I've been mingling amongst most of the forums just fine for years. Less so in SE++ since it went all 'prissy little pansy lets all lick each others arseholes rather than have a laugh' but all good things must come to an end (seriously, why does SE++ even have a bad reputation anymore? It's the softest forum of the lot these days, the noobs there couldn't stage a raid on a panty drawer. If they upset someone they'd probably send a tear-soaked letter of apology to the person's mother).
The reason that people don't inter-mingle doesn't have anything to do with the structure of the forums and everything to do with people just being narrow minded and rubbish. Or they don't have a browser that can do tabs.
I've been mingling amongst most of the forums just fine for years. Less so in SE++ since it went all 'prissy little pansy lets all lick each others arseholes rather than have a laugh' but all good things must come to an end (seriously, why does SE++ even have a bad reputation anymore? It's the softest forum of the lot these days, the noobs there couldn't stage a raid on a panty drawer. If they upset someone they'd probably send a tear-soaked letter of apology to the person's mother).
The reason that people don't inter-mingle doesn't have anything to do with the structure of the forums and everything to do with people just being narrow minded and rubbish. Or they don't have a browser that can do tabs.
I've been mingling amongst most of the forums just fine for years. Less so in SE++ since it went all 'prissy little pansy lets all lick each others arseholes rather than have a laugh' but all good things must come to an end (seriously, why does SE++ even have a bad reputation anymore? It's the softest forum of the lot these days, the noobs there couldn't stage a raid on a panty drawer. If they upset someone they'd probably send a tear-soaked letter of apology to the person's mother).
The reason that people don't inter-mingle doesn't have anything to do with the structure of the forums and everything to do with people just being narrow minded and rubbish. Or they don't have a browser that can do tabs.
I've been posting on PA for quite a while, and the longer I've spent here the more I've noticed that the individual boards (especially the larger ones - SE++, G&T and D&D), don't mingle with one another.
While I'm not the person to be making any changes to how the forums are structured, I'd like to know if anyone else has had similar experiences, and whether or not they think the forum segmentation is a good/bad thing.
I'd love to see some intra-forum activities (kinda like Trivia with Ramius from a while ago), which will get people from the various boards mingling and talking with each other. Perhaps some kind of tri-forum tournament. But maybe something more drastic, like some kind of horrific merger (D&G&T&DSE++) is in the cards. It's up to you.
As I think any of the mods can attest to, forum segmentation and sub-segmentation is something Tube and I have always given serious consideration to, and made efforts to inoculate against. Christmas forum, Awesome Posts, impromptu games, April Fools, Draw a Horse, "Bitchfest" forums, and whatever else I'm forgetting are all done with full knowledge that they provide openings for improved intra-forum relations without explicitly demanding improved intra-forum relations.
I'm open to any additional ideas along these lines, and I don't disagree that we could probably fit them into the calendar with a little more frequency, but overall I think we've struck a pretty good balance.
I like the unexpected nature of them though, that they just kinda happen unannounced. That's coming from someone who often misses stuff because it happened overnight while I was asleep. Still good coming in the next day and picking through the fallout.
I've been posting on PA for quite a while, and the longer I've spent here the more I've noticed that the individual boards (especially the larger ones - SE++, G&T and D&D), don't mingle with one another.
While I'm not the person to be making any changes to how the forums are structured, I'd like to know if anyone else has had similar experiences, and whether or not they think the forum segmentation is a good/bad thing.
I'd love to see some intra-forum activities (kinda like Trivia with Ramius from a while ago), which will get people from the various boards mingling and talking with each other. Perhaps some kind of tri-forum tournament. But maybe something more drastic, like some kind of horrific merger (D&G&T&DSE++) is in the cards. It's up to you.
As I think any of the mods can attest to, forum segmentation and sub-segmentation is something Tube and I have always given serious consideration to, and made efforts to inoculate against. Christmas forum, Awesome Posts, impromptu games, April Fools, Draw a Horse, "Bitchfest" forums, and whatever else I'm forgetting are all done with full knowledge that they provide openings for improved intra-forum relations without explicitly demanding improved intra-forum relations.
