The holiday forums sustain themselves on good cheer. The forums also significantly slow down as people are spending time travelling, with loved ones and family, or pulling late hours at work so others can enjoy time off. If the holiday forums were a permanent thing, I wouldn't stick around. The vibes quickly sour as we get close to and pass the new year.
I am not saying I am for or against some kind of merging, I think things have to change for the health of the community, I don't know what shape that takes and it's hard to imagine without hands on time with the website itself.
What I am saying is that I've had a bad time (in both SE and DnD, depending on what year it was) because of the overall tone of the subforum itself; the tone of the forums has always been sarcastic and quick to mock those you disagree with, habits that have been slowly been breaking apart the community at both the user and mod level for some time now.
For me I like reading about a topic and engaging in that topic. For instance, I know there's two Dropout threads, one in D&D and one in SE. Does there need to be two? Probably not! It would probably be livelier as a single combined thread which I'm in favor of as it gets me more stuff to read about a topic I like.
I don't want to make half the community run away if a merge happens but I'm extremely skeptical that would happen. The bad actors and schism warriors are a very small percentage of the actual posters. The vast majority are not affected by that stuff.
I don't want to take SE away, I like reading stuff in there too. But I also want to encourage more people to post in more places without having to hunt for the two or three threads on a topic I like instead of having it in one spot.
+3
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
edited January 8
I'm torn somewhere down the middle between Chanus and Sammich.
I agree with Chanus that there are indeed two (maybe even three or four!) types of poster here, and we don't pay by the kb, so there's no reason not to have a natural split there so people can talk with their friends. That IS the end goal here, for all of us olds to keep using a forum rather than being told to just "go to discord" New blood, etc is all just a possible bonus. We're moving to a new home, first and foremost, cause we got evicted, and no one moves into a new place and just copies the previous layout. They paint walls, hang new posters, w/e.
I agree with the bloc who has said "the only issues are with a small minority of posters" and I honestly think that's a self solving problem with more mods and a CoC. I don't think it'll be an issue either way, at max three months into nuForums.
I agree with Sammich that starting off with a divide is also not a good idea and makes no sense.
I do not agree that Coin Return should keep the titles D&D, SE++, or the edgy descriptors that one is the wild west and one is structured and you need to read and lurk first.
a) we're prolly not getting a lot of new blood so they no longer matter, and b) we're trying to remove that level of divide going forward.
lastly, as pure opinion because not everyone has gotten to see it yet, the current CR layout looks great and makes sense. Everyone coming in isn't immediately shuffled off after the sorting hat.
amateurhour on
are YOU on the beer list?
+7
ToxI kill threadsDilige, et quod vis facRegistered Userregular
The forums are not fine people have been getting chased out of threads on both sides for years.
Y'all are not living in reality and it's infuriating.
The reason everything is so quiet is because everyone got chased off so many times they stopped bothering to try.
Do you not think better moderation will address the 'chasing people off' issue?
No I think keeping the treehouses will lead to folks pushing for "local" moderation policies so that their treehouse can be moderated by people from their treehouse and then I see those new mods falling back into the same habits of telling folks "well just don't go over there" and/or mods having arguments amongst themselves that lead to putting the sides back in place so dnd mods handle "their" board and SE handles "their" board and oh look both sides like their mods so they keep them around and hey would you look at that it's the exact same problem we've had for years and all the work we've put in has solved nothing.
That's what I'm afraid of. That we'll do all this work and folks will be too afraid of having to change that we won't do enough to actually solve the culture problem, because we were too afraid to try.
e: I further worry that continuing to have two treehouses will give folks an excuse to "other" folks, and will also lead to folks going "this is SE (or DnD) that's not how we have ever done things" and just ... causing problems for new mod teams because they want to act like this is the same place it's always been.
Tox on
maybe the real panopticon was the friends we made along the way
+6
ToxI kill threadsDilige, et quod vis facRegistered Userregular
Basically I think we've made a lot of changes to the way we as a community are gonna operate going forward and I think we should celebrate and cement that with a new structure as well.
maybe the real panopticon was the friends we made along the way
The forums are not fine people have been getting chased out of threads on both sides for years.
Y'all are not living in reality and it's infuriating.
The reason everything is so quiet is because everyone got chased off so many times they stopped bothering to try.
Do you not think better moderation will address the 'chasing people off' issue?
I think "better moderation" is incredibly vague and various groups have wildly different opinions on what "better moderation" is.
You have some people convinced that people only get chased out of threads in D&D, you have some people convinced that people only get chased out of threads in SE++, and each group thinks that their preferred moderation style is the solution for both forums without much willingness to compromise.
You also have a bunch of people willing to acknowledge that it happens in both and that some compromise is needed -- that neither moderation style and culture can be ported over in full to keep a healthy community.
