We Need Another Room

[dessa14]

nowadays, politics dominates the tavern, i believe we need another room for things like movies and books, and sports and such non political stuff since it all seems to be pushed down by the politics.
i think you should create two sections for the tavern and have the stuff that doesn't fit into the room i suggest, and give the new room a moderator or two.

that i think would solve the problem of non-political topics getting pushed into the second page on the day they are made.

thanks, dessa

Edit: that means a Room for Hardline News Items and Such
and a Room For Sports and Critics.

[A.Saturnus]

Watchtower topic

[Dhepee]

If people would create more non-political topics and then post in them, then the Tavern would not be dominated by political topics. It's thread darwinism, the threads that generate the most interest stay on top.

There was a Watchtower thread about this awhile ago, click this link to see it.

[The_Emperor]

I agree furious political debates seem to always get the most replies compared to the off-topic ones.

I'm not sure what we can do about this apart from making a political forum to contain them in.

[solypsist]

give me and Krae our own Random Images room, which will be picture threads, video links, imaging FAQs, digital help, etc.

hmmmmm....maybe even a nice password system to access it. (just a joke)

[Voigtkampf]

We have Mead Hall for books, but there is not much life there. Reading is out, I suppose. Games left the Tavern and settled down at the Arena, two thumbs up.
I believe that Tavern lives from politics nowadays, and that they completely dominate that area. A good reason for me to stay far away from that place, since I don't want to spend the rest of my Org existence fighting against shadows on the wall.

[dessa14]

isn't the mead hall for stories made by members, not books.

but what about sports and other non hardline news items, we need an arts and sport room.
to talk about the arts and sports.

thanks, dessa

[Mouzafphaerre]

-
The Tavern is a dreadful place for me to step in, because of the ever harsh politics. I've never posted a single word there (except a thread elsewhere that I had replied to was moved there) and I don't think I'll ever do under the current circumstances.

I reckon, just make a seperate place for politics/religion debates lovers and make the Tavern into what its name signifies. That said, I'm telling this out of courtesy and just because it has been brought up. I managed to survive without the tavern and I believe I can continue living out of it.

Regards
_

[dessa14]

things like politics are not what i consider conversation topics in my house.
i like to talk about sport, music, art, literature....
not politics, what happened to this poor guys factory, or the growing number of run over pedestrians.

it may be different for others, but i believe political opinion are something to save for political party meetings and private conversations between freinds with obvious similar political opinions, not for outrageous public debate.

thanks, dessa

p.s: i was here when that linked thread higher up on the page was made, and i believe it was too early for the split to happen back then, softer threads could survive back in those days, they cannot even survive one day if they can't keep up with the political posts, which is really hard now days.

[Kaatar]

Agreed. The tavern has become a scary place and it'd be nice to have a lighter forum for other non-polical or religious stuff.

Every time I post in the tavern I check the thread the next day hoping to God I wasn't quoted ... because we all know what happens when you get quoted in there ... *shivers and cries*

[dessa14]

as said in the other earlier thread, it would intensify the political room, but the tavern has become this intense political room that was predicted if we split the rooms. this is the first time i have ever seen things like a conservative club, and a Liberal club, where people refuse to answer others in that room, and even when requested to not post in there, they still did.
it has become outrageous.

thanks, dessa

[Dhepee]

Perhaps it is time for a political/religious debate room to be opened.

If we have reached a point where people are not going to the Tavern because of the intensity level then something needs to be done. Part of the problem is the lack of civility that I alluded to in another Watchtower thread. Part of the problem is also that these political/social issues are so numerous and those of us who enjoy them get vocal and start posting more and more of them, which in turn pushes all the movies/jokes/sports/cars threads to the bottom. I agree that it does make the Tavern one-dimensional and unfriendly at times. I would propose the following solution:

1) Keep the Tavern as the "socializing room" and open it up to all Senior Patrons who want to discuss "lighter topics".

