How is the board consolidation going?

[JenniferL]

We're nearing the end of the consolidation process for the boards and I'd like some feedback on it.  I know not everyone has moved over yet, but the majority has.  If you're happy with the new boards, tell me why. If you are unhappy with them, tell me why. If you were for the move, but now hate it, I want to know.  If you were dead set against, but now think it's pretty sweet, I'd like to know about that too.

 

One caveat though. If this turns into a flame war, I'm locking the thread.  Negative feedback is fine, calling me and the other Admins a bunch of names is not.

 

So talk to me. Tell me what you think.

[eclipse0]

The load times at DM.com are longer to refresh pages.  It's kind of a turn off, especially when you belong to an org with alot of activity.  It makes it harder to keep up with the discussion.

[lord of the dawn]

*nods*

 

he is right....the BT org boards are faster, and look a whole lot cooler, no offense......

[Twitchy]

Agreed with what LoD said.

BT and SG boards are both much faster then this.

I mean, in all honesty, why would you have to do this? Wah wah wah, there's not enough activity on DM? Sorry, but, blah, that's a dumb idea. Dragonmount and affiliated boards is supposed to be a place where we can have fun, chat about WoT, and talk to people who share a similar enjoyment for WoT. We like these boards, they give us joy, we're following "The Pursuit of Happiness" if you will. And according to Thomas Jefferson, all humans have right to LAND (Offsite boards), LIBERTY (Doing mostly what we wish) and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS (Having fun at DM or affiliated boards). I want a John Locke as an Admin, and I want us to follow those rules.

[Gerrendus]

Well trivially one thing that makes me sad is that DM doesn't have a lot of the emoticons that I'm used to. However that could probably be fixed, but onto other  issues:

Non trivially:

At SG we have seperate faction boards, however in order to give our staff moderation rights, they can see all of the boards, which kind of defeats the purpose.  DM does take longer, and the simple machines "new" label is a bit annoying.  It makes it hard to tell which threads are active and which threads aren't if you haven't been keeping up with them.  Its a little excessive.  One thing I like about the old SG boards is that we have all of our information consolidated in one location, there are links at the top of the page for me to access say, our (SG) memberlist.  In addition to the memberlist we also have our rollers, this makes me feel more spread out. I simply do not like the simple machines boards.  There is no way to make an announcement that stays at the top.  The closest you can come is a pin, which then shifts to the bottom of the stack as more active ones reach the top.  Having announcements at the top of the page makes them more prominent.  In order to send a private message to someone I have to go through several links, first by clicking their name, then by finding "send personal message" the old DM boards, and the private boards simply have a PM button on the bottom of the page.  I don't know if DM has a compose PM area either, but i know the private faction boards do.

In short: I simply do not like the layout and workings of the simple machines forums.  Where the information is makes it difficult to work with, my first time posting on this boards it took me forever to find the reply button. Ease of use and functionability are simply not the same here as on private boards.

Now: I know the servers have been upgraded, however, given DMs history, once everyone fully shifts I am concerned that the servers will resume their previous state of unreliability.  Especially because i know that the 17 boards of BT are not over here yet, nor has SG fully given up its offsite boards yet.

Now on the other hand, there is something to be said for activity on these boards rather than private faction boards.  Having activity on these boards makes it easy for people to keep track of multiple orgs and be active in them, and it makes it easier for the orgs to recruit new people but, i don't know if thats a good consolation for the loss of private boards which people have invested lots of time and money in.  All of our threads are not going to be easily transferred over, we are talking about literally the entire orgs information must be re-done.

Twitch makes a good point as well about John Locke and having fun.

[Haxorsist]

I actually find the SG boards kinda slow, and as I'm typing this message it seems like they're down. *pokes the board* And we're not allowed to anything on the offsites that we aren't allowed to do here. At least I don't think so.

 

I think the consolidation is going okay, the only Org that I'm a member of that has an offsite is SG. There's not crazy much activity going on at SG DM, but there's some which is good considering that most of the members were negative(super-cranky) to the consolidation. *points up* :D

 

And the moving of the CoL offsite boards is going great! I was gonna shut 'em down anyway after Barm posted those semi-nude pics of Cads and she was all: "I'm hiring Kivam and I'll sue you for what you're worth, and then I'll use the money to take Oz on a cruise to like Australia or something!" What? It's not like I'm jealous or anything...

[Twitchy]

With what Gerr said about all the information, I took the liberty to rack up the numbers.

