The Forum Sharing Stuff
Moderator: Kaiser Fish XII
- Andreas the Wise
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Re: The Merger Stuff
Yep. Shared forum. Maybe also sharing diplomatic resources (eg I'll take a couple countries and give Jake Diplocorp reports for them, he'll give me a couple countries etc; but if there's a diplomatic incident whoever's incident it is deals with it). But essentially just shared forum.
The character Andreas the Wise is on indefinite leave.
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
- Ari Rahikkala
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Re: The Merger Stuff
Man, I've hacked on this board over the years more than I remembered. Will continue tomorrow.
No-one should be without a parasol, Sirocco.
- Demon of Fides
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Re: The Merger Stuff
+Shared Admin
+Shared Foreign Affairs
+Shared Foreign Affairs
I am confusing, have a wiki article to help: Link-a-dink
- Demon of Fides
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Re: The Merger Stuff
I dont think that was one of them.
I am confusing, have a wiki article to help: Link-a-dink
- AryezturMejorkhor
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Re: The Merger Stuff
Looks like there is no interest in Antica for this project. Disregard my earlier words.
Aryeztur Mejorkhor
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Re: The Merger Stuff
I'm seeing a lot of plusses.... +something != just shared forums.
- Andreas the Wise
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Re: The Merger Stuff
Ignore CJ, nobody has discussed shared law enforcement. If he wants to raise that, he should do it in the proper merger thread and not here. You are seeing one plus beyond shared forum - the possibility of between us getting a functioning foreign affairs department purely for week-to-week business, and not for anything serious. And even then, that's not an essential part of the plan, just something I thought might be useful, given that Shireroth was interested in actually having foreign affairs working. If it helps, read that proposal as "Andreas will represent Shireroth abroad to help Jacobus in MiniEx, and Jake will visit countries Andreas doesn't want to, like he already is." That's what shared foreign affairs will look like practically.
Shared admins is obviously part of sharing forum. So for any sovereignty type issues, we are only sharing a forum. We remain separate nations, who can leave at any time. We already share an economy and bank, and this will make that easier. And we could, if nobody objects, share the load of visiting nations and saying "Hi. We still exist. We've done these things. My mates over in nation x have done these things too. Why not come visit our shared board?" And I am more than happy to drop that suggestion if that is what is standing in the way of the merger.
I am trying to peacefully make this clear, because the last thing I want is people angry at eachother or yelling at stuff that isn't actually part of the proposal. This is not an attempt to combine us all into one nation or absorb someone into somebody else or anything like that, and as far as I've brought forward the proposal, it never has been. Hope that's clear
Shared admins is obviously part of sharing forum. So for any sovereignty type issues, we are only sharing a forum. We remain separate nations, who can leave at any time. We already share an economy and bank, and this will make that easier. And we could, if nobody objects, share the load of visiting nations and saying "Hi. We still exist. We've done these things. My mates over in nation x have done these things too. Why not come visit our shared board?" And I am more than happy to drop that suggestion if that is what is standing in the way of the merger.
I am trying to peacefully make this clear, because the last thing I want is people angry at eachother or yelling at stuff that isn't actually part of the proposal. This is not an attempt to combine us all into one nation or absorb someone into somebody else or anything like that, and as far as I've brought forward the proposal, it never has been. Hope that's clear
The character Andreas the Wise is on indefinite leave.
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
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Re: The Merger Stuff
Then.. it's not a merger. I think that's where you are losing people, by calling it one.
- Andreas the Wise
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
Fair point. Originally there was the potential it could become a merger. Discussions have moved to just Forum Sharing. I will edit topic headings where I can to reflect this.
The character Andreas the Wise is on indefinite leave.
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
Have edited the title to avoid confusion.Andreas the Wise wrote:Fair point. Originally there was the potential it could become a merger. Discussions have moved to just Forum Sharing. I will edit topic headings where I can to reflect this.
From a distance I'm concerned about the rampant lawyerism manifesting itself in Shireroth currently. A simple Kaiserial slap on the wrist or censure by the community should suffice. - Jacobus Loki
Can't you see? I'm crazy!
Can't you see? I'm crazy!
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
You have my hesitant, "I don't like change but I'll try to be okey with it", support.
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
We'll see how it goes, then, hopefully
- Andreas the Wise
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
ThankyouErik Mortis wrote:You have my hesitant, "I don't like change but I'll try to be okey with it", support.
The character Andreas the Wise is on indefinite leave.
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
I was told that the people in shireroth seemed keen on the idea of the shared forum consisting of this:
My first reaction on Gralus to this was 'WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE MAD'.. and I began to give commentary on a metaphorical situation regarding toketi and how, because peoples nations are so complex with many boards and sub-boards places such as toketi would get lost. Its the same here. You have all of your sub-boards.. what do you think will happen to them if all of shireroth.. more or less /all/ of what is on this whole damned board gets put in one area? What will it be?.. annoying to say the least.
