YE GRANDE ELITIST OLD GUARD FORUM?? pros and cons

[TerranRich]

Visible or non-visible?

I say visible, and lurk-only status to non-members. I think that's fair enough. Also, amend to the rules on the Gen Mass forum, to NOT ask about getting access to the Low Bandwidth Gen forum. I seem to remember a secret members-only area of the EZBoard forums, for members who were working on the Demo Quest I believe. I never once asked about it, even tho I was a newbie at the time of the EZBoard-YaBB transition.

Methods of Naturalization?

At first have a list of everybody registered, starting with the oldest, then back down to the newest. Have a monthly review with the "elite few" (uber-oldies) and review like the next 10 on the list. Whoever seems to be mature enough to handle it can be granted access, and whoever doesn't will be put into next month's grouping. If a member has failed 5 (?) times, (s)he will be put at the very bottom of the list, with all the uber-newbies.

How does that sound? I rather like that idea. It still gives everybody a chance, starting with the not-so-oldies and going down from there. It's a system at least.

[Trapezoid]

Get this idea! There will not be a newbie forum and an oldie forum. It's going to be an oldie forum and a general mass forum. The oldies won't just ignore this forum once they have their own forum. And if they want to share something with the AGS community as a whole then they'd put it on the general mass forum. If they just want the oldies to know about it, then the oldies forum. It isn't that complicated.

But this hypothetical Oldies Forum is so that the Oldies don't have to deal with the Newbies. Therefore, there would be some sort of split. What's the point of a new forum if the people who use it are still going to use the old forum?

[Dmitri]

Trap, that's exactly what I was wondering on my way to school, if we have an oldie forum, who has a post which they want only oldies to view?

I mean, getting this forum is all good and well. but I mean, when I was on irc, I was always trying to get at RE, why you ask? Well, I don't really know, it was fun trying, but once we were finally on at the same time I found I didn't ACTUALLY have much I wanted to know/ask/say. It was just fun trying to get to talk to my friend because of the horrible 7 hour time difference.

[MrColossal]

wouldn't we rather CJ focus on AGS and not corraling people into forums

and what about the person sitting there in front of their comp reading these forums saying "yea a forum for us oldies! just what the doctor ordered!" and then the forum opens and they don't get invited. anger

again, we're here to make games. if you spend the majority of your time here in gen gen posting things then you aren't making games. you want to get in good with the community, make a game, don't post randomly and quickly

tighten the rules of registration, set a daily post count [only here and in ags gen maybe]

get the mods back in action, confront through PM's people you feel are ignoring the rules, confront a mod about it.

tons of people break the forum rules constantly in every forum. oldies newbies youngbies tallbies wallabies and i don't just mean people who post in the wrong forum. how many people post in the critics forum "WOW!" or "NEAT!"

again bah whatever

eric

[RickJ]

Has anyone noticed the absence of many notable and acomplished AGSers from this discussion.  Perhaps there already is an elitist forum and we just haven't been invited.   :o

[Andail]

Sssh, Rick

I think there are good both cons and pros...I think CJ is already about to give it a test-run anyway, so we'll soon see.

The main reason I see is that we're losing old members (although some have return during the summer, like Vargtass, 2ma2 and Goldmund), and this is of course mainly due to lack of time or other reasons, but surely also because of the fast posting-rate and so many new faces it's impossible to keep track of them, thus creating a feeling of alienation towards the forums.

For this reason, an oldie-club where people can hang out despite lack of time or whatever, and still catch up in the latest debates.
A forum where we don't have to spend half the time yelling on people for not following the rules, or nag and bicker about forum policies and codex and whatnot. Like those clubs for american vietnam veterans, or something.

Then again, the selecting procedure will perhaps be too painful for people to accept it. To be honest, I can't really see how it can be solved smoothly. We will probably have a little conference during mittens and have a long and serious discussion.

[bspeers100]

If a new forum keeps some of the olders back, then I say go for it.  But I agree, there's no reason why there has to be this focus on gen gen.  It really distracts from making games (though occasionally, alliances are formed here that lead to games)--but then, most oldbies aren't making games anymore.

I consider myself an old, old oldbie myself, but frankly, I don't care about a new forum one way or the other (apart from the slight idea I had above).

One way to keep people from the "elitist" opinion, is to make *this* the elitist forum, and that other one for old stupid farts like me who are too slow and stupid to comprehend the fast pace of today's youth.  In fact, I would put that in the title: "The stupid overblown forum for older nastalgic losers who have given up on modern society and created a hermitage but still visit just for the company, the morons, why can't they just relax and chat like the rest of us, siiiiigh." (do I need a smiley here?)

I seriously think a very negative title is in order to remove any stench of elitism.  Because it isn't elitism.  We long-term prisoners are no better than the cute, young pups.  We're just frightened and reactionary, and proud of it.  Give us a retirement home where we can die.