Prohibit any threads that are political/social issue in nature. Any Senior Patron that wants a political/social discussion can start it in the Entrance Hall; which should be a catch-all room for new members.

2) Create the a separate room for any topic that is political or social issue oriented including but not limited to religion, the war in Iraq, George Bush, the conduct of the US and US elected officials, EU politics, world politics, abortion, etc. This room is only open to Members and above.

3) I think that the moderators do a great job in the Tavern and I have only had great interactions with them, however there are not enough eyes watching the bar so to speak.

I would propose increasing the number of moderators in both the Tavern and the prospective Political room because those rooms' topics require greater attention than other rooms' topics that are not given to such extreme disagreement.

More moderators might be able to share the responsibility to monitor and move inappropriate threads from the Tavern to the Political Room and to maintain a baseline level of civility in the Political Room. The more often a moderator can pop in and do this the less likely people are to get to personal or too intense. I would also say that it almost always be done publicly to give people a sense of what is going on and what is acceptable.

4) Given the current political and social climate in the world today discussions seem to get very heated very fast. People also seem to lose sight of civility in these heated discussions. In order for the Political Room to work and not to turn into an all out brawl, the forum rules need to be rigidly enforced and moderators need to be stepping into threads that begin to offend on a consistent basis. Again I am not criticizing the existing moderators they have a huge job and they do it well.

In my opinion, if the org wants to maintain a room or area that has lots of political/social topics there may need to be more members who are willing to step forward and help moderate those topics.

The intensity in the Tavern right now is what is driving people out. I enjoy the Tavern and when I first came to it there were more diverse threads. If there is only one type of thread in a room then there will only be one type of poster in that room. Perhaps it is time to split the Tavern into a Tavern and a political/social room.

These are only my suggestions based on my observations and I welcome any criticisms that others have. I think that we as the members of the org need to find a solution whereby people don't feel shut out of any room because of the intensity level or the dominance of one type of thread.

[Ser Clegane]

Well said, Dhepee

IIRC we already had a discussion about the very same issue some time ago.
While at that time I did not feel that a split of the Tavern would be necessary, the situation has developed into a direction where I think a split would be a good step - I actually would prefer to have the off-topic discussions all in the Tavern, but lately non-political topics had a tendency to disappear from the starting page in no time and therefore often did not get the attention they might have deserved.
If people now tend to avoid the Tavern altogether for the atmosphere that is developing there (and the trend of allocating the patrons to political camps in a rather superficial manner certainly promoted that atmosphere) a split into political and non-political subforums should be seriosly considered.

I think Dhepee's suggestion for implementing this sounds very feasible.

[frogbeastegg]

Quote[/b] (dessa14 @ May 04 2004,08:31)]isn't the mead hall for stories made by members, not books.

Books too, there is a Discworld thread in there for that very reason.

[Quid]

Quote[/b] (Dhepee @ May 04 2004,15:57)]Perhaps it is time for a political/religious debate room to be opened.

If we have reached a point where people are not going to the Tavern because of the intensity level then something needs to be done. Part of the problem is the lack of civility that I alluded to in another Watchtower thread. Part of the problem is also that these political/social issues are so numerous and those of us who enjoy them get vocal and start posting more and more of them, which in turn pushes all the movies/jokes/sports/cars threads to the bottom. I agree that it does make the Tavern one-dimensional and unfriendly at times. I would propose the following solution:

1) Keep the Tavern as the "socializing room" and open it up to all Senior Patrons who want to discuss "lighter topics".

Prohibit any threads that are political/social issue in nature. Any Senior Patron that wants a political/social discussion can start it in the Entrance Hall; which should be a catch-all room for new members.

2) Create the a separate room for any topic that is political or social issue oriented including but not limited to religion, the war in Iraq, George Bush, the conduct of the US and US elected officials, EU politics, world politics, abortion, etc. This room is only open to Members and above.