However, after discussion within Gralus it was figured that the shared ideas were quite cool.. and if it was just shared activity people wanted then that could be sorted. But theres still the problem of us trying to fit all of one board in one place. I'd imagine it would either end up with current sub-board collapsing (goodbye straylight ect) or there would be no improvement in activity within those sub-boards at a later date.. because the chances of getting a new citizen join your nation out of all of the others sharing the board is next to nothing. Imagine coming in as a new citizen.. a) you've got the main boards to introduce yourself to, B) then you're told to pick a nation.. and you know how hard it is to pick out of areas within /one/ nation and get fully involved in it.. let alone having to choose your nationality.. /and/ yoursub-board region preference. So you're just not going to do it.
I don't suggest we scrap the whole thing.. as for shared purposes its quite a nice idea. But lets keep it that way, SHARED. not squashing our boards onto one site so that as soon as one gets a little inactive it gets engulfed.. lets not lose our regions because they're buried beneath a shit load of boards.. smply.. have a forum with shared activities.. like a forumhub but /just/ for the nations involved. Have the links to each nation at the bottom.. as in not word links, like sub-boards, but it simply links to the original board.. and keep our current boards EXACTLY as they are.. with perhaps blocking the general discussions and such to encourage movement of that to the 'main' boards. That way.. we have a nice little distinguish between a countries dealings.. and a shared countries dealings. Lke a union... you can choose to do your own foreign affairs.. but if you and another country are looking at the same time, do it as a shared. All roleplay, general discussion, fun stuff on the mega mainb board.. the original countries.. on ther own boards made via a link to the main board. I mean.. its not going to take much for everyone to change their bookmarks slightly, now is it?
Of which I assumed that someone had offered the other, less intrusive, option of:Forum
All members of the Triple League share the same forum.
The forum shall be hosted by Ari.
The forum admin shall be Ari Rahikkala, Erik Mortis, Andreas the Wise and Harvey Steffke.
The forum shall have the following structure:
- General Discussion
- Offtopic Forum
- Economics Forum
- Foreign Affairs Forum
- Administrative Forum
- Roleplaying Forum
- Other Joint Projects as required
- Member Nation a’s Forum
- Member Nation b’s Forum
- Other Member Nation’s Forums as they join
So I may as well present that and see thoughts, rather than just presuming everyone is fine with it when as far as I see its not even on here.General Discussion
- Offtopic Forum
- Joint Economics Forum
- Joint Foreign Affairs Forum
- Joint Administrative Forum
- Joint Roleplaying Forum
- Member Nation a’s link to original board
- Member Nation b’s link to original board
- Other Member Nation’s link to original boards as they join
My first reaction on Gralus to this was 'WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE MAD'.. and I began to give commentary on a metaphorical situation regarding toketi and how, because peoples nations are so complex with many boards and sub-boards places such as toketi would get lost. Its the same here. You have all of your sub-boards.. what do you think will happen to them if all of shireroth.. more or less /all/ of what is on this whole damned board gets put in one area? What will it be?.. annoying to say the least.
However, after discussion within Gralus it was figured that the shared ideas were quite cool.. and if it was just shared activity people wanted then that could be sorted. But theres still the problem of us trying to fit all of one board in one place. I'd imagine it would either end up with current sub-board collapsing (goodbye straylight ect) or there would be no improvement in activity within those sub-boards at a later date.. because the chances of getting a new citizen join your nation out of all of the others sharing the board is next to nothing. Imagine coming in as a new citizen.. a) you've got the main boards to introduce yourself to, B) then you're told to pick a nation.. and you know how hard it is to pick out of areas within /one/ nation and get fully involved in it.. let alone having to choose your nationality.. /and/ yoursub-board region preference. So you're just not going to do it.
I don't suggest we scrap the whole thing.. as for shared purposes its quite a nice idea. But lets keep it that way, SHARED. not squashing our boards onto one site so that as soon as one gets a little inactive it gets engulfed.. lets not lose our regions because they're buried beneath a shit load of boards.. smply.. have a forum with shared activities.. like a forumhub but /just/ for the nations involved. Have the links to each nation at the bottom.. as in not word links, like sub-boards, but it simply links to the original board.. and keep our current boards EXACTLY as they are.. with perhaps blocking the general discussions and such to encourage movement of that to the 'main' boards. That way.. we have a nice little distinguish between a countries dealings.. and a shared countries dealings. Lke a union... you can choose to do your own foreign affairs.. but if you and another country are looking at the same time, do it as a shared. All roleplay, general discussion, fun stuff on the mega mainb board.. the original countries.. on ther own boards made via a link to the main board. I mean.. its not going to take much for everyone to change their bookmarks slightly, now is it?
