That is a decent distillation of one interpretation of one of the sides of the discussion but it is far from a definitive comment unless you are presuming it is the correct viewpoint. Particularly as it is predicated partially on the incorrect assumption that all or most of those arguing for a merge are "SE++ people".
To be honest, I checked out of SE years ago because I just didn't jive with the dominant posting style, will before any of this schism talk. When they were smooshed together for the holiday forums, I also checked out of those, because the style there also tended towards that kind of posts, even with G&Ts posting style getting looser over the years that tube was sometimes willing to allow (i.e. defacto chat threads developing from mega threads)
I think we're getting into choppy waters again with this discussion, all I'll say is my desire to "merge" the forums (which I think is a mischaracterization) has nothing to do with having any beef with either community. I'd be very careful about extrapolating from a handful of past experiences when understanding the desires of the entire community.
Zek on
+4
ToxI kill threadsDilige, et quod vis facRegistered Userregular
My leanings towards restructure is more based on "if we were designing a forum from the ground up..."
Because that's my preferred first step for a lot of these discussions. Start with a generic/new system, then tailor it to our community. That way we get something that's new but is still designed for our community.
maybe the real panopticon was the friends we made along the way
I don't really see the problem with having two 'communities' if I'm being honest; it's not like anybody actually has to choose, you can quite easily post in both D&D/SE and codeswitch to whatever extent you want
I actually think it's pretty useful to have dedicated 'spaces' for different types of discussion
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
That is a decent distillation of one interpretation of one of the sides of the discussion but it is far from a definitive comment unless you are presuming it is the correct viewpoint. Particularly as it is predicated partially on the incorrect assumption that all or most of those arguing for a merge are "SE++ people".
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
That is a decent distillation of one interpretation of one of the sides of the discussion but it is far from a definitive comment unless you are presuming it is the correct viewpoint. Particularly as it is predicated partially on the incorrect assumption that all or most of those arguing for a merge are "SE++ people".
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
Just to offer a counterpoint: I observed the same thing as MrMister. There was a like, 20+ page effort at the beginning of this discussion a couple of months ago to get rid of the chat thread. There were many many posts that outright said or strongly suggested that the chat thread was responsible for almost all of the toxicity in the community. It took a lot of strong voices from the chat thread showing up and offering counterpoints for many many pages for that discussion to finally cool off.
To suggest this did not happen is odd to me, as we have hundreds of posts to pull from that would easily prove the opposite.
I didn't really want to get into a back and forth on re-litigating old stuff like that, but I do need to speak up when I see something that is completely the opposite of my observations. If it's worth anything, I don't post in the chat thread at all as it's not totally my vibe. But there was absolutely a concerted effort to kill it off as a part of the restructuring discussion.
That is a decent distillation of one interpretation of one of the sides of the discussion but it is far from a definitive comment unless you are presuming it is the correct viewpoint. Particularly as it is predicated partially on the incorrect assumption that all or most of those arguing for a merge are "SE++ people".
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
Just to offer a counterpoint: I observed the same thing as MrMister. There was a like, 20+ page effort at the beginning of this discussion a couple of months ago to get rid of the chat thread. There were many many posts that outright said or strongly suggested that the chat thread was responsible for almost all of the toxicity in the community. It took a lot of strong voices from the chat thread showing up and offering counterpoints for many many pages for that discussion to finally cool off.
To suggest this did not happen is odd to me, as we have hundreds of posts to pull from that would easily prove the opposite.
I didn't really want to get into a back and forth on re-litigating old stuff like that, but I do need to speak up when I see something that is completely the opposite of my observations. If it's worth anything, I don't post in the chat thread at all as it's not totally my vibe. But there was absolutely a concerted effort to kill it off.
I think y'all are talking about different things. The State of the Forums stuff was from before Geebs left and well before the whole forum being shut down thing. The talk about the chat thread happened well after that. The most I remember from the State of the Forum thread was people calling out the weird vague posting about specific users that mods were doing in the chat thread which is extremely problematic to say the least.
That is a decent distillation of one interpretation of one of the sides of the discussion but it is far from a definitive comment unless you are presuming it is the correct viewpoint. Particularly as it is predicated partially on the incorrect assumption that all or most of those arguing for a merge are "SE++ people".
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
Just to offer a counterpoint: I observed the same thing as MrMister. There was a like, 20+ page effort at the beginning of this discussion a couple of months ago to get rid of the chat thread.
Except if you actually bother to read the words I wrote, you'd see that I specified the State of the Forums threads from literal months ago, not the Forum Structure discussion where people did discuss potentially breaking up [chat].
And my recollection of that discussion was that once actual [chat] regulars stated why they thought breaking that thread up would be a mistake, several people - including myself - changed their minds and actually started talking about ways to make [chat] not only part of the new Forum Structure, but how to make to more broadly accessible to the other forum communities so more people could participate.
That is a decent distillation of one interpretation of one of the sides of the discussion but it is far from a definitive comment unless you are presuming it is the correct viewpoint. Particularly as it is predicated partially on the incorrect assumption that all or most of those arguing for a merge are "SE++ people".
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
Just to offer a counterpoint: I observed the same thing as MrMister. There was a like, 20+ page effort at the beginning of this discussion a couple of months ago to get rid of the chat thread.
Except if you actually bother to read the words I wrote, you'd see that I specified the State of the Forums threads from literal months ago, not the Forum Structure discussion where people did discuss potentially breaking up [chat].
And my recollection of that discussion was that once actual [chat] regulars stated why they thought breaking that thread up would be a mistake, several people - including myself - changed their minds and actually started talking about ways to make [chat] not only part of the new Forum Structure, but how to make to more broadly accessible to the other forum communities so more people could participate.
That's fair. I find that to be a fairly technical difference -- your post makes it sound like no one was arguing for that at all. I will admit I did not go back two months to check which of the threads this took place in, as the most relevant fact appeared to me to be that it happened. Your post only talked about it not happening, and did not clarify that it actually had happened, just in a thread with a different title.
If your post had said "MrMister was incorrect -- I did not argue to dismantle the chat thread in the thread he said, I did it in another thread a month or two later", then I would not have felt the need to issue my statement.
Ultimately, you are correct. Now we have clarified exactly what happened. I was incorrect on which thread the conversation was taking place, but I do find it relevant to clarify that it was a conversation that happened and very vigorously. My guess is that MrMister's point would not change if you swapped out which thread the discussion took place in, but now that the full context has been presented we can allow for everyone to make their own judgment.
That is a decent distillation of one interpretation of one of the sides of the discussion but it is far from a definitive comment unless you are presuming it is the correct viewpoint. Particularly as it is predicated partially on the incorrect assumption that all or most of those arguing for a merge are "SE++ people".
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
Just to offer a counterpoint: I observed the same thing as MrMister. There was a like, 20+ page effort at the beginning of this discussion a couple of months ago to get rid of the chat thread.
