I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
Half the Luigi thread wanted to discuss the news and half wanted to shoot the shit, it doesn't really mean anything
I think that does mean something!
Half the people want to talk about the event and focus on it! Others want to talk about and their day and shoot the shit.
Those are two conflicting goals. One is people discussing something in their way and others in their way and it doesn't really fit together.
I will note that the OP of that thread established that it was supposed to be a more casual thread in the style of the SE Kissinger thread
Obviously we didn't keep to that, but those were the initial terms that were set and would theoretically be a model for tagging or similar
Understood. I skipped the thread because I am kind of ignoring the news for mental health sake.
But I do think the fact some folks wanted a focused thread and others wanted the more loose form thread like the Kissinger thread you are talking about shows two different communities want different things. And again smashing them together doesn't stop this.
I don't think it matters whether the two threads look exactly the same, its whether they look mutually compatible, and they very much do. Dividing up the forum based on culture or whatever comes with downsides. Need to get more out of it than "these two threads talking about the same stuff are a little different".
The movie thread in the Christmas forums was good and it had people from both sides posting regularly and there wasn't a noticeable difference.
The movie threads during the holiday forums (this year and previously) are probably what I would cite as my primary reason for wanting to see that aspect of the forums merged together. I always enjoy the hell out of them, and inevitably try and read the D&D thread for a bit afterwards and fall off because it's in a different place.
Genuinely the holiday forums and merged threads are what gave me a lot of optimism for what a combined culture could look like. It was great to see movement in things like the selfie thread.
And other people feel the opposite.
And last time this was brought up earlier today, people argued the Holiday Forums weren't a good example of what a merged forum would feel like in response to those concerns.
Except the argument in question was about merging SE++ and D&D in a manner similar to the Holiday Forum, not soft merging threads with a similar subject matter so that we have one unified thread instead of two separate ones.
And given that you were the one who kept expressing your concerns about the entire forum looking like the Holiday Forum and how much you disliked that format, it's really disingenuous for you to pretend like they were the same conversation the whole time.
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
As I've said, I think there are many threads where the styles are similar enough, or compatible enough, or the subject matter amenable enough, that merging them would work well. I think the movie thread might be one of those, even though I think the styles (which I would probably label as "film buffs chatting at the Cannes" vs "film buffs chatting at home after a few drinks") are different right now.
Did you seriously just do this
What is in your farts? Please do operate heavy machinery under the influence of whatever it is
C'mon dude, don't do this. The same class of people will have different conversations in different environments. I even specified these were both the same film buffs. But the sort of conversations they're going to have are different because they're in different environments with different expectations.
Would you say I had a plethora of pinatas?
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
As I've said, I think there are many threads where the styles are similar enough, or compatible enough, or the subject matter amenable enough, that merging them would work well. I think the movie thread might be one of those, even though I think the styles (which I would probably label as "film buffs chatting at the Cannes" vs "film buffs chatting at home after a few drinks") are different right now.
Did you seriously just do this
What is in your farts? Please do operate heavy machinery under the influence of whatever it is
C'mon dude, don't do this. The same class of people will have different conversations in different environments. I even specified these were both the same film buffs. But the sort of conversations they're going to have are different because they're in different environments with different expectations.
Personally kinda resent being compared to either group honestly, people at cannes are probably rich assholes and I'm over a year sober
There are currently no proposals on the table to actually merge all topics into a single "Holiday-esque" forum. Let's get that out of the way. All of the proposals thus far have included a subforum for, at the very least, Politics and Current Events which are expected to be held to a higher standard of rules and behavior. All of the proposals have included a space for more casual conversation (CHAOS in some proposals). There is a question of taking media and sports-related threads to their own forum for the purposes of shared discussion, possibly mediated in tone and topic by using tags.
The Holiday Forums in part because of the old rules of what can be there and what can't traditionally especially since a lot of D&D's bread and butter (politics, current event, hot topic on topic threads) go away you get basically a site wide SE++ feel.
So my read of this, to paraphrase, is "when these handful of topics are not allowed things feel much more like SE"
Which to me implies you think the difference is topical, not cultural.
Is that an accurate read of this statement, and accurate interpretation of your position?
It is inaccurate. But those topics are the ones I see the "schism" rise up the most. Because all politics is personal and all politics is population level at the same time. So having them not be part of the holiday forums reduces the heat but also makes a lot of people check out because they want that discussion.
At the same time I think this discussion on the Luigi thread about some wanting their focused discussion verse a more free form is a better example.
The style of discussion not just the topic but some topics lead to specific styles is important.
The split again is more than just type of topics but certain topics are much more obvious than others.
And this doesn't mean one is a better style than the other but people have strong preferences.
And also as Hahn's pointed out D&D is the largest subforum of active users. So we need to make sure that group can have a landing zone where the style, culture, and expectations are the same.
I don't want there to be too many breakout forums because that reduces the population into segments and reduces the chances they'll see other threads they might otherwise participate in. I also don't want too much squishing cause that's clearly an issue.