- Scott of Hyperborea
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
That would make the project similar to the MCS, which is mostly inactive and uninteresting, and to other failed projects like MicroHub. It would make it one more forum at which people point, laugh, say "YAMO", and never use because they have their own forums, same as always.
All we would lose by doing it properly would be one extra click to get to Shireroth. Since I get to Shireroth's forum via a bookmark on my toolbar, and I can still bookmark the Shireroth section of the Bastion forum, I don't even lose a click. And since there are various ways to put links to subforums on the main forum, we wouldn't even have to do that.
Confusingness to new people would be a problem if we'd gotten any new people within the past year or two. In this wretched latter age, we should stop worrying about pie-in-the-sky plans to recruit newbies and try to consolidate and preserve what we have. This is basically the only concrete proposal to do this after years of whining about how we needed something, and I suggest we take it.
All we would lose by doing it properly would be one extra click to get to Shireroth. Since I get to Shireroth's forum via a bookmark on my toolbar, and I can still bookmark the Shireroth section of the Bastion forum, I don't even lose a click. And since there are various ways to put links to subforums on the main forum, we wouldn't even have to do that.
Confusingness to new people would be a problem if we'd gotten any new people within the past year or two. In this wretched latter age, we should stop worrying about pie-in-the-sky plans to recruit newbies and try to consolidate and preserve what we have. This is basically the only concrete proposal to do this after years of whining about how we needed something, and I suggest we take it.
- Ari Rahikkala
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
Indeed, this part is a problem. Fortunately we can at least avoid exacerbating it too much by making it so that you can register and post at just *one* board to be a fully participating citizen of your chosen nation .Artz wrote: Imagine coming in as a new citizen.. a) you've got the main boards to introduce yourself to, B) then you're told to pick a nation.. and you know how hard it is to pick out of areas within /one/ nation and get fully involved in it.. let alone having to choose your nationality.. /and/ yoursub-board region preference. So you're just not going to do it.
This was my plan. I'll be honest: I've personally come to hate the forum use paradigm where every tiny piece of land and half-thought-out project gets a forum of its own. There are boards where people get more stuff done on one forum than Shireroth does on two hundred. I don't think anyone who we would actually want as a citizen gives a damn about having a tiny little forum with one post every two months in to have moderatorship over. I used to think forumspam was great for archival and categorization, but wiki is a better tool for that work in so many ways I don't even know where to start.I'd imagine it would either end up with current sub-board collapsing (goodbye straylight ect) or there would be no improvement in activity within those sub-boards at a later date
I'll be happy if Shireroth has three or four subdivision forums in the joint boards. I'm not that sure how many governmental and Shirekeep forums it should have, but certainly fewer than we have now. This is how I would have prefer to have it even if we didn't move over at all, it's just that this is my chance to actually do something about the number of forums.
No-one should be without a parasol, Sirocco.
Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
Artz, about the hub-idea: we want to have few separated forums, not more. I don't see any advantage in a shared forum and a separated forum per nation.
Hhmm. We will see, I like my Dutchy being full of subdivisions. But: we could start with your idea (fewer forums) and we can always grow when it seems necessary. Adding forums is easier than deleting and replacing the posts.Ari Rahikkala wrote: I'll be happy if Shireroth has three or four subdivision forums in the joint boards. I'm not that sure how many governmental and Shirekeep forums it should have, but certainly fewer than we have now. This is how I would have prefer to have it even if we didn't move over at all, it's just that this is my chance to actually do something about the number of forums.
From a distance I'm concerned about the rampant lawyerism manifesting itself in Shireroth currently. A simple Kaiserial slap on the wrist or censure by the community should suffice. - Jacobus Loki
Can't you see? I'm crazy!
Can't you see? I'm crazy!
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
I'm with Ari on the use of forums. We need less.
It was honestly one of my goal with houses. At least in getting rid of so many of the subforums... but they seem to be back.
It was honestly one of my goal with houses. At least in getting rid of so many of the subforums... but they seem to be back.
Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
They were never away. The House system was so messed up that it ended up the forums even worse than before it was introduced. Without the baronies, the Dutchy is simply... overcrowded with forums.Erik Mortis wrote:I'm with Ari on the use of forums. We need less.
It was honestly one of my goal with houses. At least in getting rid of so many of the subforums... but they seem to be back.
From a distance I'm concerned about the rampant lawyerism manifesting itself in Shireroth currently. A simple Kaiserial slap on the wrist or censure by the community should suffice. - Jacobus Loki
Can't you see? I'm crazy!
Can't you see? I'm crazy!
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
I wanted to do away with counties all together in the end. At least with county forums.
