Forum Revamp — Legacy Forums — Strolen's Citadel

Forum Revamp

#1

Bring the old forums back positives:

(By old forums I mean those forums that complimented the main site but housed the incomplete thoughts, ideas (full or partial) and others that actively sought collaboration.)

1. I liked the old way of active brainstorming without worrying about the post being "officialized" because it is on the main Citadel.

2. I miss the fact that the forum was always active in good things to read even if you didn't roleplay (although some of those are really fun to read too)

3. Gives new people a place to participate without the 10ft dive straight into a real "submission."

4. There may be some that just use the submissions and don't want to comment or do anything on that part of the site. A simple thread with a loose and inviting atmosphere may get people that first step towards being real contributers.

5. Much easier and less constrictive on the forum because then we get all out discussions instead of the guarded ones (or lack there-of) that we have on the main Citadel.

Negatives:

1. Some content that we might 'expect' to go in the main citadel will find itself in the forum.
-With a gentle nudge we can get them to post.
-We can always do it ourselves as long as we post a sort of disclaimer somewhere saying that we can move stuff from the forum as we will.

Wasn't that the main negative?

-----
Only yes or no. Any in betweens can be figured out once we decide we are going to do it.

Feel free to list positives and negatives as you think of them too.

Re: Forum Revamp

#2

Yes.

For me, this is why:
The way I create a sub is by grabbing a 'hook' or 'quirk' from thin air. From there, I tend to tag that quirk into a physical idea or setting (usually the form of an item) After that, I try to make up a backstory and give some sort of reasoning as to why the quirk functions in the world. Here's an example from the Periccus vine which I posted a month or so ago:

Quirk: Send someone into a sense-killing coma. When they come out, their senses are increased.
Tag: Item -> something ingested -> a plant
Backstory: The Periccus vine is a weed which grows in a certain place.
Some sort of reasoning: The vine is actually toxic. The body shuts down because it is near death.

From there, I fill in the blanks and I have my submission

Now, often I don't get past the Quirk; the first stage of the item. As such, I have a good idea, but lack the will to expand on it, so after a while, the idea fades away. My quirks never seem to fit properly into sagely advice as they're just a string of words with a thought behind them (which I find difficult to explain shortly), and while I could put them in the 'fields of challenge' area to encourage others to expand on it (e.g: Make something that Sends someone into a sense-killing coma. And when they come out, their senses are increased), I feel that that section tends to make people work on things on their own, rather than work off one another's thoughts and ideas.

In the old citadel, I remember my second post after the 'greetings traveller' post, where in one of the sections (I forget what it was called back then!) I meekly made a small thread about a town... something to do with magic as well, I think :p it was so long ago! Anyway, the point is that when I posted that the only thing I expected as a reply was someone saying something like "That's a ridiculous idea!" or "That's been done to death!" But I logged on the next day, and there was a reply, and from none other than Strolen himself (Now, this was a big deal, because it's not often that the creator of such a website gives his advice, thoughts and compliments to a newbie! At least not in my experience.) Over the next week or two, others posted and the idea actually expanded beyond what I had intended. It helped spur my creativity into action, and it was also a major factor into my staying here, rather than giving the site up. I think the new citadel has lost that, to an extent. While having much of the focus on the main citadel is certainly not a bad thing, it's kind of lost some of the 'informal' ideas and help which could be given by a good, old-fashioned brainstorm!

Anyway, to summarise:
Yes.

Edit: I decided to look for it, and found that first brainstorm post :D
http://www.strolen.com/guild/index.php?topic=988.0
Huzzah! Cudos to all who posted in it; yer the reason I stayed in the citadel, back when I was naivety incarnate!

Re: Forum Revamp

#3

Yes.

Re: Forum Revamp

#4

Yes

Re: Forum Revamp

#5

The best I could find from a database archive. Will look at others I have although this might have been the best shot without me digging very deep into old archives. I think this might be it though.

Myths and Rumors of the Lands Myths and Rumors, our lands are full of them. Some are born of fact, some of the unknown, some of fear. They are whispered of in bars and spoken of in stories and so the myths and rumors continue to grow. Share your lands overheard tavern talk and your legends, whether sung or whispered.

Articles, Essays, and Grouped Tips Have an article, essay or tip to help out your fellow roleplayers? Please, share it with us.

Idea Scroll Expandable ideas that thrive under collaboration. Example: Odd character traits, player side-jobs, favorite traps etc.

Setting Forge Have a full setting, a setting in work, or just an idea? Share it here and let us take a look.

Flesh it Out Have a good idea but stuck on the details? Backed into a creative corner and need some help escaping? Half ideas and incomplete thoughts welcome!

---Bring the worlds back to the main part of the site instead of as Child boards too. Waaaay too much cool stuff in there to just let it gather dust.

