[Request] NSG Senate requesting a subforum change

[Maklohi Vai]

Hello,

On the advice of Luna Amore following a discussion over the status of the NSG Senate's position in Forum 7, I'm creating a discussion thread on behalf of the Senate's administration team.

The Senate was founded in April 2013 in Forum 7, which is where the founder, Denecaep, had received direction to place his opening thread. It quickly became apparent that we would be using a lot of threads and thus potentially disrupting the inhabitants of F7. Over a little more time, we also realized that the F7 prune would be causing us great difficulty, as we wished to preserve a lot of the past work done with the Senate but on threads that were no longer relevant for current use.

Just over two and a quarter years ago, several individual users, without the consent of the administration, petitioned the NS Moderation team for a new subforum dedicated to the NSG Senate. The mods present at that time shot that idea down, and so the proposal came up that we could switch subforums, most likely to P2TM.

Recently this debate was reheated when Frisbeeteria rejected one of our member's requests to have a thread archived. While that thread didn't have much content, we have lost significant threads that did. This includes two Presidential Election threads from earlier this year, which Dread Lady Nathicana acknowledged should have been dealt with:

Caught up - NSG Senate Administrators, I've no idea what happened there tbh. I haven't been as active lately and I apologize if you've lost things due to my inadvertently overlooking anything.

Furthermore, when I made a dual archive request just yesterday, only one of the two threads was archived.

The larger point, however, is that there are two sides who each have a problem. We want to have our threads saved. You probably don't want to have to keep responding to our archive requests.

The best solution I can think of, a "two birds with one stone" if you may, is to allow us to move to another forum, likely P2TM. That way we wouldn't have to worry about losing our threads, and you wouldn't have to respond to the many archive requests that we and other Senate participants send into you.

We have a solid user base of several dozen committed RPers, and we'd all greatly appreciate your response(s) to our request. I and the other admins will be happy to answer any questions you have or provide any clarification you may need. Thank you for your time and your help.

-Maklohi Vai
Head Admin, NSG Senate

[Swith Witherward]

I'm weighing in because this request has been brought to my attention via multiple P2TMers.

There is some concern over the sheer amount of threads posted by this group, and the type of threads. As is stated above, "It quickly became apparent that we would be using a lot of threads and thus potentially disrupting the inhabitants of F7."

I admit that I'm not familiar with the NSGS group however a quick look at archives shows an overabundance of threads containing mostly one-liners and OOC discussions, and I'm having a difficult time determining if this is actually role play or a group taking the NS concept and tweaking it to form an NS inside NS. I'm basing this on a cursory glace at twenty different archived threads, with at least five random page clicks per thread to gauge content. They all read like a chat location RP/OOC rolled into one. On top of this, there seems to be additional supporting threads such as the NSGS Coffee Shop (chat thread) and Discussion and Organization Lobby (possibly a chat thread).

P2TM cannot handle spam threads any better than F7 can. Moving the group to P2TM will solve nothing except end the need to request threads be archived. My fear at the moment is that NSGS will turn into a huge hot potato game, with P2TMers spamming Mods to request that the chat location threads or excessive threads tied to one group be moved back to F7 where they belong.

Respectfully, Maklohi, you do have the option of adjusting how your group approaches their game play. It's up to you to decide whether or not your threads will consist of canon or nonsense chatter. I'm known for being part of Personification Life, a mega-thread, and in our infancy we were atrocious with our spammy posts in a setting that was pretty damn close to chat location at times. We adjusted our entire style for P2TM, slowly guiding our players into RP rather than what we had. We have an OSF (off site forum) for spammy discussion stuff.

That is another option for your group, by the way. Have a single NSGS IC thread in P2TM and all your other discussion threads go to an OSF. I'm more than willing to sit down with your governing body and help you design an OSF to meet your needs, although I wouldn't be able to do this until later this fall. Some examples of what I can do for you: Tab Region OSF; Paedagog's OSF (this gaming group is at a pre-launch phase so the OSF is empty at the moment); the old Auxilium OSF.

[Maklohi Vai]

Thank you for the thought out and detailed response. This is actually a roleplay, not taking the NS concept and tweaking it as you hypothesized. What may be confusing to the outside observer, and I certainly cannot fault you for this, is that we have elements of a location RP, a crime RP, and a legislative RP all rolled into one. Certain threads are designated OOC and IC. The Lobby is almost always OOC with some IC content, whereas the Chamber is strictly IC. The Coffee Shop, while appearing to be OOC in its style, is actually IC canon.

As to your suggestion about changing our style of game play, I thank you for providing that to us as an idea. I don't have the power to control that; I'm just an administrator who could make a suggestion. I could throw this to our player base when we've concluded this discussion and see what they have to say, but that discussion would take a while and I suspect it would not be favorably received. We've been operating this way for nearly two and a half years now, so large changes would be very difficult. I do reject the generalization of our OOC chat as spammy. Some of it is, yes, but much of it is constructive about the RP or about RL political issues which could shape the IC landscape. That's a minor gripe, of course, and I do recognize that we put out a large volume of threads, some of which don't end up having much content. I could get into the specifics of why that came to be and why that still is the system we use today if you'd like.

We have discussed off site forums in the past, and they have been met with great disapproval. We do have boom and bust cycles, so to speak, so there is great concern that if we were on an OSF and activity dipped a bit, it just wouldn't recover. However, we have not considered the proposal you made to have a single IC thread in P2TM and the rest off site, so that is open to new discussion as well.

I do hope you don't find me to be rejecting your suggestions out of hand, on the contrary I great appreciate your taking the time to make them and I will think them over. At the same time I feel the obligation to give you more information about how we've handled similar things in the past, because we do want to find a solution to this issue.