Some merging, sure. All merging, no. Where that line is becomes tricky. I'm not sure I think stuff like movie and tv threads need to be in a separate place beyond the "on topic" discussion forum, but then what does SE become if there's no duplicate threads on those topics?
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
Kinda sounds like there’s two different cultures that don’t necessarily mesh despite all the assertions that this time they totally will
It's mostly like a handful of 10-20 people who only show up to difficult conversations to lob grenades and need very obvious things explained to them over and over, and eventually I just got a take my mental ball and go home, for my own sake
I don't think it matters whether the two threads look exactly the same, its whether they look mutually compatible, and they very much do. Dividing up the forum based on culture or whatever comes with downsides. Need to get more out of it than "these two threads talking about the same stuff are a little different".
The movie thread in the Christmas forums was good and it had people from both sides posting regularly and there wasn't a noticeable difference.
The movie threads during the holiday forums (this year and previously) are probably what I would cite as my primary reason for wanting to see that aspect of the forums merged together. I always enjoy the hell out of them, and inevitably try and read the D&D thread for a bit afterwards and fall off because it's in a different place.
Genuinely the holiday forums and merged threads are what gave me a lot of optimism for what a combined culture could look like. It was great to see movement in things like the selfie thread.
And other people feel the opposite.
And last time this was brought up earlier today, people argued the Holiday Forums weren't a good example of what a merged forum would feel like in response to those concerns.
Except the argument in question was about merging SE++ and D&D in a manner similar to the Holiday Forum, not soft merging threads with a similar subject matter so that we have one unified thread instead of two separate ones.
And given that you were the one who kept expressing your concerns about the entire forum looking like the Holiday Forum and how much you disliked that format, it's really disingenuous for you to pretend like they were the same conversation the whole time.
I'm not sure what you are claiming is disingenuous here.
It's the same subject as before. People are saying they liked the merger in the Holiday Forums and viewing it positively. Other people don't like that. And when they expressed that disapproval earlier, people tried to dismiss it saying it wasn't a good example. But, as was said at the time, I agree that it is an example of what that could look like. And it's not what some people want from the forums.
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
How does me saying "...we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe..." turn into the bolded?
The holiday forums are a useful example in both regards because it shows people can be chill and nice to each other but apparently, only for so long before they get out the debate club rule book again
Pre-New Year Holiday Forum = everyone is nice
Post-NY Holiday Forum = someone just called me mentally ill/trump supporter
I don't think it matters whether the two threads look exactly the same, its whether they look mutually compatible, and they very much do. Dividing up the forum based on culture or whatever comes with downsides. Need to get more out of it than "these two threads talking about the same stuff are a little different".
The movie thread in the Christmas forums was good and it had people from both sides posting regularly and there wasn't a noticeable difference.
The movie threads during the holiday forums (this year and previously) are probably what I would cite as my primary reason for wanting to see that aspect of the forums merged together. I always enjoy the hell out of them, and inevitably try and read the D&D thread for a bit afterwards and fall off because it's in a different place.
Genuinely the holiday forums and merged threads are what gave me a lot of optimism for what a combined culture could look like. It was great to see movement in things like the selfie thread.
And other people feel the opposite.
And last time this was brought up earlier today, people argued the Holiday Forums weren't a good example of what a merged forum would feel like in response to those concerns.
Except the argument in question was about merging SE++ and D&D in a manner similar to the Holiday Forum, not soft merging threads with a similar subject matter so that we have one unified thread instead of two separate ones.
And given that you were the one who kept expressing your concerns about the entire forum looking like the Holiday Forum and how much you disliked that format, it's really disingenuous for you to pretend like they were the same conversation the whole time.
I'm not sure what you are claiming is disingenuous here.
I literally explained what was disingenuous about it in my response, and I'm going to leave it at that because you clearly aren't interested in actually having a conversation.
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
How does me saying "...we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe..." turn into the bolded?
Because the bolded has already happened. We've lost some really good, marginalized voices in the community already.
As I've said, I think there are many threads where the styles are similar enough, or compatible enough, or the subject matter amenable enough, that merging them would work well. I think the movie thread might be one of those, even though I think the styles (which I would probably label as "film buffs chatting at the Cannes" vs "film buffs chatting at home after a few drinks") are different right now.
Did you seriously just do this
What is in your farts? Please do operate heavy machinery under the influence of whatever it is
C'mon dude, don't do this. The same class of people will have different conversations in different environments. I even specified these were both the same film buffs. But the sort of conversations they're going to have are different because they're in different environments with different expectations.
I don't want you to operate heavy machinery under the influence of mind-altering substances.
But I think your analogy or whatever as "your" club as some learned scholars ivory tower retreat or whatever and SE as some drunks on the couch or whatever is honest or necessary or constructive
I don't think hanging out with friends on the couch drinking beer and talking about stuff makes me a drunk. I hope you or others don't think that either. Not everything is a personal attack ffs.