 

SG has...

262,564 posts over there, and 4,375 threads.

 

BT has...

171,845 posts over there, and 3,651 threads.

 

 

I'd be to say the least, somewhat peeved if we lost all that information.

 

[Aut vincere aut mori]

Same here;

 

  To try and portray our point. Most other .org boards were started out as emergency boards,  and many still are simple in layout. And are so easy to give up. However we at the BT boards have a site with 17 boards (each with a complicated access restriction in place, which would be impossible to implement here from the sounds of it), we have an individual layout and not this "different shades of brown" look, we have background music on the site, on and on and on.

 

      Now to the non-trivial things;

 

1) BT website never went down. Only during an update, and that was less then 5 minute downtime. This website,....*sigh*

 

2) We have over 175,000 posts and I think it was 3,000 topics on the BT boards. To transport even a fraction of that over,....

 

3) Quite a few of our members registered to our site Black Tower first, and only later found out about DragonMount or registered here after learning of our affiliation with it. Why this is, is quite simple. If you put in Black Tower/Wheel of Time into google, go and see how far up the list our website pops up ;)

 

4) We even made calculating tools, which I think would be impossible to port over here for our "One Power" fights.

 

5) The list goes on and on.

 

 

  In short. We lose an arm and a leg by giving up our website. It is simply ridicolous to demand it. It is not a simple backup forum anymore that is easy to lay aside. It is the heart and soul of our ORG.

[HotW Moiraine]

What is the crime of having an affiliated offsite board?

 

The only thing you are gaining by our consolidation is more ad revenue, and server crashes.

[Simon the half-demon]

//edited, i thought id add this at the beginning, in case people just dismissed me as eronious in my first point. this IS a short post, with what i feel, i could easily write many times this without repeating myself

 

im not going to make a huge post over this, because i have an english essay to do, and if i tryed to put all my thoughts down, id be here for hours.

 

suffice to say im against the move, and chances are i agree with most of the points the other BT'ers have made provided there against the move too.

 

DM is far to slow to keep up with the speed BT operates at, and i dont wish to have to wait the extra seconds, considering that in the holidays, and weekends, i often (not so much anymore, mainly because i havent been on a large talking spree for a while) make in excess of 100-150 posts a day. the time simply adds up far to much to want to lose willingly.

 

plus the rules here, while livable for DM posting, i simply could not stand on my main forum. my personality wouldent allow me to enjoy the majority of my online communication (Barring msn) to be restricted to that degree.

 

the black tower is like a second family to me. if we were forced to move, a lot of members activity would go down, and i would not like to see that happen.

 

and i happened to notice aut's point number 3. i never even new what DM was until about a month after joining BT, and when i did, i only posted for invasions, mainly because of the restriction, since i find it difficult to have fun talking when i hav to constantly think what im typing in case i breach rules that i dont agree with, and cant even see the point in, especially when there are so many. on DM i only really post on the tinkers, and thats because desiree asked me to join, and i like to keep her as happy as i can. even having said that, it took a medium sized PM conversation for her to get me to join, and if it wernt for her i wouldent post here at all, exept for BT invasions, and then only when points are in the offing, or if it looks to be a social event.

 

also, i hate being forced in any aspect. its a deep seating instinct that if im pushed, i push back. i hate having choices taken away, even if i dont care and  it wouldent affect me.

 

what this move is asking of me personally, is to go away from my freinds, because im sure the activity that happens on the BT offsite board would not hold up here, simply because the board is too slow, and people dont have infinite attention spans, not to mention the downtime. it is also asking me to change my talking style from its normal style to one in which i have to constantly monitor my post for 'offensive' words, which arent even considered offensive by my grandmother, who has a lot of problems with a lot of words.

 

so, just to review;

 

plus points; none.

 

negative points; i lose time to talk to my freinds, and as im not a very socialable person, its difficult for me to make freinds, and i have no interest in making others anyways.

 

i have to be uncomfortable in my posting style.

 

im being forced into a choice i would not like.

 

i have to obey loads of pointless rules (in this case, pointless is rules made to make 1 or 2 people happy, that will inconviniance a lot of people)

 

im photosensitive to a variable degree (it tends to change sometimes, i think when i get re-adjusted) and so the black style of BT is actually very comfortable for my eyes compared to this one. not much of a difference in brightness, but enough to cause me mild inconvienience)

 

im putting myself in a position where there is effectively ONE forum, which means that if the admins make a desicion that makes posting there unbearable, i cant simple move elsewhere with others, since there is no where else to go.