I'm open to any additional ideas along these lines, and I don't disagree that we could probably fit them into the calendar with a little more frequency, but overall I think we've struck a pretty good balance.
I think an event forum would be good. Think SE++'s forum battles, but forum-wide and year-round. Some ladder stuff (like the forum battle) plus open-entry (photoshop contests, collaborative story writing, etc.) stuff.
Kind of like the Olympics.
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RamiusJoined: July 19, 2000Administrator, ClubPAadmin
I've been posting on PA for quite a while, and the longer I've spent here the more I've noticed that the individual boards (especially the larger ones - SE++, G&T and D&D), don't mingle with one another.
While I'm not the person to be making any changes to how the forums are structured, I'd like to know if anyone else has had similar experiences, and whether or not they think the forum segmentation is a good/bad thing.
I'd love to see some intra-forum activities (kinda like Trivia with Ramius from a while ago), which will get people from the various boards mingling and talking with each other. Perhaps some kind of tri-forum tournament. But maybe something more drastic, like some kind of horrific merger (D&G&T&DSE++) is in the cards. It's up to you.
As I think any of the mods can attest to, forum segmentation and sub-segmentation is something Tube and I have always given serious consideration to, and made efforts to inoculate against. Christmas forum, Awesome Posts, impromptu games, April Fools, Draw a Horse, "Bitchfest" forums, and whatever else I'm forgetting are all done with full knowledge that they provide openings for improved intra-forum relations without explicitly demanding improved intra-forum relations.
I'm open to any additional ideas along these lines, and I don't disagree that we could probably fit them into the calendar with a little more frequency, but overall I think we've struck a pretty good balance.
I think an event forum would be good. Think SE++'s forum battles, but forum-wide and year-round. Some ladder stuff (like the forum battle) plus open-entry (photoshop contests, collaborative story writing, etc.) stuff.
Kind of like the Olympics.
Experience shows that ANY forum which is given more than a 2-3 week lifetime becomes a subforum in its own right with all of the segmentation side-effects that come along with that. Making a new "community" subforum doesn't unite the sub-communities in that one forum, it creates yet another new sub-community.
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BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
I've been posting on PA for quite a while, and the longer I've spent here the more I've noticed that the individual boards (especially the larger ones - SE++, G&T and D&D), don't mingle with one another.
While I'm not the person to be making any changes to how the forums are structured, I'd like to know if anyone else has had similar experiences, and whether or not they think the forum segmentation is a good/bad thing.
I'd love to see some intra-forum activities (kinda like Trivia with Ramius from a while ago), which will get people from the various boards mingling and talking with each other. Perhaps some kind of tri-forum tournament. But maybe something more drastic, like some kind of horrific merger (D&G&T&DSE++) is in the cards. It's up to you.
As I think any of the mods can attest to, forum segmentation and sub-segmentation is something Tube and I have always given serious consideration to, and made efforts to inoculate against. Christmas forum, Awesome Posts, impromptu games, April Fools, Draw a Horse, "Bitchfest" forums, and whatever else I'm forgetting are all done with full knowledge that they provide openings for improved intra-forum relations without explicitly demanding improved intra-forum relations.
I'm open to any additional ideas along these lines, and I don't disagree that we could probably fit them into the calendar with a little more frequency, but overall I think we've struck a pretty good balance.
My concern is that the on-topic forums don't really use SE++ to chat in, and SE++ users will often avoid going into G&T and D&D, even if they want on-topic discussion (we have our own threads for major games, politics, religion and the like). There are forumers who are the exceptions to this, but a lot of them simply never leave their favorite boards.
I don't really have a suggestion on how to fix this - on the one hand I love SE++ for what it is, but there's definitely a style required to post there that takes a while to learn, and from afar I can understand why people could think it's an unpleasant or unwelcoming place to chat in.