Re: Forum Revamp

#6

Sagely advice is basically Flesh it Out. I removed a bit of the description and put the sticky post in the admin forum that described the restrictions.

There are 2390 posts int the catacombs. Do we get rid of the catacombs and put them all in Sagely Advice or are there a couple forum s hidden in there that we can make?

Re: Forum Revamp

#7

Too many forums in the setting section!

What about an "Inactive Settings" section, in which you could put Coldforged, Ageratos and them other settings that haven't seen action these last six months? It could be a sub-forum like those we have in OOC and Moderated!

Re: Forum Revamp

#8

NO> NO > NO>

Make it go away.

Please, lets not take this step backwards. Let us take what we have and move it forward. The advantages of the Citadel with its linking and referencing/ searching tools far outweighs the advantages of the forum systems... that we could simply take to the Citadel.

Are we going to undo what caused you to make and embrace Citadel Version 2.0 in the first place?

You know what you said up in the begining was nearly a 180 of what you said early on in the citadel transition because you were all fed up with some of the crap in the forum (except for CP who was against version 2.0).

Okay, we have lost a little in the transition. We stopped doing cooperative pieces. Everything was supposed to "Stand on its own". Well okay, I embraced that a little... I wanted things to stand on their own and for us to build off them (hence my mania for linking things to scrolls, codices, and other submissions).

And there is nothing wrong with Stand on its Own. As long as we can accept things that need help. You can put down a strong foundation, then build it up from there. List it as something that you are looking for help with. As long as the piece has a strong foundation (enough information to be usable on its own) AND WE CAN ADD TO IT with comments and SCROLLS, it does not have to be finished.

Gearing down from the rant gear.

So to remind you all of why the "Good Old Days" were not as good as you remember them being.

We are going to have great material lost in the forums again. Undersearchable. Non referencable. Sure better search might make it more palitable, but it is not going to be easy to use or reference. What good is a good idea if NOBODY knows it is there! (okay I promise to dial that down). Google Searching can help.. but cateogrized material is better.

Oh wait.. will things be abandoned again? We have a forum. It will happen. So we will have a plethora of fractionally finished things which might have the glimmer of being good. What good is a broken idea if it is not finished? It just becames crap to have to wade through to get to some of the good stuff. Oh sure, everyone says they will police the area and edit things. But, that tends to fall by the wayside. Take a look in the Catacombs. That is us in six months to a year.

Again, how many of you went 4-6 pages back looking for stuff to do? (maybe once in a rare while looking for something you half remember... but....)

Do you people remember all those tons of posts that were oddly named, lost in the system, and nobody could find? I mean how many of you ever went back four or five pages in the forum? Did any of you ever wade through that? I did, but I am in the serious minority here. Go to the catacombs. Remember that is what the forum will look like in a few months. (Oh and remember that is an edited catacombs, much of the forum crap (the truly awful) got deleted before the transition.)

So what stops someone from starting a great race (or other post) post and not transfering it up front? It will have everything to be a Citadel submission, but they decide not to take the next step and move it. (This happened a couple of times after Version 2.0 went live and we changed the forum. I know, I move the forum post to the main page.)

There are a ton of great submissions that we transfered from the forums to the main page. (Lets exclude all those that were submissions in categories we did not have at the time). They were just lost in the forums.

Which one of you are going to police the forum and move things that needs to be moved?????

There is a lot of stuff in the catacombs that should be on the Citadel. Why isn't it? Nobody bothered to move anything. Okay, a few of you did. Then I serious burned out on the process. And everything that was left got swept into the catacombs. Notice the things with stars in the names? Those are things I actively wanted to make into threads eventually. Eventually we could transfer the other things that were worthy (The Cry for Quality, rather than just moving things comes to mind). Many of them need scrolls. Some need revisions to the categories. Some are just too rambling to easily categorize and should be in the gaming tavern.

Sure pieces on the Citadel need work. That is why we want Advice Wanted? How many of us actually grant advice or even check those submissions? Admins, this is part of our responsability.

And can I cry for "Stubs"! Make them old idea. Or, make them minisubs with the categories. Set something up! A flag that states them as subs. Why? So we can have somewhat incomplete ideas that can be built upon WITHOUT the stigma of not being a full sub and voted on them as such?

Changes in mechanics can save us.

**********************************

You know... wait.

Most of the problems you have all brought up are actually problems with us.

That is right, us and our opinions.

**********************************

We are the ones who set the bar so high. The bar that many new member or people just cruising through the site don't think they can reach. The bar has lowered some. (Aside: thank you all for accepting all our new 3 score members in addition to our recent two or three 4-5 score members. We really needed them for balancing our submission).

(And will The Higher Power save us from people who don't have a clue and post fearlessly).

New people see us chew these folks and they don't even try. But I think we need to find a way to get new people to submit.

>>>>>This way we would not need a forum for them to post things that will be a submission.