 

on that note, the admins on BT are people i know, and when to comes down to rules and regulations, i -KNOW- them to be fair, and they will take everything into consideration. now, im not saying the admins here are not, because i dont know them personally, but i dont relish the idea of giving myself over to people that i dont know to be fair, when i already have people that i DO know are.

 

on that note, a lot of the rules here seem to be based around the fact that if anyone gets offended, its not allowed. even if someone MIGHT get offended its not allowed. even when no one is forcing you to read it.

 

now, in real life, its usually a question of what the majority wants, because thats simply the way it works. the overall inconvienence of a lot of people adds up to worse than the offense of one person, who quite frankly, if they are offended by some of the things prohibited here, are bound to be offended by pretty much anything at one stage or another anyways.

 

i personally do not share the views of the majority on a lot of issues. but do i complain? no, i do not, in fact pointless complain at people, simply because i can accept that while not many people agree with me, nothing will happen, simply because the people that can make it happen do not wish it to.

 

now, if i can just accept that these things are, when they actually affect my entire lifestyle, and what i can and cannot do without having legal repercussions, then i fail to see why people can not just accept that they are in a very small group of people that finds breaching rule x offensive.

 

i personally find it offensive that this board wraps everything in bubblewrap, which makes the conversatiosn false, because that is not how the people really talk. i think its ludicrous to make people talk in a certain manner, where if everyone here were to meet irl for a conversation instead of talking on forums, those rules would not in fact apply, despite you could hear everyone. i think it it highly annoying that i cannot talk as i normally do, because people -might- be offended. there are huge numbers of people in the world that talk in a far more 'offensive' manner than me, but do people insist that they wear ducttape over their mouths in public, lest a naughty word offends people? no. if you dont like the way somebody talks, just ignore them, no one is making you read thtough these posts.

 

yet, despite how much this annoys me, and probably other members that are not as outspoken, nothing will happen, because the real world isent part of the 'cute fuzzy' image that seems to be encouraged, if not mandatory here.

 

at least on the BT, while im not allowed to openly swear anymore, as long as i asterisk out various letters (for some reason this makes the words less offensive, despite the fact that the meaning remains the same O_O) which means that everyone there, and basically were only not allowed because of the pg-13 rule, can understand me, and work out how i actually sound, which means i can be myself there, without getting yelled at.

 

 

 

and i meant what i said at the beginning. with my feelings on this, this -IS- a short post. i could write many times this without repeating myself, but it wouldent make a difference i suppose, so im meraly venting.

[Jadyn alRaimon]

I agree with the other BT members, i don't like it.  >:(

[Canukistani]

You have no right to demand that we move all our activity to these boards.  You may be the boss of this website but not of us.  I never come to these boards because i don't like the layout, having to scroll past forums I'm not interested in/member of, and i just don't have time to come here.  We have hundreds of thousands of posts in thousands of threads on SG (containing the 4-5yr history of SG since it's inception), but that does not include all our member pictures, personal portfolios, games, dice rollers, chatsite, and sense of privacy where we can gripe and plan invasions of other orgs/people, talk about our lives and generally be ourselves without worrying about who's watching. 

 

Just because this is the internet, doesn't mean civil laws don't apply.

You can not legally ban us or discriminate against us because we choose to associate on a website that is not under the Dragonmount domain name.  Offsite boards are legally PRIVATE PROPERTY.  Members of private boards are free to come and go as they please.

 

My comment stands for all the Org/Com offsite boards.  You have authority only in the perview of www.dragonmount.com.  You cannot force us not to associate elsewhere.  You cannot penalize us for associating elsewhere. That is in direct violation of the Freedom of Assembly. 

 

You do not have copyrights over the name Dragonmount or any other term from the Wheel of Time.  Robert Jordan (blessed is his name) and his estate own those rights.  I would like to think that if he new what you are attempting to do to his loyal fans, that he'd sic his 'eats bullets for breakfast' lawyers on you.

 

You're not the Amyrlin, you're Big Brother.  You are very close to being a facist.

 

 

ps: yes i took a screenshot of my post just in case you delete it because you don't like it.

[Matalina]

In order to send a private message to someone I have to go through several links, first by clicking their name, then by finding "send personal message" the old DM boards, and the private boards simply have a PM button on the bottom of the page.  I don't know if DM has a compose PM area either, but i know the private faction boards do.