I've been posting on PA for quite a while, and the longer I've spent here the more I've noticed that the individual boards (especially the larger ones - SE++, G&T and D&D), don't mingle with one another.
While I'm not the person to be making any changes to how the forums are structured, I'd like to know if anyone else has had similar experiences, and whether or not they think the forum segmentation is a good/bad thing.
I'd love to see some intra-forum activities (kinda like Trivia with Ramius from a while ago), which will get people from the various boards mingling and talking with each other. Perhaps some kind of tri-forum tournament. But maybe something more drastic, like some kind of horrific merger (D&G&T&DSE++) is in the cards. It's up to you.
As I think any of the mods can attest to, forum segmentation and sub-segmentation is something Tube and I have always given serious consideration to, and made efforts to inoculate against. Christmas forum, Awesome Posts, impromptu games, April Fools, Draw a Horse, "Bitchfest" forums, and whatever else I'm forgetting are all done with full knowledge that they provide openings for improved intra-forum relations without explicitly demanding improved intra-forum relations.
I'm open to any additional ideas along these lines, and I don't disagree that we could probably fit them into the calendar with a little more frequency, but overall I think we've struck a pretty good balance.
My concern is that the on-topic forums don't really use SE++ to chat in, and SE++ users will often avoid going into G&T and D&D, even if they want on-topic discussion (we have our own threads for major games, politics, religion and the like). There are forumers who are the exceptions to this, but a lot of them simply never leave their favorite boards.
I don't really have a suggestion on how to fix this - on the one hand I love SE++ for what it is, but there's definitely a style required to post there that takes a while to learn, and from afar I can understand why people could think it's an unpleasant or unwelcoming place to chat in.
I was about to comment on that as well. It gives the impression, fair or not, that the people who post in SE++ don't want to be bothered to interact with anyone else but yet are suprised when no one wants to interact with them either.
Something probably needs to be done about the fact that SE++ can serve as a complete community on its own, while the rest of the forum sections (with the possible exception of D&D, but things that are covered elsewhere still don't go in there) are expected to keep a narrow focus. If you really want to eliminate forum isolation, the best solution in the long run would probably be to strictly define SE++ as a place for 'off-topic' discussion, though I doubt that most people in SE++ would want that.
SE++ threads always start out on-topic, but unlike the rest of the parts of the forum, they are allowed to change the topic of the thread as it goes on. There have been... what, three MGS threads now? It's not unheard of to keep a thread on-topic for its lifespan, but SE++ is basically a forum Wikipedia, where you segue from one thing into another seamlessly and just see where it goes.
I've been posting on PA for quite a while, and the longer I've spent here the more I've noticed that the individual boards (especially the larger ones - SE++, G&T and D&D), don't mingle with one another.
While I'm not the person to be making any changes to how the forums are structured, I'd like to know if anyone else has had similar experiences, and whether or not they think the forum segmentation is a good/bad thing.
I'd love to see some intra-forum activities (kinda like Trivia with Ramius from a while ago), which will get people from the various boards mingling and talking with each other. Perhaps some kind of tri-forum tournament. But maybe something more drastic, like some kind of horrific merger (D&G&T&DSE++) is in the cards. It's up to you.
As I think any of the mods can attest to, forum segmentation and sub-segmentation is something Tube and I have always given serious consideration to, and made efforts to inoculate against. Christmas forum, Awesome Posts, impromptu games, April Fools, Draw a Horse, "Bitchfest" forums, and whatever else I'm forgetting are all done with full knowledge that they provide openings for improved intra-forum relations without explicitly demanding improved intra-forum relations.
I'm open to any additional ideas along these lines, and I don't disagree that we could probably fit them into the calendar with a little more frequency, but overall I think we've struck a pretty good balance.