Except if you actually bother to read the words I wrote, you'd see that I specified the State of the Forums threads from literal months ago, not the Forum Structure discussion where people did discuss potentially breaking up [chat].
And my recollection of that discussion was that once actual [chat] regulars stated why they thought breaking that thread up would be a mistake, several people - including myself - changed their minds and actually started talking about ways to make [chat] not only part of the new Forum Structure, but how to make to more broadly accessible to the other forum communities so more people could participate.
That's fair. I find that to be a fairly technical difference --
It's not, and that's a lot of words for you to admit you were wrong.
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
I guess my perspective on the topic of the D&D [Chat] thread is that it feels like a barrier and excuse to stop one community from stepping outside of their neighborhood and into another.
And as a SE++ regular, listen, we do the exact same with our video game megathread(s).
With respect, may I suggest that a fast-moving Chat thread is best suited for something like a Discord, rather than a forum?
Note that these are from November, and I recognize people's positions have changed, so I am not holding this against anyone. But RME, you're wrong. Not only are you wrong, but you're lying. For example, on this post from just a week ago, you agreed that some people should be forced out of the forum.
That is a decent distillation of one interpretation of one of the sides of the discussion but it is far from a definitive comment unless you are presuming it is the correct viewpoint. Particularly as it is predicated partially on the incorrect assumption that all or most of those arguing for a merge are "SE++ people".
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
Just to offer a counterpoint: I observed the same thing as MrMister. There was a like, 20+ page effort at the beginning of this discussion a couple of months ago to get rid of the chat thread.
Except if you actually bother to read the words I wrote, you'd see that I specified the State of the Forums threads from literal months ago, not the Forum Structure discussion where people did discuss potentially breaking up [chat].
And my recollection of that discussion was that once actual [chat] regulars stated why they thought breaking that thread up would be a mistake, several people - including myself - changed their minds and actually started talking about ways to make [chat] not only part of the new Forum Structure, but how to make to more broadly accessible to the other forum communities so more people could participate.
That's fair. I find that to be a fairly technical difference --
It's not, and that's a lot of words for you to admit you were wrong.
Why is the title of the thread a discussion takes place in more important than the discussion taking place?
To get back on track, I voted in favor of Proposal #3 with #2 as my first back up.
But TBH, I'm planning to give Coin Return a shot whatever structure we land on.
I still think transitioning to a new home while keeping the structure as-is just risks perpetuating the same cultural issues that have risen to the fore in the past few months, and I think #3 presents the best route to resolve those issues.
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
I guess my perspective on the topic of the D&D [Chat] thread is that it feels like a barrier and excuse to stop one community from stepping outside of their neighborhood and into another.
And as a SE++ regular, listen, we do the exact same with our video game megathread(s).
With respect, may I suggest that a fast-moving Chat thread is best suited for something like a Discord, rather than a forum?
Note that these are from November, and I recognize people's positions have changed, so I am not holding this against anyone. But RME, you're wrong. Not only are you wrong, but you're lying. For example, on this post from just a week ago, you agreed that some people should be forced out of the forum.
That's a blatant misrepresentation of what Primus' post was saying.
"People who don't want to give a new forum structure a fair chance should consider making their own proposal" is a drastically different statement from "People who don't want to give a new forum structure a chance should leave."
Also, NGL, it's really disingenuous for you to claim I'm lying when not only are you posting quotes from people who - by your own admission - changed their minds later in the discussion, you can't even address the original point I made, which is that claiming anyone advocating for a soft merge of the forums is looking for a backdoor to force people out is absurd on its face, not to mention a sentiment that is inherently an expression of bad faith.
I think it's pretty relevant when and where and who were discussing breaking up chat when trying to conflate that with the effort to merge D&D and SE++ or paint it as being some sort of subversive effort by the same people with the same goal.
We shouldn't relitigate the structure thread here, but I at least want to push back on this because I don't want people to come in to vote wondering what the deal is, and having someone tell them "this sums it up" and point to a post describing the merge effort as a coup attempt by SE++ to destroy D&D. I and several others advocating for a merge specifically identify ourselves as spending most or all of our time in D&D. And to paint the merge effort as driven by forum beef seems disingenuous when several (but not all, or even the majority, to be clear) of those who want to keep things the same have said the reason is that they don't think it's possible to move past those old grudges or that they simply don't think the two groups can get along.
If I wanted to attempt as good-faith a distillation of the viewpoints as I can, though admitting my own bias towards merging, I'd say:
1. Some people believe that D&D and SE++ are occupied by different people and have a different culture that can't be reconciled if they are together, so they advocate to keep them separate.
__a. Within this group there are those who describe that cultural difference as being benign, a vagueish sense of separate communities and friend groups that would be lost if the two were "forced together".
__ b. There are also others within this group who describe the cultural difference as being born of one or the other group containing people they do not like or even do not feel safe around, and feel that bringing the two together would result in conflict that would be avoided by keeping them separate.
2. Some people believe that D&D and SE++ reflect different posting styles, namely on topic verses memes/stream of consciousness.
__a. Within this group there are those who think the best way to maintain this are two separate subforums, that people can freely move between and which will have a significant number of duplicated topics. Want to have a strict on-topic discussion about movies? Go to the D&D Movies thread. Same person wants to have a more loose chat about movies? Go to the SE++ movies thread.
__b. Within this group there are those who believe that this could be accomplished by having the threads in the same place but delineated by tags. So in the main media subforum, there might be an {on-topic} Movies and a {rambly} Movies thread next to each other, pick the one you're in the mood for.
3. Some people believe that, in contrast to (1), the cultural differences are not a reason to keep the forums split.
__a. Within this group are those who believe those cultural differences are mainly a thing of the past, reflecting inconsistent moderation styles and a lack of moderation in SE++, both of which are already going to be amended by the CoC and moderation policies already established for CR.
__b. There are also those within this group who would say that the cultural or moderation differences do still exist, but that merging the forums is part of the effort to amend that situation, as they view having a small forum with two different groups of people to be an unsustainable situation that we shouldn't be making efforts to preserve.
4. Some people believe that, in contrast to (2), the posting style differences in D&D and SE++ are largely overblown, as many SE++ threads stay on topic and D&D has not been nearly as draconian about staying on topic as it used to be.
__a. Similarly to 2b, this viewpoint advocates for delineating the expectations for a given thread based on its OP and tags rather than location within a subforum.
__b. This viewpoint also tends to specify that this doe not mean having a separate "D&D style" and "SE++ style" version of every single thread--that many if not most threads can be handled by having a single version where everybody talks about the topic but is free to wander a bit.
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
I guess my perspective on the topic of the D&D [Chat] thread is that it feels like a barrier and excuse to stop one community from stepping outside of their neighborhood and into another.
