Things sometime go great, and other times they go bad.
Although I can't really say that it goes bad (lots of members, and a very active forum), it came to me that if we continue like we do now, things might not be as nice as they should be in a month or so.
You might've seen already that a few topics were locked, and that there was a discussion about posts counts.
Although that might not look as a big problem, there is more going on. Nifflas is very good in creating wonderful games, and I praise him for that, but it does take his entire time. He just doesn't have time to also look after the forum. I've had a chat, together with FastRecords and Nifflas, to see if we (FastRecords and I) take over the forum from him. He gladly accepted.
This doesn't mean that Nifflas will be gone or so. He still remains who he is, and what he can do, but all problems and maintainance things will be handled by me and FastRecords.
This will mean that we have to change a few things. The place as it is now, doesn't have what it requires to be a good forum. That means that we'll assemble a set of rules, and ofcource post this. This way, everyone can see what we'd like to see and what not.
Don't forget, this forum is a support forum for Nifflas' games. Ofcource there's room to have topics that are not about his games, but currently the balance between Nifflas related posts vs off-topic, is not good.
FastRecords and I will make some changes in the next few days to make things more organised and ofcource structurised.
More information on what we'll do, and have done will follow as we proceed with the big makeover. :)
Don't feel sad though, we are not at all going to change this into a nasty place. It still must be a forum where you come to have a nice discussion, and part of a nice forum are the nice members, you included :D.
Hi ho! Yeah, I can confirm that I don't check out the off-topic boards that often, I honestly don't know that much about what's going on at this forum, except in the topics directly related to the creation of Knytt Stories.
I plan to remain in charge of some of the important on-topic boards though. It's very important that I have full control over the beta testing board and get to decide what is removed or changed in it, and I still want to configure and organize the Knytt Stories boards the way I want to when the game will be released, but as soon as those are up the other administrators will take over the control of what people actually post in those.
And we have an update!!!!! C)p
Some of you have checked the forum in the past hour and noticed that it was down for maintenance.
FastRecords and I have spitted through most of the Off-topic and separated this into several forums. Not only is it much more organized, we also removed the topics that were really not fitting in with the picture this forum should have.
We're not done yet, but we are for now. For that reason, we restricted access to the new forums. We will continue tomorrow to finish some stuff up so we can open up that area for the public.
Sorry for the inconvenience. I hope you understand our situation.
OK here we go again.
FastRecords and I have spitted through most of the Off-topic and separated this into several forums. Not only is it much more organized, we also removed the topics that were really not fitting in with the picture this forum should have.
We're not done yet, but we are for now. For that reason, we restricted access to the new forums. We will continue tomorrow to finish some stuff up so we can open up that area for the public.
Sorry for the inconvenience. I hope you understand our situation.
If you still don't get it.
- YES OFF-TOPIC IS GONE (se-pa-ra-ted) SPLITTED INTO NEW ONES.
- YES you can't open a random topic with "look at this guitar-hero movie"
(which means you CAN use it in a thread if it has a related to the main topic)
- YES the HI topic is gone. We're not a dating site. :P
Comprende? C)p
:liten:
Some quotes mentioning off-topic should stay.
I can be very clear in it, so I will be very clear in it.
This is supposed to be a Nifflas Support Forum
I understand that you want some off-topic chatter. Hench the reason it was originally made, but it seemed to get out of control. It was getting so much out of control that the ENTIRE staff was not really looking there anymore. Me included. This is bad, cus that means that a forum is breaking down.
Yes, you read that correctly. Every time I went to that board, I was like: that topic, skip... That topic, skip... Oh, new topic.. Lets see... Oh no... Lock? Kill? nah... Skip...
I've even got a complaint email that the forum is not what it used to be, and that people long for the old purple forum because it was a nicer place. Basically, things have deteriorated in such way that it needs to be restored.
This means: for now, there will be NO off-topic forum, and there's no debate possible for this item. If everything goes well, it can be added later (read much later) but we are first going to make sure that things settle down again. If you don't like it, then find your business elsewhere.
