board changes - yes or no?

[Space Hamster]

get rid of it once and for all. We should argue about Traveller politics, not lame 21st century politics. 86 the pit for good!

This is one thing I am in complete agreement with Baron on.

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

R.I.P. the Pulpit

i will miss it a little...

Even though I grated on some poster's nerves, our political animosity never spilled over into the gaming world.

Also, after the vitriol experienced on some chat rooms, i found the COTI poster a bit easier to talk to that your average hit and run chat roomer. At least in the Pit i could usually find intelligent responses and sources for reference. Most times in a chat room you just got rhetoric.

Oh well...i guess that leaves more energy for what counts...TRAVELLER!!!

 

[soloprobe]

R.I.P. political pulpit

Having seen too many political "debates", turn into arguments, and arguments that devolve into name calling, I will not mourn the passing of the pit.....

 

[flykiller]

half-way point.

 

[Kyle Aaron]

I have never even looked at the Pit, let alone posted there, but I still think changes are needed.

That we cannot mention other forums is stupid. That threads about certain versions of Trav are derailed by cocksmocks who haven't gamed in years, and when called on their bullshit are backed by the mods, is also stupid. It makes the forum unpleasantly like the TML.

That's why I don't post here, because of this sort of bullshit. The Pit's irrelevant.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

That we cannot mention other forums is stupid.

Don't be silly, of course you can mention other forums.

That threads about certain versions of Trav are derailed by cocksmocks who haven't gamed in years, and when called on their bullshit are backed by the mods, is also stupid.

Examples?

 

[atpollard]

Don't be silly, of course you can mention other forums.

I could be wrong, but I think that he is refering to people asked not to advertise for other sites.

 

[far-trader]

"People" were asked not to slam this site while spamming users here into joining another site with the express (in not expressed) intent of "sticking it" to this site out of spite. When said "People" wouldn't respect this board they were moderated.

CotI not only allows links and sigs to sites (properly done) there's a whole section of the boards specifically dedicated to that. See the Imperial Starport link in the CotI Features dropdown.

 

[aramis]

The rules about site links are straigtforward, but not simple:

You may link to specific topics on other BBS's; you may not link to top level.

You may not link to pay sites. You may not link to content that is inherently offensive, unlawful, nor religious/political (since the pit is closed). (In short, if you can't post it here, you can't link to it either.)

You may not post advertisments for services or products other than traveller products, and those get moderated carefully, and belong exclusively in the correct subforum.

You may not attempt to draw users away from COTI either in posts on COTI nor on links from COTI.

You may have a link in your sig to your own personal website and/or BBS; in the case of a BBS, however, if it comes to the attention of the mods here that that site is slamming on COTI, or is portraying itself as a replacement for COTI the link will go away and an infraction and/or ban will result. Hunter banned the last guy who seriously argued that point, well over a year ago. (He was asked to remove the link, he refused. We removed the link after infracting, he put it back AND told hunter off. Hunter perma-banned him, and deleted his sig.) Another poster, once the furor died down over other parties putting his BBS forward as a replacement for COTI, and a couple months passed, put the link back to his BBS (Yes, John, it was noticed immediately...).

You may not make commercial sales pitches on COTI without hunter's permission (we're not your advertising system), but you may announce your commercial traveller product in the new product announcements when it's new.

If you need to bend those, get Hunter's permission FIRST.

 

[Icosahedron]

"People" were asked not to slam this site while spamming users here into joining another site with the express (in not expressed) intent of "sticking it" to this site out of spite. When said "People" wouldn't respect this board they were moderated.

IMHO, this makes sense.

The rules about site links are straigtforward, but not simple:

You may link to specific topics on other BBS's; you may not link to top level.

This doesn't - unless Hunter is unhealthily paranoid.

You may not attempt to draw users away from COTI either in posts on COTI nor on links from COTI.

And this is downright confusing.

If it means what FT said, that's fine, but if it means I can't recruit a couple of fellow Travellers from here to join my Yahoo Groups game, it's petty.

If you need to bend those, get Hunter's permission FIRST.

Contact him c/o Sir Percy Blakeney.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

There's nothing sinister, we just don't want spam, links to unsuitable sites, or other boards stealing all our members.

 

[Icosahedron]

There's nothing sinister, we just don't want spam, links to unsuitable sites, or other boards stealing all our members.

I'm not suggesting there's anything sinister. I agree wholeheartedly with the first two defence measures, but I think the third is so unlikely that 'protecting' against it is paranoia on a par with wearing a tinfoil hat!