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
That seems like it'd be quite confusing
- Andreas the Wise
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
Alright. The Proper and not highly emotional reply to the idea of creating a new "shared" forum and retaining most functions on our original forums.
First, Artz and Gerk, I want you to note three highly important things to keep in mind while reading this post.
1. I have a lot of respect for both of you as people. I am not attacking you two as people in any way. I am strongly disagreeing with your idea, not with you.
2. The more words you use, the less you say, sometimes. I will try to be brief.
3. I'm trying to do this without getting too emotional. If I fail, forgive me.
Right, the reply:
To the proposal: We should have a new shared forum with general discussion, offtopic, foreign affairs, economics, roleplaying and admin; and retain our own boards for all other things (closing off the joint sections on our own forums)
I reply: No, because:
a. I do not think this will work.
b. Such a move would be unnecessary.
c. Such a move weakens the merger.
d. For me, it defeats the purpose of my vision.
a. I do not think this will work.
i. We tried this in the Confederacy of Gralus. It failed. Therefore it is probably going to fail here.
ii. Whatever you do, people stay more on their own forum.
iii. Roleplaying and General Discussion can find other ways of ending up on the original fora, and it will do this easier if people have to go to a new forum to get to the 'community' part.
i. We tried this in the Confederacy of Gralus. It failed. Therefore it is probably going to fail here.
The Confederacy of Gralus was like this but going a bit further. We tried to have a combined top level government and foreign affairs on a separate forum and retain our individual forums with links. After a year, it failed. There are several reasons for this, and one of the biggest ones was probably some issues with Toketi about me which we shouldn't go into (water under the bridge and all that), but a contributing factor was definitely the separate forums. For example, Athlon joined CoG for a while. Did Novatainians or Tokians visit much besides me? Nope. When we formed the Gralan Empire, one of the key bits we all agreed on was "If we're going to do this, it needs to be all on one forum," because of our experiences in CoG.
Summary: My experiences in the Confederation of Gralus lead me to believe a new separate joint forum while retaining individual forums will not work well.
ii. Whatever you do, people stay more on their own forum.
I think this is a self evident micronational axiom, or if not that, at least a good general rule for most of the populous. For one example, back when we weren't Gralus, Novatainia and Toketi did magical expeditions together. Expeditions on Toketi always had more people. Why? Because Toketi had a much larger population than Novatainia, and more Tokians would be involved on Toketi than on Novatainia, because going to another forum is a lot of effort.
Summary: I think people will be less likely to go to the 'community' forum if it's on a separate forum.
iii. Roleplaying and General Discussion can find other ways of ending up on the original fora, and it will do this easier if people have to go to a new forum to get to the 'community' part.
As a follow up to the previous point, two of the 'community' things can easily be done unofficially on the separate boards, and that will happen naturally. I believe it is more likely to happen if people have to go to a new forum to do it otherwise; whereas if we're on a fully merged forum, they're more likely to put it into the correct place.
Now, I happily admit that a joint RP forum is 90% a Gralan pipe dream that we'll keep doing EGaD in and one or two of you others might then join in. Nathan will probably keep spreading space stories across the boards of Natopia and that's all fine. But it's even less likely to happen on a separate 'community' forum.
Summary: RP and General Discussion will end up mainly on the original boards anyway, defeating the purpose of a separate 'community' forum.
b. Such a move would be unnecessary.
i. If we just wanted people to visit eachother's forums, we could all create links to eachother on our forums (in more obvious places than they already exist).
ii. The MCS could/should be functioning as a community hub in a separate forum.
iii. Given that the above two don't occur, I think it unlikely they would work much better on a 'community' Gralus-Nelaga-Shireroth-Natopia-Elwynn forum.
i. If we just wanted people to visit eachother's forums, we could all create links to eachother on our forums (in more obvious places than they already exist).
Most people don't visit eachother's forums much unless you specifically invite them to a specific thing, or they're already dual cits. We have links to eachother's forums already in our announcement boxes. But people don't visit. I believe people will be more likely to visit if they go onto their one board (the fully merged forum), and see "Hey, there are no new posts in my nation, but there are some in that nation there, why don't I check it out?" And they'll click on that nation's forum, and voila, see it as it is now (so things don't get lost) and then look to see where said posts are.
Summary: People don't already visit. I believe a fully merged forum will aid this, but a new joint one will not since they don't already visit.
ii. The MCS could/should be functioning as a community hub in a separate forum.
This is the second thing that comes to mind for me when you say "Let's have a separate joint forum" (the first being "It already failed in CoG"). If that is all we wanted, why not just encourage people to visit the MCS? It has a general discussion, off topic and economics forum. We could add an RP one, and foreign affairs we could do another way. In fact, why don't people already use the MCS for this? I'll admit the Economy forum hasn't tried to set itself up yet as a major company destination, but apart from that, it has the other things.