We can have collaborative efforts on the Citadel side. Sure the entry requirements should be a little higher than the "They are elf like, except they are green skinned and haired, and live in mushroomss" type of tries we had so many of. We can work on things together. If we stop to embrace things that have less than perfectly complete and build them up - instead of our traditional fun of slamming which we have gotten so much better about- collaborative or built up ideas would be here again.

This problem is related to the same one we have with various Scrolls and Codices that are built upon. Nobody knows how to score them? We get new members who score them based on the one or two additions that were made in the begining, thus giving them crap scores. We have a couple of oldsters who rate them on their potential (remember Murro's 101 islands? It got some tanked votes early on because it only has a few items. There are others out there. Some of it was Hewdamia. ). We need to find a better community balance somewhere. And we need to stop being so wrapped up in scores.

AND People, we do have attempts at collaboration. Of course does anyone add to it? No. We have tried a couple of times. My most recent http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=793

The system, as it stands, works. It is we who have failed in terms of community projects. We could have collaborative posts or posts that we build up on as a group. We just have to do it.

Can I get that COMMUNITY PROJECT FLAG I wanted all those many months/ year ago? It is not as intuitive to find a project to add on as people thought. That plus a related search...

>>>That community building would eliminate some of the impulse we have for playing with the forums again.

We could have an easier entry level to submissions. In fact we have done pretty well with the new "average" members we have had over the last few months. (And I really like the few above average new members). We have been helpful and cooperative. We just need to find a way to "out reach" to more new people.

Admins have to do it, so the community will follow. How many of you nudge new members into Scrolls (Islands is a good one)? We can ease them into quality submissions this with addative approach. We have a ton of scrolls that work fpr this.

If we supported smaller submissions (like those in Neighborhoods or ) and rated them more evenly - instead of most of our communities "if it is long, it must rate higher/ short must rate lower" approach- we could avoid the problems people had with making the hurdle.

>>>>>If we do this, we won't need the working space in the forums.

Please, lets not take this step backwards. Let us take what we have and move it forward. The advantages of the Citadel with its linking and referencing/ searching tools far outweighs the advantages of the forum systems... that we could simply take to the Citadel.

PS: Perhaps we can discuss what new additions to the mechanics will be helpful.

Re: Forum Revamp

#9

And if you are blowing off my submissions above just because it is me or it is just long....

You are right:
Myths and Rumors of the Lands, (We could use this as a category)
Articles, Essays, and Grouped Tips (the reason we have the articles section)
Idea Scroll (the reason we have scrolls)
Setting Forge (There is good and bad for these... and inactive does not mean incomplete)
Flesh it Out (working space where people will actually visit)

Sagely advice is basically Flesh it Out. I removed a bit of the description and put the sticky post in the admin forum that described the restrictions.

There are 2390 posts int the catacombs. Do we get rid of the catacombs and put them all in Sagely Advice or are there a couple forum s hidden in there that we can make?

We could avoid the folly and ....
a) have admins transfer worthy catacombs posts to the citadel...
b) have a community project flag (so people know it is a collective effort and we should add to it).
c) The ever ignored rumors/ myths/ and such could get a new idea
d) Idea entries could be brought up to their potential.
e) Stubs (related to ideas)
f) Setting Category on the main page.

Ideas/ Stubs could be submissions that can not be voted on, but could be easily linked to. They would have a category (NPC/ ITEM/ LOCATION/ PLOT) and possibly sub categories, a text area and a unique identifier. And a limit on how big they can be.

AND we could just adjust our selves and allow for submissions, on the Citadel proper, that are not "complete unto themselves" and might need additional submissions to make work.

Re: Forum Revamp

#10

Guess it's the adjusting ourselves part that will be the hardest. :(

Re: Forum Revamp

#11

Well that was a long rant, MoonHunter :)

Personally I love everything that v2.0 got us! I do! I absolutely love them!

For me there is no going back, but I want the cooperative pieces too. They were the real gems of v1.0 and v2.0 with it's merciless, cold and brutal voting system killed the co-op effort. Now it just *STAMP IN THE FOREHEAD* and then "NEXT!". v2.0, for all its excellence, IS kind of a conveyor belt in which gems in the rough never get that collective Citadel brush up.

I understand your second thoughts about this, and perhaps the forum way is the wrong way, but we NEED the cooperative spirit of the citadel back. In my honest opinion, the loss of that spirit is unbearable, and it was that spirit that made me arrive in the first place. On their own my subs have a tendency to be bleak, bitter and cold, but with the different styles of other citadel GMs, I can lend them a touch of something else too! That is why my co-op pieces are my best, while the pure AG ones languish around 4.0-4.5.