Or don't.

[Random Newbie]

STFU 0LDBiE!!!

[Jimi]

Well done. You're making newbies look briliantly god! ¬_¬

[DGMacphee]

[Czar]

Anyway, listen.
I dont think it would come too often to : How do i axx the oldBie for00m???
Cause we already have situations like this and i think the mods handle it pretty well. And oc, for caution, under the forum name it should stand, only for qualified members, like under Adventure chit-chat it says general talikn about adventur games, right?
So what i think should be done CJ should make a trial but 2 months, and the invitation would work like this; the ones who cj selects to be in the first run, they will do the Dryhump way, that is once a week they review the one who is next on the list and accept him as a member, and if he doesnt qualify, he stays, and if he has lets say 5 penalty points, he gets on the bottom of the list.
I dont think i even have to repeat that newbies should be able to lurk, cause i think everybody said that in their posts, right?
After the trial the community decides if this is a good idea, then we keep it. AND this could also be a good tutoring lesson, so everyone gets to know should a normal member act, etc. etc. ( i think the most of us have been in a kindergarten, so i dont have to continue to explain).
And yes, i agree with Eric, we should be more into making games.
And if the oldies want to come back its their choice. Cause i dont think Gen gen is the only forum section around.
Anyway, i remeber on Ezboard there was a locked section (the developing one), so smthn like this was done before....

[Scummbuddy]

every week ananlyze over 500 members?!?  we have better things to do.   we could either do it the one year thing at the ags awards or a couple times a year.

i like the idea of starting with those who were on the ezboards to begin with.

and yes, let the others lurk, but if they feel they have something to add, then they can private message the topic beginner of the said thread.

Towards the daily posts thing that seems to have been enacted, I don't want people that help a lot to be detered from posting helping posts.

[Czar]

no no. not 500, but the top 10 on their list...Read on the top of the page what Dryhump said...
Something on that topic.

[undergroundling]

Dryhump suggested a monthly review of the next 10 people on the list.  I think that's a little harsh.  It would be about 7 years until you finally got down to me.  I think that's longer than CJ has even been making AGS.

[RickJ]

bspeers100:  hehehe, I like the sounds of that title.    

[juncmodule]

How about this...

Oldbie forum starts with only members from ez-board. After that, members that have been ACTIVE members of this forum for a set amount of years just automatically become members of the oldbie forum. (because at that point you would be a oldbie). In addition to that there could be the whole oldbies elect members kind of thing that they could work out at a later date.

So...when is a decision going to be made about this? I think a lot of people have voiced a lot of really good opinions and ideas...I doubt we will all come to a consensus. The newbies want it to be set up so they can be members, and the oldbies don't. That debate is just going to run around in circles forever.

eh,
-junc

[MrColossal]

and what happens when that forum fills up and people are posting stupid things? another forum?

and just cause someone's been around for a long time doesn't make them mature

[juncmodule]

Then, it should be closed/merged back with gen-gen.

I disagree somewhat with the "doesn't mature" thing. Look at Barcik and FlippyD. They were pretty annoying at one point but, I don't think they are now...maybe I'm wrong, but they don't ever annoy me.

The thing is, give a person a few months to smooth out, everyone deserves a chance at least. After that give them more time to fully settle in and just earn their way in. But, in the event that they don't "earn" their way in, after a year or two, they just deserve to be part of the oldbies forum, otherwise the oldbies could be considered hipocrites IMHO.

I honestly don't think that the more annoying people will last that long. If they do, then they will have to be dealt with appropriately. I think investing time in someone that has been an active member of the board is worthwhile. Someone that just signed up yesterday...it's a waste of time to babysit them until they get the hang of things (at least after they've been told a dozen times).

later,
-junc

[RickJ]

I honestly don't think that the more annoying people will last that long. If they do, then they will have to be dealt with appropriately. ....

Junc:  I can agree with much of what you say.  I always thought that  being "dealt with appropiately" meant being relegated to the gen-gen forum.  

=====

I think I am going to throw my lot in with the newbies, at least the ones who are sincere and are willing to put some time into what they are doing.   I can handle enthauasism and annoyances as long as they are not accompanied by deception,  and mind games.    

[Nellie]

Hang on, I thought we were using 'oldbie' and 'newbie' as convenient terms, rather than literal ones.  The point of the forum is to be a gathering place for people who are thoughtful and mature, and don't post too much.  Oldbies are naturally more likely to fit that description, but there's no way that being an oldbie guarantees maturity, or that newbies are all unsuitable.

If someone joined the forums and, over a few months, showed that they were calm, mature, and made thought-provoking topics, I'd hate to think they wouldn't be allowed in the oldbie forums just because they hadn't been here for a year or whatever.