Feedback

[Quincunx]

Yeah, one question. . .what'd you say in that last long paragraph? I can extract meaning from the closing sentence but the rest is Peanuts-esque trumpet mutes.

[The Portrait of Zool]

He said (paraphrasing) "The Pen is what the Pen is, and how do we improve that?"

 

I think.

[Gwaihir]

The guild leaders have never been event organizers and should not become them. However, I think Sweet is probably quite right--we should have event organizers!

[Sweetcherrie]

Sweetcherrie,

I hope it was not a mistake to post what I did here. I would not wish to give the impression that people aren't trying. Please try to trust us a bit here. No one is fighting change.

Funny, when I posted this I was mainly hoping it was not a mistake to post my honest thoughts.

 

I don't think we need event organizers at all. Every member can be an event organizer. We don't need more titles. (If anything the title almost seems to make a member go idle almost straight afterwards )

 

Maybe the guilds needs to clarify what they want to do as guild leaders? and what they want from the Pen?

 

Because so far I've only heard what they didn't want. Which is being event organizers. So let us hear what you do think you should do, and maybe the Pen as a whole can profit from your ideas.

[reverie]

Alaeha: thanks for the refresher. I'd forgotten the original argument for the guilds as well. Thanks for the nod on the classes too. I wasn't sure if I was going to continue them there or in the workshop. Still not sure. Might do my homework in the workshop and polish it upin the guild classroom (that could take weeks if not more). But, god times a big issue right now. I'll get to it when I can.

 

 

As far as event organizers, well we've always had them. Half the quill quest have been events in them of themselves. And Saylne writing exercises way back in the day once re-energised the pen when we were at a particularly low ebb of activity.

 

I'm pretty much neutral on all this, as I'm so freaking busy right now, I really shouldn't even be writing this.

 

take care all,

 

rev...

Edited August 31, 2006 by reverie

[cryptomancer]

*waves at sweet*

Very good question. *becons to the other guild leaders to answer as well.*

 

Maybe the guilds needs to clarify what they want to do as guild leaders? and what they want from the Pen?

I started writing here because it gave me a place to get feedback in a rather non threatening way. From there I progressed to joining in, for the sake of writing more. I tried new things and started to get better at what I already did (hopefully).

 

I wanted to join the guild for the chance to improve more, but the main reason I didnt was because they seemed to just be running games and events. There was the suggestion of more to come, or things to help, but these things either never happened, or I just never saw them when they did.

 

I was offered the chance to become a guild leader. I oringinally said yes for 2 reasons. I wanted to give back something to the Pen, after all that it has given to me since I joined, and secondly I have 'Ideas'.

 

The Guild should be true to its name. Guilds are a gathering of those that want to excel in their chosen path, a place where talent and skill are groomed to become better. I would like to see this happen again.

 

But does the pen want the guilds? That debate and the large and very vocal anti guild sentiment have made me hold back from even learning to run the AAA as it is.

 

But here is the short answer: I want to be in a guild to improve. If that means learning stuff elswhere and practising, by teaching others, at the pen through the position as guild leader, I will happily do so, it will just take time.

 

The guilds can help organise events, but the members should be doing this, coordinated by the leaders. Because events are a way to practise the things you wish to improve on.

 

[Ozymandias]

I'll only be able to ninja post (read as: able to post, then immediately vanish again, until my next unexpected strike) until Monday.

 

Today's shuriken:

 

Tzimfemme:

 

Translating from Me to English is going to be harder than I first thought. Zool has the right summation, but now I'm worried that all of the particulars in my last post are being lost, so I'm going to see what I can do about that inbetween now and Monday (preferebaly results will come sooner, buuut we'll see).

 

Everybody:

 

It's beginning to seem like the guilds are our biggest concern as a site. Is this true?

 

Belizean:

 

Not a part of the community? Stuff and Nonsense! Nonsense and stuff!

 

Anyone who ever even gave the remotest idle pondering to the distinct possiblity of one day thinking about defining an expiration date to membership in The Pen is Mightier than the Sword, I shall poke in the eye!!!!!*

 

 

Seriously, you're family, BZ. Come in anytime, stay as long as you like. Trash any ridiculous notions otherwise. Repeat as necessary.