Yes, we have community projects now too, but the barrier is way too high. No one pays attention to the "advice requested" section, and I cannot understand why. People noticed the old forum threads. People contributed. Perhaps just because they browsed the forums and noticed an interesting title... I dunno, but I know this:

We need the cooperative spirit!

Anyone got any other suggestions as to how we can get it back? MH mentioned some and the present system obviously needs some refinement...

Re: Forum Revamp

#12

A simple flag, one radio button/ pull down menu for "Cooperative Project" (plus a click for them on the main page) and you don't need it in the forum.

Or, simply doing it. I have launched five or so cooperative projects (or reset some of them) in the last year or so and nobody has wanted to play (well more than once).

Yet here we are. We are going to make really great content... and nobody is going to have access to it. We are going to go "Great, that was fun" and move on to the next project. In a few weeks it will be buried, seldom to see the light of day again.

Oh sure, the Google search -IF YOU ARE REALLY FAMILIAR WITH THE SITE - might make it useful and accessible

So who is going to move it? Who is going to shepard it? ... Ummm. Nobody. And I don't mean the account user.
In a year, you will have the same issue you had that led up to the conversion of Strolens 1.0 to 2.0, great things lost in the forum. And you will have a ton of material that people will have to move. And unless you have another psycho case like me, nobody except Strolen will do it. All we are doing is MAKING MORE WORK FOR PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE!!!!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

OH AND THESE FORUMS RECREATIONS ARE JUST A FAD, like the Science Fiction Ghetto - the well used Cosmic Pluralism forum. You all said, "OH THIS IS A MUST HAVE!" well it you did it.... and 3 weeks later is was deader than the catacombs.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And we are to blame about the voting bugaboo. If we all (including gneral membership) actually pay attention to the kind of post, rather than just mindlessly stamping a vote, we would be without this problem. If our egos were not so fragile that we were dependent on votes for validation, we would not have this problem. If we have a more standardize criteria for voting, that worked for scrolls/ cooperative projects, we would not have this problem.

Re: Forum Revamp

#13

I was trying to do the updates slow because I knew this was coming. :)

Fad or not, we lost something when we removed the ability to discuss ideas on the forum and it will be hard to get back, that is for sure. The worlds may not last out there in the main part as they take up a lot of room and we need to ease into that. But we really did lose much of the freedom and simplicity of just throwing stuff up without having to review it and debate and review it again because, agree or not, it is intimidating doing a first post in the main Citadel for newbies. Many have said as much.

As far as losing content in the forum...not worried about it honestly. Let it sit...at least it will be created and might generate a few fun conversations and spur some more, but it will be more loose and easy for many to get into than main site submissions.

That "Great, that was fun" is exactly what we are searching for and is what we are slightly missing, at least in the forum. The forum has died except for the roleplaying and inane natter. I like the forum. I really enjoy just discussing ideas and I even feel conflicted about doing that in the main Citadel. After all, most of those are already complete thoughts that deter my left field ideas.

I would also rather separate the fun thinking from the content of the main citadel. Do you really want some of the forum discussions in the main Citadel?

The SF Ghetto? It is worth a try and considering we yell at anybody that posts an idea in the forum, I am not too surprised that it hasn't done to well...nothing would have with that attitude...the same attitude we want to unaminously change.

Not sure what you mean about the voting things....

Talking in fragmented thoughts as I am bouncing around.

Re: Forum Revamp

#14

Crap, only saw the last comment, missed a whole volley. ;)

Re: Forum Revamp

#15

This will not be a helpful opinion, but I kinda agree with both Moon Hunter and AG. I read one, and agreed, then read the rebuttals, and kinda agreed with the opposite point of view as well. There is merit in both approaches. I am torn.

Re: Forum Revamp

#16

I still haven't gotten to read the magnum opus rant. It has gotta be a good one and Moon ALWAYS gets me going. Argueing and getting worked up over it is a great way to get things done and I savor the moment. At least that is my take and Moon is always a great spirit through it all. This place wouldn't be the way it is without the opinions of you all so whether we go back the way we were, I get reinvigorated to go through the old posts and move more, and we make a major system change on the main Citadel or if we stick with the forums and try to pump a little more freedom in our tyrannical iron fist on resisting any interesting thoughts in the forum. Something AWESOME will come out of this!

Will read the rant in the a.m.....!!!!111oneone11!!11

Re: Forum Revamp

#17

Moon, you are still going to make the Strolencon right? ;)

Re: Forum Revamp

#18

In the poll there are 6 to 1 for bringing back the spirit of the old days. While Moon makes valid points, I sincerely believe there is a message in the ratio of that poll: We lost something invaluable when we converted to v2.0. We must face the obvious fact: v2.0 bereft Strolen's of its most valuable asset, the community spirit.

Nowadays this place encourages an elitist rat race between various egos, rather than the cooperation between GMs of all flavours. v2.0, while professional, lacks that vital tool for cooperation and community development. It is my sincere opinion that we need both the qualities of v2 AND that unique and essential spirit of v1.