3) I think that the moderators do a great job in the Tavern and I have only had great interactions with them, however there are not enough eyes watching the bar so to speak.

I would propose increasing the number of moderators in both the Tavern and the prospective Political room because those rooms' topics require greater attention than other rooms' topics that are not given to such extreme disagreement.

More moderators might be able to share the responsibility to monitor and move inappropriate threads from the Tavern to the Political Room and to maintain a baseline level of civility in the Political Room. The more often a moderator can pop in and do this the less likely people are to get to personal or too intense. I would also say that it almost always be done publicly to give people a sense of what is going on and what is acceptable.

4) Given the current political and social climate in the world today discussions seem to get very heated very fast. People also seem to lose sight of civility in these heated discussions. In order for the Political Room to work and not to turn into an all out brawl, the forum rules need to be rigidly enforced and moderators need to be stepping into threads that begin to offend on a consistent basis. Again I am not criticizing the existing moderators they have a huge job and they do it well.

In my opinion, if the org wants to maintain a room or area that has lots of political/social topics there may need to be more members who are willing to step forward and help moderate those topics.

The intensity in the Tavern right now is what is driving people out. I enjoy the Tavern and when I first came to it there were more diverse threads. If there is only one type of thread in a room then there will only be one type of poster in that room. Perhaps it is time to split the Tavern into a Tavern and a political/social room.

These are only my suggestions based on my observations and I welcome any criticisms that others have. I think that we as the members of the org need to find a solution whereby people don't feel shut out of any room because of the intensity level or the dominance of one type of thread.

Ditto

Spoken like a true genius

Nothing more to add to that.

Quid

[Gawain of Orkeny]

I suggest you start a tea room then and leave the tavern alone. If you cannot take the heat stay out of the kitchen.

[Dhepee]

Quote[/b] (Gawain of Orkeny @ May 04 2004,11:33)]I suggest you start a tea room then and leave the tavern alone. If you cannot take the heat stay out of the kitchen.

That was uncalled for and needlessly snide. The point is that some people don't like the dominance of political/social threads in the Tavern and would like a room where non-TW threads that aren't political won't sink like stones. We have a separate forum for historical matters and for other games.

The Tavern is not a strictly political room by design but it is becoming that way by practice and that is shutting out patrons who don't want to talk politics but do want to talk about sports/movies/cars/hobbies and have no other room in which to do it.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Quote[/b] ]That was uncalled for and needlessly snide

No it wasn't. I was agreeing with you. Have a tea room for the more tame and civilized discussions and leave the politics to us rowdy alcoholics.

[Dhepee]

Maybe, but I don't want to discuss semantics.

I was thinking that the Tavern would be kept for the more diverse topics, which was its original intent, and open a new room for our political debates/brawls called "The Bear Pit". I'm pretty sure that rowdy drunks can fight in bear pits just as well as anywhere else.

[The_Emperor]

You know when Politics has taken over too much, its when the One-Word-Story Thread doesn't appear anywhere near the top anymore...

I agree with the idea behind creating a political forum, allowing the Tavern to revert back to its previous 'fun' status...

As many of you know we have had people leave the forum because of the mud-slinging that goes on in the Tavern, and when members are slowly avoiding posting in there you know its getting too serious and heated in there.

At any rate we have two choices either we create a seperate forum for Politics, or we have a policy similar to TotalWar.Com's Off-Topic Forum...

Quote[/b] ]5. Off Topic (Non Total War Discussions) - In this forum content not
related to Total War products (but limited by guideline #3) is allowed.
All content is subject to moderator actions if deemed unsuitable.
Material deemed unsuitable for this forum includes material which
involves politics, religion and sex. This forum is meant to be a light
hearted discussion area so please treat it as such.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Quote[/b] ]Quote
5. Off Topic (Non Total War Discussions) - In this forum content not
related to Total War products (but limited by guideline #3) is allowed.
All content is subject to moderator actions if deemed unsuitable.
Material deemed unsuitable for this forum includes material which
involves politics, religion and sex. This forum is meant to be a light
hearted discussion area so please treat it as such.