As I've said, I think there are many threads where the styles are similar enough, or compatible enough, or the subject matter amenable enough, that merging them would work well. I think the movie thread might be one of those, even though I think the styles (which I would probably label as "film buffs chatting at the Cannes" vs "film buffs chatting at home after a few drinks") are different right now.
Did you seriously just do this
What is in your farts? Please do operate heavy machinery under the influence of whatever it is
C'mon dude, don't do this. The same class of people will have different conversations in different environments. I even specified these were both the same film buffs. But the sort of conversations they're going to have are different because they're in different environments with different expectations.
I don't want you to operate heavy machinery under the influence of mind-altering substances.
But I think your analogy or whatever as "your" club as some learned scholars ivory tower retreat or whatever and SE as some drunks on the couch or whatever is honest or necessary or constructive
I don't think hanging out with friends on the couch drinking beer and talking about stuff makes me a drunk. I hope you or others don't think that either. Not everything is a personal attack ffs.
It may not have been an attack, but it comes off that way when there is a much more sophisticated feel about drinking wine at a film festival as opposed to drinking at my house talking about films.
As I've said, I think there are many threads where the styles are similar enough, or compatible enough, or the subject matter amenable enough, that merging them would work well. I think the movie thread might be one of those, even though I think the styles (which I would probably label as "film buffs chatting at the Cannes" vs "film buffs chatting at home after a few drinks") are different right now.
Did you seriously just do this
What is in your farts? Please do operate heavy machinery under the influence of whatever it is
C'mon dude, don't do this. The same class of people will have different conversations in different environments. I even specified these were both the same film buffs. But the sort of conversations they're going to have are different because they're in different environments with different expectations.
I don't want you to operate heavy machinery under the influence of mind-altering substances.
But I think your analogy or whatever as "your" club as some learned scholars ivory tower retreat or whatever and SE as some drunks on the couch or whatever is honest or necessary or constructive
I think you're reading in a lot of animus that wasn't there, but thank you for clarifying that you don't literally want me dead, I guess.
Would you say I had a plethora of pinatas?
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
Kinda sounds like there’s two different cultures that don’t necessarily mesh despite all the assertions that this time they totally will
I mean, as Cello said, most of the Holiday Forum threads were able to exist harmoniously bringing people into condensed threads for discussion, so clearly there's some merit to soft merging disparate threads across multiple forums depending on subject matter.
Obviously politics / IRL threads have the potential to be more contentious, but that can (hopefully) be addressed with the updated CoC and possible structural changes as necessary.
I don't think it's an insurmountable problem, and acting like we should just maintain status quo rather than try to fix things is, as I've said multiple times, a risk and a waste of an opportunity.
[IMG][/img]
0
QuetziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User, Moderatormod
Jeffe honestly it felt very insulting to SE posters as a whole
Maybe I'm misreading it, but it feels very much like you're trying to belittle SE's version of movie buffs with that initial post
Douglas do you remember when you made a joke at my expense and I PMed explaining why it both hurt and was dangerous to my own well being for you to keep doing it? You even apologized, haven't done it since, and I've appreciated it.
I'm extremely guilty of reactively lashing out at people in the past. I can tell you from experience trying to talk to someone one on one instead of doing that does wonders.
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
Kinda sounds like there’s two different cultures that don’t necessarily mesh despite all the assertions that this time they totally will
I mean, as Cello said, most of the Holiday Forum threads were able to exist harmoniously bringing people into condensed threads for discussion, so clearly there's some merit to soft merging disparate threads across multiple forums depending on subject matter.
Obviously politics / IRL threads have the potential to be more contentious, but that can (hopefully) be addressed with the updated CoC and possible structural changes as necessary.
I don't think it's an insurmountable problem, and acting like we should just maintain status quo rather than try to fix things is, as I've said multiple times, a risk and a waste of an opportunity.
I think the question we need to ask first before anything, what causes us to lose the least users?
Usually moving to an existing status quo will lose less people than change minor or major.
I think for all our arguments we need to focus on what keeps the majority of our community.
I don't really think that characterization is accurate. 95% of threads on either side is people just saying stuff. Rules like the "no memes" thing mostly just comes down to visual aesthetics and its a poor basis for dividing a community.
I disagree.
And it is about aesthetics. Its about thoughts on how a discussion should be handled. How people want to interact with a topic and a thread.
Its the same reason we have rules about just posting xitter without context in D&D in threads. Or no nicknames for people we are discussing. For some decorum is grating. For others it produces a discussion we are looking for. And for some it does allow them to walk the line on trolling but not cross it.
But overall it is a different way to discuss things than SE++. And it isn't on topic verse off topic. Its different vibe. And I hate saying that but it is true. And people like the vibes they have! This idea we have squash that and force integration again seems like trying to enforce one's style over another.
And I think we know that sheds people. First we focus on maintaining as much of the community we have now. That should always be our main goal. You shed more by change then maintaining something comfortable.