 

Alaeha:

 

Two things I neglected to say earlier -

 

1)Well put description of the guilds. Thank you.

 

and

 

2)Breathe. It's extremely hard to get exploded Spellsinger bits out of carpet, you know.

 

 

 

*all apologies to Douglas Adams

[Quincunx]

Earlier I said that it may annoy people when they see a forum they can't yet post in, because of their board rank. I'll take that risk. Suggested reorganization follows. A 'primary' forum is one that is bold and underlined font on the main page, and a 'subforum' is labeled as such on the main page plus bold and underlined on the first page of its main forum. Split, re-named, and otherwise altered forums are marked with ***. Access levels are for both reading and writing, although they are currently set at different levels for some forums--which I find bloody annoying even though I was in favor of it in the first place.

 

 

The Tavern of the Quill - free-access posting

 

Cabaret Room - conversation & catch-all forum

 

Assembly Room - stories with closed authorship

***Subforum: Critic's Corner - technical feedback ***

 

Banquet Hall - poetry

***Subforum: Critic's Corner - technical feedback ***

 

Conservatory - stories with open authorship

Subforum: The Greenroom - ooc for character development

 

***The Manor of Tongues - multilingual posts *** (takes current contents of The European Classics)

Subforum: The Café - technical assistance on multilingual posts

 

Library - archive & reposts

 

Recruiter's Office - applications

 

 

 

The Walls of the Pen - unchanged

(There may be some argument for collapsing the Codex & Lists into a subforum as it is no longer relevant. . .but that's a far smaller concern than reworking the living parts of the Pen, right now.)

 

 

 

***The Pen Keep - membership posting*** (fusion of The Passageway & Athenaeum)

 

The Courtyard - conversation & catch-all forum, access level Initiate

 

Under the Oak Tree - creative posting, access level Initiate

Subforum: The Scarlett Pen - PG-13 creative posting, access level Initiate

 

The Writer's Workshop - Posts-in-progress with technical feedback, access level Page

 

Alliance of Vanguards & Vagabonds

Articulate Artisans of Alliteration

Storyweaver's Central Hall

- Guilds, control their own subforums, access level Quill-Bearer

 

The Minstrel Hall - member votes & organization discussions (such as this one), access level Quill-bearer (or was it poet/herald/troubadour/storyteller/bard/er. . ."that" level?)

Subforum: Double Secret Evil Planning Room of Doom - problems & solutions, access level Quill-bearer (same question)

 

Any other leader-ish forums that I can't see go down here.

Edited September 1, 2006 by Quincunx

[Appy]

DSEPRoD right now is poet/herald/troubadour ect.

 

And right now votes for promoting people are posted in the Minstrell Hall.. if you just move that to the DSEPRoD, then there's no problem anymore with people getting confused if they can vote or not, and it can stay Quill-Bearer, giving them the organisational option without having to rely on the Courtyard or Cabaret Room.

 

That was my 2 cents on that.

 

And final: Looking good!

[reverie]

Yeah looks great Q. But I'd keep the Doom Room for voting members only since that were we end up discussing things we vote on (and occasionally flay each other) and quill-bearers are non-voting members. Another option could be to make it read-only for non-voting members though. I could live with either.

 

Actually, I think the biggest problem of the pen faces is not the guilds, but attitude. We're more reactionary than we've ever been. I've always been reactionary, it's my style (though I try to moderate it), but lately more and more people are becoming like that as well or worse... Enmity is at a high ebb and has been for a while. And a couple people have all but left the pen over it.

 

This thread is step in the right direction though.

 

rev...

Edited September 1, 2006 by reverie

[Mardrax]

I'm sorry I took as long to get here as I did, but I've been watching, planning to cast my stone in once I saw something I really didn't agree with, little though my voice may be on account of my not even being an initiate yet (probably one of the longest registered sub-initiates at that too )

 

First on non-guild related issues I have.

I was anoyed by both the fact I can't change my own started topic titles and subtitles, no matter which membership level you are, I think you should be able to I was also quite suprised to see I had to manually remove the previous "reply-quote" when replying to a PM.

However there are minor anoyances, and nothing in related to the community but to the medium it uses to communicate, and I imagine there's not much to do about either, so I'm moving on now.