And as a SE++ regular, listen, we do the exact same with our video game megathread(s).
With respect, may I suggest that a fast-moving Chat thread is best suited for something like a Discord, rather than a forum?
Note that these are from November, and I recognize people's positions have changed, so I am not holding this against anyone. But RME, you're wrong. Not only are you wrong, but you're lying. For example, on this post from just a week ago, you agreed that some people should be forced out of the forum.
These are not from the State of the Forum thread? I don't know where the disconnect here is I guess. Chat was discussed in the sense of what to do with it if we restructure the forums sure. A lot of people have some negative opinions on the chat thread because of the shitty things that have happened there.
None of that remotely comes close to showing the restructure is intended to force people out. It is beyond disingenuous as well to paint this as some one sided beef. It is why I think the restructure is needed so badly. There is too much blaming the "other" side for random actions that are largely not born out in fact. You yourself once told me that agreeing with a part of a post did not mean you fully signed on everything. Yet you hold this standard now when it deepens this grudge. If we want to move forward we need to let go.
That is a decent distillation of one interpretation of one of the sides of the discussion but it is far from a definitive comment unless you are presuming it is the correct viewpoint. Particularly as it is predicated partially on the incorrect assumption that all or most of those arguing for a merge are "SE++ people".
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
Just to offer a counterpoint: I observed the same thing as MrMister. There was a like, 20+ page effort at the beginning of this discussion a couple of months ago to get rid of the chat thread.
Except if you actually bother to read the words I wrote, you'd see that I specified the State of the Forums threads from literal months ago, not the Forum Structure discussion where people did discuss potentially breaking up [chat].
And my recollection of that discussion was that once actual [chat] regulars stated why they thought breaking that thread up would be a mistake, several people - including myself - changed their minds and actually started talking about ways to make [chat] not only part of the new Forum Structure, but how to make to more broadly accessible to the other forum communities so more people could participate.
That's fair. I find that to be a fairly technical difference --
It's not, and that's a lot of words for you to admit you were wrong.
Why is the title of the thread a discussion takes place in more important than the discussion taking place?
This is really disingenous man.
Because it reframes the entire way the conversation is going. Chat didn't come up because people were bound and determined to kill it. People didn't understand how it fit with the potential new forums structure. The State of the Forum thread predates that by a lot. Moving it into just random sniping makes it seem much more like it was just a pure spite action. The disingenuous thing to do is to remove all context from the discussion while also not telling people where to find it.
I'm going to copy/paste something I said in the TT discord last night:
[...]all of this is to say that even if Full Restructure wins, I'm sensitive to the idea that people don't want to lose what makes their space special and I think we should still try to accommodate them where it's not perpendicular to the goals of a more peaceable community
this was following some idle chatter on the DnD Chat thread specifically
The one real proposal to get rid of chat was an appeal to get people to post in the threads that cover the topic to spread posts around the forum and make other threads more active. After people explained they just wouldn't post without chat and explained its importance to them the only question about chat was where to locate it in a restructure.
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
I guess my perspective on the topic of the D&D [Chat] thread is that it feels like a barrier and excuse to stop one community from stepping outside of their neighborhood and into another.
And as a SE++ regular, listen, we do the exact same with our video game megathread(s).
With respect, may I suggest that a fast-moving Chat thread is best suited for something like a Discord, rather than a forum?
Note that these are from November, and I recognize people's positions have changed, so I am not holding this against anyone. But RME, you're wrong. Not only are you wrong, but you're lying. For example, on this post from just a week ago, you agreed that some people should be forced out of the forum.
This is, at best, a stretch. At worst, it's outright disingenuous and an attempt to slander and actively stir shit.
Let's end the line of conversation before I figure out which it is.
Don’t turn this thread into the same mess the non-poll version of this topic became. Don’t bring up forum beef crap as a way to take shots at each other, not to mention don’t start digging into old posts from months and months ago to try and win arguments; that is very clearly against the spirit of the interim rules.
Discuss the nature of the proposals and the content of responses in this thread, don’t start taking shots at other users or groups of them by, as an example, accusing them of lying.
Also while we are at it please try and avoid overly curt and abrasive responses to folks who are trying to respond in good faith, that just inflames stuff too.
My main concern with the complete immediate restructure is that I'm not sure how many people who are most eager for that are eager for it in the belief that their preferred tone and community essentially overwrites the other one, pushing out the undesirables.
And will bail if that doesn't happen.
Or it does happen and that's bad for everyone not on board with whichever community wins, or is just perceived to have happened because a few people run afoul of rules they thought were to rein in those people, or...
I think a change needs to happen, but I strongly prefer the hybrid. The goal should be to encourage people to communicate across the old lines more and make the rules very clear and fair so the schism can heal (and, if necessary, its worst perpetrators find the door willingly or otherwise), while preserving safe places during that adjustment period so people don't just bounce off forever to complain on another social media site about how much the new forum sucks.
My main concern with the complete immediate restructure is that I'm not sure how many people who are most eager for that are eager for it in the belief that their preferred tone and community essentially overwrites the other one, pushing out the undesirables.
And will bail if that doesn't happen.
Or it does happen and that's bad for everyone not on board with whichever community wins, or is just perceived to have happened because a few people run afoul of rules they thought were to rein in those people, or...
I think a change needs to happen, but I strongly prefer the hybrid. The goal should be to encourage people to communicate across the old lines more and make the rules very clear and fair so the schism can heal (and, if necessary, its worst perpetrators find the door willingly or otherwise), while preserving safe places during that adjustment period so people don't just bounce off forever to complain on another social media site about how much the new forum sucks.
The other thing I've heard that should help with the restructure and people you don't want to hear from is that the ignore function is much more useful on Xenoforo than Vanilla.
My main concern with the complete immediate restructure is that I'm not sure how many people who are most eager for that are eager for it in the belief that their preferred tone and community essentially overwrites the other one, pushing out the undesirables.
And will bail if that doesn't happen.
Or it does happen and that's bad for everyone not on board with whichever community wins, or is just perceived to have happened because a few people run afoul of rules they thought were to rein in those people, or...
I think a change needs to happen, but I strongly prefer the hybrid. The goal should be to encourage people to communicate across the old lines more and make the rules very clear and fair so the schism can heal (and, if necessary, its worst perpetrators find the door willingly or otherwise), while preserving safe places during that adjustment period so people don't just bounce off forever to complain on another social media site about how much the new forum sucks.
The other thing I've heard that should help with the restructure and people you don't want to hear from is that the ignore function is much more useful on Xenoforo than Vanilla.
Oh? I kind of like using ignore as a warning flag instead of a full block, I usually still want to hear from people I ignore. I use it more like 'don't read this if someone getting snippy is going to make you get snippy' or 'fact check any claims no matter how reasonable or well-backed they seem' or 'just skip this if you're having a bad day' or whatever.