These are community standards that can be managed and largely agreed on and smoothed out without a forum divide. "No nicknames for political figures" isn't going to cause some mass exodus for SE++ regulars.
The community you have now is shedding people, and pretty regularly they're clear this is because of the way the forum is built and/or ran. Train is already moving
Realistically "add context to your links" and "don't use nicknames for figures" is something i don't think you'd see any argument from SE folks about
Maybe a little much for like, a Vtuber thread? But otherwise adding a sentence on a tweet from some random isn't an onerous ask.
There was a LOT of pushback on this in another thread here, maybe one of the CoC ones? I forget.
I'd be very surprised if the consensus has changed so much, so my suspicion is that you're probably wrong here.
Could you cite it? Perfectly willing to believe that I missed it, I've been dipping in and out of the discussion as time allows. But also I generally know SE people to be cool about things, and saw SE posters asking to drop nicknames in the Luigi thread, so? Could be a few folks who personally disagree?
It was me, i was concerned about enshrining in the Code of Conduct “Thou Shalt Cite At All Times” and people getting infractions for posting a joke tweet or a YouTube video without detailed context in times when it may not really be necessary in the context of the conversation.
There should absolutely be a rule explaining when to give more detail, but I was pushing back strongly on it being CoC level.
This seems like a pretty fair ask to me, honestly
Shouldn't really be tough to have situational applications of these rules?
As I've said, I think there are many threads where the styles are similar enough, or compatible enough, or the subject matter amenable enough, that merging them would work well. I think the movie thread might be one of those, even though I think the styles (which I would probably label as "film buffs chatting at the Cannes" vs "film buffs chatting at home after a few drinks") are different right now.
Did you seriously just do this
What is in your farts? Please do operate heavy machinery under the influence of whatever it is
C'mon dude, don't do this. The same class of people will have different conversations in different environments. I even specified these were both the same film buffs. But the sort of conversations they're going to have are different because they're in different environments with different expectations.
I don't want you to operate heavy machinery under the influence of mind-altering substances.
But I think your analogy or whatever as "your" club as some learned scholars ivory tower retreat or whatever and SE as some drunks on the couch or whatever is honest or necessary or constructive
I don't think hanging out with friends on the couch drinking beer and talking about stuff makes me a drunk. I hope you or others don't think that either. Not everything is a personal attack ffs.
It may not have been an attack, but it comes off that way when there is a much more sophisticated feel about drinking wine at a film festival as opposed to drinking at my house talking about films.
Jesus Christ, fine, I retract the analogy, both threads are identical in form and content, D&D is SE is D&D, all is one.
Chairman Meow on
Would you say I had a plethora of pinatas?
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
I don't really think that characterization is accurate. 95% of threads on either side is people just saying stuff. Rules like the "no memes" thing mostly just comes down to visual aesthetics and its a poor basis for dividing a community.
I disagree.
And it is about aesthetics. Its about thoughts on how a discussion should be handled. How people want to interact with a topic and a thread.
Its the same reason we have rules about just posting xitter without context in D&D in threads. Or no nicknames for people we are discussing. For some decorum is grating. For others it produces a discussion we are looking for. And for some it does allow them to walk the line on trolling but not cross it.
But overall it is a different way to discuss things than SE++. And it isn't on topic verse off topic. Its different vibe. And I hate saying that but it is true. And people like the vibes they have! This idea we have squash that and force integration again seems like trying to enforce one's style over another.
And I think we know that sheds people. First we focus on maintaining as much of the community we have now. That should always be our main goal. You shed more by change then maintaining something comfortable.
These are community standards that can be managed and largely agreed on and smoothed out without a forum divide. "No nicknames for political figures" isn't going to cause some mass exodus for SE++ regulars.
The community you have now is shedding people, and pretty regularly they're clear this is because of the way the forum is built and/or ran. Train is already moving
Realistically "add context to your links" and "don't use nicknames for figures" is something i don't think you'd see any argument from SE folks about
Maybe a little much for like, a Vtuber thread? But otherwise adding a sentence on a tweet from some random isn't an onerous ask.
There was a LOT of pushback on this in another thread here, maybe one of the CoC ones? I forget.
I'd be very surprised if the consensus has changed so much, so my suspicion is that you're probably wrong here.
Could you cite it? Perfectly willing to believe that I missed it, I've been dipping in and out of the discussion as time allows. But also I generally know SE people to be cool about things, and saw SE posters asking to drop nicknames in the Luigi thread, so? Could be a few folks who personally disagree?
It was me, i was concerned about enshrining in the Code of Conduct “Thou Shalt Cite At All Times” and people getting infractions for posting a joke tweet or a YouTube video without detailed context in times when it may not really be necessary in the context of the conversation.
There should absolutely be a rule explaining when to give more detail, but I was pushing back strongly on it being CoC level.
This seems like a pretty fair ask to me, honestly
Shouldn't really be tough to have situational applications of these rules?
The goal of the CoC is it is always enforced.
Now having rules for sub-forums would be different as they are now.