One reason that doesn't happen is that RPing Gralan-style on the MCS would get threads bogged down in "MAGICK SUZ LOZERS". Another is that people prefer to run companies on their home forum. The third is that the culture of the MCS is not always friendly. Now, I admit the first and third are answered by a joint 'community' forum instead of just telling us to use the MCS, but it still seems rather superfluous to do so, and it doesn't answer the company part.
Summary: The MCS should be doing this. People don't visit it. Therefore a joint 'community' forum won't help much.
iii. Given that the above two don't occur, I think it unlikely they would work much better on a 'community' Gralus-Nelaga-Shireroth-Natopia-Elwynn forum.
Should be self explanatory.
c. Such a move weakens the merger.
i. People aren't going in with the right attitude to make it work.
ii. If the separate 'community' forum becomes inactive while the national ones retain posts, people will say "It has failed." If we don't have posts for a couple weeks on the top level of part of a fully merged forum, there's no problem.
i. People aren't going in with the right attitude to make it work.
A separate joint forum says to me "I don't trust you guys enough to share a forum with you. Let's just keep our own forum so we can ditch you any time we want." A fully merged forum says "I am committed to the vision of us individuals working together, sharing ideas, visiting eachother's nations, doing joint projects and making the SCUE dream a reality." Yes, all discussions on this have deliberately started with the idea nations can pull out any time, with no consequences. And we should keep that in, certainly. But having a separate community forum, even a "trial period" makes it psychologically so much easier to not fully commit. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Summary: This is going to work so much better if people go in with a fully committed attitude - that will only happen on a fully merged forum.
ii. If the separate 'community' forum becomes inactive while the national ones retain posts, people will say "It has failed." If we don't have posts for a couple weeks on the top level of part of a fully merged forum, there's no problem.
It's not essential that any of the joint level parts happen for the functioning of the micronation. A micronation can last without an economy or roleplaying. General discussion is nice, but normally the least 'essential' part of micronational governance (though many would argue it is essential to the hobby as a whole for community building). Gralus, Nelaga and Shireroth are clear examples of nations who can run just find with next to no diplomatic contact. And all that is not necessarily in and of itself a bad thing. But if it all happens at once and the 'community' forum goes inactive, people will declare the whole thing a failure.
If, instead, those bits don't get posted in much while all the stuff in the nations themselves gets posted in on a fully merged forum, people won't notice. There's no problem, as there shouldn't be. Here, we won't have people calling it a failure when it isn't.
Summary: It is possible for nations to run without the 'community forum' bits. If that happens on a separate board, people will call that board a failure (when it isn't). If that happens on a fully merged forum, nobody will notice. Thus a separate forum leads to a greater likelihood of the project being deemed a failure.
d. For me, it defeats the purpose of my vision.
No real sub-arguments here. I'm just going to say briefly why this being proposed now annoys me personally, and then I'm going to finish by laying out the positive vision again.
Declaring my bias
I've been discussing this for weeks over several forums. I've been caught up with the vision of a fully merged shared forum. I knew there would be opposition, but we seem to have convinced them to at least all give it a go. And just when it seems we can finally move forward, you two say "Hang on, why don't we just do this partly?"
For me, the original post in Gralus was the "So, we've said we'll talk about some sort of merger, what form do we want it to take?" Then we had a bit of discussion, and nobody else seemed interesting in putting other ideas forward except Ari, so I explained my vision, he refined it a little, and we presented that to everyone hence forth. For me, now it's a month later, the "Let's change the model away from the thing we've already convinced most people of" option is a fortnight too late. That, and only you and Gerk seem interested, whereas at least me, Harvey, Scott, Ari and Nathan are fired up by the alternative vision.
So that's my emotional bias reduced into one easy subsection.
The positive vision
For me, there are three really exciting things about a completely merged forum. Firstly, there's the interaction with other nations. As a citizen or regular visitor to Gralus, Nelaga, Shireroth and Natopia, I see stuff going on in nations that I know people in other nations would really appreciate - but those other people don't see it. I also see awesome stuff fail or not achieve it's full potential because there's one or two people doing it and nobody else around to affirm it and help develop it. On a fully merged joint forum, we'll all see when there are posts in other nations, and I hope that people will naturally start looking at it and seeing some cool stuff and get involved. It won't happen all the time, sure. But if it happens at all, that's awesome.
Secondly, there's the chance to get the economy revived. The SCUE is all about combining economies and trying to reach that mystical critical mass to get an economy going. One of the problems with it is that if someone wants to get something done and doesn't already know the one person to do it, they have to post across four or five forums, and then miss replies etc. Look at poor Gustaaf and the Times Group - he post the same message on six forums to try and get someone to notice! If we all shared a forum and had one place to do economic stuff, I think our economy would have a lot more chance of success.