My concern is that the on-topic forums don't really use SE++ to chat in, and SE++ users will often avoid going into G&T and D&D, even if they want on-topic discussion (we have our own threads for major games, politics, religion and the like). There are forumers who are the exceptions to this, but a lot of them simply never leave their favorite boards.
I don't really have a suggestion on how to fix this - on the one hand I love SE++ for what it is, but there's definitely a style required to post there that takes a while to learn, and from afar I can understand why people could think it's an unpleasant or unwelcoming place to chat in.
I was about to comment on that as well. It gives the impression, fair or not, that the people who post in SE++ don't want to be bothered to interact with anyone else but yet are suprised when no one wants to interact with them either.
Something probably needs to be done about the fact that SE++ can serve as a complete community on its own, while the rest of the forum sections (with the possible exception of D&D, but things that are covered elsewhere still don't go in there) are expected to keep a narrow focus. If you really want to eliminate forum isolation, the best solution in the long run would probably be to strictly define SE++ as a place for 'off-topic' discussion, though I doubt that most people in SE++ would want that.
SE++ is very clearly defined as a chat forum, and every SE++ regular knows this.
SE++ threads always start out on-topic, but unlike the rest of the parts of the forum, they are allowed to change the topic of the thread as it goes on. There have been... what, three MGS threads now? It's not unheard of to keep a thread on-topic for its lifespan, but SE++ is basically a forum Wikipedia, where you segue from one thing into another seamlessly and just see where it goes.
Like I said, most of you wouldn't like that. It wouldn't be remotely fair to inflict that on the forum anyway.
It seems to me that SE++ really has a drastically different purpose and scope than the on-topic forums, to the point where the biggest thing that they have in common is a shared database. Requiring SE++ to conform to the rest of the forums would be a horribly bad idea, and expecting SE++ to fill in as a general chat forum for the on-topics doesn't work well either.
More mingling between the forums would probably be a good idea, but I can't think of a way to implement something like that as it is. People post in a forum because they like the culture there, and the on-topic forums and SE++ feel different enough that the desire to mingle is reduced.
I started out posting in G&T and after the chat thread was shut down, I went to SE++. The transition took a little bit of time, but now I post in SE++ more than anywhere else on the board.
If people "can't handle SE++" then they have no sense of humor and are extremely thin-skinned. Otherwise I think just about anyone can enjoy it.
SE++ threads always start out on-topic, but unlike the rest of the parts of the forum, they are allowed to change the topic of the thread as it goes on. There have been... what, three MGS threads now? It's not unheard of to keep a thread on-topic for its lifespan, but SE++ is basically a forum Wikipedia, where you segue from one thing into another seamlessly and just see where it goes.
Like I said, most of you wouldn't like that. It wouldn't be remotely fair to inflict that on the forum anyway.
It seems to me that SE++ really has a drastically different purpose and scope than the on-topic forums, to the point where the biggest thing that they have in common is a shared database. Requiring SE++ to conform to the rest of the forums would be a horribly bad idea, and expecting SE++ to fill in as a general chat forum for the on-topics doesn't work well either.
More mingling between the forums would probably be a good idea, but I can't think of a way to implement something like that as it is. People post in a forum because they like the culture there, and the on-topic forums and SE++ feel different enough that the desire to mingle is reduced.
If SE++ doesn't fit your description of a chat forum, what is a chat forum to you?
se++ is like h&a, but honest and not bogged down by stupid shit
if you're a stupid faggot, people will tell you that you're a stupid faggot and not coddle your baby bullshit
g&t can be cool, just not my thing
d&d, yeah ok, not as bad as it used to be, actually some decent folk over there as i think many of the isolationists have been run out. really, they just tell you that you're a stupid faggot when you're stupid faggot, but they use a thesaurus and a dictionary
intra-forum games are fun
whining forums are fun
bring back social devastation
Starfuck on
jackfaces
"If you're going to play tiddly winks, play it with man hole covers."
- John McCallum
I've been posting on PA for quite a while, and the longer I've spent here the more I've noticed that the individual boards (especially the larger ones - SE++, G&T and D&D), don't mingle with one another.