D&D you cite, that is the rule. There can be flexibility but joke post/nick names and such are usually frowned on or against the rules in D&D. That doesn't have to be in the CoC but the D&D equivalent sub-forum should/would have that rule and expectation.
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
Kinda sounds like there’s two different cultures that don’t necessarily mesh despite all the assertions that this time they totally will
I mean, as Cello said, most of the Holiday Forum threads were able to exist harmoniously bringing people into condensed threads for discussion, so clearly there's some merit to soft merging disparate threads across multiple forums depending on subject matter.
Obviously politics / IRL threads have the potential to be more contentious, but that can (hopefully) be addressed with the updated CoC and possible structural changes as necessary.
I don't think it's an insurmountable problem, and acting like we should just maintain status quo rather than try to fix things is, as I've said multiple times, a risk and a waste of an opportunity.
I think the question we need to ask first before anything, what causes us to lose the least users?
Usually moving to an existing status quo will lose less people than change minor or major.
I think for all our arguments we need to focus on what keeps the majority of our community.
Probably my last post on this for today because my work day ends in like 3 minutes and I have less slacking off to do after this but
People who are arguing for a structural change genuinely think this will cause us to lose less people to attrition than it will in a short term to a shift in structure
It also leaves the door open to potentially bringing new users in, in my opinion
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
Kinda sounds like there’s two different cultures that don’t necessarily mesh despite all the assertions that this time they totally will
I mean, as Cello said, most of the Holiday Forum threads were able to exist harmoniously bringing people into condensed threads for discussion, so clearly there's some merit to soft merging disparate threads across multiple forums depending on subject matter.
Obviously politics / IRL threads have the potential to be more contentious, but that can (hopefully) be addressed with the updated CoC and possible structural changes as necessary.
I don't think it's an insurmountable problem, and acting like we should just maintain status quo rather than try to fix things is, as I've said multiple times, a risk and a waste of an opportunity.
Did the Holiday Forum actually work though in the sense of retaining people?
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
Kinda sounds like there’s two different cultures that don’t necessarily mesh despite all the assertions that this time they totally will
I mean, as Cello said, most of the Holiday Forum threads were able to exist harmoniously bringing people into condensed threads for discussion, so clearly there's some merit to soft merging disparate threads across multiple forums depending on subject matter.
Obviously politics / IRL threads have the potential to be more contentious, but that can (hopefully) be addressed with the updated CoC and possible structural changes as necessary.
I don't think it's an insurmountable problem, and acting like we should just maintain status quo rather than try to fix things is, as I've said multiple times, a risk and a waste of an opportunity.
I think the question we need to ask first before anything, what causes us to lose the least users?
Usually moving to an existing status quo will lose less people than change minor or major.
I think for all our arguments we need to focus on what keeps the majority of our community.
The problem is that we don't have a clear indication of what will or won't cause the greatest degree of user attrition.
We have a poll taken from before the Code of Conduct was written, which was one question in a wider survey, that indicated a plurality of "IDK, whatever," with regards to forum structure and no overwhelming majority in favor of a consensus solution.
Which we wouldn't have been able to reach at the time anyway, because we only just started getting concrete proposals for structure that we can work with in the context of the CoC.
I don't disagree that we need to operate with a consensus vision for the structure of the new boards, but we need to determine what that consensus is before we just decide that the Status Quo is fine - which it objectively isn't - and reject any proposal for a new, better structure without community consensus.
We can continue to tread water and recycle the same arguments, but I favor forward momentum with projects like these, so, @The Cheat would you be able to throw together a version of your proposal with brief one-sentence descriptors for each of the sub-forums within your structural proposal? I'll do the same for mine, so we can construct a presentation for a future vote.
did you see my revised proposal? because, I think SE++ and DnD require a little more than a sentence to explain.
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
Kinda sounds like there’s two different cultures that don’t necessarily mesh despite all the assertions that this time they totally will
I mean, as Cello said, most of the Holiday Forum threads were able to exist harmoniously bringing people into condensed threads for discussion, so clearly there's some merit to soft merging disparate threads across multiple forums depending on subject matter.
Obviously politics / IRL threads have the potential to be more contentious, but that can (hopefully) be addressed with the updated CoC and possible structural changes as necessary.
I don't think it's an insurmountable problem, and acting like we should just maintain status quo rather than try to fix things is, as I've said multiple times, a risk and a waste of an opportunity.
I think the question we need to ask first before anything, what causes us to lose the least users?
Usually moving to an existing status quo will lose less people than change minor or major.
I think for all our arguments we need to focus on what keeps the majority of our community.
Probably my last post on this for today because my work day ends in like 3 minutes and I have less slacking off to do after this but
People who are arguing for a structural change genuinely think this will cause us to lose less people to attrition than it will in a short term to a shift in structure
It also leaves the door open to potentially bringing new users in, in my opinion
Understood.
I think it is up to those who want change to find the data and base on why it will reduce attrition verse the status quo. Those pushing for change need to demonstrate why change is worth the risk. If not status quo is the best bet for this time of event.
