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[Kaleigh Doyle]

Why not just create the alternative .... set an example... and maybe link it afterward through backstage?  Wasn't this attempted before?

[Ammentio Oinkelmar]

Someone was worried about rifts in the community but to me it seems like this happened already, as there are tens of faction and corporate specific forums? IGS has its own share of problems, as discussed by others in this thread and in its current form it does not seem to be very effective in enabling discussions between the more reserved members of these fairly separated groups.

As far as the moderation goes, maybe the one who starts a new forum interaction, could for instance add a spoiler at the end of the first post to specify who can join the discussion or to set some other rules? And there could be a degree that if someone is reported to violate these rules with like five or ten posts, they could be banned for some time? This would perhaps require less attention from the mods than judging the IC appropriateness of every statement made.

Maybe it also would be good that those particular rules that can lead to a ban were limited to a restricted set of alternatives so that there wouldn't be ambiguity in any of them? I agree that angry IC ad hominem attacks should be allowed but there are cases when it would be more appropriate to keep the overenthusiastic characters, PF reminders and other commentary in separate threads.

[Jade Constantine]

Everything Scagga said. See why he was a glorious godsend during the creation of Inspiracy and Backstage? I'll still state flatly that there's never anything wrong with diversity and alternatives to the main course, nor with competition. Even should this mean that one of the two alternatives curls up in a fetal position and dies, that's just natural selection.  See Chatsubo -> Backstage as an example.

I'm not sure chatsubo vs backstage is a very good example. I think IC roleplaying interaction can't be moderated as sternly as ooc roleplay discussion and still have much room for creativity and flourish.

I think its quite important to remind ourselves that our characters are going to be saying quite unpleasant things about other characters and any attempt to moderate that on grounds of standards or favouritism will likely cause explosions. And if the point is not to moderate from an elitist viewpoint what is the point?

That said I do think its fair enough to have an ic section if people want it but you'd probably do well to avoid seeing backstage vs igs as the same as backstage vs chatsubo. Two entirely different situations really.

[Kaleigh Doyle]

People have consistently implied an opinion that the IGS is hurting and is in need of fixing, and that by creating a separate sub-community, this will improve its condition. My question is as direct as possible: What is wrong with the Intergalactic Summit that requires repair?

Now, some of you have actually answered this with It's not moderated well enough. My experience with the IGS, and I've been following it for years now, has been that general OOC asshattery gets moderated pretty quickly, and misposts take a couple days to a week or so to get redirected elsewhere. If that's the crux of what's wrong with the IGS, might I suggest an injection of liquid concrete to HTFU with your Not in my backyard mentality.

The general experience level of players introducing themselves on the IGS vary from green rookies to seasoned vets, and I do see the occasional posts that generally get destroyed for being poorly thought out or the individual just isn't as educated on the background. They post something that generally makes no sense, whereby it is then replied to by about 8-20 experienced players all telling them they need to lay off the drugs or they are just stupid (ie. R DOING IT RONG icly), and MAYBE someone points them in the right direction.

So while on the surface this project idea seems honest in it's intentions, the people defending it are giving a completely different impression, and an elitist one at that. Individuals imagining a perfect forum where everyone is thoroughly knowledgeable about the universe and never contradicts prime fiction, and all discussions are thoughtful, interesting, and engaging, is a fairytale pipe dream. The fact that people use the rhetoric that this perfect world will take in newbies and educate the masses about RP isn't all that much better either. Nothing quite like having a committee of roleplayers to dictate whether your RP is deserving to stand in the presence of Gods on hallowed ground (aka IGS).

Still others have implied that there are too many trolls, flamers, and asshats that lurk on the IGS, just to harass people for the sake of it. And there might be, but wandering into the IGS and posting threads NOT expecting to get some stupid replies isn't much different than meandering into a lowsec chokepoint with a slow, ungainly ship, and getting surprised when it explodes very quickly. Learn how to adapt to the environment, or don't take the risk. There's not much else to say about that.

If the intent is to provide another venue for character interaction, count me in. If this is going to just be an elitist haunt to avoid the newbie taint, you can keep it.

[lallara zhuul]

I see no reason to create a slightly larger circlejerk for people that are used to having their RP unchallenged in their own clique.

Masturbation in any shape or form should be done away from the public.

Sorry about the phrasing.

