This is another reminder to stay on topic about Forge projects. Off topic discussions should be moved to another thread. Thank you
@SIR IRON WOLF I promise you, this will only hurt activity. It is your choice, of course. I just wanted my opinion on this matter to be known.
Not wanting WAYWO to be cluttered with personal arguments and shitposts is one thing, but preventing any sort of off topic discussion in the most active thread on the website is terribly misguided.
It's just having people start another thread, having everyone just post in one thread without making others is what is making the site look dead since there is nothing else being created. If you want to discuss this you then one of you can make a new thread
There are not enough active users to keep track of discussion across several forums. Maybe look into consolidating the Halo and Off Topic forums and making general discussion threads for each topic instead. There's really no reason to have 3 forums for an active userbase of 50 or less. People post here because everyone reads this thread, because everyone posts here. I made a public thread for arguments to keep it out of this one, but there is an entire forum for off topic discussion when it should just be one thread.
I've always thought of it as a win-win. People talk in this thread so it's always poppin and active, so when someone actually posts a picture of what they're working on it gets mad attention and likes. I was actually in a party with several people before and someone said they were going to make a thread for a preview of their map; before everyone told him it would get way more attention as a post in the waywo. Easiest example to prove this is that when I posted a preview of Oblivion in this thread, it got more likes and responses than the entire separate preview thread I made for it. --- Double Post Merged, Apr 2, 2017 --- Someone kill me
This past weekend I've been grinding out H3 MP and I'm starting to give a bit more lee-way to the BR. Sure, it's still the worst one, but it's not as bad as I originally thought. If you have a good team shot, connection, and strafe it really isn't that annoying.
@SIR IRON WOLF Pretty much all of your users arent happy with an increased amount of moderation based on whether something is on topic or not. WAYWO has always been this way, no one has really complained before, I see no reason to be such a stickler. Signed, someone who's been here since 2008 and has seen tons of similar situations to this.
Just about everyone who has complained about it so far have been the ones that lead to it being locked in the first place. While some of you might not see the people wanting it to be more project heavy than off topic we sure do, communication doesn't always happen over an open forum, especially when some users get attacked for their differing opinion. We aren't making this decision lightly and without good reason.
Users being personally attacked and off-topic conversation are two completely different things. I'm telling you now that increased moderation based on how on-topic posts are will decrease activity quickly. Like Multi said, there isn't an active enough and large enough user base to moderate like that. Allowing occasional off-topic discussion is more how a natural conversation goes, and that's something WAYWO has always felt like, a giant conversation with all the users. I personally think it should stay that way. If I'm in the minority, so be it, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there.
Keywords there are "occasional" and the phrase "It is encouraged that any engaging discussion that starts to form around a specific topic to be posted in its own thread". We aren't against the one or two comments that go off topic since that is going to happen or any other project that are being talked about (even though our wording has been "forge" lately), design concepts and philosophy is still related to forge and projects people are doing. Stuff that goes on for around a page should be made into a new thread, what we are asking is not difficult at all to do and is not the end of the world like some are making it out to be.
We get where some of you are coming from, and see that side of it. The only reason we are doing this now is because of the growing community we are experiencing and a lot of request and statements about this thread not being much of a WAYWO where people can share their projects, especially if they will just get buried by constant off topic chatter.
Seems to be the staff is putting a priority on the opinions of new members who may or may not even stick around over the opinions of the more dedicated core userbase who in my opinion make this site as good as it is. I'll admit that your average user is very unlikely to go out of their way to help newer members, because frankly, it isn't our job to. It should be the staff going out of their way to help integrate new members. Remember TGIF from the Halo 3 days? Those were a great way to get newer members in lobbies with more veteran members and so that every new member that joins isn't just some nobody only here to promote their map and leave. I see the other side, I really do. The current state of Forgehub is certainly not to most inviting to newer members, I just think the staff is going in completely the wrong direction to remedy that.