Off Topic

I thought Xan's post was pretty innocuous. (I think it's bunk, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with it). However, I do think that if he, or someone else, tried to take shots at elected officials, past or present, that would have bothered me more.

I don't mind a repackaging of the OT forum. But to me, the bigger problem isn't with the content, but with bad manners. Everyone knows someone who loudly voices their opinion on some subject as if they expect that everyone in the room necessarily agrees with them. These people are no fun to be around, and there are always going to be people like that in a diverse community like this.

In that sense, I don't think it's necessary to make subjects like religion or politics or whatever taboo, so much as bad manners. However, I recognize that most ill-mannered folks display their bad manners when talking about such subjects, and that banning the subjects altogether will solve many of the problems, and furthermore, that banning bad manners is basically impossible. But at the same time, we're real people living in a real world, and there's a lot more to our lives than gaming, and if we're seeking to become a true "community", it's inevitable that off-topic discussions would take place. And besides, how many discussions do we really need to have about how the newest member should copyright his game?

I guess I advocate restraint in moderation, and to treat each situation on a case by case basis. Besides, flamewars are fun to participate in and even more fun to watch!

However, during the "Brahmulus" incident, it was requested that a set of guidelines be drafted as to "forbidden" behaviors. If that hasn't been done yet, that's probably a must for the near future. Some candidate behaviors should include:

-- Threatening someone directly or indirectly

-- Ethnic, religious, etc slurs

-- Verbally abusing another member (eg, "What do you know, your designs all suck!"

-- Gratuitous use of profanity

Obviously, this list isn't complete, and not all of these are at the same level of severity, or would be handled in the same way.

Maybe we even made something like this at that time, but I can't remember now...

-J

I guess my main concern is that this not become a site like spielfrieks, which, in my opinion, is heavily over-moderated, and that has had the unfortunate side effect that whenever someone doesn't like the way a discussion is going, they whine for the moderators to step in.

The need for moderation is more present there because it's a newsgroup, so lots of off-topic posts are problematic because they fill the users' inboxes. With a forum site like ours, a discussion that veers off topic isn't really that much of a problem. So I think the biggest concern is really incivility more than off topic discussion.

In that sense, I agree with Matthew that we just reserve our right to flex our muscle without specifying every possible situation in which we might do so. And, I urge us to use restraint. A polite discussion about politics or religion that has only tangential relevance to gaming doesn't automatically need to be shut down.

-J

On a related topic (already tangentially discussed, I think), I would like to be more active in managing thread drift. When the topic starts to shift, it's best to make a new thread for it. That way searching and browsing through the forums will actually be useful.

I wonder if we'll have the ability in the new forums to slide certain posts of into a new thread. I don't see a way to do it here, but I've seen it on some sites, and it's great. A mod can just say "take this one, and this one, and these three, and move them to a new thread called X." Along with a mod note explaining what happened.

Helps a lot for later reference, imo.

Jeff, for someone who preaches manners, your reply to that guy's honeymoon post was pretty curt. Has he been a problem before? I didn't recognize his nick, I think he's got like 20some posts.

I do agree his post should be in the Off Topic subforum, but if this is his first offense (especially as a newer member), maybe a "please" or something? Your message seems to send a certain vibe to all newer members (and older ones!). I'd hate to scare people away.

- Seth

If it were me, I'd probably edit the post. I wouldn't be upset if you didn't though. Like I said, my biggest concern isn't for that guy, but all the other people who may have read that post and thought "whoa, I better not post and piss this guy off!"

- Seth