I agree when Strolen says there is a high barrier for posting on the main site. In fact I do not think the main site is the place for joint projects and advice.

Re: Forum Revamp

#19

Forum: I am convinced we need a policy shift on it. It may not need to go all the way back to the original format, but it definately needs to be included as an intricate part of the entire Citadel experience. With 2.0 (ya know it is pretty much 2.1 now by the way) we sacrificed the forum completely and the forum died.

2.1: I understand the want to move everything into the main citadel. I do. It saves me from rearguing the same points.

Summary:
The main citadel *should* be for complete submissions as it is now.
The forum *should* be for working on stuff to submit (or not submit) to the main citadel.

Here is a quote from our 2.0 discussion that still rings true to me now:
=============================

This entire next section is actually all quoted from the above label, just very hard to read in all blue so unquoted it for readability purposes.

re: 53
It was for submissions. I was thinking that a thread could still be good (highly rated) but have seriously drifted from the original posters intention. We have had people start a post for one thing, then we have unloaded advice and help that is useful to others. Highly rated, but not what is advertised. It was a semi-random thought....

And remember, more submissions are going to look and act a lot more like forum threads than our existing posts because of the new structure.

If it gets like this in the main site, it needs to be purged. Our tolerance should be VERY low for off topic conversations. We will have to figure out a procedure on dealing with that quickly and with extreme prejudice. Perhaps copy and pasting the 'bad' comments and putting them in the forum and then providing a link to the forum in the comment that spawned it saying "For further discussion see link" or something.

Post-Nazi will earn the title.

re: 54
No this is really something different entirely.

Your "working" solution is great if people PM you to check their profile and the thread. What if you don't know who to PM? Are you going to check a few hundred members who have logged on in the last day or so to see who has created a new "working" section that needs help? Nope, and I and pretty much everyone else is not either.

NOTE:Though the viewable working is a great thing if you want to start something and want help from certain members. Put it in your profile and invite some friends to help you fix it. Very useful. I am going to have so many of these it is going to be painful.

The Help Me (and this title is tenative) click is for people who want the community to "jump on this post". It is an "attention getting" click. It would make the "new post" the top of the "new submissions" pile or pop up at the top of the new page like challanges for high rated members.

We have had way, way too many posts that basically are "help me, this is my problem." Except for the occasional title, which we all know are misleading, we have no way to know, unless you search EVERY NEW POST, which are "asks for help". (And who besides anal old me does that every day?).

A mod might read a thread and click it, so other mods and admins and higher ranking members would be drawn to it.

Think of it as a "Look at this post" alert. Not just for bad posts, but for good ones that need attention of the right members.

My initial idea was not for these posts to be just viewable in the profile (which they still would be) but also providing a link in the right column that would bring up a list of all the submissions with the Help Me flag. So they want help, they mark In work viewable and all those posts with that flag will be shown via a right menu link. No hunting at all, just a click to show them all. They are still in the Profile as well though.

I don't like that. I also don't like the idea of a "Help Me" although I, at first, jumped on the idea but I have changed my mind. The "help me, this is my problem," posts should be in the forum, period. If they want active help on a submission then they need to ask for it in the forum. The main Citadel is for the ideas that are ready for critique or are being prepared for critique. The in-work is so that people can work on these ideas without having to throw them out to the world and allows them to mature in the Citadel format instead of somewhere else. They don't have to put them in a fully viewable forum and we don't have to look at unfinished submissions, they are able to work on them at their liesure.

Back to why I am anti-"help me, this is my problem." If we allow the help me's then any half-ass idea or concept will slowly creep into the main citadel, after all, we are encouraging it. Then, with these getting attention it will begin to be accepted that you can post crap because people will help you, and we will be obligated to because we allow it and that will become our daily headache. In the Citadel we are obligated to do something to them, can't just let them sit and rot because they continue to show up and take up space. In the forum we can help and if nothing happens with them the just float to the bottom and we let them disappear. The author can disappear and/or ignore them and nobody really cares. We tried. In the Citadel, just seems like bad mojo to let crappy or unfinished stuff to just sit there. Of course we can delete it, but the tolerance would be greater in the forum. After a month or two the author comes back to see his post, Citadel = Sorry gone. Forum, oh, there it is.

Maybe that is just my twisted perspective.

-aside-
The in-work, I was initially going to remove all the comments when they submit it, but I think that for creative flow and proper recognition to those that help, they should stay. The author can and should use the update block in the submission form to divide the comments from when it was in-work to when it was published. Then you can see the work put into it before and who was helping with it, if any.

This can be used for helping with ideas and the "Hey, can you read this and let me know before I post it" type thing. But I would much prefer that this was done in the forum where it is all more informal and they can go on tangents and such with them.