Thirdly, there's the social aspect. I've met a lot of cool people through micronations. I've also met some ... not so nice people. The vast majority of the cool people are in Nelaga, Shireroth and Gralus. There are none of the not so nice people in those nations. And I think some of those cool people would get on great and do even more amazing things if they knew eachother, but they don't because they're in separate nations. This would let us put together a lot of the cool people and still avoid the not so nice people, which I'm sure is one of the reasons a lot of us don't go on the MCS much. That, and the currently signed on nations won't scream blue murder about magic or flying islands.
And all this will, I believe, happen so much better than it already does (or could with a new 'community' forum) on a fully merged forum.
First, Artz and Gerk, I want you to note three highly important things to keep in mind while reading this post.
1. I have a lot of respect for both of you as people. I am not attacking you two as people in any way. I am strongly disagreeing with your idea, not with you.
2. The more words you use, the less you say, sometimes. I will try to be brief.
3. I'm trying to do this without getting too emotional. If I fail, forgive me.
Right, the reply:
To the proposal: We should have a new shared forum with general discussion, offtopic, foreign affairs, economics, roleplaying and admin; and retain our own boards for all other things (closing off the joint sections on our own forums)
I reply: No, because:
a. I do not think this will work.
b. Such a move would be unnecessary.
c. Such a move weakens the merger.
d. For me, it defeats the purpose of my vision.
a. I do not think this will work.
i. We tried this in the Confederacy of Gralus. It failed. Therefore it is probably going to fail here.
ii. Whatever you do, people stay more on their own forum.
iii. Roleplaying and General Discussion can find other ways of ending up on the original fora, and it will do this easier if people have to go to a new forum to get to the 'community' part.
i. We tried this in the Confederacy of Gralus. It failed. Therefore it is probably going to fail here.
The Confederacy of Gralus was like this but going a bit further. We tried to have a combined top level government and foreign affairs on a separate forum and retain our individual forums with links. After a year, it failed. There are several reasons for this, and one of the biggest ones was probably some issues with Toketi about me which we shouldn't go into (water under the bridge and all that), but a contributing factor was definitely the separate forums. For example, Athlon joined CoG for a while. Did Novatainians or Tokians visit much besides me? Nope. When we formed the Gralan Empire, one of the key bits we all agreed on was "If we're going to do this, it needs to be all on one forum," because of our experiences in CoG.
Summary: My experiences in the Confederation of Gralus lead me to believe a new separate joint forum while retaining individual forums will not work well.
ii. Whatever you do, people stay more on their own forum.
I think this is a self evident micronational axiom, or if not that, at least a good general rule for most of the populous. For one example, back when we weren't Gralus, Novatainia and Toketi did magical expeditions together. Expeditions on Toketi always had more people. Why? Because Toketi had a much larger population than Novatainia, and more Tokians would be involved on Toketi than on Novatainia, because going to another forum is a lot of effort.
Summary: I think people will be less likely to go to the 'community' forum if it's on a separate forum.
iii. Roleplaying and General Discussion can find other ways of ending up on the original fora, and it will do this easier if people have to go to a new forum to get to the 'community' part.
As a follow up to the previous point, two of the 'community' things can easily be done unofficially on the separate boards, and that will happen naturally. I believe it is more likely to happen if people have to go to a new forum to do it otherwise; whereas if we're on a fully merged forum, they're more likely to put it into the correct place.
Now, I happily admit that a joint RP forum is 90% a Gralan pipe dream that we'll keep doing EGaD in and one or two of you others might then join in. Nathan will probably keep spreading space stories across the boards of Natopia and that's all fine. But it's even less likely to happen on a separate 'community' forum.
Summary: RP and General Discussion will end up mainly on the original boards anyway, defeating the purpose of a separate 'community' forum.
b. Such a move would be unnecessary.
i. If we just wanted people to visit eachother's forums, we could all create links to eachother on our forums (in more obvious places than they already exist).
ii. The MCS could/should be functioning as a community hub in a separate forum.
iii. Given that the above two don't occur, I think it unlikely they would work much better on a 'community' Gralus-Nelaga-Shireroth-Natopia-Elwynn forum.
i. If we just wanted people to visit eachother's forums, we could all create links to eachother on our forums (in more obvious places than they already exist).
Most people don't visit eachother's forums much unless you specifically invite them to a specific thing, or they're already dual cits. We have links to eachother's forums already in our announcement boxes. But people don't visit. I believe people will be more likely to visit if they go onto their one board (the fully merged forum), and see "Hey, there are no new posts in my nation, but there are some in that nation there, why don't I check it out?" And they'll click on that nation's forum, and voila, see it as it is now (so things don't get lost) and then look to see where said posts are.