So....which of the 3 does it wind up being? What would that potential compromise look like?
I think that so much of this confusion and back and forth hinges on that. Throughout this cycle I've shifted from initially "merge is terrible idea" to "merge seems promising" based on seeing some of the moderation that's arisen from these discussions and the code of conduct, then back to "oh no merge seems really scary" after seeing moderators break their own rules after the code of conduct was instituted to personally insult other posters and face no repercussions for it. Toss in a dash of holiday forum drama and a full restructure seems much more scary again.
My answer to the question just swings wildly based on what the moderation and enforcement looks like, and I think fundamentally asking people to sign off on the restructure before actually understanding how moderation will look and feel on the new forum is an impossible task. I think it feels to a lot of people like being asked to sign a lease for a car without test driving the car at all, because hell yeah we're getting a car analogy in here.
So here's a thought, most modern forum softwares allow you to have a "cross post" type situation that can span multiple categories and I assume XF is no exception to this.
Could we allow mods/folks to create a thread in both forums if they so wish? If you think a Marvel Movie thread can apply to both D&D and SE++ ... then do a crosspost. If mods think it should be a single thread when we have two movie threads, then they can be merged together.
This would solve the problem of "where should I go?" and deal with multiple threads in multiple places and help with the general bifurcation of the forums.
ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User, Moderatormod
to maybe clarify my stance, i don't care one bit about existing subforum names staying or going
given it is clear many people want to at least preserve both conversation cultures, i do think having a Focused Discussion subforum and a Loose Discussion subforum will cause a lot fewer headaches than one subforum where you have to make sure you're following the right guidelines for each individual thread. if i continue on as a mod at Coin Return i don't want to spend my day litigating who's posting the wrong way because the OP declared "no bad vibes" in their thread or whatever but someone wants to offer constructive criticism
and i don't want to do the Holiday Forum thing where everything is SE and if you want to be a wonk who doesn't have to wade through a thread to find posts on the actual topic, then too bad
Acknowledging that the transition team has been handed an almost impossible task, that there is no solution that will make everyone happy, I like the cheat's newest proposal the most of the proposed solutions.
Because it acknowledges that there probably isn't an easy and clean way to unify the two forums (and practically I'm not sure we're going to be able to see how the new moderation looks fully until we're just living it on the new forum), but makes attempts to unify them in ways that should theoretically be the least abrasive.
It matches my observations from the holiday forum as well. There really should not be many issues with unifying the NBA, NFL, and various sports threads. It won't be 0 friction because that's just not how people work, but if you really bristle at having to talk about your favorite basketball team around "those other people" then come on, you're not really trying. If that's your breaking point to leave the forums....it doesn't feel like you were going to compromise on anything ever really.
Politics? Okay yeah that's substantially less easy, so maybe that stays silo'd for now and we use the Star Wars thread as our trial balloon for how crazy things may get.
It's absolutely not perfect, but I think it's the best proposal we have as it doesn't hinge on "and the new moderation is going to be much better in ways that I personally like for sure" to succeed. The "merge with fantastic moderation" is the dream solution, but you can look at this thread to plainly see that you can pick two people and their ideas of what good moderation is will vary wildly.
mobbing people out of threads and subforums because they don't understand how things work is one of the behaviors we need to change if this is going to work at all
I agree, which is why I find it hard to understand having one subforum that describes itself as "not the other one" and the other one which describes itself as "be careful and make sure you understand what's going on here before you post"
I'm not even sure where you are getting these descriptions from or who you think they apply to.
From the blurbs under each subforum on the desktop version of the site.
I think those blurbs are like 20+ years old at this point and I'm not sure anyone has cared what they've said for almost that long.
So do you agree that they should be changed?
You mean the labels themselves? Sure?
Why is anyone even talking about the labels at all? Why is it even coming up? They literally don't matter and no one reads them.
mobbing people out of threads and subforums because they don't understand how things work is one of the behaviors we need to change if this is going to work at all
I agree, which is why I find it hard to understand having one subforum that describes itself as "not the other one" and the other one which describes itself as "be careful and make sure you understand what's going on here before you post"
I'm not even sure where you are getting these descriptions from or who you think they apply to.
From the blurbs under each subforum on the desktop version of the site.
I think those blurbs are like 20+ years old at this point and I'm not sure anyone has cared what they've said for almost that long.
So do you agree that they should be changed?
You mean the labels themselves? Sure?
Why is anyone even talking about the labels at all? Why is it even coming up? They literally don't matter and no one reads them.