Kamar on
0
SolyspPreviously Kayne Red RobeRegistered Userregular
I think framing any restructure as one "side" "winning" misses the heart what is trying to get accomplished here. I wish people would get over this perceived forum rivalry stuff. (Hello yes I am in group 4 of RatherDashing's summary above).
I think that the tone issue in non-political threads is largely exaggerated. I also think the new forums (for example the media forum) can allow for more specific threads that can more easily set the tone desired, rather than each major subforum just having “Movies” for example. Much like how G&T can easily support more threads for specific games.
My main concern with the complete immediate restructure is that I'm not sure how many people who are most eager for that are eager for it in the belief that their preferred tone and community essentially overwrites the other one, pushing out the undesirables.
And will bail if that doesn't happen.
Or it does happen and that's bad for everyone not on board with whichever community wins, or is just perceived to have happened because a few people run afoul of rules they thought were to rein in those people, or...
I think a change needs to happen, but I strongly prefer the hybrid. The goal should be to encourage people to communicate across the old lines more and make the rules very clear and fair so the schism can heal (and, if necessary, its worst perpetrators find the door willingly or otherwise), while preserving safe places during that adjustment period so people don't just bounce off forever to complain on another social media site about how much the new forum sucks.
The other thing I've heard that should help with the restructure and people you don't want to hear from is that the ignore function is much more useful on Xenoforo than Vanilla.
It is very effective. The only hiccup being it hides threads created by the person so could create some confusion there. Still manageable I think. I am still of the belief that a lot less would change than people fear under a full restructure. I think this is especially true once we iron out the rules (when it comes time for that). We can create a very inclusive space for the people here.
+2
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
What I will offer, as the designer of one of these proposals, is that I am really not concerned about one community subsuming another or all of that stuff.
My concern is that potentially new users to Coin Return (and I have been told we have folks sort of waiting in the wings to actually join CoRe when it begins who currently aren't on these forums) would be utterly confused by any attempt to navigate them to certain topics of discussion across the new forums.
"Hey, where can I talk about video games?"
"Oh, the Games & Technology sub-forum is all about that!"
"Great, that's cool to hea--"
"You could also talk about that in SE++ in their big Steam megathread."
"Ah, okay, is there a difference?"
"Not really? Oh, if you want to talk about anime, it seems to only happen in SE++ too."
"What?"
"And the LEGO thread is in D&D next to the threads about the Supreme Court."
"Wait, how are things laid out?"
"Oh, okay, let's rewind to the year 2002..."
Like... I just wanted a structure that offered a logical system to where topics would be situated...
My main concern with the complete immediate restructure is that I'm not sure how many people who are most eager for that are eager for it in the belief that their preferred tone and community essentially overwrites the other one, pushing out the undesirables.
And will bail if that doesn't happen.
Or it does happen and that's bad for everyone not on board with whichever community wins, or is just perceived to have happened because a few people run afoul of rules they thought were to rein in those people, or...
I think a change needs to happen, but I strongly prefer the hybrid. The goal should be to encourage people to communicate across the old lines more and make the rules very clear and fair so the schism can heal (and, if necessary, its worst perpetrators find the door willingly or otherwise), while preserving safe places during that adjustment period so people don't just bounce off forever to complain on another social media site about how much the new forum sucks.
The other thing I've heard that should help with the restructure and people you don't want to hear from is that the ignore function is much more useful on Xenoforo than Vanilla.
Oh? I kind of like using ignore as a warning flag instead of a full block, I usually still want to hear from people I ignore. I use it more like 'don't read this if someone getting snippy is going to make you get snippy' or 'fact check any claims no matter how reasonable or well-backed they seem' or 'just skip this if you're having a bad day' or whatever.
You can still see them if you want to, but does take a bit more work. The show ignored users button is at the bottom. Still shows up if someone is quoted so that is closer to the functionality here.
My main concern with the complete immediate restructure is that I'm not sure how many people who are most eager for that are eager for it in the belief that their preferred tone and community essentially overwrites the other one, pushing out the undesirables.
And will bail if that doesn't happen.
Or it does happen and that's bad for everyone not on board with whichever community wins, or is just perceived to have happened because a few people run afoul of rules they thought were to rein in those people, or...
I think a change needs to happen, but I strongly prefer the hybrid. The goal should be to encourage people to communicate across the old lines more and make the rules very clear and fair so the schism can heal (and, if necessary, its worst perpetrators find the door willingly or otherwise), while preserving safe places during that adjustment period so people don't just bounce off forever to complain on another social media site about how much the new forum sucks.
The other thing I've heard that should help with the restructure and people you don't want to hear from is that the ignore function is much more useful on Xenoforo than Vanilla.
It is very effective. The only hiccup being it hides threads created by the person so could create some confusion there. Still manageable I think. I am still of the belief that a lot less would change than people fear under a full restructure. I think this is especially true once we iron out the rules (when it comes time for that). We can create a very inclusive space for the people here.
I wasn't aware of that (or I forgot). Wondering if that should be changed...?
My main concern with the complete immediate restructure is that I'm not sure how many people who are most eager for that are eager for it in the belief that their preferred tone and community essentially overwrites the other one, pushing out the undesirables.
And will bail if that doesn't happen.
Or it does happen and that's bad for everyone not on board with whichever community wins, or is just perceived to have happened because a few people run afoul of rules they thought were to rein in those people, or...
I think a change needs to happen, but I strongly prefer the hybrid. The goal should be to encourage people to communicate across the old lines more and make the rules very clear and fair so the schism can heal (and, if necessary, its worst perpetrators find the door willingly or otherwise), while preserving safe places during that adjustment period so people don't just bounce off forever to complain on another social media site about how much the new forum sucks.
The other thing I've heard that should help with the restructure and people you don't want to hear from is that the ignore function is much more useful on Xenoforo than Vanilla.
It is very effective. The only hiccup being it hides threads created by the person so could create some confusion there. Still manageable I think. I am still of the belief that a lot less would change than people fear under a full restructure. I think this is especially true once we iron out the rules (when it comes time for that). We can create a very inclusive space for the people here.
I wasn't aware of that (or I forgot). Wondering if that should be changed...?
I never thought of that as something that could be changed honestly. I would side with probably? Feels like it could save us some time on duplicate threads that will eventually happen.
I'm going to copy/paste something I said in the TT discord last night:
"[...]all of this is to say that even if Full Restructure wins, I'm sensitive to the idea that people don't want to lose what makes their space special and I think we should still try to accommodate them where it's not perpendicular to the goals of a more peaceable community"
this was following some idle chatter on the DnD Chat thread specifically
Just wanted to build on this and say that this is also my ideal outcome for the new structure on Coin Return.
However much I think a new structure built on a merger of existing communities will be better for the health of the platform overall, I hope it doesn't come across as wanting to demolish a space that people consider important or special.