Don't stack change on already short term shock most of the time. Because the ripple effects are usually worse.
Bringing in new people should be a third or forth line effort. Focus on who we have now. Then worry about new people after.
As I've said, I think there are many threads where the styles are similar enough, or compatible enough, or the subject matter amenable enough, that merging them would work well. I think the movie thread might be one of those, even though I think the styles (which I would probably label as "film buffs chatting at the Cannes" vs "film buffs chatting at home after a few drinks") are different right now.
Did you seriously just do this
What is in your farts? Please do operate heavy machinery under the influence of whatever it is
C'mon dude, don't do this. The same class of people will have different conversations in different environments. I even specified these were both the same film buffs. But the sort of conversations they're going to have are different because they're in different environments with different expectations.
I don't want you to operate heavy machinery under the influence of mind-altering substances.
But I think your analogy or whatever as "your" club as some learned scholars ivory tower retreat or whatever and SE as some drunks on the couch or whatever is honest or necessary or constructive
I don't think hanging out with friends on the couch drinking beer and talking about stuff makes me a drunk. I hope you or others don't think that either. Not everything is a personal attack ffs.
It may not have been an attack, but it comes off that way when there is a much more sophisticated feel about drinking wine at a film festival as opposed to drinking at my house talking about films.
Jesus Christ, fine, I retract the analogy, both threads are identical in form and content, D&D is SE is D&D, all is one.
Nobody is saying your take is wrong, well anyways, I'm not. They are different threads. They can become one. It'll be fine. One isn't some high art discussion, and I encourage you to check out the SE discord if you don't think SE folks wax poetic about art like you guys can..
But saying Jesus Christ Fine to people asking you to self reflect isn't exactly reaching across the aisle
+5
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
We can continue to tread water and recycle the same arguments, but I favor forward momentum with projects like these, so, @The Cheat would you be able to throw together a version of your proposal with brief one-sentence descriptors for each of the sub-forums within your structural proposal? I'll do the same for mine, so we can construct a presentation for a future vote.
did you see my revised proposal? because, I think SE++ and DnD require a little more than a sentence to explain.
I did but I didn't know if you wanted to revise any element of it prior to it being presented to the forum-at-wide.
Thanks for the link!!
0
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
I haven't seen an insufficient holiday cheer infraction since Tube left, personally, and couldn't find any in a quick search of the old holiday forums
Doesn't really change the fact that it wasn't clear of this was a thing people could express dislike of, where would be appropriate to do it, and the concern of folks wanting the mods to have a break even if they disliked the holiday forums.
I dunno. Like, this is a weird thing to push back on when you've got folks here telling you what they thought. "Well you shouldn't have thought that way!" Ok sure? But some of us did still.
Sure, I know now people thought that it still wasn't allowed. I also know that there were people that disliked the holiday forums, plenty of folks were vocal about that.
But I am pushing back on statements like this, which are categorically false:
But it's always been against the rules to complain about it so people mostly grumble in PMs or Discords or whatever.
It was previously against the rules, yes, and some people may have believed it was still against the rules. But I want to correct the record that it was not against the rules this year, doesn't seem to have been against the rules for a few years prior, and therefore was not "always against the rules."
I don't think there is a significant number of people who fear they'll get infracted if they mention in the Holiday forum that they don't like the Holiday forum. Maybe there's a few, but probably only a few.
The reason you're not hearing a lot of vocal complaints are: a) it's a done thing, it happens, there's not much point to complaining about it anymore, because obviously it won't change anything, b) the complaints are not going to be occurring in the Holiday thread because the people who avoid it aren't there to complain, and c) the people who dislike the Holiday forum are disproportionately D&D folks, who you are probably less familiar with, being from SE.
And c) derives from the fact that the Holiday forum is basically just SE, and a lot of people don't want that. Not because they don't like the people, but because if you're in D&D because you prefer more structured discussion that adheres closer to stated topics, and more long-form treatment of issues, you're going to be less happy in a place that abandons that in favor of a looser and more chat-oriented posting style.
But this does tie into why I am very much opposed to just lumping everything together and disallowing multiple threads on the same topic. Because while there are some discussions where the SE and D&D styles don't differ too much (basically, anything that is inherently more chatty), there are many where there is a fairly pronounced difference in style, and if you put a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner with a bunch of people trying to have a more structured conversation, what you end up with is a bunch of people chatting in a loose and off-topic manner.
I don't think there's a grand conspiracy to kill D&D, and I don't think anyone (or at least not an appreciable number of people) is maliciously trying to edge out anyone else. But I do think that some of the ideas here to merge the forums will result, intentionally or not, with a forum that is basically just all SE. Just because of how the different styles will react to being squooshed together.
And the Holiday forum is the best indicator of this - everything gets lumped together, everything gets basically turned into SE, and a lot of D&Ders check out for that time because it's not what they want out of the forums.