If you think this, then why even respond
+2
ToxI kill threadsDilige, et quod vis facRegistered Userregular
mobbing people out of threads and subforums because they don't understand how things work is one of the behaviors we need to change if this is going to work at all
I agree, which is why I find it hard to understand having one subforum that describes itself as "not the other one" and the other one which describes itself as "be careful and make sure you understand what's going on here before you post"
I'm not even sure where you are getting these descriptions from or who you think they apply to.
From the blurbs under each subforum on the desktop version of the site.
I think those blurbs are like 20+ years old at this point and I'm not sure anyone has cared what they've said for almost that long.
So do you agree that they should be changed?
You mean the labels themselves? Sure?
Why is anyone even talking about the labels at all? Why is it even coming up? They literally don't matter and no one reads them.
Several people just did read them shryke.
What you mean is "I don't read them, I don't think they matter, and I don't think anyone else should care "
maybe the real panopticon was the friends we made along the way
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
The holiday forums sustain themselves on good cheer. The forums also significantly slow down as people are spending time travelling, with loved ones and family, or pulling late hours at work so others can enjoy time off. If the holiday forums were a permanent thing, I wouldn't stick around. The vibes quickly sour as we get close to and pass the new year.
The Holiday Forum also slows down because people just check out cause they don't like the Holiday Forum. Many people have never liked it and avoid the forums during that period because of it and have for years and years. But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever. The Holiday Forum is not a sign of the viability of a merger.
+6
ToxI kill threadsDilige, et quod vis facRegistered Userregular
The holiday forums sustain themselves on good cheer. The forums also significantly slow down as people are spending time travelling, with loved ones and family, or pulling late hours at work so others can enjoy time off. If the holiday forums were a permanent thing, I wouldn't stick around. The vibes quickly sour as we get close to and pass the new year.
The Holiday Forum also slows down because people just check out cause they don't like the Holiday Forum. Many people have never liked it and avoid the forums during that period because of it and have for years and years. But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever. The Holiday Forum is not a sign of the viability of a merger.
I've never heard this. It's far more likely that people have so much other stuff going in that time of year and so they post less.
maybe the real panopticon was the friends we made along the way
The holiday forums sustain themselves on good cheer. The forums also significantly slow down as people are spending time travelling, with loved ones and family, or pulling late hours at work so others can enjoy time off. If the holiday forums were a permanent thing, I wouldn't stick around. The vibes quickly sour as we get close to and pass the new year.
The Holiday Forum also slows down because people just check out cause they don't like the Holiday Forum. Many people have never liked it and avoid the forums during that period because of it and have for years and years. But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever. The Holiday Forum is not a sign of the viability of a merger.
I've never heard this. It's far more likely that people have so much other stuff going in that time of year and so they post less.
No, there's plenty of people who feel this way. I've talked to them for years in venues outside the forums specifically.
As always, the reason you don't see people grumbling about the Holiday Forums is because it was explicitly not allowed.
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
mobbing people out of threads and subforums because they don't understand how things work is one of the behaviors we need to change if this is going to work at all
I agree, which is why I find it hard to understand having one subforum that describes itself as "not the other one" and the other one which describes itself as "be careful and make sure you understand what's going on here before you post"
I'm not even sure where you are getting these descriptions from or who you think they apply to.
From the blurbs under each subforum on the desktop version of the site.
I think those blurbs are like 20+ years old at this point and I'm not sure anyone has cared what they've said for almost that long.
So do you agree that they should be changed?
You mean the labels themselves? Sure?
Why is anyone even talking about the labels at all? Why is it even coming up? They literally don't matter and no one reads them.
Several people just did read them shryke.
What you mean is "I don't read them, I don't think they matter, and I don't think anyone else should care "
I think even more people have never read them and don't define themselves based on those labels. If you did a survey on whether they matter, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people on these forums would be like "Wait, what? There's labels?".
The labels don't define the culture of the various subforums. Nobody is shaping their behaviour around them. They are irrelevant.
shryke on
0
QuetziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User, Moderatormod
Josh and Shryke have both made posts to the effect that nothing should change
This is a blatant misrepresentation.
My posts have explicitly called for only making changes that align with user experience and that can be supported by data and feedback. As the data and feedback we currently have does not support sweeping change I’m of the position we should minimize the disruption to the existing user base.
The fact that they are being represented as you are stating is pretty ridiculous, and screams bad faith.
Edit. Furthermore, I’ve also explicitly stated that if a second survey is genuinely(!) needed to gain that data we had better be damned sure that it’s the last time we need to solicit the user base for their feedback. That is not no change.
It is the honest impression that I got from your posts, I can't understand any other reason why you would argue so fervently against restructure if you didn't believe such.