People frequent many sites. We all know other sites exist, we can google for them anytime we want, and if we want to go there and stop coming here, we can do so - so preventing people from linking makes no sense at all as I see it - it's like plugging one hole in a colander. It just gets people nodding to each other and tapping the side of their head.

It's a bit like a marriage - if your partner wants to be with someone else, you're not going to prevent it by hiding her/his shoes and disconnecting the phone (you're more likely to precipitate it) but you might prevent her/him from wanting to leave by being loving and attentive and making your home the place s/he wants to be. Hey, just being there for your partner helps.

If Hunter is serious about not losing people, one in nine have voted in this very thread that his own rules are the thing most likely to make them leave. Maybe he's thinking 'good riddance' to that particular 11%, I dunno, I can't second-guess.

Maybe the 'no links' rule was important in the site's infancy? Again, I dunno, but the purpose of this thread is to discuss changes and IMO this is a rule to drop - except in the situation highlighted by FT, which would be dealt with by 'special measures' anyway.

 

[flykiller]

... one in nine have voted in this very thread that his own rules are the thing most likely to make them leave.

no, they've said they'd leave. they haven't often specified why.

in any organization there are people who want to leave, in varying degrees and for various reasons. that 11% of the respondents here have said they'd leave seems typical.

many people seem to pass through coti. new ones sign up every day, but not many post. this poll would have better perspective if we knew how many people visit but never post. any chance of finding out how many unique non-bot hits the board gets in a given month?

 

[aramis]

Well, flykiller, you could run a search for posts from the last 30 days, and count usernames... should only take a few hours...

 

[Andrew Boulton]

People frequent many sites. We all know other sites exist, we can google for them anytime we want, and if we want to go there and stop coming here, we can do so

Of course, you're free to make that choice. But that doesn't mean we should allow people to *encourage* you to leave.

 

[Icosahedron]

Of course, you're free to make that choice. But that doesn't mean we should allow people to *encourage* you to leave.

Depends how fickle you think we are (if we're genuinely fickle it's a reasonable precaution, if we're not, you're paranoid).

Whilst I'm sure someone could *encourage* me to take a look at another site, I'm not convinced they could persuade me to leave here - not unless I was already terminally p****d off with this place for other reasons, or the other site was so much better that this one served no further purpose.

Either way, it's the content of this site that would be the deciding factor, not the persuasiveness of the Siren - which leads me to conclude that I'm not fickle...

One of us is an oddball.

 

[Icosahedron]

no, they've said they'd leave. they haven't often specified why.

"yes, (the board) needs some major changes or I'll probably leave."

is the wording, and Hunter is the Admin of the board, capable of making or witholding changes, so it's his actions or inactions that will influence whether these people leave.

Someone saying "Psst, take a look at this nice site" is a minor influence in comparison, I would imagine.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

One of us is an oddball.

Or both of us!

It's not a rule we've had to enforce very often, but it's not likely to go away.

 

[Beech]

or other boards stealing all our members.

Sorry Andrew but here we go again, no one actually leaves never to return - they just visit somewhere else as well.
There seems to be this exclusivity assumed on CotI, as in you should visit here and nowhere else and if you do you are somehow betraying 'the CotI', I promise you everybody here (including the mods) will be constantly logging into several forums every day and will not feel they are betraying CotI-dom.

This is natural, if you try to restrict or censor references to other forums then this does not help the game/community, it inhibits it.

Hunter's rules, I know (it is his forum and I respect that), but if you respect, interact and cross reference threads with other forums it can only help the game instead of splintering it.

This is a large community of fans with a central enthusiasm and we should embrace the fact that the game is in an unusual state of growth at the moment and join and frequent and enthuse over every related forum we can, to prove we care instead of sitting in one forum and moaning that we don't like what the other forums are doing.

 

[Gruffty]

There's nothing sinister, we just don't want spam, links to unsuitable sites, or other boards stealing all our members.

A "board" can't "steal" "members". The members make their own decisions as to which boards they frequent - to suggest that other boards somehow "steal" members is, quite frankly, verging on delusional thinking.

I myself am a member of at least 5 RPG/Traveller related boards - does that mean the people on those boards "stole" me from here, somehow? I seem to recall taking an active decision to join each board I am a member of - no-one "stole" me from anywhere.

The paranoia about "other boards stealing members" on here these days is worse than anything I've ever seen in any patient I've ever nursed.

Get a grip, ffs.