Metaclub Feedback

[Lord Wraste]

I think one of the issues is that the general rules for posting anywhere on this forum are repeated in each section, but there's no over-all set of rules posted over the forum. Because of this I think there's room for confusion.

In each section there is the two basic rules that we must always abide by:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Brass Goggles has always and shall continue to portray the "lighter side of steampunk"  as coined by our retired founder Tinkergirl.  To that end we have a few general rules which apply to all sections of the forum:

1.  Please keep all posts within a Safe For Work (SFW) Policy. This means is that some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. Posts may contain, some strong language and innuendo, humor, mature themes, historical and fantasy firearms of the "Victorian Era", and some historical-political themes within the context of our 19th century speculative fiction genre.  If your post contains partial (upper body) nudity or other visual elements which may not be approved for viewing within an office setting the post must be flagged Not Safe For Work (NSFW). This nudity clause is written in specifically for historical photographs and Steampunk art.

2.  You are expected to maintain decorum and behavior appropriate for adult cultural discussion.  This means that things which have been dubbed by the internet community as "trolling" are not allowed.  Other behavior such as Ad Hominem arguments (attacking someone's argument based on the character or physical trait of the subject) and assuming one or many persona with the intention to deceive (what we've dubbed a 'sock puppet') are expressly prohibited.  Bad or disruptive behaviour not listed here may also be identified by the Brass Goggles staff and dealt with accordingly.

Enforcement:
These rules are interpreted by our moderation staff and rule-breakers will be dealt with as the moderator sees fit.  Punishments like a private reprimand, temporary ban, or a full ban are handed out based on the scope of the violation and at the discretion of the moderator.

Purposefully seeking grey areas between rules and their wording and/or experimenting by seeing how far you can stretch a rule are seen as rule violations in themselves and may be acted upon as a rule violation.  If you are ever in doubt about your particular post, please send it in a PM to the moderator for the section you are using for a ruling before you make it public!

Which is then followed by the specific rules for the given section.

Because the Meta-clubs have their own "rules" posted,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hi Folks,

This is the child board for clubs of people who do not meet in person.  Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, this is a bit of an experiment.  Should these clubs prove to be more role play than anything, then these may all get moved to portrayal.

for now, enjoy!

shaunathan sprocket


UPDATE:
Well I've let the experiment run nearly unchecked for about 10 months now.  And I have some requests:

1. I've seen a great deal of role play rather than club activity.  starting next Tuesday (10/13) I'll begin to move roleplay threads to portrayal where they would belong.  This will be determined by the bulk of the posts.

2. If your thread is inactive for 6 months it will be locked.  To get it unlocked the original organizer needs to PM me and it will be unlocked.  If that person is no longer around I should be linked a thread where the originator of the club passed power to someone else and they will be able to give permission for it to be unlocked.

3. If your thread remains locked for a year, it will be deleted.   This is for sometimes silly, sometimes serious meta-clubs,  if you've got a real club going and it's serious enough to save for posterity, please archive your own information to your satisfaction.

As always our base rules apply here: [see above]

and nothing is mentioned about staying on the topic of Steampunk itself, it gets a bit gray.

I don't think that anyone intentionally sought out that gray area, I think that it inherently exists in the ambiguity of the Meta-clubs' existence.

Perhaps having an announcement post at the top of the forum, separate from all the other sections, that clearly states the rules/guidelines and what is intended and then points out expectations for anything that doesn't fall under a specific section would be helpful.

[Lilith-Nighthawk]

I have to agree with Ginny's exelently thought out post. The combination of the almost hostile discussions of what is steampunk and repetative nature of different types of threads keeps me from posting as much I would if it wasn't like that.

The designated "chatty" areas seem to be getting trouble for what happens in the other areas. I love vintage, Steampunk, Perfumes ect. But as much as I love this forum. It is the only forum including a goth forum I freaquent that argues or gets into a crazy amount of pointless discussions on what the forum topic is and means. None of the other forums I visit do this as much, some not at all.

Goth is only slightly more defined than steampunk in my opinion when it comes to style or what is goth. But you don't see me, Gabriel, or Lilibat argueing about if goth and steampunk can or should be combined. Or what goth is for that matter. You don't see us arguing about what steampunk actually is. But other members do tend over dicuss what it is in the extreme.