Also, just so it's explicit: I apologize for getting that heated earlier, that's my bad.
What I will offer, as the designer of one of these proposals, is that I am really not concerned about one community subsuming another or all of that stuff.
My concern is that potentially new users to Coin Return (and I have been told we have folks sort of waiting in the wings to actually join CoRe when it begins who currently aren't on these forums) would be utterly confused by any attempt to navigate them to certain topics of discussion across the new forums.
"Hey, where can I talk about video games?"
"Oh, the Games & Technology sub-forum is all about that!"
"Great, that's cool to hea--"
"You could also talk about that in SE++ in their big Steam megathread."
"Ah, okay, is there a difference?"
"Not really? Oh, if you want to talk about anime, it seems to only happen in SE++ too."
"What?"
"And the LEGO thread is in D&D next to the threads about the Supreme Court."
"Wait, how are things laid out?"
"Oh, okay, let's rewind to the year 2002..."
Like... I just wanted a structure that offered a logical system to where topics would be situated...
I don't disagree the lego thread probably shouldn't be in D&D and SE++ probably shouldn't have a steam megathread, I just think that requires moderators to move it to the appropriate sub category.
None of this necessarily means that you need to get rid of D&D/SE++ subforums. From where I'm sitting, tags just attempts to recreate that with a lot more clutter and confusion. Much better to just slap analytical threads like that into a separate subforum, this is specifically why you have subforum categories. And if someone is like "I want to talk about legos... but will only do it in D&D" the mods should deal with that when it happens instead of just kind of ignoring it.
What I will offer, as the designer of one of these proposals, is that I am really not concerned about one community subsuming another or all of that stuff.
My concern is that potentially new users to Coin Return (and I have been told we have folks sort of waiting in the wings to actually join CoRe when it begins who currently aren't on these forums) would be utterly confused by any attempt to navigate them to certain topics of discussion across the new forums.
"Hey, where can I talk about video games?"
"Oh, the Games & Technology sub-forum is all about that!"
"Great, that's cool to hea--"
"You could also talk about that in SE++ in their big Steam megathread."
"Ah, okay, is there a difference?"
"Not really? Oh, if you want to talk about anime, it seems to only happen in SE++ too."
"What?"
"And the LEGO thread is in D&D next to the threads about the Supreme Court."
"Wait, how are things laid out?"
"Oh, okay, let's rewind to the year 2002..."
Like... I just wanted a structure that offered a logical system to where topics would be situated...
I don't disagree the lego thread probably shouldn't be in D&D and SE++ probably shouldn't have a steam megathread, I just think that requires moderators to move it to the appropriate sub category.
None of this necessarily means that you need to get rid of D&D/SE++ subforums. From where I'm sitting, tags just attempts to recreate that with a lot more clutter and confusion. Much better to just slap analytical threads like that into a separate subforum, this is specifically why you have subforum categories. And if someone is like "I want to talk about legos... but will only do it in D&D" the mods should deal with that when it happens instead of just kind of ignoring it.
My concern is that if you move everything out of D&D and SE++ that makes sense in another subforum, all that's left are two sets of politics threads, and chat (which is getting moved in the hybrid proposal anyway, IIRC). If we're not saying that it's two communities that want to be kept separate, then what remains in those subforums to make them worth keeping? And if it is just two subforums of nothing but politics threads, well those are going to become some very ugly places.
What I will offer, as the designer of one of these proposals, is that I am really not concerned about one community subsuming another or all of that stuff.
My concern is that potentially new users to Coin Return (and I have been told we have folks sort of waiting in the wings to actually join CoRe when it begins who currently aren't on these forums) would be utterly confused by any attempt to navigate them to certain topics of discussion across the new forums.
"Hey, where can I talk about video games?"
"Oh, the Games & Technology sub-forum is all about that!"
"Great, that's cool to hea--"
"You could also talk about that in SE++ in their big Steam megathread."
"Ah, okay, is there a difference?"
"Not really? Oh, if you want to talk about anime, it seems to only happen in SE++ too."
"What?"
"And the LEGO thread is in D&D next to the threads about the Supreme Court."
"Wait, how are things laid out?"
"Oh, okay, let's rewind to the year 2002..."
Like... I just wanted a structure that offered a logical system to where topics would be situated...
I don't disagree the lego thread probably shouldn't be in D&D and SE++ probably shouldn't have a steam megathread, I just think that requires moderators to move it to the appropriate sub category.
None of this necessarily means that you need to get rid of D&D/SE++ subforums. From where I'm sitting, tags just attempts to recreate that with a lot more clutter and confusion. Much better to just slap analytical threads like that into a separate subforum, this is specifically why you have subforum categories. And if someone is like "I want to talk about legos... but will only do it in D&D" the mods should deal with that when it happens instead of just kind of ignoring it.
My concern is that if you move everything out of D&D and SE++ that makes sense in another subforum, all that's left are two sets of politics threads, and chat (which is getting moved in the hybrid proposal anyway, IIRC). If we're not saying that it's two communities that want to be kept separate, then what remains in those subforums to make them worth keeping? And if it is just two subforums of nothing but politics threads, well those are going to become some very ugly places.
I can't make an argument for SE++ because I haven't posted there seriously in ages, but in D&D you would still have probably a dozen active threads, maybe more. It's more than just the presidential election and chat.
As for SE, the on topic ones probably make sense to be merged down outside of it, but the chatty "post about (x)" style topics would stay?
Like yes I don't think we need two marvel threads, two homeowner threads, or two book-club threads, but the amount of "GDST" shit that spins off of even a single politics thread can absolutely justify an analytical subforum like D&D.
What I will offer, as the designer of one of these proposals, is that I am really not concerned about one community subsuming another or all of that stuff.
My concern is that potentially new users to Coin Return (and I have been told we have folks sort of waiting in the wings to actually join CoRe when it begins who currently aren't on these forums) would be utterly confused by any attempt to navigate them to certain topics of discussion across the new forums.
"Hey, where can I talk about video games?"
"Oh, the Games & Technology sub-forum is all about that!"
"Great, that's cool to hea--"
"You could also talk about that in SE++ in their big Steam megathread."
"Ah, okay, is there a difference?"
"Not really? Oh, if you want to talk about anime, it seems to only happen in SE++ too."
"What?"
"And the LEGO thread is in D&D next to the threads about the Supreme Court."
"Wait, how are things laid out?"
"Oh, okay, let's rewind to the year 2002..."
Like... I just wanted a structure that offered a logical system to where topics would be situated...
I don't disagree the lego thread probably shouldn't be in D&D and SE++ probably shouldn't have a steam megathread, I just think that requires moderators to move it to the appropriate sub category.