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
0
ToxI kill threadsDilige, et quod vis facRegistered Userregular
mobbing people out of threads and subforums because they don't understand how things work is one of the behaviors we need to change if this is going to work at all
I agree, which is why I find it hard to understand having one subforum that describes itself as "not the other one" and the other one which describes itself as "be careful and make sure you understand what's going on here before you post"
I'm not even sure where you are getting these descriptions from or who you think they apply to.
From the blurbs under each subforum on the desktop version of the site.
I think those blurbs are like 20+ years old at this point and I'm not sure anyone has cared what they've said for almost that long.
So do you agree that they should be changed?
You mean the labels themselves? Sure?
Why is anyone even talking about the labels at all? Why is it even coming up? They literally don't matter and no one reads them.
Several people just did read them shryke.
What you mean is "I don't read them, I don't think they matter, and I don't think anyone else should care "
I think even more people have never read them and don't define themselves based on those labels. If you did a survey on whether they matter, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people on these forums would be like "Wait, what? There's labels?".
The labels don't define the culture of the various subforums. Nobody is shaping their behaviour around them. They are irrelevant.
Maybe but this "I think" statement is wildly different from your previous "they literally don't matter and no one reads them" so can we take a deep breath and not make sweeping unprovable statements as though they are known facts? It will greatly help maintain the temperature of the conversation.
maybe the real panopticon was the friends we made along the way
chalk me up as another person who doesn’t care for the holiday forums, partially because it disrupts threads in progress, but mainly because it feels like everything gets shoved/turned into SE, and that’s not somewhere I usually choose to go much when I have the option to year round.
I’m also hardly the only one with this opinion, but I’m not going to be a grinch about something that happens for, at most, 1-2 weeks a year and (hopefully) gives the volunteers some time off.
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
+4
QuetziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User, Moderatormod
The thing about those descriptions is that I think they're symptomatic of the vagaries of the poll.
Let's take a hypothetical user, we'll call them Poltergeist. Poltergeist posts mostly in G&T, occasionally in D&D and has recently started posting in SE a bit as well. Overall, they like the split between the forums, and would generally like it preserved. That said, they stayed out of both D&D and SE for years because they found the forum descriptions confusing or off-putting (especially when combined with the reputation of those places), so they would like to change those descriptions.
How do they vote on the question?
- Are they strongly in favor of keeping things the same, because they don't actually want to change the structure?
- Are they slightly in favor of keeping things the same, because they want the same structure but with some descriptive revisions?
- Are they the middle option, which is now regarded as indifferent but isn't actually really described as such in the poll?
- Are they slightly in favor of change, because they do care about having some changes and think that part of things is important?
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
I was talking about your statements that "Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless".
0
ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User, Moderatormod
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
chalk me up as another person who doesn’t care for the holiday forums, partially because it disrupts threads in progress, but mainly because it feels like everything gets shoved/turned into SE, and that’s not somewhere I usually choose to go much when I have the option to year round.
I’m also hardly the only one with this opinion, but I’m not going to be a grinch about something that happens for, at most, 1-2 weeks a year and (hopefully) gives the volunteers some time off.
It's always been a format I've largely disliked and I used to be a fairly active SE enjoyer.
0
QuetziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User, Moderatormod
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
Not fully, but I think there are some threads that could potentially use it, at least on the SE side
The holiday forums sustain themselves on good cheer. The forums also significantly slow down as people are spending time travelling, with loved ones and family, or pulling late hours at work so others can enjoy time off. If the holiday forums were a permanent thing, I wouldn't stick around. The vibes quickly sour as we get close to and pass the new year.
The Holiday Forum also slows down because people just check out cause they don't like the Holiday Forum. Many people have never liked it and avoid the forums during that period because of it and have for years and years. But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever. The Holiday Forum is not a sign of the viability of a merger.
I've never heard this. It's far more likely that people have so much other stuff going in that time of year and so they post less.
There are people participating in this discussion who requested self bans on the Holiday forum because of the heat, and apparently some lurkers popped up to say "wow this sucks I'm leaving" as well. There were mod actions and group scoldings directed at 10+ posters. Several posters in these threads have commented that they hate the holiday forums and take a break from them.
It definitely does happen. It varies wildly from thread to thread though, as some are completely fine and if you stick to those you won't realize any of this is going on.
+3
ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User, Moderatormod
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
Not fully, but I think there are some threads that could potentially use it, at least on the SE side
i don't think having some threads with low activity, which is unavoidable, and a subforum having low activity are the same problem
i don't even really think there being a thread in SE that doesn't see much activity as opposed to similar threads elsewhere is a problem at all
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
clearly not.
Transparently I think Mr2 hit the nail on the head with their post. I believe there are a group of posters who are looking at a potential merge as a back door mechanism to drive out self-defined "undesirables". Not all, likely not many. But definitely some.