 

Guilds and my vision on them.

I think the guilds' purpose is twofold.

First, guilds SHOULD be a gathering place for the "elites" at their trade.

Second, however, why should it not be able to double as a place of learning for the ones below that level? How can one expect anyone who doesn't have contact with anyone at this level the elitists like to call theirs to ever reach that level? Apart from that, why not allow the less talented, or at least less skilled (as most of us know, talent is worth zilch without both the chance to train and learn from other's experience) to use their more talented or skilled counterparts as a step up, at no incovenience to those being used as that step?

I think giving at least initiates insight into what's happening a few steps up the hierarchial ladder, -what's being done, said, discussed, by those supposedly better than they- is a key factor in their development as writers, which some hope to do here, next to other things ofcourse.

I know from experience just as well as most of us how anoying it is to not be able to reply to something if you feel the need to, but there's also a bright side to it, especially when compared to not being able to read it at all.

 

Guildleaders. I don't know there. Haven't seen them in action, but frankly, I personally don't see much use for them in action. Ofcourse I could be gravely mistaken there on acount of my unknowing in general.

 

One thing I know for sure they SHOULDN'T be doing though is organising activities, especially not outside of their guilds. Not the way it's been done in the past anyway. The way I currently see it. these activities have always been done with an eye on improving the overall activity of the Pen. This is not something guildleaders should bothering with. This is a responsibility for the community as a whole, and as such, if any leading entity should be concerned with it, it should be the elders themselves. I don't think, however, that any leading entity should fix this. Individual members should, not from wanting to fulfill their activities, but from wanting to keep the community as a whole intact, though Peredhil's example brought up by someone a few posts back to shows only that clutching at straws is useless. If people can't or won't show activity for some time, there's nothing you can do but accept it - The community might be a community, but prised on individuality as most of you are, I think you should look more into the individual side of people as well.

 

 

for a few concrete things I disagree with from TzimFemme's post:

The Writer's Workshop - Posts-in-progress with technical feedback, access level Page

 

- Guilds, control their own subforums, access level Quill-Bearer

 

The Minstrel Hall - member votes & organization discussions (such as this one), access level Quill-bearer (or was it poet/herald/troubadour/storyteller/bard/er. . ."that" level?)

Writer's Workshop: I think it should be set to be both viewable and postable by initiates. If you're going to give advice to people, give it to the people that need it first.

 

Guilds: I think reading acces should be granted to at least pages, preferably even initiates, read my rant above for explanation.

 

Minstrell Hall, or at least, the organisation discussions I think should be viewable by most everyone (separate section?), if only to let them know what's coming, not coming, what's going around in the heads of leading entities.

As far as this one's concerned, I think Ozymandias made a very good decision placing it where everyone can view it, or even reply to it if they so choose. (Asmadeus and me being the only "new" people to take this up, though maybe, more will follow) He chose to outstep the boundaries of "fixed" members of the community, trying to involve everyone.

I think in any community, it's the sense of belonging which makes you a part of it and inspires you to actively participate in it. Shutting people out just because they haven't appealed, or proven themselves, to the elitist side of the community is in my view not a good thing to do.

 

As far as any voting matters about promoting people are concerned, I think no one but the voters should be able to read it, if only to prevent them from holding to themselves opinions that are better expressed lest they prove an obstacle in the future.

 

My 2 cents, do with them as you will

 

PS: I'd really like a bubblegum vending machine that works on two cents, with al the cents being tossed in here

 

EDIT: rev, I think when dealing with a community of writers, you're bound to have a whole lot of very reactionary people, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as the reactions are guided into a way they work out for the better.

 

Voicing an opinion (especially about someone, rather than something) is in no way bad, provided you do so in a civilised way. Holding that opinion to yourself can quickly turn into a habit, until the kettle bursts and you're left feeling much more hurt by it in the end. Be this vocally, resulting in saying things you otherwise never would or silently, resulting in people dropping off the face of the earth.

The thing with most people is learning how to control and guide these emotions into something good, though just the honesty expressed in voicing what you think can be something good.