[Lyn Farel]

I definitly do agree with Kaleigh. Especially this :

So while on the surface this project idea seems honest in it's intentions, the people defending it are giving a completely different impression, and an elitist one at that. Individuals imagining a perfect forum where everyone is thoroughly knowledgeable about the universe and never contradicts prime fiction, and all discussions are thoughtful, interesting, and engaging, is a fairytale pipe dream. The fact that people use the rhetoric that this perfect world will take in newbies and educate the masses about RP isn't all that much better either. Nothing quite like having a committee of roleplayers to dictate whether your RP is deserving to stand in the presence of Gods on hallowed ground (aka IGS).

Instead of that, it would always be better to point noobs to OOC backstage, and not stopping to interact with them in another obvious "you are doing it wrong" way.

It is not about diversity and alternatives. They are fine. So lets propose something else, and not a clone of the IGS. /o\

If you'd bothered reading much, you'd see no one's proposing an IGS clone.

And this is to my opinion what you still are trying to enforce. If this is any different, it can only be different by :

- The moderation standards with added rules concerning the respect and behavior of characters themselves, and you stated in the other thread that you do not want to see that because you couldn't play a blunt and offensive character anymore (on which I have no clear opinion, depends if we take an IC moderated channel approach by imaginary NPC/standard rules, like I don't know, the UN venues IRL where you can't say anything unrespectful, or if we don't).

- The subject and themes of the new IC boards, like the sulfurous idea of restricted IC sections by factions, or whatever else, but it will just become like any IG channel (a bar, etc), but on a forum where we can write and develop more.

In any case, this does not remove the main issues brought in by Louella and myself.


On another linked matter now, having had a word about the IGS with many various people now I can fairly state that all of them, 100%, everyone of them who do not come on the IGS is mainly because it gets on their nerves or gives them the hives. Why ? Not because of the alts IC trolls, you are doing it wrong stuff on noobs, or whatever else is pointed out here. But because the IGS is what we could sometimes call a cesspool, where everyone always get at each other throats in an obvious attempt to "win", and not even debate. Of course we have some debates, we have some nice threads. We have everything, good stuff or insulting/biased stuff. I have nothing against that, realism dictates it. But a lot of people do not like that or can't bear it. I can understand it as it often starts to become sometimes very personnal (which is not supposed to be, but we are human).

So unless you are willing to create an IC regulated IC section with the same purpose than the IGS, but with enforced IC rules of civilities, OR create something totally different in its purpose like I explained above, you are going to get another IGS, with all its IC hatred, anger, etc. All you will "maybe" fix is what has been pointed out above : "you are doing it wrong", IC alt trolls, etc. With all the worries Louella and me pointed out above and still have had almost no answers.

[Graanvlokkie]

So the objective of the new IC forum will be to remove OOC trolls? This in itself is a highly subjective term. Objective moderation will be a nightmare.

Are there not private corp and alliance forums where people can RP if they dont want non-consensual RP in their thread? This seems like an extention of this idea ... I dont like IGS because there are people that might disagree with me, continuously, but I want to interact on a wider level beyond private forums without people disagreeing with me, so I want a "public" forum with anti troll rules where people have to be civil.

IC enemies are often NOT civil.

An IGS alternative cannot be regarded as a public forum, due to lack of access. When I started Eve it took me more than a year to find Chatsubu, despite activly looking for RP corps. My only scource of info for RP corps up till then was the evewiki. No matter how well advertised, people wh look for RP and RP info might not find it if not on IGS.

On another note, what would the policy of double posting on both IGS and "newforum" be?

[Ken]

An IGS alternative cannot be regarded as a public forum, due to lack of access.

