traffic then it used to, still gets enough. I don't know if SE++ is suffering some massive attrition but it seems to be doing fine enough. I'm not clear on what the point of these changes are.
Especially when the two forums have always operated on different rules about basic style of posting and conversation.
I want to get rid of it. It was good for a bunchy of edgy teens and twenty year olds, but we're adults now.
I'd like to keep the spirit if not the actual rule. Sometimes an asshole needs to be called an asshole, but generally speaking that does not create a good environment for discussion. Glorious Edict is far less subjective to enforce than "We are adults, act like it".
I don't know what it could be replaced with and we have recently seen that having such a clear, objective rule has it's own problems.
"People are just polite assholes and use the rules as shields and get me in trouble" well yes that's the way rules work. It's why one, typically, cannot just scream at a coworker who thinks differently from yourself or go off on a tangent at a customer that gives you vibes you don't like. We're trying to build or at least maintain a community, what use is there doing this anymore?
I don't agree "most of us are adults, so don't need rules, and I should just be able to call a spade a spade" because in my experience being a 30, 40, 50, etc does not limit the behavior you've seen from a teenager and that just ends up with, again, treehouses screeching about each other. We all have our bad days, we all sometimes take something completely out of context and make someone our worst enemies. I'm not immune, nor is anyone else here, no matter what they think of themselves of their bffs.
Posts
This would likely be whatever tool we decide on for project management, as you can attach and associate files with stories / epics…
i strongly advise that nothing we do involves sensitive private data such that we need to worry about PII data tenancy. I would even avoid keeping emails associated with usernames.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I nominate spool for PM, probably synd and dibbit for some kind of managey thing as well. Somebody needs to be the person pulling together the sources of truth
This whole process is also entirely fascinating to watch play out
I like the Arcadia options because they remind me of The Longest Journey.
I do think that a big part of choosing the name involves the branding. For the logo we probably want something that abbreviates well to two-three letters that on their own don't step on anyone else's toes, or end up too similar to gross horrible types (as hinted at earlier).
Also, should the announcement thread redirect people over here? Feels like there's still people having conversations in that thread that should probably be in this subforum at this point.
It doesn't have to be the long-term solution, and I'm sure you'll want other folks to weigh in on major decisions, but getting the whole project up and running - including identifying which people should be doing what - needs to be done quickly and efficiently. Once the framework is in place, then you can start widening the pool a little bit, including bringing in a different decision-making/voting body for downstream choices.
For example, a good way to get the right expertise to weigh in on certain decisions or areas is to assign a small committee to come together and task them with providing specific decisions/recommendations/considerations. Or if a lawyer should be hired - who decides that a lawyer is needed, and who decides who that lawyer should be? You'll need some kind of process to make those decisions that isn't a giant plebiscite every time.
I feel like you guys are probably already doing something along this path, but I wanted to bring it up just in case it wasn't explicit. This is one of those things where everyone has to agree to the ground rules up front or it can quickly devolve.
I don't even know what it means
It's a joke from D&D when they get too on a tangent someone goes to make a "God Damn Separate Thread" for the tangent to stop cluttering the original thread. And I largely agree that it's a bit to in-jokey to work.
It’s a Debate & Discourse convention when a topic gets broken out into its own thread. I’ve been a D&D regular for like 20 years and just learned last year what it meant.
Way too niche and in-jokey!
GDST stands for God Damn Separate Thread. Usually happens if there is a tangent people in a thread get going about that's not like, directly what the thread is about, someone can then go start a GDST about it. The idea of a forum version of that for a non-PA forum is funny.
Explosive Ordnance Disposal
(another D&D in-joke when you get a bunch of people in a row asking / giving the same answer to a question)
As the Penny-Arcade forums have now officially entered their twilight period, we’re in need of a new home. We need a new forum and, I think, we ought to take this as an opportunity to shake things up. New forum, new forum super-structure! Below is my proposal for what our new forums should resemble, structure-wise, as we design our way into the future.
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
Sports could also end up in Media for a large chunk of it, since it is discussing entertainment events people either attend or watch on TV.
And also in this format I think "the 'burbs" would handle fitness, working out, etc.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
True, but it's definitely funnier to pair sports and board games
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
I'm sure we'll still have some division, but I do think having one Steam thread, one NBA thread, etc., would be a nice idea. The areas of the forums aren't nearly as different as they were when I originally joined, so I don't think the "culture shock" would be as jarring as it would have been then.
Greek tradition (And Arcadia is the ancient Greek home of Pan, God of Wilderness, Satyrs, Flutes and huge Schlongs, confirmed dead) demands that Sports and Debate are combined: They believed you couldn't be a good thinker without a rocking bod.
Of course, we'd need to exclude "watching sport" from sports, as that didn't count.
Moderation needs to be on point with merging everything together. While calling people out and dunking on them might be cathartic in the end it creates treehouses and cliques and just creates more animosity. That's a fantastic way to kill a fledgling community. I hope we can agree to leave this shit at the door and maybe the whole "yeah but what if they're a nazi?" can be best left to the mods to get them taken care of instead of making a public spectacle of it in a siloed thread on either side of a demarcation line.