 

Judging by some of the posts I've seen in here there's alot of people who keep on bottling up. That's worse than being reactionary (or actually, the outbursts it results in are what causes people to be seen as overly reactionary)

Edited September 1, 2006 by Mardrax

[reverie]

Mardrax. Except for some poems you posted lately your largely an unknow to me. Just out of curiosity as an "honored guest" can you even see the Passageway or the Athenaem.

 

Not that you opinion is not wanted (ozzy did call for lurkers to post), but you seem to have a more thorough knowledge of the pen than most guest do. Even vigil with his long assciations with us didn't know about the critique corner till recently.

 

 

rev...

[Mardrax]

No I can't see anything more than any regular guest can, (I frankly had no idea I had that prefix to my group name... sure it's not default? ) so can see niether of those.

What I can see -and have seen- though, are other forums, other communities I have experienced, and ofcourse, life in general. One needs no thorough understanding of the way one community works to be able to point out it's boons and flaws If you can read, especially in between the lines, you can gather a whole lot of information about what's going on, especially with this kind of discussions going on in public.

I know (of) nothing that isn't available to the general public, or which hasn't been told to me in private conversation, of which I have very little as most people here are a complete mystery to me.

 

Besides, I'd prefer to be just called a newbie rather than a lurker Only reason I've been registered this long is to read a post once, way back... haven't read anything since, until Appy ordered me to post that first poem here

If you want to get to know me though, feel free to drop into IRC... it's silent enough as it is

[Quincunx]

(Tzimfemme toes Mardrax.)

 

Your posts are the sort of ill reaction we feared, back when the guideline of "don't show forums that rank X can't participate in" was first put into place.

 

Your non-guild-related issues are quirks with the board software. Lurk down a few posts in the Cabaret Room and you'll find the discussion about one of them.

 

(Tzimfemme removes her toes from Mardrax.)

 

If I hadn't been rushing to finish the reorganization suggestion and get out the door, I'd have bothered to figure out who could post where on the last two forums--thanks, Appy, for clearing that up. DSEPRoD is my bloody annoying read-only forum, so I can't support making it read-only for anyone else. Writer's Workshop remains at Page in my eyes, for the people who post more than just a recruiter's office post before vanishing.

 

I am still pissed-off that the guilds are sucking energy away from the Pen at large, even in this thread about the Pen at large, even years after they were created--but I'm more pissed-off at myself because I'm going to dip my oar in there again. We have a group of people who want inclusion and no critical feedback; we have a group of people who want keen-edged feedback and a pool of wisdom. Is there any chance of forming guilds around those ideas (alright, according to Alaeha, the latter was one formative vision of the guilds) and surrounding yourselves with people in your comfort zone?

[reverie]

K just checking. And "honored guest" as far as I know is a default for those who at least register on the board.

 

A cautionary word on your comments about the Workshop though.

 

"Writer's Workshop: I think it should be set to be both viewable and post-able by initiates. If you're going to give advice to people, give it to the people that need it first."

 

While I in agree in theory that you should give "it" to the people that need it first, and practical application has shown me that rank has nothing to do with who needs help. Still you have to consider whether or not they will be receptive to "advise" even if they post a work in the writers' workshop. I don't mind the Workshop being open to initiates, but not for the reason you said. I've been burned time and time again trying to help people even those that I thought were considerably more developed as a writer than me.

 

Anyway, I think Q was trying to build back in a rewards system of sorts which showed members a clearer progression of viewable forums as they were promoted. She's already talked about her reasons for this, so I won't go into it further, here.

 

General comment on ranks: It's my understanding that they were never so much a measure of talent (with the possible exception of Bard) as they were measure of a sustained commitment over time.

 

Action/Reaction: Oh I never meant to imply that people should bottle up their feelings. Just that they should let them out more calmly.

Edited September 1, 2006 by reverie

[Mardrax]

General comment on ranks: It's my understanding that they were never so much a measure of talent (with the possible exception of Bard) as they were measure of a sustained commitment over time.

 

Action/Reaction: Oh I never meant to imply that people should bottle up their feelings. Just that they should let them out more calmly.

my thoughts exactly ranking will always in essence be an idle term. the most skilled and talented writers need just never apply for a membership to never rise above guest status, never apply for guild membership to never rise above page or whatever it is it's called.