I could provide, for the in-work ones, a html->bbcode so they can do that and post it into the forums just how it will appear on the webpage. I am pretty sure this forum allows for tables so it could almost be exact.

Anyway, I am very much against using the Main Citadel as an accepted and encouraged "help me" area. I think all that needs to stay in the forums.

==========================

Before we can discuss mechanics, we do have to get to a point where we agree on what needs to go where. If you follow the quoted link, Moon discusses his thoughts a bit further on in that thread too.

Re: Forum Revamp

#20

Moon's follow-up.

Re 54 and touching on 53
While I agree, I too hate incomplete posts, we should expect more of it. I want you to think about one thing: Main Page Posts in the Forum.

Henceforth I am calling Main Page "The Citadel". There is that and the forum. Period.

To date, we have had an excuse, "The Citadel does not have XXX". Thus we have lifeforms and race write ups and setting write ups and locations that do not have a category and the scrolls of related ideas, in the forum because there was no way to do those on the Citadel without mis coding them.

Lockmor or V2 banishes that excuse. Articles or things like articles are on the Citadel. Literally the second through sixth forum are now on the Citadel proper. When settings opens up Forge and Worlds go away.

If people start posting Citadel Posts in the forums, we will start having "junk" fill up the forums or Good Posts that are not on the Citadel (non-searchable, non findable, lost to time). After moving a few hundred of these threads in the near future, I am not ever going to be in the mood to move many more.

Most of the activity on The Citadel. The forum is now an afterthought, for interesting threads and some junk, a few rants, and forum play. Sure it is good for community and community is important, but anything that looks like a Citadel post should be on the Citadel.

(I know many of the interesting threads should be Citadel Article Posts. Some peopel will even transfter them over. )

What is to stop any number of new members (or even lesser members) from putting up confused little Citadel posts... little question and answer posts. They post them up as setting or plots or something, which they have not yet thought of properly. We have had tons of those in the forums in the past. While I have pruned many of them that were not that interesting of productive, there are still a number of them there. They are somewhat helpful and constructive. (We have had tons of them on the Citadel as well). So they will post them up on the Citadel. We will work on them. And after a while, we will delete the stupid ones and leave the somewhat helpful/ instructive ones.

That is why an alert/ attention to me flag is a good idea. The person who posts the post might not use it, but we moderators admins and senior members sure will. Maybe it should be on the left side pull ups.

This things should not "pop up". You need to go to something in the left special menu to find them.

And please think about all the crap we delete because someone posts things up and does not finish... saying they will come back... and we delete the post two weeks later. This flag can be used to note this... or

Strolen said, "I also don't like the idea of a "Help Me" I don't like it either, but it will make things easier in the end.

Strolen says, "If we allow the help me's then any half-ass idea or concept will slowly creep into the main citadel, after all, we are encouraging it. ...."
Of course, you have seen how we have "encouraged" so many really bad posts in the past. And those posts go away.

We could let them stay... and mold in the bottom of the Citadel. We will probably delete them... like we do now.

Solutions that are good?
*1)We could have a Question/Problem and Answer section in the forum. Maybe most of the crap will stop there. And if the people who would post that crap would read that forum first, there might be less of it (it is wishful thinking I know... but still)
*2) A help me flag for people who need help to finish something. They can put this flag on the things in their sandbox or things not in their sandbox.
*3) Help Me-Admin Flag: This is also known as the Kiss of Death. We will flag posts that need special attention. Usually we will just delete in a few weeks after we try our normal flurry of posts (you know the kind... the kind we have turned into the FAQs)

Re: Forum Revamp

#21

So the debate is, really, do we want crap in the main citadel or in the forum....I want it in the forum.

I would rather move the good stuff from the forum to the citadel then have crap in the citadel and deleting it. I would rather good stuff sit and be neglected in the forum then have crap sitting in the main Citadel.

By deleting it or making it disappear in the main citadel you remove the crap that other people see and guage themselves against. "I can do better than that" and perhaps they post. Right now they view submissions, see the comments and the votes and say "Hell, no, I am not that good." Even if they are that good they are intimidated. At least if we had an area in the forum where there were no votes , nor even a shadow of a vote, and people just sharing ideas and such, it is much easier to jump in vs. the main citadel.

Yes, we can add the tick and have no votes on the main citadel, but we already have that. Add a collaboration tick, we sort of have that with the in work and help stuff. It is still on the main citadel, it is still amongst all those real submissions, and there is a slight learning curve to posting to the main citadel. It might not be very obvious to the 5 minute surfer that there are other options available than full fledged "vote on me" submissions. Even if I do a better job with the Explained, it is still something they have to read and understand, read a lot of posts, understand what is going on, how people do stuff, and then maybe the finally commit to submitting something. The main Citadel is not just something you can surf to and jump right into. What I see is that many spend a lot of timing looking before they jump.

