YE GRANDE ELITIST OLD GUARD FORUM?? pros and cons

[Goldmund]

I'm quite absent from the forums, because somehow I cannot relate to most of the newcomers. I get an impression that back on EzBoards there were more people similar to me.
There's too many new people and I've too little time to get to know them, so I'm feeling kind of lost.

IS 'YE GRANDE ELITIST OLD GUARD FORUM' THE ANSWER?22?222???2
(password protected?)

pros: obvious

cons:
-'elitarism' is stupid
-any closed system is bound to die, fresh information is necessary for survival - thus I propose to invite people, not limit the forum to "ezboards buddies"

We have to decide on few things:
- is this a good idea? (I say yes)
- where to locate the forum? (we ask CJ to make a password protected one on this forums, or go elsewhere and live here and there) (I prefer the former)
- how to choose members?
I'm all for masonic principle. Invitation. Let's not limit it to people who were AGSers for two years, there are lots of new and valuable people (GarageGothic! Yakspit! etc.)
- Grand Masters of the Lodge, moderators -
to be chosen.

What do you think? I must say that I'm torn. I loathe elitarism, but I hate to see that such an important piece of my life as AGS forums loose its meaning for me. Thus I think that the best option is to organise such a forum here, on agsforums.com/yabb (if CJ likes the idea, that is). We still take active part in other forums (critics corner, technical, competition etc.) whereas we chat in YE GRANDE LODGE EX ORIENT LUX.
Opinions, please.

[SSH]

As soon as you invite in someone who disagrees with the whole idea, they could invite everybody else...

Maybe this would be good, as I'd actually go and do something useful instead of spending too much time messing about on the forums.

[Goldmund]

Why should anyone disagree with the whole idea?
One needs to think about the proposed forum as a SENTIMENTAL, COMMUNITY initiative, a place for old friends to chat in, not some better-than-others club.

[Miez]

One needs to think about the proposed forum as a SENTIMENTAL, COMMUNITY initiative, a place for old friends to chat in, not some better-than-others club.

Nevertheless - it will be a better-than-others club: people in it will think so, and outsiders as well. I have no say in this matter, being a green n00b, and I know I risk some virtual flamestorm to rain down upon me from Mount AGSlympos - but it sounds like a bad idea.

Why would you want to single yourselves out? separate yourself from the rest of the community? It doesn't sound very constructive and, yes, it is elititst in my opinion.

[BOYD1981]

hmm, first there's the thing about how to be a better newbie, then there's this thing that will essentially seperate the newbies from the oldies, so the forums get overrun with newbies because the "elite oldies" are off in their own little club and will end up not caring about the other forums so it'll just all go to crap, i think there'd be less of a problem if some people just dropped their "holier than thou" attitudes...
to sum it up in two words: bad idea

[Goldmund]

Boyd et Miez:
the proposed forum is an alternative for the gen-gen, not other ones.
Okay, let's wait and see what others have to say about it - as I said earlier, I also have some doubts, but this might turn out well and spare both sides lots of frustration.

[BOYD1981]

well, it seems like the GenGen forum is the problem, so what good will another one do?

[m0ds]

I still say get rid of this forum, and use IRC for the general chit chat.

m0ds

[Privateer Puddin']

nooo #ags is already filled with useless junk chat imo

[SSH]

If you want to have a gen-gen forum without so much "noise" why not just have a second gen-gen forum, but with stricter rules? Let's face it, there really are three classes of members:

Oldies (aka Communists )
Newbies
Temporaries

by temporaries I mean the people who log on, ask a few beginners quewstions in the tech forum, demand that CJ adds RPG features and then disappear again. There will always be this kind of noise on all the forums here: that's the internet. However, us other newbies do tend to stick to the rules about which forum to post in (after some initial mistakes, due to unclear subtitling in the top level IMO) and try and stick to the rules, especially once someone has pointed the edit button out to them.

If anyone breaks the rules for the new forum, then move their thread to the other gen-gen or lock or delete it, like when people get it wrong already. I would propose that Dark Stalkey would make an excellent moderator for this new forum!

I suggest that this forum is renamed "Beginner's General Discussion" and the new one is called "Low-bandwidth General Discussion" or something else that might discourage short posts about utter rubbish.

EDIT:
Dimitri: No, no left wing/right wing but rather strict rules on posting versus less strict rules. But, I agree with what you said.

Everybody's getting too uptight about this. Just lie down and let the squirrel give you a massage... with chilli sauce Bwuhahahahah!

[Paranoia]

ii agree with Mods, lose general and use irc to do every day chat
when is a newbie not a newbie, and when do we join the elite crowd, i very much doubt i would ever get there, i've gone thro my postin crap phase, i've done one mags( even though it was shite) and on the whole, i post if its something constructive to say now, an elite club would kill this forum, but if you think us newbies are dragging the oldies down, then there will be no future for AGS, new blood keeps it going, but you will come across stuck up and no one else is welcome, there is that feeling now i'm sorry to say, but, what hell, i'll do my game, if it turns out good and i become a hero well great, if it fails, its something to learn by, i'll stop until someone tells me to f*ck off


Paranoia

[BOYD1981]

another problem that might come from a passworded forum will be people not reading the rules and then posting stuff like "why can't i get into this forum?" in the other forums which will lead to a long drawn out discussion about why...
i think a lot of the problems are down to people not reading the rules or not understanding them.
i don't know if this is relevant or not but, a few years back there was a potato shortage, and the price of a bag of chips from a fish & chip shop went from 5p to 20p, when the crisis was over the prices stayed the same, which annoyed lots of people...

[Dmitri]

SSH: Are you suggesting we have a right wing forum and a left wing forum?