That didn't really work too well for the .com forums... I don't see what banning political discussion is going to acheive.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Quote[/b] ]Quote
5. Off Topic (Non Total War Discussions) - In this forum content not
related to Total War products (but limited by guideline #3) is allowed.
All content is subject to moderator actions if deemed unsuitable.
Material deemed unsuitable for this forum includes material which
involves politics, religion and sex. This forum is meant to be a light
hearted discussion area so please treat it as such.

I still like the tea room where things can be discussed civilly over tea and crumpets.

[Dhepee]

Quote[/b] (Big King Sanctaphrax @ May 04 2004,13:12)]

Quote[/b] ]Quote
5. Off Topic (Non Total War Discussions) - In this forum content not
related to Total War products (but limited by guideline #3) is allowed.
All content is subject to moderator actions if deemed unsuitable.
Material deemed unsuitable for this forum includes material which
involves politics, religion and sex. This forum is meant to be a light
hearted discussion area so please treat it as such.

That didn't really work too well for the .com forums... I don't see what banning political discussion is going to acheive.

The idea isn't to ban political discussions, it is to have a space reserved for them. You can't start a thread on the upcoming US presidential election in the Main Hall but you can in the Tavern. A politics room and a Tavern is the same idea.

If one type of discussion is going to take over a room that is meant for more than that one type then we are better off splitting the rooms so that everybody can post what they want to post without threads getting lost of pushed to the bottom of the forum.

The Arena is a good example of this. A lot of people wanted to talk about other games but there was no place where they could do this and have the threads stay active. A thread might get started on a game and then get overwhelmed by all the other posting in the Entrance Hall or Tavern. The Arena serves a niche in the org and it is a thriving forum with a lot of active threads.

BTW. I agree that banning politics is not a good idea. It creates more problems than it solves on forums, not just the com. People want to talk about politics and if they can't it starts to show in how everybody interacts in the forums. You can always tell that something is going on underneath the surface but it never quite gets out. When it does start to get out the thread gets closed. It creates a really contentious atmosphere in a forum between the members and between the members and the moderators.

I don't think a ban on politics is the solution. I think that given the huge amount of interest in politics on the org that there should be a separate room for them so that they don't overtake other rooms and prevent members from having the discussions that they want to have.

[The_Emperor]

I do not want to see Politics banned, but we really should give it a place of its own.

And a Tavern is not a place where people discuss politics, people go there to unwind and have a laugh.

Create a political Forum, maybe called "The Senate" or something.

[Dhepee]

Quote[/b] (The_Emperor @ May 04 2004,13:47)]I do not want to see Politics banned, but we really should give it a place of its own.

And a Tavern is not a place where people discuss politics, people go there to unwind and have a laugh.

Create a political Forum, maybe called "The Senate" or something.

The Senate is probably more appropriate than my suggestion, The Bear Pit. It fits with the RTW theme too.

[Voigtkampf]

The development the things are taking lately here at the Org and especially at the Tavern are unsettling, to say the least.

I was scrolling through the topics for the last few days and I was gravely disappointed when I realized one thing; if the Org had been like this when I had joined it, I wouldn't have bothered to stick around. This has also moved me to think how many of our new/old members are going to be averted by this atmosphere that is being created here lately. I've seen forums that have suffered by similar malaises; some have been hit more, some less, but none has profited from it. On a clan server a friend of mine was/is running I had the opportunity to observe something similar; once always full server was, after some heated accusations of cheating and both ill-tempered and premature decisions, closed for public and made available only for password use. Yet soon no one was visiting that place and even now, quite some time after that incident, and not to forget after the server was once again made available for public, you will never find anyone on it. All the time a heated debate was raging on special forums we were visiting, and even though all parties have excused themselves for their inappropriate behavior, the forums were left empty, much as the server has been ever since.

