Forum Updates and Realignment

[CSJ]

Hmm. You know, I did consider making this the new Srs Bsns thread, but I don't want a one-way ticket to infractionville. JKS, I actually don't care.

I've barely passed 100 posts and I managed to call out almost all of the avatars; my ego is on a high right now. Wheatthins' explanation is much better than SleepingOrange and he gets my thanks for that. while I enjoy a good debate forum, they do need to be either patrolled and managed very well or not at all. I never wanted to overturn any rulings and I'm a little annoyed everyone who comments assumes that's what I wanted; just please, try and read what you post people.

I am going to ship so many users. Ship them off to the gulag

Forever Morail. :P

[meticulousDraftsman]

Nep's greatcoat certainly takes an ironic bent in that light.
I can't really offer commentary on sb having never gone there because I go online to avoid that sort of thing, but hey.
On the topic of forum upgrades, is it possible to have themes for individual subforums here in vbulletin? Trawling through an old thread to avoid making an ass of myself it occurred to me that forcing a common theme on just the fanventures area might help standardization. (also user-settable screen wastage please)

[NotASenator]

Yes, it is possible on vbulletin.

[kyriaki]

Serious Business's fate was such because many who frequented it did not participate in debate properly. Repeatedly (and I could cite specific instances if I'm called on to do so), threads disintegrated to personal attacks instead of refutations of stances (attack the opinion, not the person!) or posters would debate in bad faith, acting only as if to save face and not willing to compromise ("I Will PM You With How You Are Misunderstanding Me Out Of Thread, Now Let's Move On"). Posters like these made the environment incredibly frustrating for people versed in proper debate, in such a way that it chased them off. This left the subforum in a state where agitators were significant enough of a proportion of the users that threads with polarizing views had no hope of any compromise coming together for fear of someone giving up ground; and moderate, undecided debaters found little reason to try to enter a discussion for the unwelcoming environment there.

I've received multiple PMs from bystanders in regards to threads I've debated in saying I have far too much patience and that they are too scared to enter a thread for fear of saying something that'd get them banned after reacting to an instigator. Serious Business became an environment that wasn't healthy to debate--more of just a hotspot waiting to catch on fire at any moment. And sometimes, it did catch fire. There was so little to gain from it and it was just such a headache to mods and many levelheaded users alike that it was not worth keeping.

wheeeeeeatthins says things i think, only smart.

sir you have my allegiance

[Blueberry]

as for "voluntary moderators", none of us are assigned to Serious Business right now. I voluntarily went in there to wade through the muck and try to promote serious discussion. For my efforts I got repeatedly insulted and called a bad moderator and person.

Honestly when just reading the discussions and trying to formulate responses makes me* want to either break down crying or quit the internet forever, there's probably something wrong with the discussions.

* - my personal feelings have nothing to do with the official actions or stances of the MSPAF modmin team

[EdwardTheGreat]

I know I'm just some long-time lurker who's opinions don't mean that much, but it's midnight and I'm bored so I might as well get this off my chest.

You guys rock. I've watched this forum thrive since I began lurking it in late '08 early '09, and its been the only internet forum ever I really like to visit on a regular basis, and its mostly due to the awesome regulars; a bunch of whom are currently modin' it up. So I guess what I'm trying to say is thanks for being so awesome guys. Keep on keeping on.

Oh and thanks for killing Serious Business.

I'm finally free from its siren song of headache inducing vitriol.

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When I wake up tomorrow morning and find myslef in a more balanced state of un-sleepiness, I will probably look upon this post with great shame. I suppose it is worth it though, for you guys to have some overwhemlingly positive feedback for once. After all, it is only the internet.

[orngjce223]

Every conversation will involve people with different opinions. Trying to paint us as quashing discussion and discourse is nonsense and intellectually dishonest. There is simply no reason for us to provide a platform for mostly-teens to discuss West African politics or the virtues of various religions.

There's a place where teens are supposed to do that every day. It's called 'school' or 'education'. It's understandable that some people don't want to discuss it but there are always a few that do and wanting to discuss it doesn't mean you can't be a fan of Homestuck, right?

