Proposed New Forum Structure

[Fibonacci]

I think splitting updates and discussion will require a lot of modding.

About time they actually had something to mod.

Also, I like the idea of only VIPs being allowed to post in the update forum, but only on the condition that they end every post with "NOBODY ELSE COMMENT THIS POST!!!"

 

[Holdek]

I don't think this is going to solve the problem of speculation in update threads. If you open them up to regular posting then quite a few people are still going to basically just respond with whatever comes into their brains at the time. So then the solution to that is supposed to be making sure those those threads are "more heavily modded." Wouldn't it be more simple just to post a new rule saying, "Stay on the topic of the thread; if you want to discuss something unrelated to the OP post it in the appropriate thread instead or start a new one?" And then enforce that rule. This whole thing about splitting discussion into two threads in separate subforums for a each update topic is going to complicate things, especially because those topics are the most popular.

Really, the forums aren't the CWCki. If you just want your Chris news, fair and balanced, and without speculation, analysis, theory, or opinion, etc., that comes with a discussion forum, then Da Update on the website might be the best place for that, even if you have to wait a little longer.

 

[Null]

Really, the forums aren't the CWCki. If you just want your Chris news, fair and balanced, and without speculation, analysis, theory, or opinion, etc., that comes with a discussion forum, then Da Update on the website might be the best place for that, even if you have to wait a little longer.

Another problem, outside of just speculation within threads, is finding updates. If you leave for a month, you're going to miss a lot of updates, even if you go back pages in the Chris forum to find it.

 

[Golly]

Are you saying that "What If?" will no longer be a subforum? My chart reading skills are a little iffy at nearly 2 AM. I understand that all the speculation in the Chris forum can come off as white noise, but "Why does Chris shit himself?" should still be separate from "What if Chris shat his pants in Equestria?" threads.
Of course these only serve as hypothetical examples. In the real world, I assume they both belong in Spergatory.

I'm also of the opinion that all users should be able to post in Update threads, so long as they aren't allowed to make threads in the Update forum, unless the staff promotes clearly defined Reaction threads in Speculation.

 

[KatsuKitty]

Are you saying that "What If?" will no longer be a subforum? My chart reading skills are a little iffy at nearly 2 AM. I understand that all the speculation in the Chris forum can come off as white noise, but "Why does Chris shit himself?" should still be separate from "What if Chris shat his pants in Equestria?" threads.
Of course these only serve as hypothetical examples. In the real world, I assume they both belong in Spergatory.

I'm also of the opinion that all users should be able to post in Update threads, so long as they aren't allowed to make threads in the Update forum, unless the staff promotes clearly defined Reaction threads in Speculation.

My proposition was to get rid of the shitty "What If" threads to begin with. "What if Chris was into Megaman?" Who cares? One sticky for stupid shit like this and everything else can be considered normal speculation.

 

[HG 400]

I'd prefer if the Updates threads were even more restrictive, with reactions like "they don't look after their dogs!!!" not allowed either. All plebian comments could go to the mirror-thread with the speculating, so actually important stuff like Thetan dropping in with a screencap of reactions form Chris's facebook friends doesn't get buried in piles of "omg chris is disgusting" posts.

 

[champthom]

Sounds reasonable, but my two concerns:

1) If Chris stops updating stuff, then we'll have a stagnate forum that's sitting around doing nothing
2) For the love of God, don't use the word "Speculation" as it reminds me too much of the Speculation page we had on the CWCki and I still have nightmares about the awful posts there.

 

[José Mourinho]

[youtube]H6OtFKNDPUc[/youtube]

 

[TL 611]

Sounds reasonable, but my two concerns:

1) If Chris stops updating stuff, then we'll have a stagnate forum that's sitting around doing nothing
2) For the love of God, don't use the word "Speculation" as it reminds me too much of the Speculation page we had on the CWCki and I still have nightmares about the awful posts there.

I loved speculation! it was nowhere near as spergy as here, amongst the shit there you could actually find cool little theories and stuff. Although it may just be me looking at it through rose-tinted spectacles

 

[Golly]

Are you saying that "What If?" will no longer be a subforum? My chart reading skills are a little iffy at nearly 2 AM. I understand that all the speculation in the Chris forum can come off as white noise, but "Why does Chris shit himself?" should still be separate from "What if Chris shat his pants in Equestria?" threads.
Of course these only serve as hypothetical examples. In the real world, I assume they both belong in Spergatory.

I'm also of the opinion that all users should be able to post in Update threads, so long as they aren't allowed to make threads in the Update forum, unless the staff promotes clearly defined Reaction threads in Speculation.

My proposition was to get rid of the shitty "What If" threads to begin with. "What if Chris was into Megaman?" Who cares? One sticky for stupid shit like this and everything else can be considered normal speculation.

I've always thought of the "What If" subforum as a forum game. I only post there rarely and there isn't much substance in it, but if you're really bored and there's an appealing thread, it's kind of fun to muse for a couple seconds on "What if Chris were in a musical".

 

[Null]

1) If Chris stops updating stuff, then we'll have a stagnate forum that's sitting around doing nothing

Others have said the same, and my retort is: we have a board called Sonichu.

 

[José Mourinho]

Perhaps there should be more forum games other than "What If" subforums?

 

[Null]

Perhaps there should be more forum games other than "What If" subforums?

My idea with the What If? forum is to translate it to something broader.

Basically, we'll have three tiers:
1. Real updates, no faffing about
2. Discussion. "Serious" discussion, moderate faffing about. Posts should contribute and people are expected to read the thread before replying.
3."What If?" / Ballpit. Maximum faffing about, nothing to be taken seriously. "Random thoughts and questions" turned into a subforum.