Summary: People don't already visit. I believe a fully merged forum will aid this, but a new joint one will not since they don't already visit.
ii. The MCS could/should be functioning as a community hub in a separate forum.
This is the second thing that comes to mind for me when you say "Let's have a separate joint forum" (the first being "It already failed in CoG"). If that is all we wanted, why not just encourage people to visit the MCS? It has a general discussion, off topic and economics forum. We could add an RP one, and foreign affairs we could do another way. In fact, why don't people already use the MCS for this? I'll admit the Economy forum hasn't tried to set itself up yet as a major company destination, but apart from that, it has the other things.
One reason that doesn't happen is that RPing Gralan-style on the MCS would get threads bogged down in "MAGICK SUZ LOZERS". Another is that people prefer to run companies on their home forum. The third is that the culture of the MCS is not always friendly. Now, I admit the first and third are answered by a joint 'community' forum instead of just telling us to use the MCS, but it still seems rather superfluous to do so, and it doesn't answer the company part.
Summary: The MCS should be doing this. People don't visit it. Therefore a joint 'community' forum won't help much.
iii. Given that the above two don't occur, I think it unlikely they would work much better on a 'community' Gralus-Nelaga-Shireroth-Natopia-Elwynn forum.
Should be self explanatory.
c. Such a move weakens the merger.
i. People aren't going in with the right attitude to make it work.
ii. If the separate 'community' forum becomes inactive while the national ones retain posts, people will say "It has failed." If we don't have posts for a couple weeks on the top level of part of a fully merged forum, there's no problem.
i. People aren't going in with the right attitude to make it work.
A separate joint forum says to me "I don't trust you guys enough to share a forum with you. Let's just keep our own forum so we can ditch you any time we want." A fully merged forum says "I am committed to the vision of us individuals working together, sharing ideas, visiting eachother's nations, doing joint projects and making the SCUE dream a reality." Yes, all discussions on this have deliberately started with the idea nations can pull out any time, with no consequences. And we should keep that in, certainly. But having a separate community forum, even a "trial period" makes it psychologically so much easier to not fully commit. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Summary: This is going to work so much better if people go in with a fully committed attitude - that will only happen on a fully merged forum.
ii. If the separate 'community' forum becomes inactive while the national ones retain posts, people will say "It has failed." If we don't have posts for a couple weeks on the top level of part of a fully merged forum, there's no problem.
It's not essential that any of the joint level parts happen for the functioning of the micronation. A micronation can last without an economy or roleplaying. General discussion is nice, but normally the least 'essential' part of micronational governance (though many would argue it is essential to the hobby as a whole for community building). Gralus, Nelaga and Shireroth are clear examples of nations who can run just find with next to no diplomatic contact. And all that is not necessarily in and of itself a bad thing. But if it all happens at once and the 'community' forum goes inactive, people will declare the whole thing a failure.
If, instead, those bits don't get posted in much while all the stuff in the nations themselves gets posted in on a fully merged forum, people won't notice. There's no problem, as there shouldn't be. Here, we won't have people calling it a failure when it isn't.
Summary: It is possible for nations to run without the 'community forum' bits. If that happens on a separate board, people will call that board a failure (when it isn't). If that happens on a fully merged forum, nobody will notice. Thus a separate forum leads to a greater likelihood of the project being deemed a failure.
d. For me, it defeats the purpose of my vision.
No real sub-arguments here. I'm just going to say briefly why this being proposed now annoys me personally, and then I'm going to finish by laying out the positive vision again.
Declaring my bias
I've been discussing this for weeks over several forums. I've been caught up with the vision of a fully merged shared forum. I knew there would be opposition, but we seem to have convinced them to at least all give it a go. And just when it seems we can finally move forward, you two say "Hang on, why don't we just do this partly?"
For me, the original post in Gralus was the "So, we've said we'll talk about some sort of merger, what form do we want it to take?" Then we had a bit of discussion, and nobody else seemed interesting in putting other ideas forward except Ari, so I explained my vision, he refined it a little, and we presented that to everyone hence forth. For me, now it's a month later, the "Let's change the model away from the thing we've already convinced most people of" option is a fortnight too late. That, and only you and Gerk seem interested, whereas at least me, Harvey, Scott, Ari and Nathan are fired up by the alternative vision.
So that's my emotional bias reduced into one easy subsection.