The forum is universal, EVERYBODY knows how to use a forum and they are comfortable with it. The forum is perfect for snagging these surfers that already have their favorite sites that they spend all their time on - probably with a forum already. We only have a little bit, in most cases seconds, to snag a new user. Right now they stumble upon Strolen's, they see a dead forum and some awesome content in the main citadel. They read some submissions, some comments, see the votes, decide quickly if it is for them or not, bookmark it and may visit it occassionally for content. If we had an active forum in the spirit of the way it used to be + the awesome content that we now have available we may get those that join at least the welcome thread and maybe post to one of the forums. Why would they do this and do nothing on the main forum? Because it is simple to join a forum. They know what it is, how it works and when they see some active posts that spur some thoughts then it is very easy to get over the "should I stay or should I go" debate. If we get lucky and they post to a good thread then they will come back to more comments, some on their idea, and they start a discussion. And so is the hook and we have another SE. That is another reason I want the forum back on top of the others previously mentioned.

Re: Forum Revamp

#22

Yet another in our fourm vs. 20 debates.

Highlight:

The Citadel is to work WITH ideas, not a place to work ON them or to create them.

-If you have a beginning of an idea and don't know what to do with it, that goes in the forum.
-If you have a solid idea but want help fleshing it out to be useful, that goes in the forum.
-If you have a full idea and it is pretty much set you just need help/suggestions on a few parts of it, now THAT can go in the Citadel in the help me. The "Help Me" should be for posts on the verge of being submitted and the author just wants that last bit of advice before he goes public.

The forum is still the _work space_ for creation. The Citadel is a _holding place_ for polished or almost polished things. The format is just not condusive to a collaborative idea workshop, the forum is. That is what I want the forum to be used for. Once the idea takes shape inthe forum, clean it up and post it as a submission and link back to the forum and the discussion that got you there if you must. But don't use the Citadel as the place to build you ideas.

I don't want ANY unfinished submissions seeing the light of day in the Main Citadel.

You should be going to the Citadel for ideas, not going there to help or get help on ideas.

We can define this better on the Citadel and in the forums when we come to an agreement.

My intention of that was:

If you are building/working on something ALONE that you intend to submit. Citadel or forum

If you are putting together something that is complete, you just aren't sure about one or two things and you would like somebody to read it before it goes public. Citadel or forum.

If you are building/working on something that you would like other people's help with. Forum

If you have an idea for a list of stuff and you want other people to help you add to the list. Forum

If you have an idea for a list of stuff and you already have quite a few things to put into it to give it a solid start and to help motivate others to contribute Citadel Scroll or forum.

I think we need more of these scenerios for the Citadel Explained Area.

Re: Forum Revamp

#23

If you are just joining in, check out the big post a few entries up.

It is not an easy subject. I am simply wanting to error on the side of the least amount of work, currently and in the future.

A few people were using the sage advice for exactly what we were talking about. You put up some something up, see the responses, then go on and post. We could be using the existing tools, but are not.

Can we get a "community project" flag OR simply an agreement amongst the admins and regulars to work on the community projects with more verve than they do with a quest?

(Oh can we have a "quest" for Firefly / science fiction submissions? Same mechanism with the lure of extra eps (even for a scroll submission) without the contest winner).

So here we are. Even without the "fluid tools" of the forum, if we don't play together... all of this mess will not mean anything.

Soooo......

Stuff it all back in the catacombs and some of you can move the really good stuff, properly edited, to the front page. The things you have all activated/ responded to were all on my list of things to eventually move/ make submission from.

Re: Forum Revamp

#24

http://www.strolen.com/guild/index.php?topic=2732.msg37652#msg37652 (another discussion of the same issue)

I guess we never really resolved it. :)

Right now I am going to concentrate on moving the meat you marked and other stuff to the main citadel. Going to flood it a little bit over the next couple days but once it is done it will settle again.

Once the clean up is done then we will see what is left and figure out what to do with it. I will shove it back in there.....some of it.....for now just to get the changeover easier to deal with.

Re: Forum Revamp

#25

I remember this topic. The forum was soon "contracted" after this point. It seemed the topic ended because the various extra forums that were causing the problems were removed.

To paraphrase my old submission (which is a goodie)

The NOW existing "Idea Scroll" and "Articles, Essays, and Grouped Tips" and "Cosmic Plurism" just confuse the new members. They need to focus on posting ideas on the Citadel, not the forums. They need to play in the forums.

The forums are for community and assistance. The new forum categories are for questions to be answered (Can I write a submission in the first person? How did they make X in earlier times? Why do elves have pointed ears?). If we leave these categories up, they will look at them and be drawn away from the Citadel, where we want them to focus. They will wonder "why they are not posting there?" This will block new posts, as they mess with the forum instead of going with the "Create a submission and keep it in the working box (viewable normally)" and have people make comments on it.