There is also the little-published PF fact that the IGS has a wide viewer base among the baseliners of New Eden.  So, it has a function other than serving as a default place for IC forum interactions.

~~~

In general, I'm surprised at how strongly some of you seem to feel about this topic.  It's almost as if the mere suggestion that an alternative IC forum to the IGS is desirable strikes some as not only conceptually flawed but also socially ridiculous.  Clearly, there are players who are dissatisfied with the IGS experience for any number of individual reasons.  What is it about that dissatisfaction and the motivation to find a broadly-acceptable way to relieve it and perhaps enhance RP enjoyment for participants that is elitist?  Other groups have established forums separate from the official EVE-O boards to serve their needs in the past.  Scrapheap Challenge, chatsubo, and this very forum come immediately to mind.  Each certainly had questions to be answered as to how it would be set up and administered.  Each has had its own measure of success and the world didn't come to an end when that happened.

How is outlining a similar project for IC discussions somehow so much more objectionable?  "Shady elitist circle jerk" is not how I see this at all.

Why not just create the alternative .... set an example... and maybe link it afterward through backstage?  Wasn't this attempted before?

I honestly don't know if it was, but I say we ought to give it a shot.  scagga has suggested we begin a conversation on the issue of rules and moderation.  Let's have that discussion.

[Mizhara]

... huh, I'd forgotten this even existed. I suppose these days this topic is rather moot with the lower activity levels involved, but on the other hand I wonder how many would welcome something like this given the way the IGS seems to be repelling a lot of characters. Any new thoughts on this subject, ladies and gents?

[Nissui]

... I wonder how many would welcome something like this given the way the IGS seems to be repelling a lot of characters.

It sounds like would likely be a trade-off where we gain those who have abandoned IGS by banning those who 'encouraged' them to leave. Obviously not a moderator candidate here (or one well-versed in the long and acrimonious histories between players and/or charaters), but that does feel a little dirty to me. Outmoded morality, perhaps, I don't know.

Now what does sound interesting to me is an in-game corporation which owns/manages a pay-to-play GalNet forum (where players can post IC from anywhere outside the client), one which could be restricted in accordance with the proprietors' whims. I just don't know if that sort of thing is alright by the EULA. Plus, it would clearly be a lot more difficult to set up than just adding a sub-forum here.

Anyway, my unqualified opinion.

[Karynn]

...given the way the IGS seems to be repelling a lot of characters.

I had no idea this was the case! How come?

Personally I have no problems with IGS; since making my first post on it a year ago, I've been contacted by other RPers who showed an interest in what I was doing. I've also made booster sales to non-RP players who noticed my posts there and got in touch.

It's not perfect and now and again you get some lazy, poorly thought-out posting or OOC nonsense, but I do my own modding with the Hide Posts feature.

My £0.02 worth.

[Mizhara]

Well, it comes down to a few factors.

One, some individual posters. It's hardly uncommon to load up the IGS to find a giant wall of one or two names turning every thread into a debate about themselves or their actions. Secondly, you'll have floods of faction stuff across a multitude of threads not suited for that purpose. I'm guilty of it myself, and it tends to kill the original topic.

The solution is board separation. One for each faction for particular empire related stuff, one melting pot board for cross-faction stuff and since the RP community is hardly gargantuan each faction forum (and the independent one) could have subforums dedicated to and moderated by a particular entity. The Republic one can easily contain Gradient and U'K as subs and there's not exactly a sea of entities in the other factions. This would provide notable RP entities a public portal for their stuff without requiring the RP community to hunt down different websites and forums. This would also be useful for newcomers to the RP community as they can explore the current landscape in one site, directly connected to the main OOC site.

Secondly, different rulesets can be a fine thing to curb disruption, especially with active moderation. Say a Gallente entity makes a thread about some Federation thingy and tags it [Friendlies] (or whatever else that fits), and this would mean any And This Is Why The Federation Must Be Destroyed posts are nuked from orbit. If it's tagged [Open] anything goes within the usual standards of good behaviour. Hell, you could tag it with faction names, inviting [Republic] and [State] participation but no [Empire] tag means the discussion is meant to be between Republic and State loyalists.

Thirdly, this would not be a barrier for anyone to use the IGS if that's what they prefer. It's really not much different from when this place was created. There's significant flaws with the current option, so let's see if an alternative with a different way of doing things will do better. If it does, great, everyone benefits. If it doesn't, no one's lost much but some elbow grease and time.

The smoke filled room gave birth to one of the best things the RP community in Eve have ever made, improving on and replacing something that served its purpose but wasn't deemed good enough. I think the IGS could use an alternative to either grow and become better, or be replaced by something better. Hell, this may very well be a coin that can stand on its edge allowing everyone involved a place to use.

[Morwen Lagann]

...given the way the IGS seems to be repelling a lot of characters.

I had no idea this was the case! How come?

[...]

It's not perfect and now and again you get some lazy, poorly thought-out posting or OOC nonsense, but I do my own modding with the Hide Posts feature.