 

Another thing: if people are posting in a section of the forum labeled as being for "Posts-in-progress with technical feedback" as Tzim puts it (note I have no idea how it actually is labelled ) it's their fault if they can't take the criticism, not of the one criticising, however offputting that may be. If you tried your best to help them along, you've done all you could. If they burst out at you for that, they're at fault. If they correct you over it, and turn the tables on who's criticising who, that's their responsibility also, and they may very well be right at doing so. Either way, both learn, which is the objective in giving constructive feedback, no?

 

I'm just saying initiates might be the ones needing alot of help -me doubtless being one of those- and places such as the Workshop are there to help, right? I think it's only fair to open it to them, if just for that. If they don't need the help, they just shouldn't post there, as by doing so, they're specifically asking for it in my book.

 

The first and foremost priority to having any structure to a forum is to have its users understand this structure, and use it to both their own and the forum's best benefit.

If beforehand you're saying people won't be able to, reforms are useless. If you're speaking from experience when saying such, the structure needs to be made clear to the ones who don't seem to understand.

 

 

Tzim: If I in any way came across as ill-spirited, I didn't mean to. I'm just giving a voice to my opinion as Ozy asked everyone to. I'm sorry if those views conflict with anyone else's, but I'm not going to shut up just because they do. Sorry again, but I'm just not like that. If you think of me or what I say as ill-spirited for that, so be it. I can try (and do try) to voice things in a way I won't stomp all over anyone's toes, but sometimes, sweettalking stuff just doesn't help.

 

For some more direct answers to your post:

To start, I'm sorry for seeming to have posted something where it doesn't belong, however, it was only on a sidenote, and next to that, I've seen quite a few other technical matters discussed, and even solved in this thread. Once again though: my bad.

 

I think the question of wether or not you should allow people to read where they can't post is a hard one, and it mostly depends on what's being posted there. DSEPRoD for example (again, not that I know what's posted there, but I can imagine) I can imagine to be quite summit of frustration if you know what's going on but can't intervene.

 

Then for me follows the question of exactly WHY it's so anoying to you. I break that answer down in three parts:

1) it's anoying by default to "be mute"

2) it's anoying because important subjects are being discussed you'd like a say in

3) it's anoying because you probably have no scope of getting the rank needed to be unmuted in the near future, given your long time here alone, if you'd have had any aspirations to climb there, you would have.

 

the first two can't be helped ofcourse, the third however, is an interesting point to look at in considering to allow it.

The progression from initiate to page isn't a very big one the way I see it (again, I point out I could be mistaken, or at least, differing from the traditional view) and making stuff viewable to initiates but muting them to it can be just that little extra push in the back they need to put in that little bit of extra effort, same goes for the page-quilbearer transfer, but to a lesser extent. Especially if the section states it can't be posted in until rank X.

 

In that light I see I am in part mistaken about a true leadership section needing to be viewable by most-all. However I think more openness in leadership wouldn't hurt(and I think I've seen people express the same opinion here), and that would be a good step towards it. How that balances out towards the anoyance factor, I don't know.

 

Another part is, if you want to prevent people like me to read stuff and draw their own conclusions based on what they see and a bit of extrapolation, being more open or even more closed is the only way, and I doubt the latter would be any good.

 

About the guilds, I think you(as in the collective of people wanting this or that from them) will have to dip a whole lot more oars into that discussion before you can work out a solution that will work for all involved.

 

Anyway, I'm only a minor voice in this, or probably at least considered such. I've had my say, and I rest my case.

[Sweetcherrie]

All this talk all of a sudden about reshaping the forums does make me wonder what I've been doing wrong all those months in the DSEPROD room

[Yui-chan]

Hahahah. My dear Sweet, add about ten previous conversations going back over seven years, and you might have the full picture of this ongoing and oft-visited discussion. We do love to natter on about the forum structure.

 

Dead from Irony Poisoning,

~Yui

[Katzaniel]

Ozy, you forgot "give more power to the Elders" which is basically what I was trying to suggest as a possible solution... cutting down on all the discussion we do and giving more time to fun, games and writing.

 

Which leads me to the utter astonishment in discovering that Quincunx has DSEPER-whatever as read-only. How? Why? What? Why should our most experienced and respected members be kept out of those discussions? I understand that it was probably to encourage posting by others, but yegods, I think that's a bad idea. And no wonder people think the leadership is inactive when some of them (is it just the Ancients? I know they're not "leadership" but still) are barred from activity in certain rooms. Wow.