While I'm not the person to be making any changes to how the forums are structured, I'd like to know if anyone else has had similar experiences, and whether or not they think the forum segmentation is a good/bad thing.
I'd love to see some intra-forum activities (kinda like Trivia with Ramius from a while ago), which will get people from the various boards mingling and talking with each other. Perhaps some kind of tri-forum tournament. But maybe something more drastic, like some kind of horrific merger (D&G&T&DSE++) is in the cards. It's up to you.
As I think any of the mods can attest to, forum segmentation and sub-segmentation is something Tube and I have always given serious consideration to, and made efforts to inoculate against. Christmas forum, Awesome Posts, impromptu games, April Fools, Draw a Horse, "Bitchfest" forums, and whatever else I'm forgetting are all done with full knowledge that they provide openings for improved intra-forum relations without explicitly demanding improved intra-forum relations.
I'm open to any additional ideas along these lines, and I don't disagree that we could probably fit them into the calendar with a little more frequency, but overall I think we've struck a pretty good balance.
My concern is that the on-topic forums don't really use SE++ to chat in, and SE++ users will often avoid going into G&T and D&D, even if they want on-topic discussion (we have our own threads for major games, politics, religion and the like). There are forumers who are the exceptions to this, but a lot of them simply never leave their favorite boards.
I don't really have a suggestion on how to fix this - on the one hand I love SE++ for what it is, but there's definitely a style required to post there that takes a while to learn, and from afar I can understand why people could think it's an unpleasant or unwelcoming place to chat in.
Major threads on games/politics/etc within SE++ should not be mistakenly imagined as "a D&D thread" or "a G&T thread" which has been misplaced. I don't know that I've ever ran into a thread in SE++ where the OP complained that her thread was not taken seriously enough, not moderated tightly enough, or not kept on topic. I think we've set the expectations properly for what a "serious topic" thread in SE++ will be like, and I think we're happy with the outcome. It is something completely different from a topic in the "on topic" section of the boards, and that is by intent. So insinuating that something needs to be "fixed" with regards to SE++ users not crossing-over to post in G&T and D&D on the grounds of thread duplication are unfounded.
Now, there are community reasons why people don't cross forums. People who sign up at the Penny-Arcade forums, and subsequently stick around, do so because they appreciate the community of users that they have found here. But despite the things we all have in common, the Penny-Arcade Forums community is not a mono-culture. There are many sub-cultures that have cropped up within forums, and sometimes within single threads (chat threads are the prime example of this, but you see it as well in f.e. the youTube thread, or the Pokemon thread, or the WoW thread). Online social butterflies will have little trouble fluttering from one sub-community to the other, and getting to know a few people in each. But others will be drawn to a particular sub-community and will see no reason to broaden their horizons.
Our whole forum benefits when people do "cross-pollinate". Why? Because our "product" is the creation and maintenance of "engaging topics of discussion", and the more insular the group of discussion participants are, the less interesting or engaging it will tend to be. So for that reason I think it is appropriate for us admins to promote camaraderie and to advertise and evangelize what's good about the different sub-forums. But it is a balancing act. If communities are pushed too hard into positions where they are uncomfortable, they will push back. Also, if they are allowed to grow and transform un-checked, then they will become wild and unrepresentative of our overall vision for the forum. So we push back as well, in the way that a gardener tends to their garden - weeding and pruning and fertilizing and transplanting and coaxing things into something that we are happy with and proud of.
tl;dr - The current status quo is actually pretty OK regarding sub-forums, rivalries, and the like. We have opportunities for improvement in promoting, advertising and evangelizing, but we don't really see any useful gains to be had by any sort of shake-up of the current forums or their rules.
Hmmm.... so you're saying that my crossing over into Critical Failures was actually a planned result of your Awesome Posts board and the mod's Phalla? In essence, you played me like a fiddle.