Miz' response already more or less sums up the reasons for this, however part of it bears repeating and expounding upon:

The IGS is a place where useless shitposting is allowed and in some ways protected. That a few people can continually streak their asses across threads like the forum is their personal roll of toilet paper without any kind of repercussion? This behavior kills otherwise good or interesting threads, and yet, not a thing will be done about it on the IGS when it would actually cause action to be taken in other subforums, or many other forums beyond the scope of EVE. Sickening, really.

Blocking posts does not actually solve the problem, despite what some people may think. It just foists it off onto someone else, and then god forbid that someone actually responds directly to someone you blocked. What're you going to do, block them? What about anyone who responds to them? Or people who respond to that person, and so on? No, of course you won't, because then you won't have any posts to read. It would be more effective just to tell the whole forum to go to hell and stop reading it in the first place, and some people are starting to do that.

CCP only has an IC forum as a token gesture best summed up as "hey look, we have a place for roleplayers to do their... thing... yeah, that's it. Oh my god, look at them go, isn't it adorable how utterly retarded they are, ahahaha." It is not a place taken seriously by CCP, ISD or CCL, and they have demonstrated zero interest over the years in maintaining it as a usable venue for roleplay. They won't step in or take any action necessary to stop this kind of behavior, instead suggesting we use the 'block' feature. Which, as above, does not work unless literally everyone using the forum all blocks the problematic people who were mentioned but not named above. There's something similar to that, usually reserved for people exhibiting that kind of behavior, that requires no effort on our part. Do you know what it's called? A forum ban (or gag).

Of all the rules there are for the forums, only a few are actually ever enforced on the IGS in my experience:
- No OOC posts.
- Content limits. (ie, keeping stuff SFW)
- EVE-related content only.

What isn't? To name a few off of the forum's rules page:
- Be respectful to other posters (rule #2)
- No ranting (rule #3)
- No personal attacks (rule #4)
- No trolling (rule #5)
- Post constructively (rule #23)
- No off-topic posting with intent to derail threads (rule #27)

Further, the game's terms of service (TOS) explicitly state that roleplay is not an acceptable excuse for violating the rules. Rules that won't be enforced even when stuff is reported. Okay...

So, posting on the IGS is an increasingly pointless exercise for those of us who wish to generate content of any sort that doesn't eventually amount to shitposting. Because all it takes is one of the usual suspects to post their usual rancid piles of dung in a thread, and it all goes to hell because there's nothing you can do about it, and nothing that CCP will do about it despite their own rules saying they're supposed to. Honestly, if CCP would get off their ass and fucking enforce their own goddamn rules a lot of these problems with the IGS would probably just go away.

I don't think that a new board is the ideal solution, but for the same reason that Miz appears to think it might be - a lack of critical mass within the RP community as a whole. I don't think we have enough people to support multiple faction-specific subforums, many of which, iirc, are already 'covered' by some public areas of the bigger RP entities like Gradient, PIE, etc. - the most we could semi-reasonably hope for is an independent IGS where shitposting is treated like the obnoxious and detrimental behavior that it is, and acted upon appropriately. If anything happens, it would be best to start small, and then expand if it's successful. Maybe we could add a subdomain for it here or something, and enable an API addon for the forums? I dunno. We still run into privacy issues and the like (as came up elsewhere recently), because pretty much all forum software enables IP display for admins and moderators. I see it as less of an issue when we're talking about an OOC forum for players to post in, but when we're talking about an IC forum for our characters? That's some potentially seriously messy shit right there, yo.

Also, tagging threads like that is just... begging for trouble, imo. Even though I would be tempted to abuse it by just stamping every thread with [State, Non-Provist] and harvesting the ragetears that resulted, that's the kind of thing we'd have to worry about. (Not to mention, with all the complaints about echo chambers? Yeah, that's exactly what it'll produce.)

[Jace]

In my opinion, the IP thing would be the final killer for many people. Myself included. There are plenty of alts that I just do not want overly associated with Jace. So just Jace and the alts that I have mentioned several times are mine would show up to such forums.

Edit: it is also just begging for people to go screaming over the OOC/IC border more than they already do.

[Morwen Lagann]

In my opinion, the IP thing would be the final killer for many people. Myself included. There are plenty of alts that I just do not want overly associated with Jace. So just Jace and the alts that I have mentioned several times are mine would show up to such forums.

Edit: it is also just begging for people to go screaming over the OOC/IC border more than they already do.

This is why I mentioned it. While most of my alts are public knowledge, and deliberately so on my part, I do have a few that I have not disclosed specifically because I want to be left alone when I use them whether to RP or post on the forums or just play the stupid game, and not have to deal with other things carried over from my others. (As an aside: It's worth noting that even if we ignore IP addresses, you'd still be associating the API keys with forum accounts that would separately be tracked by the system in most cases anyway. So unless you want to make five zillion accounts each with unique email addresses...)

The best thing we can do that works for the most people, is to convince CCP to start moderating their own forum according to their own rules.