Now we need to find a way for us to help new members "make the jump". We need to help them find scroll submissions. We need to have community projects so they can join in (like we did in the way back... that is how I joined up). and.... well you all get the idea.

Maybe a place for new people to put their first submissions up so we can help them deal with it? Of course, then there is the transition and moving of it.

Re: Forum Revamp

#26

We need on extra forum.

Sagely Advice is fine for what it is suppose to do. Asking for advice.

We need another one for simple creativity and discussion.

I will settle for one extra forum of freedom with a good name.

Maybe Flesh it out would work here as a compliment. Take the second half of the Sagely Advice description "Half ideas and incomplete thoughts welcome!" and use that as a partial description.

Sagely Advice: Have a good idea but stuck on the details? Backed into a creative corner and need some help escaping? Post what you have and let us give you a hand.

Flesh it Out: Have a random thought eating you? Something you just can't decide what to do with? Just want to discuss an idea on your mind? Half ideas and incomplete thoughts are welcome!

Help thread and a creativity thread. Anything with a question can go in advice, anything that is randomly creative can go in Flesh it Out.

Re: Forum Revamp

#27

We killed Flesh It Out last time for a couple of reasons.

One, it is a place for someone to finish a sub in their head... then never do anything with it on the site.

Two, it is a place for someone to finish a sub in text, but never completely finish it.

Three it is a place for someone to completely finish a sub in text, but never transfer it to the citadel.

Four, very few people every actually transfer things from the forum to The Citadel, even when the correct category was in place.

And fifth, for me, Flesh It Out was always an annoying name for me. Everything else had a poetic name... this sounded like a comment from a necromantic lab.

Sage advice should be for people who want some advice OR direction on where to go with a sub. Challange space or PM invites could get people to work on things in their workspace OR on community projects.

Re: Forum Revamp

#28

Flesh it out was, for me, the best forum category on the site. Flesh it out is sorely missed.

I volunteer to transfer stuff that has been finished and not developed further the last 3 months.

Re: Forum Revamp

#29

That is fairly hollow since NOTHING HAS. There hasn't been a place to fully work out things, just a place to ask questions, advice, and directions for for much longer than that.

However, if you dig into the Catacombs and the stuff pulled from the Catacombs, and mine that for the Gold that is left, that would be appreciated. There are 23 or so things that could easily be converted to a real sub. You just need to edit them some and break two or three of them into a bunch of new subs - making sure to exactly assign who did what. There are more that can come over, but that would be a start.

I welcome you to my insanity.

More on topic....

The Flesh It Outs process could be performed on the main page, if you want to, with any number of submissions. Add to things rather than just giving flat comments. Very few people add to the sub, they just comment and go. We need to get back into the habit of adding to an existing sub.

If you want to work something out, the hurdle is just a bit higher, you just need something a bit more done than the vauge few lines in a post. Then it is "complete enough" to fly. Just add a request IN THE TEXT for people to give their dieas.

Re: Forum Revamp

#30

I created all the forums to have some kind of organization and visibility to the Catacombs where they were languishing. Once they are in a somewhat organized manner it makes it that much easier to do the transfer, and in the meantime we have a few more pages of stuff that is much easier to look through for people browsing.

Flesh it out: all those reasons you mentioned as negative are positive reasons to me Moon. ;) I will concede to a name change though.

Sage advice is for questions and help, Flesh it Out is for random creative discussion that may never go anywhere.

Any ideas that get entirely moved needs to be put in the "Moved to 2.0" (or whatever it is fully called) forum so we don't mess with it. Anything that doesn't get moved can just sit there for now. I found with the demons that some things got partially moved so be sure to do a quick search before you start moving. I still missed one due to a misspelling but I am sure they will be pointed out as they come up...if they come up. Not too worried about it. Rather a few duplicates that missing stuff. But I do very much want the threads taken out of the viewable forums once transferred as we did before.

Oh, and still don't want Fleshing it out being performed on the main page.

Re: Forum Revamp

#31

Flesh it out name alternatives:
- Joint Workshop
- Citadel Workshop
- Idea Bouncing
- The Golem Lab
- Golem's Idea Workshop
- GM 2 GM
- GM Studio
- Strolen's Architecture & Design
- Joint Architecture & Design

Re: Forum Revamp

#32

I always thought 'flesh it out' was the perfect name for it. It describes what should be put in it perfectly: "Got the bare-bones of an idea? Post it in here and let your co-strolenites help you give it muscle, organs, flesh and skin!"

That name has the perfect ring for it

Ok, how about "The necromancer's Crockpot" - that way you can still have that feel of fleshing it out! :D And you all know how much I likes Necromancy!

Re: Forum Revamp

#33

Oh, I like that description SE. Either way we will use flesh it out in the description no matter what the title just so we can use that.