I think this kind of rhetoric flies in the face of the Transition Team asking for a baseline assumption of good faith from everyone participating in this discussion, and it's just raising the temperature without contributing anything useful to the conversation.
Especially when the new Code of Conduct was explicitly written to avoid people getting brigaded off the boards by other posters technically following the rules while making the space hostile.
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
Currently? Depends on the thread I think as Quetzi said. Looking forward? Absolutely things are trending that way. See the more or less death of the college football thread in D&D and that has been the case for years now. It is better to address a problem before you absolutely have to. Once you realize you are in a crisis there is already a lot of damage done. This will be the case in the not so distant future, and that future will absolutely be accelerated by the fact that not everyone is coming over.
+2
ToxI kill threadsDilige, et quod vis facRegistered Userregular
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
Rather I think the reverse - everywhere else is dying. G+T, DnD, and SE seem to all have plenty of users (for now, at least) - but the rest of the site is a lot quieter.
And for me I look at things like the ttrpg threads in SE and CF and I see how many times some folks will literally post the exact same thing in both places and I just will not believe that is a good and efficient way to organize our community.
maybe the real panopticon was the friends we made along the way
+13
ToxI kill threadsDilige, et quod vis facRegistered Userregular
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
clearly not.
Transparently I think Mr2 hit the nail on the head with their post. I believe there are a group of posters who are looking at a potential merge as a back door mechanism to drive out self-defined "undesirables". Not all, likely not many. But definitely some.
For reference - it's not just the merge. I have advocated at every step to raise the standard to which folks in this community are held. The community re-org is just the next task in the migration, so it's the next point at which I am trying to do that
maybe the real panopticon was the friends we made along the way
+4
minor incidentpublicly subsidized!privately profitable!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
Once we account for a chunk of regular users not moving to Coin Return (maybe 10%, maybe 20%, maybe 25%? It's hard to estimate, but there will be some that call it a day), and a bit more general attrition over the next year or two, I think it's entirely possible we get to that point. Which is why, for my part, I'd rather address it with some reorganization before it becomes a ghost town problem.
There are still other ways to address it, and things like our code of conduct, and simply not being a million year old forum attached to a web comic that doesn't really send any notable new users our way, are all factors we can work with as well.
Hell, New Jersey, it said on the letter. Delivered without comment. So be it!
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
clearly not.
Transparently I think Mr2 hit the nail on the head with their post. I believe there are a group of posters who are looking at a potential merge as a back door mechanism to drive out self-defined "undesirables". Not all, likely not many. But definitely some.
I think this kind of rhetoric flies in the face of the Transition Team asking for a baseline assumption of good faith from everyone participating in this discussion, and it's just raising the temperature without contributing anything useful to the conversation.
Especially when the new Code of Conduct was explicitly written to avoid people getting brigaded off the boards by other posters technically following the rules while making the space hostile.
But what do we do when someone comes in to the thread, after the date that we were all supposed to reset, and just immediately dials up the temperature against someone else who happens to be the same person they've been doing that to for like 10 years?
What do we do when someone comes in and says the culture of only one of the subforums is toxic and must be changed to be more like the one they like more?
We can't pretend those things aren't happening, and it chips away at the willingness some people have to assume good faith. It directly leads to skepticism when we ignore those things and just say "hey no we all said we would work in good faith, so you must ignore the posts that don't feel like good faith posts because the label says they all have to be good faith posts".
I don't know how else to say it -- it certainly appears that old battle lines are being drawn, yet again. It's both inspiring and frustrating that it's definitely not everyone, but it's enough people that it sure feels like people fighting ghosts of old battles again.
Especially when the new Code of Conduct was explicitly written to avoid people getting brigaded off the boards by other posters technically following the rules while making the space hostile.
I see this line bandied about a lot but I have questions or concerns about it.
If technically following rules causes people to leave, perhaps the rule follower is in the right here and the person who's having rules used against them was actually in the wrong?
What good does a code of conduct do to solve this? You will still need to follow "the rules".
Which forumers were brigaded off because they were asked to follow the rules?
Finally, I'd rather be around polite assholes than obnoxious assholes. Both suck, but someone following the rules is better than some combative asshole who wants to yell at people.
And to head it off: None of this is advocating for a polite Hitler scenario.
There seems to be some kind of assumption that the schism "must be solved" or "the forums will die".
I'm not sure I agree with that assertion, and we have no proof that this is the case. The closest thing we might have to evidence would come from the survey, and I can say point blank with absolutely no reservations that the survey doesn't support such an argument.
If anything, the only affirmative thing you can take away from the survey is that there is enough support for Coin Return to be a broadly viable thing. That's pretty much it.