None of this necessarily means that you need to get rid of D&D/SE++ subforums. From where I'm sitting, tags just attempts to recreate that with a lot more clutter and confusion. Much better to just slap analytical threads like that into a separate subforum, this is specifically why you have subforum categories. And if someone is like "I want to talk about legos... but will only do it in D&D" the mods should deal with that when it happens instead of just kind of ignoring it.
My concern is that if you move everything out of D&D and SE++ that makes sense in another subforum, all that's left are two sets of politics threads, and chat (which is getting moved in the hybrid proposal anyway, IIRC). If we're not saying that it's two communities that want to be kept separate, then what remains in those subforums to make them worth keeping? And if it is just two subforums of nothing but politics threads, well those are going to become some very ugly places.
I can't make an argument for SE++ because I haven't posted there seriously in ages, but in D&D you would still have probably a dozen active threads, maybe more. It's more than just the presidential election and chat.
As for SE, the on topic ones probably make sense to be merged down outside of it, but the chatty "post about (x)" style topics would stay?
Like yes I don't think we need two marvel threads, two homeowner threads, or two book-club threads, but the amount of "GDST" shit that spins off of even a single politics thread can absolutely justify an analytical subforum like D&D.
The point Zonugal was making is if you look at the descriptions of D&D and SE++ there is nothing there that tells you what kind of thread would go in those subforums. They're just catch-all forums for stuff that doesn't fit in the other forums so we can instead create subforums that make sense for people looking at them on where to go for a certain topic.
My feelings on the new structure discussion are that if we were building a new forum, from the ground up, the third option (Full Restructure) would make a whole lot of sense as a default layout of forums and subforums. It's sensible, the different areas logically cover different topics of discussion, and I would have no issue with it whatsoever.
However, right now we have nearly 20 years of SE and D&D as distinctly separate subforums that have developed their own culture and posting styles. I've spent the vast majority of my posting tenure in D&D, and very much prefer that style to SE or the mash-up of styles we get in the holiday forums. While I'm certainly not opposed to splitting out some of the more common topics into shared spaces (I'd be fine going even further than the proposed Hybrid approach with more subforums) it's important to me that we maintain those spaces to some degree.
I certainly don't think most of the people in support of a full restructure are trying to stamp out one culture or the other or impose their own on the forums. And I definitely think there is a lot of room for general improvement in, if nothing else, addressing what in my opinion amounts to a half decade of administrative indifference or outright neglect. I very much believe in the forums and also think many if not most of the problems we have right now are not symptoms of having independent subforums with their own culture, but rather things that are eminently fixable with some of the governance work that's being done as part of this transition to self-governance and independence from Penny Arcade.
And hey if it turns out I'm wrong and the problems are festering even with the good faith efforts of the transition team and Coin Return community, we can always make additional changes to the forum structure. Just...we don't have to change everything right now all at once without trying some things and see what works.
I think that the tone issue in non-political threads is largely exaggerated. I also think the new forums (for example the media forum) can allow for more specific threads that can more easily set the tone desired, rather than each major subforum just having “Movies” for example. Much like how G&T can easily support more threads for specific games.
Honestly, I think this is a decent argument for keeping around two separate areas in at least some capacity. I accept that some people walk into SE and into D&D and don't see much, if any, difference at all. I don't think they're lying, I think they honestly feel they're pretty much the same. But a lot of people (me included) find there to be pretty distinct differences - but, importantly, differences that are less about being on-topic or posting non-context images or whatever. Differences, in fact, that are somewhat difficult to really define using something like tags.
So if people can't agree on what makes them different, or even if they're different, how are we going to have two different threads on the same topic in the same space that adequately define and preserve two unique styles in any effective manner? You could explicitly call it out - this is the D&D version of the thread, this is the SE version of the thread - but if you're doing that, it makes sense to just have explicit SE and D&D subforums.
Otherwise, the idea of a complete merge seems premised on telling those who find stylistic differences between the two subforums that they're just imagining any difference and they should get over themselves.
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Sir FabulousMalevolent Squid GodRegistered Userregular
My main argument for the restructure is thus:
1. If we try the restructure and it works, hurray we win!
2. If we try the restructure and it doesn't work, I am supremely confident that there will be a lot of push to revert the structure back to what we have now. People who are upset with the new forums might just stick around to see if the old forum structure fixes what's wrong.
3. If we keep things the same as right now and it works, hurray we win!
4. If we keep things the same as right now and it doesn't work, we're right back to square one. People are going to go on and on about preserving forum culture. I am less confident that people will be willing to try a restructure. It will feel like we're trying to change too much too quickly. Instead, anyone who wanted to give the new forums a shot and doesn't like it will simply leave. We'll be stuck with what we have now.
So, why not try to shake things up. It's always easier to return to the familiar than to try something new.
Posts
That is a decent distillation of one interpretation of one of the sides of the discussion but it is far from a definitive comment unless you are presuming it is the correct viewpoint. Particularly as it is predicated partially on the incorrect assumption that all or most of those arguing for a merge are "SE++ people".
Because that's my preferred first step for a lot of these discussions. Start with a generic/new system, then tailor it to our community. That way we get something that's new but is still designed for our community.
I actually think it's pretty useful to have dedicated 'spaces' for different types of discussion
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Also, putting aside for a moment that the claim people were advocating for breaking up [chat] in the State of the Forums threads from a while back is objectively incorrect:
I'll restate what I said in the Forum Structure discussion that claiming a forum merge is intended as a backdoor tactic to somehow force out other community members not only flies in the face of the expectation of good faith the Transition Team asked for in these discussions, it's a claim that borders on conspiratorial thinking.
Just to offer a counterpoint: I observed the same thing as MrMister. There was a like, 20+ page effort at the beginning of this discussion a couple of months ago to get rid of the chat thread. There were many many posts that outright said or strongly suggested that the chat thread was responsible for almost all of the toxicity in the community. It took a lot of strong voices from the chat thread showing up and offering counterpoints for many many pages for that discussion to finally cool off.
To suggest this did not happen is odd to me, as we have hundreds of posts to pull from that would easily prove the opposite.
I didn't really want to get into a back and forth on re-litigating old stuff like that, but I do need to speak up when I see something that is completely the opposite of my observations. If it's worth anything, I don't post in the chat thread at all as it's not totally my vibe. But there was absolutely a concerted effort to kill it off as a part of the restructuring discussion.
I think y'all are talking about different things. The State of the Forums stuff was from before Geebs left and well before the whole forum being shut down thing. The talk about the chat thread happened well after that. The most I remember from the State of the Forum thread was people calling out the weird vague posting about specific users that mods were doing in the chat thread which is extremely problematic to say the least.
Except if you actually bother to read the words I wrote, you'd see that I specified the State of the Forums threads from literal months ago, not the Forum Structure discussion where people did discuss potentially breaking up [chat].
And my recollection of that discussion was that once actual [chat] regulars stated why they thought breaking that thread up would be a mistake, several people - including myself - changed their minds and actually started talking about ways to make [chat] not only part of the new Forum Structure, but how to make to more broadly accessible to the other forum communities so more people could participate.