In short: I simply do not like the layout and workings of the simple machines forums.  Where the information is makes it difficult to work with, my first time posting on this boards it took me forever to find the reply button. Ease of use and functionability are simply not the same here as on private boards.

 

Um there is a simplar way. See theicons under the avatars.  Why not hover over them and see what they say.  You will find Email, Website, Private Message etc... The private message icon is the little talk bubble with a small cloud or something over it.

[JenniferL]

What exactly are the rules that make you uncomfortable here? I've heard that complaint before, but no one has ever said what exactly they have issues with.

 

The slowness of the forums is something we're working on. Part of it is all the graphics we have to pull from other sites, not just the ads (though that's a BIG part), but the signatures and avatars.

 

No one can force you to be a member here or to post on our forums. But why call yourself a member of Dragonmount then? All we're asking is that if you want to be part of DM, you post here. If you'd like to make your own site, with whatever rules, regulations, graphics, etc. you'd like, we'll be happy to link to it. But you can't call it Dragonmount. That's all we're asking.

[Roxinos]

I'm another SGer, so you should already know my point of view. Hell, I'm one of those who applied for the Org Leader position when it was open, so you should know it even better.

 

Look, I can see what you want to do with getting those off-site boards to merge with DM. There are an awful lot of people who choose to avoid DM just because the off-site boards are as active, or more so, with people that the Org members actually like talking to. It's a way to avoid those too uncool to be part of our particular clique in the cafeteria during lunch. So by merging, you're jumping up the activity by getting all of those people who came to DM, found an Org, joined it, and jumped ship to come back.

 

But force is never the proper method.

 

I think you can tell why I stopped coming to DM. It's not the layout. It's not the look. It's not any of that, because, honestly, I don't really see much difference from the way this place looks and feels now then when I first came here three years ago. It's just the people. I found the group that I liked, and, as I got to know them, I moved to their private boards because I'm more interested in them then I am in all of the other people.

 

I'll come here every once in a while when I feel like reading up on some general tWoT discussion, but it's not a major part of my daily routine anymore. And what you're trying to do is forcing it into my daily routine, and I don't much like it.

 

Besides, there is no way you can stop us from having a board that is unaffiliated with DM, states it is unaffiliated with DM, but happens to have the same members and a similar theme. That's like you going over to a board on GameFAQs which has been dedicated to tWoT (since there was a game) and telling off all of the members over there who are members at DM as well and telling them to come on home. DM just isn't my home anymore.

 

When you try to force it upon the members of the Orgs, you get reactions like Canukistani's. Not because it's a bad idea, and not because it is wrong or anything, but merely because there was no real communication between the two parties (SG and you). I don't know how it was for other Orgs, and that may be our fault, but I'm not here to respond to the feelings of other Orgs, I'm here to respond to the feelings of my Org. I had addressed the issue on the staff board on our off-site boards, and I explained what I felt was the reason behind our animosity towards you and what you are trying to do (even if it isn't solely you, that's what the general feeling is).

 

"The issue around here arose when it was announced that we had to move our boards to DM. It's fair enough that we had a problem with it then because all we were hearing was that we had to move our boards to DM and the majority of us don't really like DM, so the idea that we had to move over there was just silly.

 

Beyond that, it was just a power struggle. I mean, having the freedom we have over here kind of causes us to disassociate DM from SG in our minds. We forget that DM is actually our mother site and the main source of all our incoming newbies. So when the leader of DM starts giving us orders, it's like a culture shock.

 

And the events which led up to the American Revolution mirror this situation quite well. Except, you know, not entire countries and a war and all that jazz.

 

I mean, I think things would be so much easier if Kath just came over here and told us what she wants us to do and addressed any concerns ourselves instead of a faceless woman going through people like Ubel or you, FDM. It just serves to anger us further because the delay in questions and answers makes the situation ripe for speculation. And speculation breeds anger. Anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering. (2 points to whoever can tell me what that's from.)

 

So months later we're still getting the trickle of information, and it doesn't help the speculation or anger. But that anger is only fed by the (most likely) misused phrases like "you're allowed to use the boards" and "you can keep them."

 

A lot of these problems could have been avoided if we had been simply told, "We want activity to go up at DM. You don't have to move or anything, but any off-site boards cannot be affiliated with DM, and we need for you to maintain a steady presence at DM." And a further laying down of the rules that off-site, unaffiliated boards would follow to keep their lack of an affiliation with the former mother site.