Heh, it'd be interesting I guess to see which mindset fares better and which is more communal than the others. Maybe the communists, who are always helping eachother, or the capitalists, who's ambitions and achievments are an example for others.

anyway, I'm off topic

Paranoia: The basic idea it seems to me that it is not who is a newbie, there is no such thing as newbie or oldbie. And yes I know you're all thinking "Wait a minute, what about 1337 jerks and annoying people? They are noobs" well... they are not noobs. A 'newbie' as you would put it is someone unfamiliar with the community, he might make a mistake, he might accidentally put his foot in it, but IT WILL BE A MISTAKE!

There are mature people, there are smart people, there are silly people, there are jocular people, there are people who like literature, there are people who like sport. Some of these people are annoying, and so we degrade them, we call them noobs despite the fact that they might know the community quite well.

The idea behind this appears to be that Goldmund and HIS CLIQUE want to have THEIR board. They will only invite people THEY LIKE. This board has no higher status. There is no status in this community. Only people who are recognised, and people who we aren't yet familiar with. Basically what Goldmund is trying to do is somewhat good. He's organising a group of his friends, and a few others he and his friends might be impressed with to come to a board that's outside of AGS.

Goldmund: That being said, I like the idea, although I think the way you titled this thread wasn't very tactful. It won't be what you think it is, just a community of your friends and anyone you might want to join you. I do think you should go for it. But I think it should be generally outside of this community, no-one needed to know of this idea of yours, that you were organising your friends into your own community.

In short, I like the idea, but our attention needn't be drawn to it.

Edit: I do wonder if mods would truly be necessary in this forum? I mean, this will be a forum where there are friends, a closer community aside from the rabble. How much modding was required in the good old days?

And I would be highly amused to see if you later suggested in the closer knit community  "Okay, we need an elitist, elitist forum now... this community's too large again!"

Edit2 for coherence

[Robert Eric]

We have enough problems in #AGS without Gen-Gen being removed and everyone going there.

[Goldmund]

I can't see why the title of the thread is offensive.
True, passwords suck, putting fences sucks et al... ah, I'm torn, I already said this.
There are many old members and if I tried to IM them all with this proposal, I would spend all day on this - thus, I posted it here.

[Robert Eric]

No need to IM me, I get what you're saying loud and clear.  I'd personally like to see it happen, but it may not be a good idea.  The old days are gone.

[Timosity]

I've been a member for a short while, but I've browsed these forums since 2001 back on ezboards, never posted there or even cared about the community then, I used them to find new games to play while I tried to make my own.

Eventually I got round to releasing a game over a year later before I even made my first post, and that was for a demo of my first game, Less than a month later My first game was released (as it was almost complete when I released the demo)

Being twice most peoples age, I didn't even intend to post in the forums as I always thought posting stuff on the internet was a bit geeky and I would never resort to such behaviour, but people around here have similar beliefs etc.

Still, I post less than the amount of people that download my games, yet I still don't even feel accepted around here (usually just ignored, even if it's the same exact point as someone else, and I said it first) but there's no point in worrying about this type of shit.

I'm just lucky that I've got A home, A job, A life outside of the forum, and I can constantly be working on a game without having to brag about it in another forum

Also I'm drunk right now after watching a footy match, damn those Maroons, but atleast the Blues won the series 2-1, that'll learn ya.


I also think people around here just have problems finding posts that are interesting to post in, so a lot of crap gets posted, I can't remember the last time I started a post in this forum, and lately haven't found anything interesting, therefore I just haven't posted.

I try to avoid the rediculous ones as long as possible, then only then, maybe put my 2 cents worth and get out without trying to debate a useless topic.

people write too many posts to try and end a topic, then some smartarse says exactly the same thing in another way and it becomes a more useless topic.

It's just a matter of filtering things out that don't appeal to you, the other problem is most people want thier own posts to stand out and be recognised, which rarely happens in the gen gen.

If there was a forum where you had to be invited, who gets to choose who is invited? it sort of defeits the purpose, and also adds to elitism.

Though If it happened, how would people not invited know anyway
Maybe it already exists??

Also, how do people have time for irc, I stay clear of that so I can still have a life, sure it's ok occasionally, but I live in a planet with a different timezone, The forums just easier to say your bit, then do something constuctive.

Lucky it's time for a smoke, or i'd keep crapping on

[Trapezoid]

I don't think it'd work. As I've said, this forum doesn't revolve around games or status, it revolves around getting to know one another. If a newbie were to hang around in the newbie forums for a while, make a few games, then suddenly be accepted into the oldie forums-- he'd still be a newbie, because he wouldn't know anybody there. The problem with newbies is mainly in the mind of the oldies. After a while, some oldies just don't want to meet anybody new. I really hate to say it, but maybe if an oldie has reached the point where they can't deal with any new AGSers (and you can't stop AGS from reaching new people)... maybe it's time for the oldie to take a break from the forums.

[Ben]

That's what I'm doing (and what I've BEEN doing occasionally for a few months). And it's not just because of the newbies. It's the oldies too. I don't really feel like I can talk to people here anymore. The oldies here (including people like Goldmund who arrived long after me) have gotten bitter, and don't discuss the same things on this forum that they used to on the EZBoards. Would an exclusive, old-guard forum solve this problem? Maybe. I think we should try the idea and see what happens.. I honestly don't know what to expect, so I won't bother trying to predict.

I don't think it'd work. As I've said, this forum doesn't revolve around games or status, it revolves around getting to know one another.

But this forum DOES revolve around games and status. Status comes from producing or contributing to good games. Why do you think Chrille and Phil Reed and Roy Lazarovich are legends around here? It's certainly not because they post here every day.

[Jimi]

Can't there just be more moderators on this forum? Then if anyone makes a stupid thread, or makes stupid comments, delete the thread/post.