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
Kinda sounds like there’s two different cultures that don’t necessarily mesh despite all the assertions that this time they totally will
I mean, as Cello said, most of the Holiday Forum threads were able to exist harmoniously bringing people into condensed threads for discussion, so clearly there's some merit to soft merging disparate threads across multiple forums depending on subject matter.
Obviously politics / IRL threads have the potential to be more contentious, but that can (hopefully) be addressed with the updated CoC and possible structural changes as necessary.
I don't think it's an insurmountable problem, and acting like we should just maintain status quo rather than try to fix things is, as I've said multiple times, a risk and a waste of an opportunity.
Did the Holiday Forum actually work though in the sense of retaining people?
Was that the Holiday Forum's goal/priority/focus?
Because as somebody who lobbied hard for it to happen this year, the biggest priority, for me, was to provide the mods with a break during the peak of the holiday season.
We can continue to tread water and recycle the same arguments, but I favor forward momentum with projects like these, so, @The Cheat would you be able to throw together a version of your proposal with brief one-sentence descriptors for each of the sub-forums within your structural proposal? I'll do the same for mine, so we can construct a presentation for a future vote.
did you see my revised proposal? because, I think SE++ and DnD require a little more than a sentence to explain.
We can continue to tread water and recycle the same arguments, but I favor forward momentum with projects like these, so, @The Cheat would you be able to throw together a version of your proposal with brief one-sentence descriptors for each of the sub-forums within your structural proposal? I'll do the same for mine, so we can construct a presentation for a future vote.
did you see my revised proposal? because, I think SE++ and DnD require a little more than a sentence to explain.
I did but I didn't know if you wanted to revise any element of it prior to it being presented to the forum-at-wide.
Thanks for the link!!
nope, it's ready to go. hasn't been any feedback where someone hurt themselves in their confusion this time, so...
Posts
I just want to stress the bolded, because it's at the root of the concern for many posters. If we're building a new community meant to be as inclusive as possible, then we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe and able to communicate in their preferred way.
I fully support a reorganization based around broad subject matter categorization with the goal of improving our ability to communicate. And I fully stand against a reorganization if the goal is to fix the schism, because the schism isn't caused by the current layout of the forums. The layouts correlate to the schism, because of how rules and moderation were built around the forum structure. But the schism has been driven by both the differences in sub-forums rules and enforcement of said rules. If the rules are consistent and consistently applied, the schism will be solved, because either behavior will improve or the problematic posters will end up banned.
Change is scary, and change is happening. So let's work together to make changes that makes our community better for everyone.
Understood. I skipped the thread because I am kind of ignoring the news for mental health sake.
But I do think the fact some folks wanted a focused thread and others wanted the more loose form thread like the Kissinger thread you are talking about shows two different communities want different things. And again smashing them together doesn't stop this.
Except the argument in question was about merging SE++ and D&D in a manner similar to the Holiday Forum, not soft merging threads with a similar subject matter so that we have one unified thread instead of two separate ones.
And given that you were the one who kept expressing your concerns about the entire forum looking like the Holiday Forum and how much you disliked that format, it's really disingenuous for you to pretend like they were the same conversation the whole time.
The irony of this to me is, that this place (as in the current state of the penny arcade forums) is functionally already like the bolded but in reverse. I don't feel safe hanging out outside SE because like, the holiday forums proved, some people just can't keep their debate boners down.
I literally left the forums for a year and a half because of the tone of DnD, and I'm not super interested in a Coin Return that is mostly DnD folks and a good chunk of SE folks getting chased off. I only came back to the forums because I heard it was getting shut down, and I used to love this place. And kinda? Regret coming back at least a few times now
C'mon dude, don't do this. The same class of people will have different conversations in different environments. I even specified these were both the same film buffs. But the sort of conversations they're going to have are different because they're in different environments with different expectations.
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
Personally kinda resent being compared to either group honestly, people at cannes are probably rich assholes and I'm over a year sober
It wasn't a good analogy bud
MHWilds ID: JF9LL8L3
It is inaccurate. But those topics are the ones I see the "schism" rise up the most. Because all politics is personal and all politics is population level at the same time. So having them not be part of the holiday forums reduces the heat but also makes a lot of people check out because they want that discussion.
At the same time I think this discussion on the Luigi thread about some wanting their focused discussion verse a more free form is a better example.
The style of discussion not just the topic but some topics lead to specific styles is important.
The split again is more than just type of topics but certain topics are much more obvious than others.
And this doesn't mean one is a better style than the other but people have strong preferences.
And also as Hahn's pointed out D&D is the largest subforum of active users. So we need to make sure that group can have a landing zone where the style, culture, and expectations are the same.
But the same for SE++ and G&T.
Some merging, sure. All merging, no. Where that line is becomes tricky. I'm not sure I think stuff like movie and tv threads need to be in a separate place beyond the "on topic" discussion forum, but then what does SE become if there's no duplicate threads on those topics?