 

But we get told all of that in small chunks. Little bits that allow for speculation." [edited only for language

 

*shrug* I don't even know the whole story. I may be in the wrong of what has been going on, but that's how I feel, and I think people my just agree with me. But then again, what do I know. I'm not the Org leader, I'm just a former staff member who resigned his position within the Org.

 

I feel I must restate that I don't dislike the style around here. I don't even find it slow anymore (it was a hell of a lot slower when it would crash every once in a while thanks, in part, to my spamming efforts). I think it's a beautiful site, and I know that you and everyone else have put a lot of time and money into it and I thank you on behalf of not only myself (because I would not have found SG without DM) but on behalf of every other member who has found someone or something through DM. Which is just a tad bit presumptuous of me, but what can I say? I'm an SGer.

 

And in the time it took me to type all of this, you have responded, and I must say that I agree with you. But DM was the source of our union, and it will always be a part of our thoughts, however little our activity may confess to that. (Once more, that's only my own thought on the matter, but I think it might be shared.)

[JenniferL]

And just so there's no misunderstanding here, I'm not going to do a point by point rebuttal of every argument against moving you guys can come up with. I'm just looking for your feedback on the move and what we can do to make it more palatable. I've already passed along some of the things raised here to the appropriate people and I have and will ask for clarification on issues that I don't fully understand, but I'm not engaging you in an argument. But I'm not going to argue with you.

[Simon the half-demon]

the rules i really dont like are basically the ones that moderate language, and the type of posts you can and cannot make.

 

i hate it when you cant make things like harmless innuendo, and things like that.

 

thats the main one. there are other things as well, its mainly the large amount of restrictions that make me uncomfortable.

 

if you look at other sites, a lot of the mild conversations would get you banned over here. compared to that, this is like being tied up while posting.

 

though im starting to get yelled at by mother to start work, so im going to have to cut this post short at there im afraid.

 

if i remember i can elaborate tommorow if you wish.

[JenniferL]

No, I think I get the point. You'd like to swear freely and make penis jokes. I get that. I'm a moderator for Cracked.com, which allows quite a bit more freedom than DM does.  However, we're constrained by our close relationship with Tor and the Rigney family.  For many WoT fans, we're the closest thing to an official fan site that exists and we have an obligation to represent ourselves in a certain way.  But if you'd like to create your own R rated Wheel of Time community, we'll be happy to link to you. But we'll ask that you not claim to be part of Dragonmount. 

[eclipse0]

I had a post edited for language on here for using a word commonly found in the dictionary. It wasn't used in malice and isn't one of George Carlin's 7 dirty words.  For someone to find a word that rhymes with custard offensive, they must've lived in a bubble their whole lives.

 

Most of my posts on this site are in org forums which I don't even belong to.  I enjoy the Seachan and Kin mini-games so I participate in them. I do most of my chatting on the BT because I know it can handle the traffic.  If you're working on board speed and stability, wouldn't it make more sense to know you've fixed that before you go and try to cause more traffic than you're used to?

 

Perhaps if you sub divided the org forums to make it more easily accessible, it might be more palatable.  If I want to check unanswered posts here on the BT org section only, I can't do it.  It searches the entire site and takes a while to load. I could just scroll passed all the other forums I don't usually care to read and go straight to the BT forum and check that, but it's annoying really.  There's so many forums and sub forums on this site, to have to load all the stuff from SG and BT alone makes me listen to finger nails scratching a chalkboard rather than deal with the load times.

[Canukistani]

oooo  have an option to 'customize' layout where you can check off forums you hidden so we don't have to spend 5mins scrolling past general discussion/dragonmount discuss/orgs/etc not belonging to just to get to our favorite boards

[eclipse0]

I was thinking more along the lines of treating each org board and maybe the main discussion board as if it were it's own board instead of just part of one giant one. This way when you refresh that section, it doesn't poll the whole site for changes.

 

If in simply hiding sections which you don't want to view would save time on polling responses as well, perhaps it would work too.

[JenniferL]

You can collapse the sections. There's a button in the sub header to do this. It looks like a little minus sign in a blue box. So if you just want to see the organization forums, you can do that.

[eclipse0]

Does Collapsing the sections have any effect on the search performed when you click the "Show new replies to your posts" or "Show unread posts since last visit" queries?

[JenniferL]

I have no idea. Why don't you experiment with it?

[eclipse0]

No, it doesn't seem to make a difference in the query.