I started out posting in G&T and after the chat thread was shut down, I went to SE++. The transition took a little bit of time, but now I post in SE++ more than anywhere else on the board.
If people "can't handle SE++" then they have no sense of humor and are extremely thin-skinned. Otherwise I think just about anyone can enjoy it.
I started out posting in G&T and after the chat thread was shut down, I went to SE++. The transition took a little bit of time, but now I post in SE++ more than anywhere else on the board.
If people "can't handle SE++" then they have no sense of humor and are extremely thin-skinned. Otherwise I think just about anyone can enjoy it.
No.
Okay, you have to have some form of attention deficit disorder as well.
My forays outside of Graphic Violence and into SE++ are usually the result of heavy drinking, often ending in my rightful ridicule, but I've never really felt like oh shit oh shit I must stay in my GV lair. Yeah, there are "cliques," but to be honest, I think that almost makes the forum more fun to lurk and post in, since there's chemistry, if you will. Personally, while I love the events like draw-a-horse, I think things are pretty fine as-is, and I think any issues that stem from the segmented communities are pretty much imagined. In any case, I don't really think there's a way to remedy the "problem" other than people getting over themselves and posting elsewhere if they're interested. I know Faricazy used to be a G&T staple, and now I see him all over the place in SE++. Just get out and try, dudes. :P
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
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Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
It's in your mother.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
SoogaGames Blog
The reason that people don't inter-mingle doesn't have anything to do with the structure of the forums and everything to do with people just being narrow minded and rubbish. Or they don't have a browser that can do tabs.
Hate on your least favourite subforum in the interests of improved diplomacy.
You realise that right
Wow... wow.
what
As I think any of the mods can attest to, forum segmentation and sub-segmentation is something Tube and I have always given serious consideration to, and made efforts to inoculate against. Christmas forum, Awesome Posts, impromptu games, April Fools, Draw a Horse, "Bitchfest" forums, and whatever else I'm forgetting are all done with full knowledge that they provide openings for improved intra-forum relations without explicitly demanding improved intra-forum relations.
I'm open to any additional ideas along these lines, and I don't disagree that we could probably fit them into the calendar with a little more frequency, but overall I think we've struck a pretty good balance.
I think an event forum would be good. Think SE++'s forum battles, but forum-wide and year-round. Some ladder stuff (like the forum battle) plus open-entry (photoshop contests, collaborative story writing, etc.) stuff.
Kind of like the Olympics.
Experience shows that ANY forum which is given more than a 2-3 week lifetime becomes a subforum in its own right with all of the segmentation side-effects that come along with that. Making a new "community" subforum doesn't unite the sub-communities in that one forum, it creates yet another new sub-community.
My concern is that the on-topic forums don't really use SE++ to chat in, and SE++ users will often avoid going into G&T and D&D, even if they want on-topic discussion (we have our own threads for major games, politics, religion and the like). There are forumers who are the exceptions to this, but a lot of them simply never leave their favorite boards.
I don't really have a suggestion on how to fix this - on the one hand I love SE++ for what it is, but there's definitely a style required to post there that takes a while to learn, and from afar I can understand why people could think it's an unpleasant or unwelcoming place to chat in.
I was about to comment on that as well. It gives the impression, fair or not, that the people who post in SE++ don't want to be bothered to interact with anyone else but yet are suprised when no one wants to interact with them either.
Something probably needs to be done about the fact that SE++ can serve as a complete community on its own, while the rest of the forum sections (with the possible exception of D&D, but things that are covered elsewhere still don't go in there) are expected to keep a narrow focus. If you really want to eliminate forum isolation, the best solution in the long run would probably be to strictly define SE++ as a place for 'off-topic' discussion, though I doubt that most people in SE++ would want that.
SE++ threads always start out on-topic, but unlike the rest of the parts of the forum, they are allowed to change the topic of the thread as it goes on. There have been... what, three MGS threads now? It's not unheard of to keep a thread on-topic for its lifespan, but SE++ is basically a forum Wikipedia, where you segue from one thing into another seamlessly and just see where it goes.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
SE++ is very clearly defined as a chat forum, and every SE++ regular knows this.