Perfectly good threads in the not chatty parts of the forum get haijacked every day for the exact reason Ginny mentioned. The short answere to my little rantish post; I agree with Ginny 100%.

[arcwelder]

Goth is only slightly more defined than steampunk in my opinion when it comes to style or what is goth.

You're also comparing oranges to orangutans there.

[Lilith-Nighthawk]

Goth is only slightly more defined than steampunk in my opinion when it comes to style or what is goth.

You're also comparing oranges to orangutans there.

You are right. But my point is that the members that were goth or combine the two styles don't seem to praticipate in most of the pointless arguements about what is SP. Also the level of pointless debate about it when people alway seem to conclude that SP is in the eye of the beholder is bording on rediculous.

[arcwelder]

Also the level of pointless debate about it when people alway seem to conclude that SP is in the eye of the beholder is bording on rediculous.

I don't think most people actually believe that, so much as that it provides a convenient way to disengage peacefully.

Part of the problem is that we're putting makers, LARPers, lifestylers, cosplayers, etc. and sticking them all together in a sack. Obviously this will lead to disagreements. But I'd rather keep being inclusive since everyone brings something interesting to the table, and all it costs us is a little good will and polite language.

[Lilith-Nighthawk]

Also the level of pointless debate about it when people alway seem to conclude that SP is in the eye of the beholder is bording on rediculous.

I don't think most people actually believe that, so much as that it provides a convenient way to disengage peacefully.

Part of the problem is that we're putting makers, LARPers, lifestylers, cosplayers, etc. and sticking them all together in a sack. Obviously this will lead to disagreements. But I'd rather keep being inclusive since everyone brings something interesting to the table, and all it costs us is a little good will and polite language.

Of course. But I don't think threads should be needlessly taken over to discuss it. Maybe we should have "What is steampunk thread"? We could have a mod make it a sticky. It would give people a place to talk about what they think SP is, and keep the litter out of other threads so the OP's of  the other  threads can get their actual question dealt with.

[jringling]

Goth is only slightly more defined than steampunk in my opinion when it comes to style or what is goth.

You're also comparing oranges to orangutans there.

umm.... case in point?

[Ginny Blundy]

I have to agree with Ginny's exelently thought out post. The combination of the almost hostile discussions of what is steampunk and repetative nature of different types of threads keeps me from posting as much I would if it wasn't like that.

The designated "chatty" areas seem to be getting trouble for what happens in the other areas. I love vintage, Steampunk, Perfumes ect. But as much as I love this forum. It is the only forum including a goth forum I freaquent that argues or gets into a crazy amount of pointless discussions on what the forum topic is and means. None of the other forums I visit do this as much, some not at all.

Goth is only slightly more defined than steampunk in my opinion when it comes to style or what is goth. But you don't see me, Gabriel, or Lilibat argueing about if goth and steampunk can or should be combined. Or what goth is for that matter. You don't see us arguing about what steampunk actually is. But other members do tend over dicuss what it is in the extreme.

Perfectly good threads in the not chatty parts of the forum get haijacked every day for the exact reason Ginny mentioned. The short answere to my little rantish post; I agree with Ginny 100%.

Thanks.  

I myself have made things lately that I haven't posted because I don't want to start a thread that will devolve into debate - and also because I can take constructive criticism, but it isn't always constructive out there.

Of course. Smiley But I don't think threads should be needlessly taken over to discuss it. Maybe we should have "What is steampunk thread"? We could have a mod make it a sticky.

I've been thinking the same thing myself, Lilith-Nighthawk. I think this is very much on topic with this discussion about the Metaclubs, because it's about why people leave for the Metaclubs. It may be appropriate to not only set up a sticky for defining steampunk, but for moderators and even fellow members to point people in the direction of that topic whenever someone wants to argue about whether or not the excessive use of gears is steampunk. At any rate, I think derailing is an enemy of the forum far more than discussions that are on topic within their off topic areas.

Goth is only slightly more defined than steampunk in my opinion when it comes to style or what is goth.

You're also comparing oranges to orangutans there.

umm.... case in point?

Exactly my point. Ironically timed to the point of making me wonder if Arcwelder was trying to be, well... ironic.

Note: Edited to correct a confusing grammatical error.

[jringling]

Exactly my point. Ironically timed to the point of making me wonder if Arcwelder was trying to be, well... ironic.