That's fair. I find that to be a fairly technical difference -- your post makes it sound like no one was arguing for that at all. I will admit I did not go back two months to check which of the threads this took place in, as the most relevant fact appeared to me to be that it happened. Your post only talked about it not happening, and did not clarify that it actually had happened, just in a thread with a different title.
If your post had said "MrMister was incorrect -- I did not argue to dismantle the chat thread in the thread he said, I did it in another thread a month or two later", then I would not have felt the need to issue my statement.
Ultimately, you are correct. Now we have clarified exactly what happened. I was incorrect on which thread the conversation was taking place, but I do find it relevant to clarify that it was a conversation that happened and very vigorously. My guess is that MrMister's point would not change if you swapped out which thread the discussion took place in, but now that the full context has been presented we can allow for everyone to make their own judgment.
It's not, and that's a lot of words for you to admit you were wrong.
Note that these are from November, and I recognize people's positions have changed, so I am not holding this against anyone. But RME, you're wrong. Not only are you wrong, but you're lying. For example, on this post from just a week ago, you agreed that some people should be forced out of the forum.
Why is the title of the thread a discussion takes place in more important than the discussion taking place?
This is really disingenous man.
But TBH, I'm planning to give Coin Return a shot whatever structure we land on.
I still think transitioning to a new home while keeping the structure as-is just risks perpetuating the same cultural issues that have risen to the fore in the past few months, and I think #3 presents the best route to resolve those issues.
That's a blatant misrepresentation of what Primus' post was saying.
"People who don't want to give a new forum structure a fair chance should consider making their own proposal" is a drastically different statement from "People who don't want to give a new forum structure a chance should leave."
Also, NGL, it's really disingenuous for you to claim I'm lying when not only are you posting quotes from people who - by your own admission - changed their minds later in the discussion, you can't even address the original point I made, which is that claiming anyone advocating for a soft merge of the forums is looking for a backdoor to force people out is absurd on its face, not to mention a sentiment that is inherently an expression of bad faith.
We shouldn't relitigate the structure thread here, but I at least want to push back on this because I don't want people to come in to vote wondering what the deal is, and having someone tell them "this sums it up" and point to a post describing the merge effort as a coup attempt by SE++ to destroy D&D. I and several others advocating for a merge specifically identify ourselves as spending most or all of our time in D&D. And to paint the merge effort as driven by forum beef seems disingenuous when several (but not all, or even the majority, to be clear) of those who want to keep things the same have said the reason is that they don't think it's possible to move past those old grudges or that they simply don't think the two groups can get along.
If I wanted to attempt as good-faith a distillation of the viewpoints as I can, though admitting my own bias towards merging, I'd say:
1. Some people believe that D&D and SE++ are occupied by different people and have a different culture that can't be reconciled if they are together, so they advocate to keep them separate.
__a. Within this group there are those who describe that cultural difference as being benign, a vagueish sense of separate communities and friend groups that would be lost if the two were "forced together".
__ b. There are also others within this group who describe the cultural difference as being born of one or the other group containing people they do not like or even do not feel safe around, and feel that bringing the two together would result in conflict that would be avoided by keeping them separate.
2. Some people believe that D&D and SE++ reflect different posting styles, namely on topic verses memes/stream of consciousness.
__a. Within this group there are those who think the best way to maintain this are two separate subforums, that people can freely move between and which will have a significant number of duplicated topics. Want to have a strict on-topic discussion about movies? Go to the D&D Movies thread. Same person wants to have a more loose chat about movies? Go to the SE++ movies thread.
__b. Within this group there are those who believe that this could be accomplished by having the threads in the same place but delineated by tags. So in the main media subforum, there might be an {on-topic} Movies and a {rambly} Movies thread next to each other, pick the one you're in the mood for.
3. Some people believe that, in contrast to (1), the cultural differences are not a reason to keep the forums split.
__a. Within this group are those who believe those cultural differences are mainly a thing of the past, reflecting inconsistent moderation styles and a lack of moderation in SE++, both of which are already going to be amended by the CoC and moderation policies already established for CR.
__b. There are also those within this group who would say that the cultural or moderation differences do still exist, but that merging the forums is part of the effort to amend that situation, as they view having a small forum with two different groups of people to be an unsustainable situation that we shouldn't be making efforts to preserve.
4. Some people believe that, in contrast to (2), the posting style differences in D&D and SE++ are largely overblown, as many SE++ threads stay on topic and D&D has not been nearly as draconian about staying on topic as it used to be.
__a. Similarly to 2b, this viewpoint advocates for delineating the expectations for a given thread based on its OP and tags rather than location within a subforum.
__b. This viewpoint also tends to specify that this doe not mean having a separate "D&D style" and "SE++ style" version of every single thread--that many if not most threads can be handled by having a single version where everybody talks about the topic but is free to wander a bit.
Hoo that was a lot. That's all I got for now.
These are not from the State of the Forum thread? I don't know where the disconnect here is I guess. Chat was discussed in the sense of what to do with it if we restructure the forums sure. A lot of people have some negative opinions on the chat thread because of the shitty things that have happened there.
None of that remotely comes close to showing the restructure is intended to force people out. It is beyond disingenuous as well to paint this as some one sided beef. It is why I think the restructure is needed so badly. There is too much blaming the "other" side for random actions that are largely not born out in fact. You yourself once told me that agreeing with a part of a post did not mean you fully signed on everything. Yet you hold this standard now when it deepens this grudge. If we want to move forward we need to let go.
Because it reframes the entire way the conversation is going. Chat didn't come up because people were bound and determined to kill it. People didn't understand how it fit with the potential new forums structure. The State of the Forum thread predates that by a lot. Moving it into just random sniping makes it seem much more like it was just a pure spite action. The disingenuous thing to do is to remove all context from the discussion while also not telling people where to find it.
this was following some idle chatter on the DnD Chat thread specifically
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
This is, at best, a stretch. At worst, it's outright disingenuous and an attempt to slander and actively stir shit.
Let's end the line of conversation before I figure out which it is.
Don’t turn this thread into the same mess the non-poll version of this topic became. Don’t bring up forum beef crap as a way to take shots at each other, not to mention don’t start digging into old posts from months and months ago to try and win arguments; that is very clearly against the spirit of the interim rules.
Discuss the nature of the proposals and the content of responses in this thread, don’t start taking shots at other users or groups of them by, as an example, accusing them of lying.
Also while we are at it please try and avoid overly curt and abrasive responses to folks who are trying to respond in good faith, that just inflames stuff too.
And will bail if that doesn't happen.
Or it does happen and that's bad for everyone not on board with whichever community wins, or is just perceived to have happened because a few people run afoul of rules they thought were to rein in those people, or...