It's mostly like a handful of 10-20 people who only show up to difficult conversations to lob grenades and need very obvious things explained to them over and over, and eventually I just got a take my mental ball and go home, for my own sake
I'm not sure what you are claiming is disingenuous here.
It's the same subject as before. People are saying they liked the merger in the Holiday Forums and viewing it positively. Other people don't like that. And when they expressed that disapproval earlier, people tried to dismiss it saying it wasn't a good example. But, as was said at the time, I agree that it is an example of what that could look like. And it's not what some people want from the forums.
How does me saying "...we should be building a community where everyone will feel safe..." turn into the bolded?
Pre-New Year Holiday Forum = everyone is nice
Post-NY Holiday Forum = someone just called me mentally ill/trump supporter
I literally explained what was disingenuous about it in my response, and I'm going to leave it at that because you clearly aren't interested in actually having a conversation.
Because the bolded has already happened. We've lost some really good, marginalized voices in the community already.
I don't think hanging out with friends on the couch drinking beer and talking about stuff makes me a drunk. I hope you or others don't think that either. Not everything is a personal attack ffs.
It may not have been an attack, but it comes off that way when there is a much more sophisticated feel about drinking wine at a film festival as opposed to drinking at my house talking about films.
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
I think you're reading in a lot of animus that wasn't there, but thank you for clarifying that you don't literally want me dead, I guess.
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
I mean, as Cello said, most of the Holiday Forum threads were able to exist harmoniously bringing people into condensed threads for discussion, so clearly there's some merit to soft merging disparate threads across multiple forums depending on subject matter.
Obviously politics / IRL threads have the potential to be more contentious, but that can (hopefully) be addressed with the updated CoC and possible structural changes as necessary.
I don't think it's an insurmountable problem, and acting like we should just maintain status quo rather than try to fix things is, as I've said multiple times, a risk and a waste of an opportunity.
Maybe I'm misreading it, but it feels very much like you're trying to belittle SE's version of movie buffs with that initial post
I'm extremely guilty of reactively lashing out at people in the past. I can tell you from experience trying to talk to someone one on one instead of doing that does wonders.
I think the question we need to ask first before anything, what causes us to lose the least users?
Usually moving to an existing status quo will lose less people than change minor or major.
I think for all our arguments we need to focus on what keeps the majority of our community.
This seems like a pretty fair ask to me, honestly
Shouldn't really be tough to have situational applications of these rules?
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Jesus Christ, fine, I retract the analogy, both threads are identical in form and content, D&D is SE is D&D, all is one.
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
The goal of the CoC is it is always enforced.
Now having rules for sub-forums would be different as they are now.
D&D you cite, that is the rule. There can be flexibility but joke post/nick names and such are usually frowned on or against the rules in D&D. That doesn't have to be in the CoC but the D&D equivalent sub-forum should/would have that rule and expectation.
Probably my last post on this for today because my work day ends in like 3 minutes and I have less slacking off to do after this but
People who are arguing for a structural change genuinely think this will cause us to lose less people to attrition than it will in a short term to a shift in structure
It also leaves the door open to potentially bringing new users in, in my opinion
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Did the Holiday Forum actually work though in the sense of retaining people?
The problem is that we don't have a clear indication of what will or won't cause the greatest degree of user attrition.
We have a poll taken from before the Code of Conduct was written, which was one question in a wider survey, that indicated a plurality of "IDK, whatever," with regards to forum structure and no overwhelming majority in favor of a consensus solution.
Which we wouldn't have been able to reach at the time anyway, because we only just started getting concrete proposals for structure that we can work with in the context of the CoC.
I don't disagree that we need to operate with a consensus vision for the structure of the new boards, but we need to determine what that consensus is before we just decide that the Status Quo is fine - which it objectively isn't - and reject any proposal for a new, better structure without community consensus.
did you see my revised proposal? because, I think SE++ and DnD require a little more than a sentence to explain.
Understood.
I think it is up to those who want change to find the data and base on why it will reduce attrition verse the status quo. Those pushing for change need to demonstrate why change is worth the risk. If not status quo is the best bet for this time of event.
Don't stack change on already short term shock most of the time. Because the ripple effects are usually worse.
Bringing in new people should be a third or forth line effort. Focus on who we have now. Then worry about new people after.
Nobody is saying your take is wrong, well anyways, I'm not. They are different threads. They can become one. It'll be fine. One isn't some high art discussion, and I encourage you to check out the SE discord if you don't think SE folks wax poetic about art like you guys can..
But saying Jesus Christ Fine to people asking you to self reflect isn't exactly reaching across the aisle
I did but I didn't know if you wanted to revise any element of it prior to it being presented to the forum-at-wide.
Thanks for the link!!
Was that the Holiday Forum's goal/priority/focus?
Because as somebody who lobbied hard for it to happen this year, the biggest priority, for me, was to provide the mods with a break during the peak of the holiday season.
He means like these:
nope, it's ready to go. hasn't been any feedback where someone hurt themselves in their confusion this time, so...