Oh, hell. Don't get me started on the fact that high school culture prevents it from being anywhere near a place where you can have coherent intellectual discussions. You have to remember a good fraction of this place is still in high school. But that's my soapbox again and I try not to use it too much because it gets very boring to other people very quickly.

No offense dude, but those kinds of posts are one of the reasons SB got the boot! I at least find it pretty rude when someone replies to someone else's post piece by piece to try and shoot down every one of their points.

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I'm not going to respond to every bullet point because this is not a debate.

I did not mean to give of that impression and if I did, it was unintentional; I find that breaking own a post as above makes it easier to respond in a reasonable amount of time and prevents people on the forum reading through potential textwalls of people quoting each other in full, repeatedly. They might not seem obnoxious, but they turn people off all the same and can be a pretty big nuisance. People sometimes try to look knowledgeable by making long posts with repetition of arguments and the like. Of course, SleepingOrange's post didn't give me that impression; it seemed like the post of someone who is frustrated from dealing with preschoolers which is understandable, given the general applicability of GIFT on some fansites.

that's pretty much a personal opinion, which is fine. shooting down every point piece by is pretty much how debate works, and it's not for everyone. a lot of people can't help but take that personally. i happen to enjoy it very much. that said, as something of a connoisseur i can tell you the quality of debate in SB was not very high, and i respect your decision to simply wash your hands of it rather than try to browbeat it into some semblance of civility and order.

I think I get what the problem is here. Some people use a point-by-point rebuttal in a rather hamhanded persuasion strategy: the thought here is that if you just rebut all their points, maybe they'll figure out that your perspective is the right one. This is a rather see-through strategy. However, it is also very easy, and as such it happens a lot on the Internet, especially because text makes it easier to dig up exact quotes from pages and pages ago. Especially when you can write arguments of great length that would probably take you hours to explain IRL. And especially when you don't have to see the bored expressions on the faces of whatever audience you may have gathered.

The point-by-point rebuttal is not inherently a personal attack (unless of course it contains personal attacks). But if it's your hard-won opinion that's being shot down, naturally you will identify with your idea and I'll definitely agree that it hurts. The only advice I have in that direction is that the only way to survive certain parts of the Internet is by growing a thick skin.

Problem is, MSPAF really shouldn't be one of the places that forces people to grow thick skins, because that is liable to drive nascent fans away, which may well lose Andrew money. So teamfriendly is the order of the day, and a good thing too - I doubt I'd care for someplace where insults were commonplace.

[CSJ]

Oh, hell. Don't get me started on the fact that high school culture prevents it from being anywhere near a place where you can have coherent intellectual discussions. You have to remember a good fraction of this place is still in high school. But that's my soapbox again and I try not to use it too much because it gets very boring to other people very quickly.

Well, I did say 'supposed'. It depends very much on the nature of your school and who you hang out with if it's actually the case or not. If you can't have them at school and you need/want to, then on-line is where a lot of them end up.

I understand that SB was an antagonistic section of the forum, which is disappointing, as discussion of controversial topics need not devolve into personalised antagonism or vitriolic shouting contests. But given the separation of site and forum, being annoyed by a small section of the forum doesn't preclude being a fan.

The only advice I have in that direction is that the only way to survive certain parts of the Internet is by growing a thick skin.

The personal realisation that people have different opinions and views and that these may be equally-valid as your own, or that your previous perspective on the world may be flawed is a valuable one which makes a multicultural and multi-ethnic environment like this forum a more enjoyable experience. Any means of discussion which encourages people to come to this realisation is beneficial in my opinion, though judging by the vibe, SB could have been that place but wasn't.

[autoglassmasterclass]

Perhaps Serious Business could be archived as "Community Trash Dump" or something similar, so that in the future people know how not to debate?

edit: oh

[*Sigh*]

Having silently watched these forums grow ever since the ye olde days (though not relatively ancient) of the Just-ended Problem Sleuthian era, I have to say that this forum has risen quite well and become a handsome young'un. This new, third (second? fourth?) puberty is bound to do nothing but good, although I do say I'll miss the idea of a general chat thread, even if I never posted in it. Sometimes you just need to post something, but can't be bothered to make a new thread because it's either too stupid or you know that it won't create a meaningful discussion that will get more than 2 pages of posts before sinking to the second page and beyond.

