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Roundtable Discussions: A Proposal
GeekDadMan
Member UncommonPosts: 121
Hello everyone.
Considering the way forum topics tend to pop up based on either personal ideas/issues we have about the MMO genre or current news that's been released for consideration, I thought I'd throw up a poll for an organized discussion of specific topics. These roundtable discussions wouldbe a focus for people who not only want to express their personal views, but also want to build a new community perspective through moderated debate.
The setup would be as follows:
- If votes are in favor for this to happen, the community will vote on a series of polls to select the order of topics to discuss. Types of MMOs, their mechanics, art styles, etc, would all be up for vote on where to begin. Once that is done, we'll start on the surface and dig deeper into the specifics as we go along, hopefully coming to a satisfying closure.
- For example, if we choose to focus on fantasy-type MMOs (poll), we would then decide a list of topics within that to discuss based on number of votes (2nd poll). Then we would open up a thread to kick it off with an opening statement and lead into discussion/debate.
Since we all have opinions and back them up more vehemently than others, I'd like to put in some ground rules this thing has a chance to take off:
- No trolling the thread. This will be a semi-serious discussion meant to benefit the community.
- Language is to be kept to a PG rating. I realize some of the community is fine with swearing or lewd conversation, but I'd like to make this content as accessible as possible to all ages.
- Do not insult someone for what they think or feel. If you believe someone's opinion to be faulty or misinformed, provide a post that gives constructive criticism that contributes and benefits the discussion.
- Echoing the previous rule, do your best to give a post that contributes to the subject matter. Do your best not to get sidetracked.
Though these ground rules are probably common sense to almost everyone, I feel the need to state them for emphasis. Also, I may not have covered everything, so feel free to comment and I can edit as necessary. Let me know what you think!
Comments
What exactly are you proposing?
Rules already govern discussion here. Opinions are already stated here. Polls can be posted.
It sounds like exactly what we already have.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
sounds like your trying to build a forum inside of a forum?
This is almost too funny.
I've done roundtables before, but they weren't so "forum-based" as this is. We were all staff of a particular prominent fan site and we essentially discussed a topic on the players' minds in the staff forums and then whittled it down to one organized post that illustrated our back and forth with one another, and we then posted it on the main page of our site. While your proposal sounds interesting, I'm not sure how it deviates from just a standard forum discussion. Plus, unless you do it on your own forums, there's no way to prevent outside individuals from contributing to the discussion and breaking your rules. I don't think something like this is viable for the average mmorpg.com user to achieve.
That's funny, I didn't know serious discussions included fan boy ideas, flame wars, ranting about the past, discriminating players, bashing on companies and including wow once or more in every 25 sentences.
I think he meant a discussion of the fundamental rules of an MMO.
If such thread were made and actually had contributions I guess I'd pass by.
Hi guys.
Wow, what a way to make a faux pas, huh? I'll admit this thread was created with an idea that came to me shortly before; it wasn't very well conceived, and I apologize that I haven't responded sooner. As you can tell by my post count, I'm not an avid contributor to the forums, but I wanted to get my feet wet with what I hoped would be a string of discussions on exactly what wisesquirrel mentioned: the fundamentals on an MMO.
With the roundtable issue, what if we have a popular vote on who should be in the roundtable and them have perhaps a pm discussion or a live chat meeting where we could make a log and post it on here? I really want to know what you all think.
Well, I think that a roundtable would be a fantastic idea. I don't mind the idea of a forum within a forum. I think that works well when it comes to taking issues very seriously and breaking them down for knowledge. I would love to apply my knowledge of Ryzom to discussion and would also like to be privee to new information or existing information that I do not yet know.
www.ryzom.com
It makes me happy to see someone who adequately replies in a polite manner, rather than just blindly defend their original post. Kudos.
On the subject, I think your idea has moxy, but how will this be better than just having an open discussion on the official boards exactly? If anything, it will just be a more exclusive discussion, I believe.
Just my thoughts...
Lets have a round table discussion on your profile pic, and is that really you?
Please check out my channel. I do gaming reviews, gaming related reviews & lets plays. Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/user/BettyofDewm/videos
My only concern with a popular vote for including people is--of course--the popularity contest aspect of it all. Good posters may not necessarily be popular (I like to think I contribute when I decide to join a discussion, but it most certainly doesn't mean I'm a popular--read: well-known--poster). Plus particular posters may not be the most fruitful in certain discussions. If you wanted to discuss aspects of lore, etc., a number-cruncher may not be as beneficial to the discussion as someone with a history of studying lore.
I do prefer the idea of having a livemeeting or something of the sort, but again--I feel like these things function far easier when you run a site and can set aside room for yourselves. It's not a bad idea, but I do think it needs to be hashed out a little more before becoming fully-functional.
Depending on your amount of time and dedication to this project, you may want to take short "applications" or "about me" posts to help determine what posters will be most fruitful, and then place the poll with those descriptions. Of course, the difficult thing is garnering enough interest to be able to weed through applicants. Having been the Content Manager on a site before, trust me, getting people to want to participate in detailed discussion can sometimes be troublesome! :-D
Yeah, but we get that all the time. Inevitably a conclusion can't be reached regarding the fundamental rules.
If an art forum decides they like Picasso's work and establishes guidelines for drawing in his art style, this conclusion achieves nothing because the forum realistically has no power over anything -- and if they did it'd be terrible because they might decide to impose those guidelines upon art, which would functionally eliminate many of the types of perfectly good art that get made.
I'm not against discussion, and reaching these conclusions on a personal level is an enjoyable excercise (if it wasn't, forums wouldn't exist.) But this type of discussion and conclusions are largely useless. An example:
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Axehilt, I agree with you on that point, and would like to say I'm not out to define standards or set guidelines. I am, however, interested in seeing what we as a community can churn out in a more official capacity rather than posting on what we individually feel passionate about or find interesting at the time. Those kinds of posts are all well and good, but what if we, as a community, worked hard together to form a sort of concensus, or middle ground, on what we can agree on objectively in regards to MMOs types and what they entail. I'm not aiming to make a F2P vs. P2P debate, or put any two methods directly against each other, but rather look at F2P or P2P on their own and determine what we as a collective feel is a good direction or format to pursue.
I'm thinking that maybe we can have volunteers to speak at roundtable discussions. Maybe we can have a rotation, allowing more people to engage in the talks. Like our columnists here at mmorpg.com, we could have our volunteers participate in a formal post and then have everyone look at what was done and give their opinions on the matter.
I realize this is a forum, and we don't exactly have the most convenient tools to pull it off as smoothly as I (or we) may like. I am, however, fully interested in devoting the time and energy to make this venture successful if the community votes in its favor.
Also Dewm, yes, the avatar is a picture of me from last year in Disneyworld. I guess I should update that, huh? =D
Aalynia, thanks for giving a content manager's point of view. I may be seeking your advice in the future!
As entertaining and productive this discussion would be, in which way would it ultimately take place? (New thread and get flamed from time to time, PM is secrecy, alternate website?)
MMOs are an interesting game to me since it is not only how the game interacts with 1 to 4 players via a storyline, but attempts to join players and have them form their own community (In which the game may put large scale conflicts for the community to solve, after that many chain reactions make it more complicated with multiple communities having mutual conflicts for the resources, the fun etc).
So is this still going on?
I'm still in support of getting this idea off the ground. If it comes down to it, I could always start up a forum specifically for this to happen. I would rather keep it here for everyone to see though, unless we can just post transcripts on the forum when we have a good discussion that we want to share with the community.
I wonder if we could have some guest columnists jump in on the action? That would get things moving, hahaha.