 

Mardrax: I think Quincunx was just answering your points, not putting them down. Q has a way of speaking that oftentimes comes across as terse to those not used to it... but I think you're okay. We still value your input. In fact...

 

About the guilds: I think Mardrax has said it best. All the while catching up on this topic, I was thinking those things. The guilds should be doing both, if possible. I don't think we should turn this topic into yet another discussion of the purpose of the guilds, but ... well, it needs addressing. But I think most of us are in agreement, actually. It might not seem that way on the surface, but I think that that same restructuring of the guilds that was suggested by Sweetcherrie could accomplish all of this. No, we're not here to offer activities - everyone should do that, and any group of people designated as activity makers is bound to discourage the rest of the membership from it - but if we can provide a place for people to learn and grow, right from the start up until past quill-bearer, then methinks we're doing our jobs. And what we have in mind is actually very similar to what Q suggested, I think... Q, your outline has the guilds separate, and I know you're not exactly pro-guilds, normally, but if they were to serve the function of a separate Critic's Corner in each area, then perhaps they would be more helpful to everyone.

 

In closing, I just want to reiterate something Sweetcherrie said: "What the guilds are now is dispensable, what they can be is a whole different thing." No, we are not living up to our purposes, any of them, at the moment. But even after all this time, I still have faith that we are getting closer, and that we can eventually be a boon to the Pen as a whole.

 

Oh, and also that anyone can and should post contests or even interesting tidbits when they so desire! We seem to have this feeling that only certain people should be running things, or that it has to be related to writing (though I do feel that it's better when it is), or that we should save up ideas until we're a quill-bearer, or what-have-you, I don't know. Perhaps the carnivals are actually drying us all up because we're waiting to host things until they come. Perhaps people think no one will participate, so they shouldn't try. But if we can make it more widely known that any activity at all is encouraged, then that would help, too.

 

PS. Mardrax: When the guilds get up and running as they should be, we probably won't really need leaders. But right now we do, because (in my opinion) what the guildleaders need to do is ensure that the guilds become what they should be.

Edited September 2, 2006 by Katzaniel

[reverie]

Figured I'd save Q the trouble. She's an ancient now i.e. an elder no-longer just like Big P. Call it a kind of semi-retirement/sabatical. Remember also that Ancients are non-voting member. I figure this design must be by choice, but I really don't know the full reasoning behind it. I've been around the pen a decent while, but that debate was way way before my time.

 

As far as guilds go, I've always been distrustful of guilds in general. Call it a throwback from my archmage days. Which is ironic considering I was very very very active in guilds in my gaming days. Actually that experience is probably why I got a bad taste in my mouth when people first started talking about bringing guilds to the pen. It was Nyyrak that started the ball rolling on that one right???

 

But then again, isn't the pen itself a guild? Hmm, oh we could change to name from guilds to houses just like in Harry Potter. Oh wait those Houses really don't get along with each other. Forget I said that.

 

Anyway, I changed my position to indifferent on guilds a couple of months ago, even though I technically belong to AAA, in spirit if not in name.

I guess it's because I consider my guild to be the Pen as a whole. That and with my creative writing courses at Uni. sponging up all my collective creativity, I really don't have time/energy left for them. So I thought to myself, just because I don't need them doesn't mean that someone else doesn't. So I decided to largely opp-out of the guild debates until now that is... Why am I talking about the guilds now.

 

To honest, I start my first day on night shift tomorrow at work and I need to stay up so I can sleep during the day, and I've already answered all my online school forums for tonight, plus you guys brought it up first.

 

rev...

Edited September 2, 2006 by reverie

[Mynx]

I am still pissed-off that the guilds are sucking energy away from the Pen at large

 

Excuse me for iscolating this one statement but I just have to ask - How are the guilds sucking energy away from the Pen when no one is using them and the main reason for the debate to remove them is because of their lack of use? The way I see it, the Pen would be just as quiet right now with or without the Guilds.

[Appy]

A small thought about the rearrangement as it was posted by Quincux.

 

The Banquet Room, does it really need a Critic's Corner?