 

[Uzumaki]

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding some aspect of this, but I don't see how it helps that much. If someone only wants to read the update part of an update post, they can just do so and then close the thread. If they dislike the discussion they don't have to concern themselves with it. Removing it gives them nothing new, all it does is force the people who like to discuss the update to mess around with multiple threads. And each update, instead of being one thread, will explode like a diseased man thrown into an industrial fan and every update will cause the "speculation" section to become a million tiny threads about said update, dozens of which are interrelated and reference each-other, and trying to follow the conversation after that will make reading a 40+ page update thread look downright pleasant.

This looks like it's going to be a lot of work and hassle for some kind of weird moral victory that I don't really get.

 

[Null]

This looks like it's going to be a lot of work and hassle for some kind of weird moral victory that I don't really get.

Alright, I concede. This is all really well said. If there's a second forum for updates, it has to allow standard user replies. That means the two main purposes of the update forum would then be:

1. Separating new content from standard discussion.
2. Raising the standard of quality for discussion on new statuses and updates.

So basically, instead of just cataloging updates in the forum, we'll open the doors to everyone's input but our expectation is that people will only post if they actually have something to say. "Die chris" comments and typical sperging that we often tolerate will be more thoroughly moderated. However, if someone wants to take a quote from the post and start an entirely new discussion back in the other forum, it'll be totally fine.

How's that sound?


Edit: In addendum, KatsuKitty has asked what sort of posts he should be looking to delete/lock given the recent complaints about A-logging and stuff. There's a few users we have our eyes on, but when this new board gets introduced (if I think I've perfected the idea) I'll work with the other mods and admins to figure out a less "gut instinct" approach to moderating. In light of a recent popularity surge, post quality has really declined and most threads aren't worth reading. That's something I really don't like to see.

 

[Holdek]

This looks like it's going to be a lot of work and hassle for some kind of weird moral victory that I don't really get.

Alright, I concede. This is all really well said. If there's a second forum for updates, it has to allow standard user replies. That means the two main purposes of the update forum would then be:

1. Separating new content from standard discussion.
2. Raising the standard of quality for discussion on new statuses and updates.

So basically, instead of just cataloging updates in the forum, we'll open the doors to everyone's input but our expectation is that people will only post if they actually have something to say. "Die chris" comments and typical sperging that we often tolerate will be more thoroughly moderated. However, if someone wants to take a quote from the post and start an entirely new discussion back in the other forum, it'll be totally fine.

How's that sound?


Edit: In addendum, KatsuKitty has asked what sort of posts he should be looking to delete/lock given the recent complaints about A-logging and stuff. There's a few users we have our eyes on, but when this new board gets introduced (if I think I've perfected the idea) I'll work with the other mods and admins to figure out a less "gut instinct" approach to moderating. In light of a recent popularity surge, post quality has really declined and most threads aren't worth reading. That's something I really don't like to see.

I wouldn't mind this approach (although the poll is set up so I can't retract my "no" vote in light of this amendment).

 

[KatsuKitty]

Edit: In addendum, KatsuKitty has asked what sort of posts he should be looking to delete/lock given the recent complaints about A-logging and stuff. There's a few users we have our eyes on, but when this new board gets introduced (if I think I've perfected the idea) I'll work with the other mods and admins to figure out a less "gut instinct" approach to moderating. In light of a recent popularity surge, post quality has really declined and most threads aren't worth reading. That's something I really don't like to see.

In the past, I've been rather conservative on closing threads or deleting posts, basically allowing threads like "Can Chris Swim?" because it otherwise didn't break any rules (or wasn't flat out retarded like "Does Chris smell his own farts?"). Essentially, if it wasn't outright trash, I would let it go, and just let people discuss whatever they wanted to.

The influx of shit posting has made this conservative approach difficult to maintain, so my concern is having margin calls universally caught up in the locking process absent any clear guidelines for both users and admins to abide by (something I tried to do in the "Chris Forum Almanac") This reduces the assessment of post quality to a nebulous Potter Stewart approach that is likely to piss off a lot of users. There are plenty of "ehh" threads I see routinely that if I had to be more aggressive, I would lock, but this aggressive approach is just as likely to elicit an angry reaction from the userbase, not to mention silence interesting discussion that may take place in those margin calls I talked about.

Really, the best way to solve this is to amend the Forum Almanac with everything common to these low quality posts. One thing I can immediately identify is the discussion of extremely trivial or inconsequential aspects of Chris's life (such as how many McNuggets he eats weekly or something), not to mention threads that ask questions for which the answer may be obvious (how much exercise Chris gets or something). Things like that. The "citizenry" has to take an active role just as much as the "police" in ensuring order, and clearer guidelines like this assist them in doing so.

 

[Dork Of Ages]

KatsuKitty, do you think you should include a guideline in the Chris Forums Almanac, like "Think about what, where and how you will post before you make one"? This way, people can become more aware of their post quality? (For example, posting random questions and thoughts about Chris in the right thread, to cut off the rather unnecessary threads that does not really contribute to the forums.)

It can also include about making a insightful thread.

 

[José Mourinho]

Needless to say, I remember in the first forumer, there was a thread discussing about "Chris's Bones" (or something like that) and it was put into Spergatory but there was a lot of discussion about why it was put there. Some argued it's A-Loggish but some argued otherwise.

So what are we going to do if something like that happens?

 

[Holdek]

Needless to say, I remember in the first forumer, there was a thread discussing about "Chris's Bones" (or something like that) and it was put into Spergatory but there was a lot of discussion about why it was put there. Some argued it's A-Loggish but some argued otherwise.

So what are we going to do if something like that happens?

The thread was, "How Brittle Are Chris' Bones?" which is a good question and one that I continue to ponder on a weekly, perhaps daily, basis, since there is no thread in which we can come to a consensus answer in.