Discussion Forums

Jammer · June 2003

<div class="IPBDescription">Comeback Status?</div> Its been a while since its been brought up... but with 1.1 nearly upon us, have the powers that be (Monse and Nem) decided to open the floodgates of ill-reasoned logic and generalizations? I miss it ohsomuch. And just think off all the fun events coming up:

Peace in the Middle East?
Rebuilding Iraq?
'Where are the WMDS?'
The 'Liberation' of N. Korea
2004 Election
Gray Davis Recall
United States of Europe?
'Geigh' Marriage (this might be a little pushing it... EDIT considering the swear filter blocks its real name...)
Iran's culture clash
France's Strikes and the New Joan of Arc... <a href='http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/04/wfra04.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/06/04/ixworld.html' target='_blank'>Read here</a>

As well as classics like
The New American Century
Planet America?
China and Democracy
Why Jammer is teh awesomest.

So come on... please? I promise I'll be good. And we can sticky that lovely "How to Debate on the NS Forums" thing at the top to remind people how to behave...

<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

Also, please don't debate the ideas I mentioned here in this thread, since it will get locked/flame wared/baleeted.

Marik_Steele · June 2003

True, the discussion forums were a good place for the more mature members of the community to debate international events and policies in a civil way. But the few (you know who you are) less-than-model contributors made it necessary to have close moderation of a good number of threads. Threads unrelated to NS. Put simply, MonsE's words on the Discussion forum still stand: "Forum closed until after 1.1 release, or more likely forever." It's just a matter of whether it's more beneficial to the community to have that forum open, or have the moderators doing other things (playtesting, moderating threads more pertinent to NS itself). In the meantime, I beleive a couple members have made discussion forums on their own sets of message boards -- you'll have to try your luck with the search function.

tbZBeAst · June 2003

I posted something similar a wee while ago, the answer was - the mods are thinking about it. Leave it with them.

/me waits.

Moquiao · June 2003

i wasnt here when they were open... (see date joined...) but i did watch them just never posted...

i believe it or not have a huge political interest how the whole system works intrigues me.

so i hope it does come back...

Infinitum · June 2003

I feel the only real way to see the discussion forums brought back is if you ban discussions on recent wars (Past 30 years) and religion.

Hell, I love to talk about WW2, but that is a war over 50 years old and the facts are all clearly laid out on the table. However stuff like the recent Middle East crisis is like a giant magnet for flames. Not only may some forum memebers be affected by the September 11 attacks, they may also have family fighting over-seas, etc etc. Someone will say something that may be true, then someone will disagree and then it'll just devolve into an endless crap fight. Recent wars = flames.
Religion is also a big no-no. While most people can control themselves and hold a reasonable discussion, it only takes one fanatic of their faith to tick off another fanatic and the thread goes to hell.

Hell, I've probably ticked someone off just by posting the above. C'est la vie.

Narfwak · June 2003

I don't really want to see it come back. Other than Nem0, MonsE, Spooge and a few others, most people just complained, flamed and made everyone else feel bitter. I think we'd be a much happier group of people without it.

Maus · June 2003

Somebody posted a very accurate cartoon of what's wrong with forum discussions - basically people will read the first few posts, then say their piece without reading the whole thread. Thus repeating points that may already hve been said and really contributing not very much at all, leading then to their posts being (a) an excuse for them to exercise their opinion for ego's sake, and (b) flamebait. That's why I never touched the discussions forum when it was active - almost no-one reads what you have to say unless you're one of the first few people in the thread, and I'd rather keep as much distance between myself and flames as possible.

The only way to do it would be either to grant access to the forum to individual members or to have every post somehow checked before it appears in the thread. Do you seriously think any of the mods can really be bothered to go to such lengths?

Salty · June 2003

The problem was it wasn't discussion it was arguing. Nobody tried to discuss they tried to make the other side wrong. People would use bad statistics and information that only proved them right. Anybody that disagreed with you must either be: nieve, stupid, immoral, corupted, or something else. Bascially

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.
--Joseph A. Schempeter
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

tbZBeAst · June 2003

Hang on....

official word is <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=10&t=35689&hl=discussion+forum' target='_blank'>here</a>

Moquiao · June 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Infinitum @ Jun 30 2003, 10:08 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I feel the only real way to see the discussion forums brought back is if you ban discussions on recent wars (Past 30 years) and religion.

Hell, I love to talk about WW2, but that is a war over 50 years old and the facts are all clearly laid out on the table. However stuff like the recent Middle East crisis is like a giant magnet for flames. Not only may some forum memebers be affected by the September 11 attacks, they may also have family fighting over-seas, etc etc. Someone will say something that may be true, then someone will disagree and then it'll just devolve into an endless crap fight. Recent wars = flames.
Religion is also a big no-no. While most people can control themselves and hold a reasonable discussion, it only takes one fanatic of their faith to tick off another fanatic and the thread goes to hell.

Hell, I've probably ticked someone off just by posting the above. C'est la vie.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
no way... the point of it would surely be to discuss things like modern polotics etc.. which would involve the war... i know people are affected by it..

but it is to be discussed.... you should enter that forum with a clear head and mind and not filled with prejudices...

the only way it would be good is.

1, TIGHT policing (but the mods have enough work)
2, as harsh as this sounds maybe have a postcount allowance... i mean... 90% of the time when i see a normal thread turned into fighting it is by a hatchling who has 12 posts. and i know this is REALLY unfair and things to those who DO have something good to input.. but it seems like the more posts the member has the more they participate within the community etc and they arent going to screw it all up and get banned.. the only other problem with this... spam.. people may spam more to get the required postcount...

Maus · June 2003

There are plenty of muppets with higher postcounts too, y'know. And anything that enforces some kind of postcount-elitism is bad, mmkay?

Comprox · June 2003

It won't open for a bit guys, but when, and if it does, we already have some plans on how to keep it in better shape. Turning this into a discussion post about discussion forum won't help <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

moultano · June 2003

Suprisingly I thought the religion thread ended up going rather well. There was one little flareup, but 10 posts later or so everything had calmed down and I think the people involved had reached an understanding about eachother. No posts were modded and the thread wasn't locked. I was really impressed with that.

I actually didn't really see the problems in the discussion forum, but slightly antagonistic arguing in natural for me <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'> . The discussions were firey, heated, and emotional, but so is international politics. I found it to be amazingly rewarding to get the perspectives of people around the world with similar interests (ns) to mine.

The real question though is not whether its beneficial in general to have a discussion forum, but whether it is beneficial to the ns community to have a discussion forum. I think it is. No one that I can remember decided to leave the community after getting their toes stepped on in discussion. I learned alot about a number of the people that I see around the forums that I would never had otherwise. It made the forums seem like a more personal and personable place. Had it not been for the discussion forum pulling me in I don't think I would be as active in the community as I am.

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