For the Assembly it makes a lot of sense, you don't want to disrupt the story line, or even the writer themselves ask for that not to happen. But poetry is usually done in one post.. and I don't see any reason why people shouldn't post their comments right below. I know we have exactly one person who purposely uses the Critic's Corner to post his remarks on a poem. But to have a sub-forum for one person seems a bit over-done

 

Just a thought I had long ago already when discussing the rearranging of the forum with Sweet, and just popped up again in my mind yesterday.

Edited September 2, 2006 by Appy

[Quincunx]

In the tangential feedback discussion in Critic's Corner, I was convinced to tuck technical feedback away in separate-but-linked Critic's Corner posts, so that the author was under no obligation to read it. Some of the people who didn't want technical feedback were also poets. Also I considered keeping Critic's Corner as a primary forum under the Pen Keep heading (not accessible to all), but thought it was visually still too far away from the forums it was meant to serve--so, split into subforums. As for the guilds, I'm just shuffling them around in a block until they discover what they want to be.

 

Last year I tried to step down from active Eldership and take up my proper Pen rank again, like lumpenproletariat did. Instead I became Ancient, pending a nice roleplayed response to turn in my key to the Tower of Elders, such as it is. . .and it gives me something to grumble about.

 

(Note: The discussions I'm about to refer to got deleted sometime in 2004 thanks to an oopsie, so I have to rely on the memories of myself and a few others. I had more than enough blocks-of-quoted-text-to-beat-others-into-narcoleptic-submission posts to wade through in Archmage, and am not going to take up the style myself, even if I could have.)

 

The earliest Ancients themselves restricted posting to DSEPRoD when it was created; if they were active enough to have a voice, the reasoning ran, they were active enough to take on just a little bit of active Eldership. The setup of new forums often was the carrot of the carrot-and-stick approach to ranks. Ranks were introduced to give people ready-at-hand, attainable goals, to give Pen people some pride in their titles and a reason to stay once they'd invested a bit of time and work into them. Even Bard, a whimsy title on Archmage, now has certain accomplishments behind it. (Search for "bard" and "Orlan", he IS Elder of Bards and posted about this, but at the moment I have no idea when or where.) Setting Writer's Workshop at Page level, a rank any Initiate can gain if they stay and participate past their initiation, is another carrot.

 

--Tzimfemme, the naked

More of a turnip-and-stick girl

[Appy]

Regarding the Critic's Corner: Ah ok, that actually makes a lot of sense, thanks for the explanation and forget my thought on the matter, since it's changed

[Morgane]

[delurk]

ok i've waded through 4 pages of text mymind is humming so if i regurgiate something don't yell ok:)

 

one of my pet peeves always has been that we have too many forums and every forum seems to breed subforums like rabbits. i do NOT want to have to scroll around like mad till i have the place i am looking for. aslo there seems to be double or tripple places where i can post this or that. which is the main reason why i only read stuff i get thrown the link to in chat because surfing the page is just confusing and exhausting to me.

 

as to the guilds i remember the discussion and i disliked the idea from the beginning still do for the matter. people who want to improve their writing can/shouldbeableto do this in the 'normal' pen environment. we are a rather diverse bunch with diverse needs but if we start to (ok the guilds excist{spelling?} so maybe i should have posted this earlier my bad] split ourselves up even more we'll end with zillions of places where one has to spend hours searching to find anything. the idea of a special place for special people to do special stuff gives me the heebies.

 

as to read only forums. i'd much prefer not to see stuff i cannot post in. if its relevant discussions for all it has to be accessible to all if not then i'd much prefer to hear from the endresult in an information for all thread.

 

which reminds me is there a way to put forums to invisible so one can blend out things one isn't particularily interested in? found the +- thingy it helps:)

 

my perfect pen layout would be

*place for stories

*place for poems

*place for rp

*library where all the background stuff is stashed

*welcome to the pen place for recruitment and info

maybe a critics forum as q's reasoning for the linkage is actually pretty good:)

*pics place as many started up drawing

*and a howdydo chat dayly life stuff place

 

*brain whirring* i am sure i'll think of more things the moment i hit post

*shrug* well i can always delurk again later:)

[/delurk]

Edited September 2, 2006 by Morgane