Make MSB great again!

[Ganymede]

@thenomain said in Make MSB great again!:

Why are we talking about culling any post? Is there something about this forum that an out of date post needs to be removed?

We're talking about this because a member has indicated that they'd like to see old threads in the Ad section cleared.

What I'm suggesting is that OPs of threads which have seen no activity in 6 months be given notice that their thread will be cleared unless they drop a note to us (mods) indicating they want to keep it open. Otherwise, after a certain point -- 14 days, let's say -- it would be reasonable to presume there is no interest in keeping the thread open.

The discussion is simply for the Ad area right now. I don't think anyone has said anything about other areas.

[Thenomain]

@ganymede

I suggest that they are kept. I can’t imagine that Soapbox is everybody’s go to place for advertising, and predict a baby/bathwater situation.

[mietze]

Why clearing/deletion? You could just lock the thread after that time (which would prevent its bumping up) and that would preserve the record.

I don't see a need for culling when you have an easy board administration tool (locking) that solves the "problem" and doesn't involve deleting things for purely aesthetic/personal taste purposes when there's no reason to.

[faraday]

@tempest Does active discussion have anything to do with whether a game still exists?
Are we expecting game owners to come by and bump their thread every few months just to say "Hey, by the way, we're still here" ? If not, then sifting through pages of ad threads trying to figure out what games may or may not still be open is not a very user-friendly experience for someone seeking a game to play.

Now if the admins don't want to do that housekeeping because this is a discussion forum and not a games directory, that's their business.

@Ganymede @mietze To clarify: a couple of us suggested moving the threads to a "Game Graveyard" section, not deleting them.

[Apos]

I dunno why you wanna make it harder for people to find games tho.

[mietze]

I see no need for anything to be moved or deleted. Lock threads for games that have closed, with an opportunity for the game runner to say farewell or whatever. There's no need for a "graveyard".

[faraday]

@apos said in Make MSB great again!:

I dunno why you wanna make it harder for people to find games tho.

The idea is to make it easier to find actual, playable games. Right now looking at the first page of the 'Ads' thread I see 2 games that are closed, several that are in development, a couple I'm not sure about, and one Evennia release note.

@mietze Locked threads still show up in the list, requiring more paging through to find games that are still open. Having separate sections for "Ads" "Games In Dev" and "Closed Games" doesn't delete anything, it just organizes it a bit better IMHO and makes things easier to find. But whatever folks want. It was just a suggestion.

[Apos]

@faraday Yeah I agree, I mean not cleaning would be making it harder. They need to be obvious without clicking on a thread which games are open or not.

[mietze]

Really, I also don't see the problem with a game runner who wishes to advertise on MSB coming by every few months to bump up their thread and say what's currently going on. Games (hopefully) are dynamic. What you advertise at opening hopefully will be a little different over time.

I think a Game Closed addition to the title to be sufficient. Or an indicator that a locked thread (which is obvious on sight) shows that a game is closed.

[Ganymede]

I think we can all concur that the first step is to contact the OP to figure out what their wishes are, whether their game is closed or no longer in development, and what they would like to see happen to their thread.

Any objection to that?

[Tempest]

@ganymede

[ThatGuyThere]

@wizz said in Make MSB great again!:

Player B is maybe being a little snarky, but it's still being critical of an idea, not a person. If I'm understanding correctly, I think it works fine for advertisements to also be Q&A, and then if someone wants to expand/discuss an answer or topic they move to the discussion board. I mean, we were kind of already doing that from time to time anyway.

I would be fine with attack the idea not the person but that is not what the new rules say:

This is not the place to criticise or attack either those games or their runners. If there isn't already a thread in the Mildly Constrictive or Hogpit sections for them then please feel free to start one, and we will link between them for easy access (but check first!).

That is a direct copy paste. So no under the current rules even attacking the idea in the ad thread is disallowed. You can criticize elsewhere but not in the ad thread, so like Theno said in his newspaper analogy, you can read the negative stuff but it is shunted off to section c, while any positive stuff will likely remain their because no game runner with a brain would as to have it moved. (And lets face it board mods and admins are busy folk and are not likely to move something 'til people ask about it) That is why I called it a pep rally, any positive stuff will remain while the negative gets booted.

[Wizz]

@thatguythere said in Make MSB great again!:

any positive stuff will remain while the negative gets booted.

... To the other board, on the same forum, where anyone who wants to can see it. Again, why does it matter so much that people can't drag any and every single issue into the ad? How does that behavior not seem the tiniest bit petty?

'Cause I'll be blunt, even for the legitimate issues, to me almost...eh, seven or eight times out of ten, it's seemed like the major blowouts here have been as much about if not more about the spectacle and wallowing in the ensuing meltdown, rather than finding any real resolution or justice. I'm just saying.

[Roz]

I mean, I wouldn't mind if the rule was actually "no reviews at all, positive or negative, in the ad thread" and it was relegated to just questions/clarifications. That way you could put any and all game feedback in a thread in Mildly Constructive or wherever, positive and negative, and avoid this sense of "all the positive things are reprinted next to it and the negative things relegated to somewhere else."

[Wolfs]

All comments should have their own place separate from the ad post itself. If you allow one POV or another to accompany the ad post, it will only create a misleading sense of what the place is like.

Let people hash that stuff out one way or the other in another post dedicated to discussion about the game. If any of it reaches the point where it's no longer really constructive, chances are the Hogpit will need to come into play if the review post itself isn't already there to begin with (and I don't think it should be, since the Hogpit is opt-in).

[Salty Secrets]

I'm wary of supporting positive reviews remaining in the ad threads if negative ones are being put elsewhere, especially with the risk the negative reviews could be hidden behind the membership wall of the Hog Pit. It might be easy to join but it isn't something a new member will know to seek out unless someone held their hand into discovering it.

I think keeping the ad threads for Q&A as well as for linking to revelant threads, whether in this subforum or the Hog Pit, is the correct course of action to avoid bias.