It is already pretty drafty here. I think the Lets Play, Phalla, Play by Post and other stuff could collapse into the main subforum instead of categories, and we can do thread typing so that Phalla threads could have a tag on them.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I want to get rid of it. It was good for a bunchy of edgy teens and twenty year olds, but we're adults now.
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
Also, how is the Help and Advice forum doing? I feel it has a place, even though it might not be that lively.
Once upon a time, when the shadows first lengthened, I suggested rotating the allowed insult on a quarterly basis, but Tube did not agree.
Why are we trying to mash multiple subforums together that have been distinct in style and somewhat in membership for like decades at this point? What's the goal here other then to make everyone less comfortable with no upsides? We ain't paying per subforum are we?
Like, maybe you condense some of the really inactive subforums or something. Just for the sake of not having completely dead random subforums.
But there seems zero reason to try and turn a project about keeping the various communities here together into a plan to restructure everything till it's unfamiliar and people with different expectations who don't interact now suddenly have to all play in the same sandbox together.
Why bother? What are people even trying to achieve and why?
Also SE++ and D&D have been separate for a LONG time now and were separate for reasons that have nothing to do with personal issues people might have with other forumers. There's always been drastically different styles of posting and expectations of discussion at work and people naturally sorted themselves into one or the other or did a bit of both here and there based on what kind of discussion they preferred. And all of that is still there. Why shouldn't there still be both options?
Because there are way fewer users than when the boards were designed and it's stupid to keep siloing everybody.
There aren't that many differences and we can have different threads for different vibes.
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
I'd like to keep the spirit if not the actual rule. Sometimes an asshole needs to be called an asshole, but generally speaking that does not create a good environment for discussion. Glorious Edict is far less subjective to enforce than "We are adults, act like it".
I don't know what it could be replaced with and we have recently seen that having such a clear, objective rule has it's own problems.
There are enough users right now for any of the major subforums to keep on going here and now. There's no reason to do anything but just port those over and call it a day.
Because these forums are shutting down in less than a year after suffering a prolonged period of benign neglect, on the heels of multiple substantive discussions across several months trying to address underlying and systemic issues with forum management and culture that were shelved before any useful feedback could be iterated upon.
It serves no one to maintain the status quo that got us into this situation in the first place, and any insistence to the contrary isn't only unhelpful, it's actively turning a blind eye to the circumstances that put us in this predicament in the first place.
I think a big part of it is that we assume the audience goes down with a transition. If you assume that - there is no reason to have gaming discussions in the SE equivalent. There is no reason to have NBA threads in two places, splitting the already small community discussion. Legos are in D&D, toys have a thread in the comic area, and SE has a place to post your recent stupid purchases. I think in any project like this, you should always step back and make efficiencies when you can.
Edit: Maybe an alternative is to be stricter on topics in each area to avoid the one-off oddly placed discussions.
The more broken out the forums the less active each one will be, or at least it seems that way to me. The more posts in a thread, within reason, the more content and discussion can be read and posted about in that same thread. As someone who reads both, the majority of the content in the equivalent threads is basically identical. The book threads, movie threads, whatever, are almost the exact same. It just makes zero sense to have two separate threads about the exact same thing with the exact same posting style.
PSN:Furlion
Fundamentally restructuring the forums is at best a stretch goal and much more like a completely separate goal from preserving the community that currently exists.
Also: Without getting into it, I cannot accurately express how much, personally, I would prefer if SE++ and D&D could remain separate spaces on the Internet.
But, as multiple people have pointed out in this discussion, that isn't a tenable long term solution if we keep having to deal with a dwindling use base, and we don't even know if we can just port those two separate communities as-is to whatever platform ends up hosting us next.
It's also a bad idea because if we don't actually try to address the cultural and social schism that has formed between these two communities, we are actively building our new community on a compromised foundation. And if that's the case, then what exactly was the point of trying ton preserve this community if we just end up back where we started?
The point is to end up back where we started though. Like, the purpose of this whole project is for the forums to continue at a new URL.
And D&D at least, while getting way less traffic then it used to, still gets enough. I don't know if SE++ is suffering some massive attrition but it seems to be doing fine enough. I'm not clear on what the point of these changes are.
Especially when the two forums have always operated on different rules about basic style of posting and conversation.
"People are just polite assholes and use the rules as shields and get me in trouble" well yes that's the way rules work. It's why one, typically, cannot just scream at a coworker who thinks differently from yourself or go off on a tangent at a customer that gives you vibes you don't like. We're trying to build or at least maintain a community, what use is there doing this anymore?
I don't agree "most of us are adults, so don't need rules, and I should just be able to call a spade a spade" because in my experience being a 30, 40, 50, etc does not limit the behavior you've seen from a teenager and that just ends up with, again, treehouses screeching about each other. We all have our bad days, we all sometimes take something completely out of context and make someone our worst enemies. I'm not immune, nor is anyone else here, no matter what they think of themselves of their bffs.