The forums are dying. That much we know. Not in the PA is killing it way either. It has continuously slowed down when we had a name attached. It is only going to get worse without one. There is not a small amount of users concerned about how the forums are going. I don't think we have any idea of what a silver bullet to fix them would be. We can know as is things aren't going great based on the multiple threads where people have spoken directly about how they are not happy with how things are going.
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
Once we account for a chunk of regular users not moving to Coin Return (maybe 10%, maybe 20%, maybe 25%? It's hard to estimate, but there will be some that call it a day), and a bit more general attrition over the next year or two, I think it's entirely possible we get to that point. Which is why, for my part, I'd rather address it with some reorganization before it becomes a ghost town problem.
There are still other ways to address it, and things like our code of conduct, and simply not being a million year old forum attached to a web comic that doesn't really send any notable new users our way, are all factors we can work with as well.
I think it's also entirely possible though that a merger causes a spike in those losses on it's own. Either from the forums in general or from certain types of threads in the forum as people retreat to the only parts of the forum that still remain as they were before.
Posts
I am not saying I am for or against some kind of merging, I think things have to change for the health of the community, I don't know what shape that takes and it's hard to imagine without hands on time with the website itself.
What I am saying is that I've had a bad time (in both SE and DnD, depending on what year it was) because of the overall tone of the subforum itself; the tone of the forums has always been sarcastic and quick to mock those you disagree with, habits that have been slowly been breaking apart the community at both the user and mod level for some time now.
I don't want to make half the community run away if a merge happens but I'm extremely skeptical that would happen. The bad actors and schism warriors are a very small percentage of the actual posters. The vast majority are not affected by that stuff.
I don't want to take SE away, I like reading stuff in there too. But I also want to encourage more people to post in more places without having to hunt for the two or three threads on a topic I like instead of having it in one spot.
I agree with Chanus that there are indeed two (maybe even three or four!) types of poster here, and we don't pay by the kb, so there's no reason not to have a natural split there so people can talk with their friends. That IS the end goal here, for all of us olds to keep using a forum rather than being told to just "go to discord" New blood, etc is all just a possible bonus. We're moving to a new home, first and foremost, cause we got evicted, and no one moves into a new place and just copies the previous layout. They paint walls, hang new posters, w/e.
I agree with the bloc who has said "the only issues are with a small minority of posters" and I honestly think that's a self solving problem with more mods and a CoC. I don't think it'll be an issue either way, at max three months into nuForums.
I agree with Sammich that starting off with a divide is also not a good idea and makes no sense.
I do not agree that Coin Return should keep the titles D&D, SE++, or the edgy descriptors that one is the wild west and one is structured and you need to read and lurk first.
a) we're prolly not getting a lot of new blood so they no longer matter, and b) we're trying to remove that level of divide going forward.
lastly, as pure opinion because not everyone has gotten to see it yet, the current CR layout looks great and makes sense. Everyone coming in isn't immediately shuffled off after the sorting hat.
No I think keeping the treehouses will lead to folks pushing for "local" moderation policies so that their treehouse can be moderated by people from their treehouse and then I see those new mods falling back into the same habits of telling folks "well just don't go over there" and/or mods having arguments amongst themselves that lead to putting the sides back in place so dnd mods handle "their" board and SE handles "their" board and oh look both sides like their mods so they keep them around and hey would you look at that it's the exact same problem we've had for years and all the work we've put in has solved nothing.
That's what I'm afraid of. That we'll do all this work and folks will be too afraid of having to change that we won't do enough to actually solve the culture problem, because we were too afraid to try.
e: I further worry that continuing to have two treehouses will give folks an excuse to "other" folks, and will also lead to folks going "this is SE (or DnD) that's not how we have ever done things" and just ... causing problems for new mod teams because they want to act like this is the same place it's always been.
I think "better moderation" is incredibly vague and various groups have wildly different opinions on what "better moderation" is.
You have some people convinced that people only get chased out of threads in D&D, you have some people convinced that people only get chased out of threads in SE++, and each group thinks that their preferred moderation style is the solution for both forums without much willingness to compromise.
You also have a bunch of people willing to acknowledge that it happens in both and that some compromise is needed -- that neither moderation style and culture can be ported over in full to keep a healthy community.
So....which of the 3 does it wind up being? What would that potential compromise look like?
I think that so much of this confusion and back and forth hinges on that. Throughout this cycle I've shifted from initially "merge is terrible idea" to "merge seems promising" based on seeing some of the moderation that's arisen from these discussions and the code of conduct, then back to "oh no merge seems really scary" after seeing moderators break their own rules after the code of conduct was instituted to personally insult other posters and face no repercussions for it. Toss in a dash of holiday forum drama and a full restructure seems much more scary again.