Now, before some old wise guru says "that won't happen to the Org", let me tell you that I do not believe that as well. But this animosity won't serve anyone, and a small member of overly eager people whose names keep popping up on every heated thread aren't doing favors to anyone, least themselves.

Alas, as the poets say, I fear that no one will "leave this keen encounter of our wits and fall somewhat into slower method". To expect otherwise would require a level of optimism and much less perception that I am able or willing to bring up.

So, I suppose that other than "holding fast" and waiting for R:TW that will, God grant, turn the discussion into those waters and away from dead presidents and near east conflicts, there is not much there can be done.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Quote[/b] (Dhepee @ May 04 2004,18:37)]

Quote[/b] (Big King Sanctaphrax @ May 04 2004,13:12)]

Quote[/b] ]Quote
5. Off Topic (Non Total War Discussions) - In this forum content not
related to Total War products (but limited by guideline #3) is allowed.
All content is subject to moderator actions if deemed unsuitable.
Material deemed unsuitable for this forum includes material which
involves politics, religion and sex. This forum is meant to be a light
hearted discussion area so please treat it as such.

That didn't really work too well for the .com forums... I don't see what banning political discussion is going to acheive.

The idea isn't to ban political discussions, it is to have a space reserved for them. You can't start a thread on the upcoming US presidential election in the Main Hall but you can in the Tavern. A politics room and a Tavern is the same idea.

If one type of discussion is going to take over a room that is meant for more than that one type then we are better off splitting the rooms so that everybody can post what they want to post without threads getting lost of pushed to the bottom of the forum.

The Arena is a good example of this. A lot of people wanted to talk about other games but there was no place where they could do this and have the threads stay active. A thread might get started on a game and then get overwhelmed by all the other posting in the Entrance Hall or Tavern. The Arena serves a niche in the org and it is a thriving forum with a lot of active threads.

BTW. I agree that banning politics is not a good idea. It creates more problems than it solves on forums, not just the com. People want to talk about politics and if they can't it starts to show in how everybody interacts in the forums. You can always tell that something is going on underneath the surface but it never quite gets out. When it does start to get out the thread gets closed. It creates a really contentious atmosphere in a forum between the members and between the members and the moderators.

I don't think a ban on politics is the solution. I think that given the huge amount of interest in politics on the org that there should be a separate room for them so that they don't overtake other rooms and prevent members from having the discussions that they want to have.

I know what you meant Dhepee. It was just that the Emperor suggested a similar policy to the .Com, where they DID ban all political topics. That was what I was objecting to.

[The_Emperor]

I didn't sugguest it.

I was just explaining the only possible alternative we could have apart from creating another forum, or doing nothing.

Doesn't mean I endorse it as a course of action.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Quote[/b] (The_Emperor @ May 04 2004,20:51)]I didn't sugguest it.

I was just explaining the only possible alternative we could have apart from creating another forum, or doing nothing.

Oh, ok. My bad.

[A.Saturnus]

I have always been against seperating politics from the rest and still am.
One thing that must be considered is this: who´s going to moderate a forum that´s all political? The more topics we take out of the Tavern the more tension will be there. At the moment non-political threads may be pushed back by political ones but also vice versa. If there´s a place for all the non-political stuff, the first page of the Tavern will be overrun with political threads. And to be honest I also wouldn´t like to moderate the non-political area. How much of it would be spam-threads? I don´t know what should change when we split the Tavern. Someone who wants to avoid political debates can do so and still post in the Tavern. One thing we could do is to be more strict with bringing politics into a non-political debate. We could make sure that non-political threads remain non-political. If that can´t be done in one forum, it can´t be done over several.
I also think that it´s overal not so bad in the Tavern. I´ve seen non-political discussion boards that were worse. Atmoshere has been heated lately but that wasn´t the first time and it will calm down again.

And if politics and religion should be banned from the Org, I won´t be a Mod any longer.