Exactly. So your pointing out the technical difficulties or lack thereof didn’t add anything to the issue except to make it seem like that was an issue.
I disagree that the point you were attempting to refute in this thread was about that as well. It had more to do with the communication and coordination than the technical issue. If you look back at it, it described email and creating clear descriptions. Those are communication issues, not technical issues.
I’ll admit I did not see those in Cafe Society. Looking again, I see that the Star Trek one is still on the front page (and mine goes back a week), while the others have dropped off. Which I think rather proves the point: These threads are cluttering up the top of the Game Room while remaining invisible in CS.
Agreed.
Again, the actual “doing it” time is only a small fraction of the time it takes to get some change done.
And the fact is that it doesn’t matter. We don’t have access to an administrator unless it’s something REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT (like when the boards go down entirely.) Minor cosmetic changes are just not feasible.
Again, the mods are discussing whether there is some alternative remedy.
Also, I see that the definition of “game” is not so clear after all.
This isn’t a minor cosmetic change. We’re asking you to fix something that is severely broken with how the board works.
Are they really? Because Tubadiva said:
which seems to suggest the decision has been made.
The decision has been made wrt a whole new Forum. They are trying to determine a different solution which might be to break up game threads by category which will have game threads in a few different forums or, as Tuba suggested, tagging threads in the Game Room that are game room.
Tagging game threads doesn’t solve the fundamental problem of them cluttering up the forum listing, unless there was some way to filter them out. If only there were some mechanism to ignore threads, such that they wouldn’t show up. Then I could just flag the game threads which I’m not interested in and never have to see them again.
There’s a bottom line here, which is that we can’t arrange for you only to see (on the forum page) threads that you’re interested in. I’m not interested in participating in 95% of the stuff in MPSIMS, but I scroll through for the bits that I am. From the point of view of filters, a lot is going to have to be your own eye/brain connection.
So, as a thought: if thread titles in the Game Forum started with a one-word clue (GAME, CRICKET, GOLF, OLYMPICS, ROLE-PLAY, etc), that would make things easier to scroll down and find what you want and ignore what you don’t. The problem: the mods are not willing to spend tons of time adding labels if posters don’t. It would have to be voluntary, so wouldn’t be 100%, but might be better than status quo?
My perspective:
-I disagree that this is a major problem with the board. I do think, however, it’s a moderate problem with the forum and is something that could be improved.
-The “tag threads” solution is certainly better than the status quo. It is not, however, the optimal solution, which would be to separate thread games into a different forum entirely due to their qualitative differences from all other threads.
-I understand the logistical difficulties with making these changes.
So, my proposal:
-What if we do this thread-tagging for now, AND the subforum idea gets put on a to-do list, to be completed at such time as someone with administrator privileges has a few spare moments? Perhaps all the non-administrator work (e.g., selecting the best place for the forum, writing its descriptive paragraph, etc.) can be done in advance, even crowdsourced here, so that when an administrator has a spare ten minutes or whatever, they can just cut-and-paste?
I think this proposal respects both the desire to improve the boards, and the difficulty administrators have in finding the time to make logistical changes.
What if a poster, say myself, were willing to sign up to be a mod to tag posts in The Game Room? It’s not the greatest solution (the greatest solution has been mentioned multiple times in this thread), but it’s a start.
That’s very generous of you and you could be made a single forum Mod rather than a Global Mod like all of the others here. Unfortunately, it would require Jerry to promote you and we are back to not being able to use his time. It would be marginally easier than making a new forum though.
Of course, we would then have a new set of problems. The inevitable complaints and nit picks over your choice of tags would probably get old really fast.
We do not appoint moderators; Ed does. We give input into the vetting but we do not have any power of choice.
That is totally a generous offer on your part, though, Justin, and it’s very much appreciated. We are asking people to help out their fellow Dopers – and also themselves – as threads that are clear in their descriptions are easier to find and garner more traffic. Dopers have always been very good at doing things for themselves and their fellow Dopers and I can’t imagine this being any different.
Traffic really is key, isn’t it? It’s getting to look at what you want and finding what you’re interested in and doing all that more readily. And we are of course dependent on new traffic to survive. All in this together.
What? No, it proves nearly the opposite: The quote threads aren’t cluttering up anywhere, but the other threads in CS are. The quote threads in CS are competing against other threads that people here are interested in, and so get pushed off of the front page. The quote threads in GR, however, are only competing against things for which there isn’t much interest here like sports discussions, and so are remaining on the front page. If the problem really were the quote threads themselves and the “clutter” they make up, then the problem would show up everywhere quote threads are found.
That’s exactly what I said. Can’t see them in Cafe Society, stuck to the top of the forum in Game Room. They are a problem (to me and others) in the Game Room, they’re not in Cafe Society.
In summary:
<poster> why don’t you make a new forum? it’s super easy
<admin> we can’t. it’s super hard.
<poster> no, actually, it’s super easy.
<admin> except we don’t want to and were just claiming it’s super hard as some sort of excuse about why we don’t do it.
This is a parody, right?
Two points: first, quote threads may be one form of post game, they aren’t the only form of post game. It’s possible the quote version is not as involved or not as susceptible to the problem as some other versions.
Second: there are only a couple of these in CS, whereas there are a couple dozen in GR. Quantity makes a difference.
C K Dexter Haven actually moonlights as a writer infomercials.
Count me as a vote to give thread games their own subforum under the Game Room. SenorBeef outlined the reasons well.
For those arguing that threadgames work fine in Cafe Society (they do not) because they don’t overwhelm discussion threads (they would), remember that thread games were one of the main driving factors in creating the Game Room in the first place. MPSIMS mods and posters were overwhelmed with thread games in MPSIMS, which was their home before the Game Room existed. MPSIMS has way, way, way more traffic than the Game Room, and much of MPSIMS traffic is quick, frequent posts. If MPSIMS was being overwhelmed, Cafe Society wouldn’t stand a chance.
Back during the creation of the Game Room, I was one of the people who argued that sports, video games and food didn’t belong in Cafe Society because I view Cafe Society as a slightly more highbrow version of Entertainment Weekly. If you browse through EW, you’ll find movies, tv shows, music, books and plays. You won’t find sports, video games, or food.
My argument then was to move all the sports, video games, food and threadgame threads to a new forum. Food didn’t make the cut, which is unfortunate because that would have helped the traffic. Threadgames did make it, which is unfortunate because it turns out now that they hurt traffic in the discussion threads.
Technically speaking, all the game threads in Cafe Society should be moved to the Game Room.
Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I argued that food should go in MPSIMS because there is nothing more mundane (earthly, common, everyday) than eating.