I think a change needs to happen, but I strongly prefer the hybrid. The goal should be to encourage people to communicate across the old lines more and make the rules very clear and fair so the schism can heal (and, if necessary, its worst perpetrators find the door willingly or otherwise), while preserving safe places during that adjustment period so people don't just bounce off forever to complain on another social media site about how much the new forum sucks.
The other thing I've heard that should help with the restructure and people you don't want to hear from is that the ignore function is much more useful on Xenoforo than Vanilla.
{Bluesky Account }{Writing and Story Blog}
Oh? I kind of like using ignore as a warning flag instead of a full block, I usually still want to hear from people I ignore. I use it more like 'don't read this if someone getting snippy is going to make you get snippy' or 'fact check any claims no matter how reasonable or well-backed they seem' or 'just skip this if you're having a bad day' or whatever.
It is very effective. The only hiccup being it hides threads created by the person so could create some confusion there. Still manageable I think. I am still of the belief that a lot less would change than people fear under a full restructure. I think this is especially true once we iron out the rules (when it comes time for that). We can create a very inclusive space for the people here.
My concern is that potentially new users to Coin Return (and I have been told we have folks sort of waiting in the wings to actually join CoRe when it begins who currently aren't on these forums) would be utterly confused by any attempt to navigate them to certain topics of discussion across the new forums.
"Hey, where can I talk about video games?"
"Oh, the Games & Technology sub-forum is all about that!"
"Great, that's cool to hea--"
"You could also talk about that in SE++ in their big Steam megathread."
"Ah, okay, is there a difference?"
"Not really? Oh, if you want to talk about anime, it seems to only happen in SE++ too."
"What?"
"And the LEGO thread is in D&D next to the threads about the Supreme Court."
"Wait, how are things laid out?"
"Oh, okay, let's rewind to the year 2002..."
Like... I just wanted a structure that offered a logical system to where topics would be situated...
You can still see them if you want to, but does take a bit more work. The show ignored users button is at the bottom. Still shows up if someone is quoted so that is closer to the functionality here.
I wasn't aware of that (or I forgot). Wondering if that should be changed...?
I never thought of that as something that could be changed honestly. I would side with probably? Feels like it could save us some time on duplicate threads that will eventually happen.
Just wanted to build on this and say that this is also my ideal outcome for the new structure on Coin Return.
However much I think a new structure built on a merger of existing communities will be better for the health of the platform overall, I hope it doesn't come across as wanting to demolish a space that people consider important or special.
Also, just so it's explicit: I apologize for getting that heated earlier, that's my bad.
I don't disagree the lego thread probably shouldn't be in D&D and SE++ probably shouldn't have a steam megathread, I just think that requires moderators to move it to the appropriate sub category.
None of this necessarily means that you need to get rid of D&D/SE++ subforums. From where I'm sitting, tags just attempts to recreate that with a lot more clutter and confusion. Much better to just slap analytical threads like that into a separate subforum, this is specifically why you have subforum categories. And if someone is like "I want to talk about legos... but will only do it in D&D" the mods should deal with that when it happens instead of just kind of ignoring it.
My concern is that if you move everything out of D&D and SE++ that makes sense in another subforum, all that's left are two sets of politics threads, and chat (which is getting moved in the hybrid proposal anyway, IIRC). If we're not saying that it's two communities that want to be kept separate, then what remains in those subforums to make them worth keeping? And if it is just two subforums of nothing but politics threads, well those are going to become some very ugly places.
I can't make an argument for SE++ because I haven't posted there seriously in ages, but in D&D you would still have probably a dozen active threads, maybe more. It's more than just the presidential election and chat.
As for SE, the on topic ones probably make sense to be merged down outside of it, but the chatty "post about (x)" style topics would stay?
Like yes I don't think we need two marvel threads, two homeowner threads, or two book-club threads, but the amount of "GDST" shit that spins off of even a single politics thread can absolutely justify an analytical subforum like D&D.
The point Zonugal was making is if you look at the descriptions of D&D and SE++ there is nothing there that tells you what kind of thread would go in those subforums. They're just catch-all forums for stuff that doesn't fit in the other forums so we can instead create subforums that make sense for people looking at them on where to go for a certain topic.
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However, right now we have nearly 20 years of SE and D&D as distinctly separate subforums that have developed their own culture and posting styles. I've spent the vast majority of my posting tenure in D&D, and very much prefer that style to SE or the mash-up of styles we get in the holiday forums. While I'm certainly not opposed to splitting out some of the more common topics into shared spaces (I'd be fine going even further than the proposed Hybrid approach with more subforums) it's important to me that we maintain those spaces to some degree.
I certainly don't think most of the people in support of a full restructure are trying to stamp out one culture or the other or impose their own on the forums. And I definitely think there is a lot of room for general improvement in, if nothing else, addressing what in my opinion amounts to a half decade of administrative indifference or outright neglect. I very much believe in the forums and also think many if not most of the problems we have right now are not symptoms of having independent subforums with their own culture, but rather things that are eminently fixable with some of the governance work that's being done as part of this transition to self-governance and independence from Penny Arcade.
And hey if it turns out I'm wrong and the problems are festering even with the good faith efforts of the transition team and Coin Return community, we can always make additional changes to the forum structure. Just...we don't have to change everything right now all at once without trying some things and see what works.
Honestly, I think this is a decent argument for keeping around two separate areas in at least some capacity. I accept that some people walk into SE and into D&D and don't see much, if any, difference at all. I don't think they're lying, I think they honestly feel they're pretty much the same. But a lot of people (me included) find there to be pretty distinct differences - but, importantly, differences that are less about being on-topic or posting non-context images or whatever. Differences, in fact, that are somewhat difficult to really define using something like tags.
So if people can't agree on what makes them different, or even if they're different, how are we going to have two different threads on the same topic in the same space that adequately define and preserve two unique styles in any effective manner? You could explicitly call it out - this is the D&D version of the thread, this is the SE version of the thread - but if you're doing that, it makes sense to just have explicit SE and D&D subforums.
Otherwise, the idea of a complete merge seems premised on telling those who find stylistic differences between the two subforums that they're just imagining any difference and they should get over themselves.
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1. If we try the restructure and it works, hurray we win!
2. If we try the restructure and it doesn't work, I am supremely confident that there will be a lot of push to revert the structure back to what we have now. People who are upset with the new forums might just stick around to see if the old forum structure fixes what's wrong.
3. If we keep things the same as right now and it works, hurray we win!
4. If we keep things the same as right now and it doesn't work, we're right back to square one. People are going to go on and on about preserving forum culture. I am less confident that people will be willing to try a restructure. It will feel like we're trying to change too much too quickly. Instead, anyone who wanted to give the new forums a shot and doesn't like it will simply leave. We'll be stuck with what we have now.
So, why not try to shake things up. It's always easier to return to the familiar than to try something new.
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