My answer to the question just swings wildly based on what the moderation and enforcement looks like, and I think fundamentally asking people to sign off on the restructure before actually understanding how moderation will look and feel on the new forum is an impossible task. I think it feels to a lot of people like being asked to sign a lease for a car without test driving the car at all, because hell yeah we're getting a car analogy in here.
Could we allow mods/folks to create a thread in both forums if they so wish? If you think a Marvel Movie thread can apply to both D&D and SE++ ... then do a crosspost. If mods think it should be a single thread when we have two movie threads, then they can be merged together.
This would solve the problem of "where should I go?" and deal with multiple threads in multiple places and help with the general bifurcation of the forums.
given it is clear many people want to at least preserve both conversation cultures, i do think having a Focused Discussion subforum and a Loose Discussion subforum will cause a lot fewer headaches than one subforum where you have to make sure you're following the right guidelines for each individual thread. if i continue on as a mod at Coin Return i don't want to spend my day litigating who's posting the wrong way because the OP declared "no bad vibes" in their thread or whatever but someone wants to offer constructive criticism
and i don't want to do the Holiday Forum thing where everything is SE and if you want to be a wonk who doesn't have to wade through a thread to find posts on the actual topic, then too bad
Because it acknowledges that there probably isn't an easy and clean way to unify the two forums (and practically I'm not sure we're going to be able to see how the new moderation looks fully until we're just living it on the new forum), but makes attempts to unify them in ways that should theoretically be the least abrasive.
It matches my observations from the holiday forum as well. There really should not be many issues with unifying the NBA, NFL, and various sports threads. It won't be 0 friction because that's just not how people work, but if you really bristle at having to talk about your favorite basketball team around "those other people" then come on, you're not really trying. If that's your breaking point to leave the forums....it doesn't feel like you were going to compromise on anything ever really.
Politics? Okay yeah that's substantially less easy, so maybe that stays silo'd for now and we use the Star Wars thread as our trial balloon for how crazy things may get.
It's absolutely not perfect, but I think it's the best proposal we have as it doesn't hinge on "and the new moderation is going to be much better in ways that I personally like for sure" to succeed. The "merge with fantastic moderation" is the dream solution, but you can look at this thread to plainly see that you can pick two people and their ideas of what good moderation is will vary wildly.
You mean the labels themselves? Sure?
Why is anyone even talking about the labels at all? Why is it even coming up? They literally don't matter and no one reads them.
If you think this, then why even respond
Several people just did read them shryke.
What you mean is "I don't read them, I don't think they matter, and I don't think anyone else should care "
Sure but none of those problems have to do with the actual structure of the forums.
The things killing the forums have been:
1) Attrition in an online format that is all but dead and thus not really attracting new users in any large numbers.
2) Bad moderation.
If the impetus behind the merging is to stop the bleeding, it's completely missing the mark and it's not gonna work. If anything, it will only shed more members as the places they come here for disappear.
The Holiday Forum also slows down because people just check out cause they don't like the Holiday Forum. Many people have never liked it and avoid the forums during that period because of it and have for years and years. But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever. The Holiday Forum is not a sign of the viability of a merger.
I've never heard this. It's far more likely that people have so much other stuff going in that time of year and so they post less.
No, there's plenty of people who feel this way. I've talked to them for years in venues outside the forums specifically.
As always, the reason you don't see people grumbling about the Holiday Forums is because it was explicitly not allowed.
Attrition is accelerated by the lack of activity, or the perception of it. Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless.
I think even more people have never read them and don't define themselves based on those labels. If you did a survey on whether they matter, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people on these forums would be like "Wait, what? There's labels?".
The labels don't define the culture of the various subforums. Nobody is shaping their behaviour around them. They are irrelevant.
It is the honest impression that I got from your posts, I can't understand any other reason why you would argue so fervently against restructure if you didn't believe such.
No, it's not. This just isn't the venue to go over the specifics of the moderation problems we've had for years now. (Including just a complete lack of moderation due to understaffing.) But it is the actual cause here rather then the structure of the forums. You aren't gonna solve a moderation problem with a forum merger.
Maybe but this "I think" statement is wildly different from your previous "they literally don't matter and no one reads them" so can we take a deep breath and not make sweeping unprovable statements as though they are known facts? It will greatly help maintain the temperature of the conversation.
I’m also hardly the only one with this opinion, but I’m not going to be a grinch about something that happens for, at most, 1-2 weeks a year and (hopefully) gives the volunteers some time off.
Yes it is. This is an effect of basic human psychology. They want to spend time where there are people to interact with. Especially in an online forum. It is absurd to assert otherwise.