The positive vision
For me, there are three really exciting things about a completely merged forum. Firstly, there's the interaction with other nations. As a citizen or regular visitor to Gralus, Nelaga, Shireroth and Natopia, I see stuff going on in nations that I know people in other nations would really appreciate - but those other people don't see it. I also see awesome stuff fail or not achieve it's full potential because there's one or two people doing it and nobody else around to affirm it and help develop it. On a fully merged joint forum, we'll all see when there are posts in other nations, and I hope that people will naturally start looking at it and seeing some cool stuff and get involved. It won't happen all the time, sure. But if it happens at all, that's awesome.
Secondly, there's the chance to get the economy revived. The SCUE is all about combining economies and trying to reach that mystical critical mass to get an economy going. One of the problems with it is that if someone wants to get something done and doesn't already know the one person to do it, they have to post across four or five forums, and then miss replies etc. Look at poor Gustaaf and the Times Group - he post the same message on six forums to try and get someone to notice! If we all shared a forum and had one place to do economic stuff, I think our economy would have a lot more chance of success.
Thirdly, there's the social aspect. I've met a lot of cool people through micronations. I've also met some ... not so nice people. The vast majority of the cool people are in Nelaga, Shireroth and Gralus. There are none of the not so nice people in those nations. And I think some of those cool people would get on great and do even more amazing things if they knew eachother, but they don't because they're in separate nations. This would let us put together a lot of the cool people and still avoid the not so nice people, which I'm sure is one of the reasons a lot of us don't go on the MCS much. That, and the currently signed on nations won't scream blue murder about magic or flying islands.
And all this will, I believe, happen so much better than it already does (or could with a new 'community' forum) on a fully merged forum.
The character Andreas the Wise is on indefinite leave.
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
- Demon of Fides
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
psst, Artz and Gerk are on Gralus. This is Shieroth.
I am confusing, have a wiki article to help: Link-a-dink
-
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Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
It's probably just to spread the weird around about what's up
- Andreas the Wise
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- Location: The Island of Melangia, Atterock, Kildare
- Contact:
Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
Artz brought it up here so I responded here. I didn't want to get the other thread bogged down in it. I posted a link directly to my post here in my post there, though, so Gerk can find it easily if he wants.
The character Andreas the Wise is on indefinite leave.
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
I find it a very good post. You didn't have to convince me of the advantages of a shared forum, because I already know there are enough to try this, but I think that this is an excellent summary of the most important things that can be said about it.
Personally, I admit, I would like not to get Babkha or the MCS involved. Like Andreas said it: our nations share some background together, several of their citizens have worked together in the past on awesome projects and we aren't the kind of micronations who will bash another nation because of magic or flying islands.
I would love it to see what happens in Gralus, Nelaga and Natopia while visiting Shireroth. It would probably make me more involved in RPG projects (like in Gralus). And even if the contributions are little ones, it would be more than if we have separated forums.
Personally, I admit, I would like not to get Babkha or the MCS involved. Like Andreas said it: our nations share some background together, several of their citizens have worked together in the past on awesome projects and we aren't the kind of micronations who will bash another nation because of magic or flying islands.
I would love it to see what happens in Gralus, Nelaga and Natopia while visiting Shireroth. It would probably make me more involved in RPG projects (like in Gralus). And even if the contributions are little ones, it would be more than if we have separated forums.
From a distance I'm concerned about the rampant lawyerism manifesting itself in Shireroth currently. A simple Kaiserial slap on the wrist or censure by the community should suffice. - Jacobus Loki
Can't you see? I'm crazy!
Can't you see? I'm crazy!
- Harvey Steffke
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- Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:28 pm
Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
I agree with Andreas on essentially every point.
I really wish you guys had made more public that you were between interested and at least not opposed. When I got no response from the message I sent out a month or two ago, I assumed that you'd given it a quick look, decided it was stupid, and not another word had been thought about it. It wasn't until Ari said he was working on a forum (with a name that was chosen during a chat or something that I wasn't at? Though, lucky for me, I do hearty approve) that I got my first impression that anyone on this side of the world cared at all.
I really wish you guys had made more public that you were between interested and at least not opposed. When I got no response from the message I sent out a month or two ago, I assumed that you'd given it a quick look, decided it was stupid, and not another word had been thought about it. It wasn't until Ari said he was working on a forum (with a name that was chosen during a chat or something that I wasn't at? Though, lucky for me, I do hearty approve) that I got my first impression that anyone on this side of the world cared at all.
- Andreas the Wise
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- Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2007 10:41 pm
- Location: The Island of Melangia, Atterock, Kildare
- Contact:
Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
Glad some people appreciated it, took me long enough.
The character Andreas the Wise is on indefinite leave.
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy
And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).
-
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- Joined: Thu Oct 02, 2003 10:37 pm
- Location: County of Monty Crisco
- Contact:
Re: The Forum Sharing Stuff
Its been bouncing around SEP since then. I only really moved from the "yeah.. no..." category into the "sure, I guess" category a few days ago.
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