Like I said, most of you wouldn't like that. It wouldn't be remotely fair to inflict that on the forum anyway.
It seems to me that SE++ really has a drastically different purpose and scope than the on-topic forums, to the point where the biggest thing that they have in common is a shared database. Requiring SE++ to conform to the rest of the forums would be a horribly bad idea, and expecting SE++ to fill in as a general chat forum for the on-topics doesn't work well either.
More mingling between the forums would probably be a good idea, but I can't think of a way to implement something like that as it is. People post in a forum because they like the culture there, and the on-topic forums and SE++ feel different enough that the desire to mingle is reduced.
If people "can't handle SE++" then they have no sense of humor and are extremely thin-skinned. Otherwise I think just about anyone can enjoy it.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
If SE++ doesn't fit your description of a chat forum, what is a chat forum to you?
if you're a stupid faggot, people will tell you that you're a stupid faggot and not coddle your baby bullshit
g&t can be cool, just not my thing
d&d, yeah ok, not as bad as it used to be, actually some decent folk over there as i think many of the isolationists have been run out. really, they just tell you that you're a stupid faggot when you're stupid faggot, but they use a thesaurus and a dictionary
intra-forum games are fun
whining forums are fun
bring back social devastation
"If you're going to play tiddly winks, play it with man hole covers."
- John McCallum
bring back social devastation, but don't tell tube
make it a surprise
"If you're going to play tiddly winks, play it with man hole covers."
- John McCallum
Major threads on games/politics/etc within SE++ should not be mistakenly imagined as "a D&D thread" or "a G&T thread" which has been misplaced. I don't know that I've ever ran into a thread in SE++ where the OP complained that her thread was not taken seriously enough, not moderated tightly enough, or not kept on topic. I think we've set the expectations properly for what a "serious topic" thread in SE++ will be like, and I think we're happy with the outcome. It is something completely different from a topic in the "on topic" section of the boards, and that is by intent. So insinuating that something needs to be "fixed" with regards to SE++ users not crossing-over to post in G&T and D&D on the grounds of thread duplication are unfounded.
Now, there are community reasons why people don't cross forums. People who sign up at the Penny-Arcade forums, and subsequently stick around, do so because they appreciate the community of users that they have found here. But despite the things we all have in common, the Penny-Arcade Forums community is not a mono-culture. There are many sub-cultures that have cropped up within forums, and sometimes within single threads (chat threads are the prime example of this, but you see it as well in f.e. the youTube thread, or the Pokemon thread, or the WoW thread). Online social butterflies will have little trouble fluttering from one sub-community to the other, and getting to know a few people in each. But others will be drawn to a particular sub-community and will see no reason to broaden their horizons.
Our whole forum benefits when people do "cross-pollinate". Why? Because our "product" is the creation and maintenance of "engaging topics of discussion", and the more insular the group of discussion participants are, the less interesting or engaging it will tend to be. So for that reason I think it is appropriate for us admins to promote camaraderie and to advertise and evangelize what's good about the different sub-forums. But it is a balancing act. If communities are pushed too hard into positions where they are uncomfortable, they will push back. Also, if they are allowed to grow and transform un-checked, then they will become wild and unrepresentative of our overall vision for the forum. So we push back as well, in the way that a gardener tends to their garden - weeding and pruning and fertilizing and transplanting and coaxing things into something that we are happy with and proud of.
tl;dr - The current status quo is actually pretty OK regarding sub-forums, rivalries, and the like. We have opportunities for improvement in promoting, advertising and evangelizing, but we don't really see any useful gains to be had by any sort of shake-up of the current forums or their rules.
Well played, mods, well played.
No.
Okay, you have to have some form of attention deficit disorder as well.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
(no we don't)
(or at least I don't)
I have to plan for PAX