Let's take a hypothetical user, we'll call them Poltergeist. Poltergeist posts mostly in G&T, occasionally in D&D and has recently started posting in SE a bit as well. Overall, they like the split between the forums, and would generally like it preserved. That said, they stayed out of both D&D and SE for years because they found the forum descriptions confusing or off-putting (especially when combined with the reputation of those places), so they would like to change those descriptions.
How do they vote on the question?
- Are they strongly in favor of keeping things the same, because they don't actually want to change the structure?
- Are they slightly in favor of keeping things the same, because they want the same structure but with some descriptive revisions?
- Are they the middle option, which is now regarded as indifferent but isn't actually really described as such in the poll?
- Are they slightly in favor of change, because they do care about having some changes and think that part of things is important?
I was talking about your statements that "Bad moderation is so vague as to be useless".
are D&D or SE experiencing low enough activity that we need to merge them to retain users?
It's always been a format I've largely disliked and I used to be a fairly active SE enjoyer.
Not fully, but I think there are some threads that could potentially use it, at least on the SE side
There are people participating in this discussion who requested self bans on the Holiday forum because of the heat, and apparently some lurkers popped up to say "wow this sucks I'm leaving" as well. There were mod actions and group scoldings directed at 10+ posters. Several posters in these threads have commented that they hate the holiday forums and take a break from them.
It definitely does happen. It varies wildly from thread to thread though, as some are completely fine and if you stick to those you won't realize any of this is going on.
i don't think having some threads with low activity, which is unavoidable, and a subforum having low activity are the same problem
i don't even really think there being a thread in SE that doesn't see much activity as opposed to similar threads elsewhere is a problem at all
I think this kind of rhetoric flies in the face of the Transition Team asking for a baseline assumption of good faith from everyone participating in this discussion, and it's just raising the temperature without contributing anything useful to the conversation.
Especially when the new Code of Conduct was explicitly written to avoid people getting brigaded off the boards by other posters technically following the rules while making the space hostile.
Currently? Depends on the thread I think as Quetzi said. Looking forward? Absolutely things are trending that way. See the more or less death of the college football thread in D&D and that has been the case for years now. It is better to address a problem before you absolutely have to. Once you realize you are in a crisis there is already a lot of damage done. This will be the case in the not so distant future, and that future will absolutely be accelerated by the fact that not everyone is coming over.
Rather I think the reverse - everywhere else is dying. G+T, DnD, and SE seem to all have plenty of users (for now, at least) - but the rest of the site is a lot quieter.
And for me I look at things like the ttrpg threads in SE and CF and I see how many times some folks will literally post the exact same thing in both places and I just will not believe that is a good and efficient way to organize our community.
For reference - it's not just the merge. I have advocated at every step to raise the standard to which folks in this community are held. The community re-org is just the next task in the migration, so it's the next point at which I am trying to do that
Once we account for a chunk of regular users not moving to Coin Return (maybe 10%, maybe 20%, maybe 25%? It's hard to estimate, but there will be some that call it a day), and a bit more general attrition over the next year or two, I think it's entirely possible we get to that point. Which is why, for my part, I'd rather address it with some reorganization before it becomes a ghost town problem.
There are still other ways to address it, and things like our code of conduct, and simply not being a million year old forum attached to a web comic that doesn't really send any notable new users our way, are all factors we can work with as well.
But what do we do when someone comes in to the thread, after the date that we were all supposed to reset, and just immediately dials up the temperature against someone else who happens to be the same person they've been doing that to for like 10 years?
What do we do when someone comes in and says the culture of only one of the subforums is toxic and must be changed to be more like the one they like more?
We can't pretend those things aren't happening, and it chips away at the willingness some people have to assume good faith. It directly leads to skepticism when we ignore those things and just say "hey no we all said we would work in good faith, so you must ignore the posts that don't feel like good faith posts because the label says they all have to be good faith posts".
I don't know how else to say it -- it certainly appears that old battle lines are being drawn, yet again. It's both inspiring and frustrating that it's definitely not everyone, but it's enough people that it sure feels like people fighting ghosts of old battles again.
I see this line bandied about a lot but I have questions or concerns about it.
If technically following rules causes people to leave, perhaps the rule follower is in the right here and the person who's having rules used against them was actually in the wrong?
What good does a code of conduct do to solve this? You will still need to follow "the rules".
Which forumers were brigaded off because they were asked to follow the rules?
Finally, I'd rather be around polite assholes than obnoxious assholes. Both suck, but someone following the rules is better than some combative asshole who wants to yell at people.
And to head it off: None of this is advocating for a polite Hitler scenario.
I think it's also entirely possible though that a merger causes a spike in those losses on it's own. Either from the forums in general or from certain types of threads in the forum as people retreat to the only parts of the forum that still remain as they were before.