New Board - Props and Slops

[Combat Wombat]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Regarding suggestions that game specific discussion be taken off site - I'm not sure I understand how this is in any way optimal for a PBEM game. IRC would be the medium of choice if we were playing for extended periods all together. Otherwise, due to the nature of the gameplay, and the nature of all of the scheming and plotting that is involved in a game of Dominions that takes 2-3 months to play through, the forum PM system is the ideal format - especially now with the ability to forward PMs to others.

I have had Space Empires 4 games that have literally lasted years with much schemeing and plotting and that didn't require the abuse of shrpanel forums PM system. I think you guys are smart enough to work something out.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Combat Wombat

I have had Space Empires 4 games that have literally lasted years with much schemeing and plotting and that didn't require the abuse of shrpanel forums PM system. I think you guys are smart enough to work something out.

This is silly, I don't think anyone here was championing the "abuse" of anything. The people who this change hurts, were by and large "using" the system to great effect - and there were definitely more people who used the system as intended, than the few who just let every message pile up ad infinitum.


Annette - Richard's tone was very authoritarian. You can try to separate intent from action, but whether censorship was intended to be conveyed - that is how it was received. In all of my time online, regardless of intent, this is what requests to handle a public issue "in private" actually result in. Rarely does the public see productive results occur. More often, the issue is swept under the rug, and then either forgotten by people who are in fact now oppressed (take that term with a grain of salt, but it is what it is), or months later someone says "hey, whatever came of all of that?", to which I've then seen Admins clamp down and squash that, stating that it had been requested to be handled privately - so leave it alone.

You can disagree about what constitutes censorship, and what constitutes oppression - and try to remove that stigma from your own actions, but it's all just semantics at that point.


I'm not trying to cause problems - and I sincerely apologize if my posts in this thread have caused additional problems simply for being in this thread, rather than in another thread. For what it's worth, a couple of hours ago I looked for that other thread, and I must be blind or something, but it didn't jump out at me to tell me it even existed, so I continued posting my replies in this one.

This whole thing is getting kind of emotional, so if I suggest that in this case that locking this thread and placing a link to the other thread may have been appropriate - I'll probably get nailed for telling people how to do their job. I guess I am just as easy to hate as I am easy to love - but I knew that already.

<3

[Jazzepi]

One remark.

I completely agree with what Baalz said, 100%. I found Mindi's tone aggressive, at the very least, to suggestions. To quote,

"but mostly what I'm hearing is "we decided to do it this way and its not open to discussion. Don't bug me with suggestions". "

that's exactly how I'm reading a lot of the comments. Especially when Minid puts a post up containing

"Also as previously stated, we may up the limits for PMs after things settle down on the new board; however, any of you who are hoping for a ridiculously high limit of 1000 per person will be greatly disappointed. You may think that those numbers are reasonable but I can assure you that most users were well under that number and that you are the ones in the severe minority if you need that much space"

Really, Mindi, you need to stop being so derisive of your user base for asking for functionality / making comments. There's a reason people have a lot of PMs on the forums, and one of the first things I noticed was the extremely low ceiling on the PMs. Personally I think that 300 is still far too low. 500 would be the bare minimum for me to feel like I haven't lost any functionality. I highly dislike the new site layout, which effectively does less per square inch. And taking away editing completely is really irritating from a user's standpoint. I edit posts /all the time/, especially when I hosts games, or when I'm writing a long reply.

I think an ideal solution would simply be to change the edit feature. Instead of replacing the OP with the edited post, the edit function should store the OP, then post up the edited post. This could be done each time an edit is made. Once the OP is 1 month old, and it's clear that the new post that has been edited in isn't there to cover up something inflammatory, automatically delete it. This would keep your overhead low, but allow you to see an edit by edit history of the posts, basically creating a paper trail to catch trolls and mediate disputes while maintaining the original functionality of the forums.

Jazzepi

[BadCompany]

Originally Posted by Jazzepi

One remark.

I completely agree with what Baalz said, 100%. I found Mindi's tone aggressive, at the very least, to suggestions. To quote,

"but mostly what I'm hearing is "we decided to do it this way and its not open to discussion. Don't bug me with suggestions". "

that's exactly how I'm reading a lot of the comments. Especially when Minid puts a post up containing

"Also as previously stated, we may up the limits for PMs after things settle down on the new board; however, any of you who are hoping for a ridiculously high limit of 1000 per person will be greatly disappointed. You may think that those numbers are reasonable but I can assure you that most users were well under that number and that you are the ones in the severe minority if you need that much space"

Really, Mindi, you need to stop being so derisive of your user base for asking for functionality / making comments. There's a reason people have a lot of PMs on the forums, and one of the first things I noticed was the extremely low ceiling on the PMs. Personally I think that 300 is still far too low. 500 would be the bare minimum for me to feel like I haven't lost any functionality. I highly dislike the new site layout, which effectively does less per square inch. And taking away editing completely is really irritating from a user's standpoint. I edit posts /all the time/, especially when I hosts games, or when I'm writing a long reply.

I think an ideal solution would simply be to change the edit feature. Instead of replacing the OP with the edited post, the edit function should store the OP, then post up the edited post. This could be done each time an edit is made. Once the OP is 1 month old, and it's clear that the new post that has been edited in isn't there to cover up something inflammatory, automatically delete it. This would keep your overhead low, but allow you to see an edit by edit history of the posts, basically creating a paper trail to catch trolls and mediate disputes while maintaining the original functionality of the forums.

Jazzepi

I would be pretty mad too if I had anser all these complaints that are being repeated over and over again(why do you think this thread is over 10 pages long).All you did was whine not even giving noone a chance to make some corrections on the boards.Its alot of work.

This PM limit issue reminds me of the civilization revolution turn limit issue everyone was complaining about over at their forums,LOL.

[Kristoffer O]

> There's a down arrow appears just to the left of the thread name. That'll take you to the first unread post. Not especially obvious, but it works well.

Nice. That is a 'thank you' sir!

Edit: no such luck. Seems I can't thank anyone anymore. My reputation might be too low. I'd better quaff a blessed raise level potion and earn some experience. My forum skills are limited.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, I actually didn't know you could go straight to the first new post in the old forum either. Hmm. No way of checking now!

[Zeldor]

Llamabeast, you should behave well now, I have found "Remove your thanks" option!

[Annette]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Llamabeast, you should behave well now, I have found "Remove your thanks" option!

LOL! thanks for the laugh!

[BadCompany]

Jim,you've done it this time. :P

[Suicide Junkie]

One really nice feature is the fact that we can see and manage all of our uploaded files.
I've got some ancient stuff in there that I had completely forgotten about!