Something I've thought of very recently is having an off site forum dedicated to archiving our threads. I'm not sure exactly how this would work, but it solves the issue of us having to deal with the prune and the mods dealing with our archive requests. Please let me knoe what you think.

Thank you again for your thoughtful reply. We really do appreciate it.

[Reploid Productions]

As already mentioned, one extremely major concern with moving the NSG Senate anywhere is the sheer volume of threads generated. If it's flooding/disruptive in F7, then it's going to be flooding/disruptive in P2TM, in NS, or in II. I think if we were to give any move the go-ahead, it would have to come with the stipulation of being cut back to 1 or 2 active IC threads at a time and 1 OOC/organizational thread, same as any of our other RP groups.

Honestly, I think Swith's suggestion of using an off-site forum for the OOC/chatter/social stuff in tandem with a single (or maybe like, 2) threads on-site for the more serious RPing elements of the Senate is the best/most viable way of setting it up for anywhere besides F7.

[Maklohi Vai]

Thanks for your reply. At this point I'd still like to consider my idea of setting up an off site forum that would handle our archives. Does someone with experience in off site forums know if this is viable, or is it a dubious prospect?

As this discussion is coming to a close, for this stage at least, I'll throw the topic to the player base of the Senate and see what people feel like. If we do wish to make a change along the lines you've suggested, we'll of course let you know. Thanks again for your time.

[Frisbeeteria]

Does someone with experience in off site forums know if this is viable, or is it a dubious prospect?

The old Jolt software had a "export thread" function, but it's not part of phpBB ... or at least, we don't have it implemented.

You'd probably need a scripted to scrape the old threads and format them somehow into something usable elsewhere.

[Maklohi Vai]

Does someone with experience in off site forums know if this is viable, or is it a dubious prospect?

The old Jolt software had a "export thread" function, but it's not part of phpBB ... or at least, we don't have it implemented.

You'd probably need a scripted to scrape the old threads and format them somehow into something usable elsewhere.

Hmm, I was figuring it wouldn't be too easy. Thanks for the response.

[New Naephak]

Would it be possible to set up a sub-subforum for NSGS? I know some other forum software supports multiple layers of subforums, so if phpBB does as well it could be an easy solution.

[Maklohi Vai]

Would it be possible to set up a sub-subforum for NSGS? I know some other forum software supports multiple layers of subforums, so if phpBB does as well it could be an easy solution.

That would be the absolute ideal, but if I remember correctly from two years ago, one of the mods said Max had voiced his opposition to more subforums.

[New Babylonia]

Would it be possible to set up a sub-subforum for NSGS? I know some other forum software supports multiple layers of subforums, so if phpBB does as well it could be an easy solution.

That would be the absolute ideal, but if I remember correctly from two years ago, one of the mods said Max had voiced his opposition to more subforums.

I'm not sure what makes you think you're so special that your one little RP organization, as it basically is, should get its own sub-forum.

Perhaps we should give every RP organization their sub-forum!
No. We shouldn't.

You guys know they were apprehensive to create P2TM right? You see how much shit is in there? And they were actually debating on whether it was needed.

They almost didn't make P2TM, and you can see what it is, so i think you can also see they won't give NSGS their own sub forum.
And no, i don't think they'll give you a sub-sub forum either. That seems to be reserved for special events, like Cards Against Nationstates.

[Mousebumples]

Would it be possible to set up a sub-subforum for NSGS? I know some other forum software supports multiple layers of subforums, so if phpBB does as well it could be an easy solution.

That would be the absolute ideal, but if I remember correctly from two years ago, one of the mods said Max had voiced his opposition to more subforums.

Yes, that has been shot down by The Boss.

[CoraSpia]

That would be the absolute ideal, but if I remember correctly from two years ago, one of the mods said Max had voiced his opposition to more subforums.

Yes, that has been shot down by The Boss.

Shame: even outside of NSGS, more subforums generally would be useful for me, since I'm using a screen reader and it takes me ages to trawl through the mountains of rps around.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

You'd probably need a scripted to scrape the old threads and format them somehow into something usable elsewhere.

Unfortunately, Fris, I believe that's illegal under current rules

The scripting rule regarding the forum is simple: not allowed.

There's an exception if you own a multi-billion dollar company and provide a widely used search engine.

Ballotonia

So even if they managed to make a script to effectively do so, they couldn't use it

[Maklohi Vai]

You'd probably need a scripted to scrape the old threads and format them somehow into something usable elsewhere.

Unfortunately, Fris, I believe that's illegal under current rules

The scripting rule regarding the forum is simple: not allowed.

There's an exception if you own a multi-billion dollar company and provide a widely used search engine.

Ballotonia

So even if they managed to make a script to effectively do so, they couldn't use it

Thanks for the help!

Thank you to all who offered their thoughts. I think it's time to bring this issue back to the Senate's player base and see what they have to see. I'll be the contact point to the mods if we decide we want to make any shifts or changes.

[Kolechistan]

That would be the absolute ideal, but if I remember correctly from two years ago, one of the mods said Max had voiced his opposition to more subforums.

Yes, that has been shot down by The Boss.

Why was it shot down exactly?

I think it's a wonderful idea...provided of course that the senate is a core part of NS (like the world assembly) and isn't specific to a region or a nation.

But if the senate in question is run by anyone other than NS staff I don't think it's fair to sub-forum it.

[Maklohi Vai]

Yes, that has been shot down by The Boss.

Why was it shot down exactly?

I think it's a wonderful idea...provided of course that the senate is a core part of NS (like the world assembly) and isn't specific to a region or a nation.

But if the senate in question is run by anyone other than NS staff I don't think it's fair to sub-forum it.

It's run by normal players, just like you or me (actually me).