I doubt it as the issue continued for afew more posts...

And you make an excellent point about the hostility towards some members early in a thread. I could provide links to at least 3 that this has happened within the last week alone...

[arcwelder]

Exactly my point. Ironically timed to the point of making me wonder if Arcwelder was trying to be, well... ironic.

Trying?

[CorneliaCarton]

We lost more members when BG started to go "chatty" and OT became the largest forum, than I'd suspect we'd lose my killing the junk boards.. We had a large and vibrant "Maker" community. (remember crabfu, and his steam powered (yes, REAL steam power) creations, as well as a quite a few others. They got fed up and left. As SP became faddish, we lost the core folks that made it happen in the first place.

A few years back I suggested that any forum that has an Off Topic board that;s larger than its main genre boards is as good as dead anyway..

Its time for back to core basics, I;d say..

Cheers
Harold
 

 

Since the numbers of people going to Off Topic and Metaclub discussions - instead of posting in topic-specific sections - keeps coming up, I'd like to speak specifically about why I've become a frequent Off Topic/Metaclub poster.

My primary sections were Tactile and Anatomical when I first began visiting BG. Lately, I check in on them occasionally but rarely post on them, because of two issues.

The first is that these sections are practically a database at this point. They contain so much information now that any question I may have is usually quickly answered with a search. This actually causes me to wonder what stats look like in those sections if you look at page views rather than posts. Because there's such a wealth of info, there's little need to post a new thread in most cases.

The other reason I visit these sections less often is that many new threads that are of the "look what I made" or the "how would I steampunk this thing" variety gather negative criticism right away. Very early in a thread like that, someone posts that they don't like something or don't think it can be steampunk, and express this in a negative fashion. Others then come to the defense of the item/idea, and the thread turns into a philosophical debate on the topic of What is Steampunk - or possibly What is Badly Realized Steampunk.

This debate, by the way, is off topic every time it occurs in the types of posts I mentioned. Moderators often do get involved - but only after the debate has fully hijacked the thread and has derailed to the point of chasing off the original poster. This off topic bickering seems to get rid of newbies as well, which I suspect some people want, but in time will only cause the forum to stagnate and die.

I engaged in a few of these conversations, but eventually left off of it because I recognized that the same argument was happening over and over, and accomplishing nothing.

I wanted to stay active on the forum, so I turned to Metaclubs and Off Topic. They are friendlier areas for the most part.

I wouldn't want to lose the wealth of information that the on topic sections contain. I don't particularly like the tone of things over there these days, however, and I wonder at how many others have moved to Off Topic or left BG because of the same problem.

This turned into a much longer post than I intended, but my summary is this: the side that is in favor of removing off topic threads keeps saying people have left BG because of off topic discussion - are you sure it's because of off topic discussion that's happening in designated areas, and not the fault of off topic bickering in Steampunk-specific topics? Furthermore, have you considered the negative impact on the Brass Goggles community as a whole if Off Topic and Metaclubs are removed?

Here here, Ginny!
Excellent post. I fully support this.

[S.Sprocket]

Sounds like Ginny hit the nail on the head then.


Tomorrow I'll lock this feedback thread and go back to the mods with the ideas here,  then I'll unlock this thread, and provide what we came up with, and see what people think.  Sound fair to everyone?   


I want to do this because it seems like we have something to work from here, and that was the whole point of this thread.  So we'll lock this thread in 24 hours, and I'll hash it out with the mods.  Then we'll unlock this thread with the proposed action and hear feedback.  Sound good? 

(yes I realize I was just horribly redundant, however it's written that way so that people who skim quickly will not freak out when they see the world "lock" )

[CorneliaCarton]

Sounds fair enough, Sprocket.

[phang]

Tomorrow I'll lock this feedback thread

AAAAAA Nooooo. What did the other pages even say? "Lock" Dear Heavens Nooo!



sorry. couldn't resist. Not that I tried. 

[S.Sprocket]

bad phang, no treat...  now for the lock...  we'll be back unlocked once the mods and I have time to discuss the feedback here.  Thanks one and all who provided positive and constructive feedback.  To those who simply vented, I'm glad we could provide a place to do that.

[S.Sprocket]

I've got a working solution getting feedback in the moderators forum.  I hope to have it up here soon for review.