Scratch

I sense a flame war brewing here... maybe we should talk to the mods about this.

antimonyarsenide wrote:

Also, congrats on your first post, RHY 

-.- You probably got him banned for that
Next time wait until after he helps the anti-miscellaneous side close the miscellaneous.
D:<

Last edited by Ace-of-Spades (2010-08-25 06:05:44)

No. In fact, I've decided not to care. Close Misc or don't close it, I won't care much. End of argument(for me). May the best debater win.

(I solemnly swear not to post here EVER!)

Alright guys, I have mentioned a lot before, I'm not sure if Miscellaneous will ever be closed after some serious discussions with the Scratch Team. But let's remember the inevitable fact that even so, there is hope 

Anyhow, this topic is turning into a fairly heated flame war... we want to keep our discussions friendly and open to everyone. If the topic continues down this road, I think it will be appropriate to close it.

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

coolstuff wrote:

Alright guys, I have mentioned a lot before, I'm not sure if Miscellaneous will ever be closed after some serious discussions with the Scratch Team. But let's remember the inevitable fact that even so, there is hope 

Anyhow, this topic is turning into a fairly heated flame war... we want to keep our discussions friendly and open to everyone. If the topic continues down this road, I think it will be appropriate to close it.

It's not a flamewar 
Someone repeatedly saying that it's a flamewar because they're not giving any other good points in an argument does not make it a flamewar.

I believe the community's reactions to such a user were far out of line, and therefore were the flame war.

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

coolstuff wrote:

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

It's not a flamewar 
Someone repeatedly saying that it's a flamewar because they're not giving any other good points in an argument does not make it a flamewar.

I believe the community's reactions to such a user were far out of line, and therefore were the flame war.

You believe? What exactly were the reactions? In that case, it would be the first user flamebaiting by saying it is a flame war, and not anything to do with the topic itself.

From what I've seen from the last page or so, a number of users have been being rather disrespectful towards the user you mentioned. Please try to keep it respectful from this point forth.

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

coolstuff wrote:

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

You believe? What exactly were the reactions? In that case, it would be the first user flamebaiting by saying it is a flame war, and not anything to do with the topic itself.

From what I've seen from the last page or so, a number of users have been being rather disrespectful towards the user you mentioned. Please try to keep it respectful from this point forth.

So it's your perspective only that your considering? Which posts do you see as being disrespectful? If it's any of mine, I'll expand on what I meant by them.

I'd actually prefer not to point fingers. In short: be respectful and considerate of others. This topic is also getting off-topic-ish, so it'd be best to get it back to its roots, too.

The biggest issue is that "other" topics - which would otherwise belong in Miscellaneous - will migrate to the other forums - as was the issue before I&M was created. Back in early 2008, Show and Tell was, believe it or not, clogged up with plenty of Miscellaneous-like topics in the arteries. However, the existence of Miscellaneous may be encouraging such topics, so closing it may help solve the problem in part, but never on the whole.

To address the plausible solution of moving it to a separate forum, like the TBGs, the issue there is that the new moderators would have a lot of difficult moderating Miscellaneous. There are a lot of issues to do with moderating that may seem obvious but take a while to get a handle with - and as the TBGs are almost entirely community-run, the moderators there probably needed a lot of guidance getting acquainted with moderating. Miscellaneous is an entirely different beast: flame wars and a number of different issues that really only the Scratch Team is capable of handling appear on a near-daily basis. It's just not fair on the potential Misc-moderators.

There was even some discussion of redirecting Miscellany towards a completely separate site which wasn't related to Scratch in any way - an external forum run by an external force. This idea didn't last very long, however.

Naturally, the existence of Miscellaneous has resulted in some very strong socioemotional bonds between users. While this isn't too much of an issue, the fact remains that socioemotional bonds will decrease should Miscellaneous be closed, leaving users feeling they are talking to impersonal blobs. However, that can easily be fixed: posts don't always have to be impersonal. 

That pretty much sums it up... But that doesn't mean Miscellaneous will never be closed. The issues can be easily averted by simply cracking down on off-topicness that will appear in the other forums. Miscellaneous is my least favourite forum, and I would love to see it go, and hey, maybe we will. 

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

If they want a miscellaneous community, arranging one with the same rules as Scratch wouldn't be too hard (I'm sure many dedicated members could keep it up.) Why did the idea not last long?

The Scratch Team and moderators would have any control over the situation and if things got out of hand on that forum, we can't do anything about it. It's also very difficult to find an existing community with the same values as ours, and while the community may start out as a spectacular success, following closely to the rules of Scratch, they are perfectly free to change those rules whenever they want, with no guarantee that we will know.

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

Take a look at the TBG Forums. It was causing flame wars while it was here (or so it's been said as the reason why they closed it), but for a baffling reason, it has stopped now that it is (somewhat) off site.

The reason they moved it was because it had nothing to do, at all, with Scratch. The reason the flame wars, though they were nearly non-existant while the forums existed here, has stopped is because the TBGs would have been closed if they continued. Miscellaneous is a lot harder to moderate in that the discussions can get very heated very quickly.

Last edited by coolstuff (2010-08-26 10:33:15)

coolstuff wrote:

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

Take a look at the TBG Forums. It was causing flame wars while it was here (or so it's been said as the reason why they closed it), but for a baffling reason, it has stopped now that it is (somewhat) off site.

The reason they moved it was because it had nothing to do, at all, with Scratch. The reason the flame wars, though they were nearly non-existant while the forums existed here, has stopped is because the TBGs would have been closed if they continued. Miscellaneous is a lot harder to moderate in that the discussions can get very heated very quickly.

But it's not like the Miscellaneous has a lot to do with Scratch either.

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

militarydudes wrote:

samurai768 wrote:

Total agreement.

100% agreement and Chuck Norris approved

They're subject to change their minds. And instead of just agreeing and not adding to the conversation, why don't you suggest ways we can improve it then?

Well, as i stated before, possibly by breaking Misc. into different areas such as "Fan Clubs" and "Polls."  A good number of Misc. topics seem to be these (among the ones that aren't Twitter-esk- aka "Today is my birthday!" "I'm going on vacation!  ") Posts that don't fit in their sub-catagory can be either moved to one that does, or closed if it doesn't fit in any...
Also, another suggestion is to be able to toggle Misc. topics on and off in your "Show posts since last visit", "Recent Posts", and "Unreplyed Posts". Some people get annoyed by the Misc. Posts showing up in these.
What do you think? 

coolstuff wrote:

lilacfuzz101 wrote:

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

They're subject to change their minds. And instead of just agreeing and not adding to the conversation, why don't you suggest ways we can improve it then?

Well, as i stated before, possibly by breaking Misc. into different areas such as "Fan Clubs" and "Polls."  A good number of Misc. topics seem to be these (among the ones that aren't Twitter-esk- aka "Today is my birthday!" "I'm going on vacation!  ") Posts that don't fit in their sub-catagory can be either moved to one that does, or closed if it doesn't fit in any...
Also, another suggestion is to be able to toggle Misc. topics on and off in your "Show posts since last visit", "Recent Posts", and "Unreplyed Posts". Some people get annoyed by the Misc. Posts showing up in these.
What do you think? 

That seems to be taking it a bit too far, don't you think? The Scratch Forums don't consist only of Miscellany - in fact, that's only a very small part of the Scratch Forums, and it's not intended to be the main focus.

And dividing up the forum means there would still be one or two new forums that are for spam. It's sort of like doubling the Miscellaneous instead of cutting it down. Sure the posts will get cut down in both topics, but they'll be appearing more combined than when they were a single forum.