I know this sounds harsh, but hopefully people do read this, cus my earlier explaination of why and how was not read at all.
We also got resistance back then, see:
you are closing down a forum, a much popular, important and wanted one, just because of the admins and moderators laziness?
Then the problem does not lie at the members, let me tell you that.
Those are your words, which simply imply that you haven't read a thing of what I said. See? This is exactly the problem why we need to make drastic measures.
And yes you are right; if this is how it's going to be, I'm abandoning this sinking ship.
Good luck though
Bye, and thanks. :)
And ofcourse, I apologise; insulting the administrative crew gets us nowhere, so let me ask you this instead.
Why is it a bad idea ( and HOW does it hurt the forum ) to have a separate off-topic board, with one or two dedicated moderators* that keep it somewhat 'on-topic'?
That is what you fail to make me understand, so please, do tell me.
Apologies accepted.
I'll once more give the reason why I have reacted as I did above, and hope that people now stop whining about the off-topic forum. We have split the off-topic board into several other boards, which are currently hidden to the public. This means that there still is somekind of off-topic on this forum, but its not labeled off-topic because we don't want discussions on this forum that don't belong here. When we've constructed the rules that will apply on the forums, we will also make that area public again. The risk take if we open up that area before releasing the rules, is that we need to moderate that section again, which took me and FastRecords quite some time yesterday. So indeed, off-topic is not gone entirelly, but people did not read it or want off-topic to be entirelly off-topic. There simply is not going to be an entirelly off-topic forum in the near future.
*who really do their job, can't be impossible to find, can it?
Again, sorry if I sound harsh. I'm just annoyed that you go against the majority of the users on this point.
Clearly, most of the users here would like to keep the off-topic board.
I'm just worried that killing the ot-board, more or less will make the board even less active.
It doesn't hurt if the board becomes less active, because that is expected. When Knytt Stories is released to the public, I expect alot of new members to join, and I mean ALOT. If we still have an unorganised off-topic center by that time, things will simply be not manageable anymore.
But apparently, you won't listen to anyones opinions on this matter, espicially not of a stupid newbie.
I'm out. Ban me or whatever, have fun.
Yes I will listen, but I can't comply to everything. Its just that I have managed so many forums now, that I know where the risks are and how to avoid several. Off-topic currently is too risky (see above)
Eh, this forum is somewhat losing my interest. I don't have anywhere to post when I don't want to chat nonstop about Nifflas. It seems like an ego-related thing where everything we want to talk about has to revolve around Nifflas.
It's not an ego thing, believe me about that. I don't have time to administrate the board, so I gave the leadership to LPChip and Fastrecords who have been hanging around here for quite a while. Obviously, they are the ones who really wants to keep things on-topic, because I am no longer in control of this, I'm just watching the changes in hope that they are good ones.
It's an odd situation for sure - a lot of our old regulars was losing interest in the forum since it was going off-topic all the time. Now it appears that many of our new members, as well as those who just want to chat about things in general are losing interest. No matter what, members will obviously disappear.
My own standpoint in all this is that I create games, it takes all my time, and don't have the time to administrate a forum that needs administration (except the Knytt Stories boards since they're directly related to one of my new products). Things that happen to the forum right now are not of my initiative.
Another big update!
We have now completed the next phase of the big change. We've created a rules topic, which you can read here: Official Forum Rules This link actually points to the rules on the new forum... X)
We also made the off-topic forums that have been split into different ones visible. Before you post there, read the rules to see what is allowed and what not!!!
In addition we changed postcount behavor. Although we don't like to show the postcounter, we have made sure that the postcounter is only being increased on topics related to Nifflas' games.
The offtopic chatter no longer rewards you with posts, and it may be clear that we definatelly don't want off-topic chatter in the nifflas games section. Those sections are support sections, and the challenges in these sections are the fun corners. Enough fun if you ask me, based on how it was on the old forum.
If you haven't done already, go read the rules!!! :)
Well, thats basically what happened in a nutshell. If you want to read everything (8 pages, go to the old forum, news, and find the topic Changes are sometimes necessary.)