That said, I'm honestly amazed at all the big words in this thread and will henceforth keep to the seven or eight threads in my Subscriptions. (Thanks a bunch for adding that in after I suggested it, BTW. At least, I think I suggested it. Regardless, it was an awesome add-in and it kept me on this forum long after I would have left after being unable to keep track of any of my threads.)

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Also did I miss something? When did ponies cause issues on this forum?

[HarMegidon]

I feel like MSPA should be merged with webcomics and nerdcrap merged with community, they are getting lonely on their own.

[Drillgorg]

What do you mean? Yes, webcomics and nerdcrap sans games are slower than most other subforums, but is that a bad thing? Anyway, I think merging them into other subforums would just muddle things.

[Dxpenguinman]

What do you mean? Yes, webcomics and nerdcrap sans games are slower than most other subforums, but is that a bad thing? Anyway, I think merging them into other subforums would just muddle things.

I agree, just because these subforums dont neccessarily move at as fast a pace as say, the MSPA Comic Discussion subforum doesn't make them any less important, and merging them with other forums only serves to confuse forumgoers.

[HarMegidon]

What do you mean? Yes, webcomics and nerdcrap sans games are slower than most other subforums, but is that a bad thing? Anyway, I think merging them into other subforums would just muddle things.

I agree, just because these subforums dont neccessarily move at as fast a pace as say, the MSPA Comic Discussion subforum doesn't make them any less important, and merging them with other forums only serves to confuse forumgoers.

I meant the major categories. MSPA and Nerdcrap are the sole inhabitants of their categories.

[tynic]

I don't even understand what this means. In MSPA we have Comic Discussion and Fan Projects. In the Discussion section we have Music/Movies/Books and Games. So, both those categories have two forums.

Moreover, we haven't actually finished the forum realignment by any means, this is an intermediate stage until NAS has more time to attend to things.

[HarMegidon]

I don't even understand what this means. In MSPA we have Comic Discussion and Fan Projects. In the Discussion section we have Music/Movies/Books and Games. So, both those categories have two forums.

Moreover, we haven't actually finished the forum realignment by any means, this is an intermediate stage until NAS has more time to attend to things.

Isn't the realignment thing in the first post putting Fan Projects in comminuty? Also think it had Music/Movies/Books/Games as one forum.

[tynic]

Oh, you're talking about the proposed structure. Ok. Well, that has already been altered to separate out music/movies/books from games, so the discussion section will have at least two subforums in any case. The MSPA hub will remain standing alone, but it is by far the largest and most active subforum and I don't feel the aesthetic detriment served by having it isolated is so severe that it compromises the logic structure of the organisation.

[Blueberry]

when is the pretty, pretty yellow banner at the top going to go away?

[Drillgorg]

What are you talking about, it is green like everything else

[Blueberry]

I'd really like to see Fan Projects divided into Projects and Meetups. I am known to over-organize things with subfolders and colors and stuff, but I personally think it's really silly to have those two things in the same place, and I think there are now enough meetup threads to merit their own subforum.

[-Benedict]

Whoa okay I show up here and Blueberry has already asked the exact things I was about to ask. Fan Projects/Meetups divide, and the IMPORTANT UPDATES banner still sitting around.
wrt/meetups split, preferably it'd be a separate board in the same category as Fan Projects and MSPA Comic Discussion. I've never been a fan of the way subforums are hidden underneath their main forums with no link from the main page, but I... assume that this has been mentioned before and there's a good reason it's done that way?

[Miff]

Yeah, I'm just jumping in now to second splitting Fan Projects and Meetups.

They're really two very different things.

[Inconspicularity]

Can't tell if adbot or just trolling...

[*Sigh*]

Can't tell if adbot or just trolling...

Wait what.

[Drillgorg]

You should never respond to adbots, because I delete them and then you look crazy.