Introducing...The Roundtable!

Livewire said:

It's meant to be more "lax" in the sense that it needed to move away from the "OMG WHERE ARE YOUR SOURCES" card that people kept playing. The forum, and the discussions, needed to take a collective chill pill. The discussions themselves are still meant to be in-depth, academic, "deep" and intellectual, but they don't have to be as structured as before, with sources and concrete arguments and the like. The content doesn't have to change, the only thing that changed is how they are discussed. There's a difference there.

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This in itself is a contradiction, though. You can't have an "academic" discussion without backing up your arguments academically. When no-one puts any credibility to what they're saying the discussion stops being academic / objective / factual and starts being anecdotal. This is why I feel like sourcing should be at least encouraged. Also removing sourcing won't change the environment; the requirement for a "collective chill pill" isn't down to people backing up their arguments, it's just due to people being aggressive and inflammatory. The sources had nothing to do with it; we need an attitude change, not removal of evidence from arguments. All this'll lead to is the same people acting the same way but without evidence to actually conclude discussions. If anything this'll just exacerbate the situation.

As for the "blurring" between the Treehouse and The Roundtable, let's remember that the TT is still OVP, and TRT is still Other Chat/D&D. Notice how those threads listed before were all questions - "What are you wearing?", "What's your favorite color?", etc., where it poses a central question and you just "post and go". Those are not the kind of threads you'll be seeing in TRT.

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Sure @ those two examples but don't you remember how that was something that caused us an issue that we had to work away from re: crossover between OC&D and OVP? I remember when we were modding together / shortly after I was smodded we were having issues with people not knowing what goes where and we only finally moved away from that when D&D was born. We finally had a real, active debate forum with a clear-cut distinction between itself and OVP (or whatever it was at the time) and this change now feels like it's just gone back on that totally. It's torn one forum in half and dumped an unwanted, unwarranted load on another and... why? As I'll talk about in a second, The Treehouse was fine as it was too.

That's still Treehouse material - light discussion, but mostly still a post and go environment. [...] Treehouse is the who or the what, Roundtable is why.

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So if I'm understanding correctly, the point of The Treehouse now is to kinda... state things and not much else? I'm not trying to sound overly defeatist here or anything like that but I genuinely don't see what the point is if that's all it's been reduced to - especially when there was absolutely no need to take the "why" discussions away. It feels like this has just totally reversed the atmosphere we've been gunning for since probably a short while before I posted this thread; when you take the "why" away from anything and lock conversations into purely answering the question presented you revert straight back to the post-and-go that we've been trying to get away from for quite a while now.

I see two forums here well on their way to establishing identities of their own that have just been bunched together at the detriment to the both of them, and I know this is probably done now but I really urge the hstaff and Treehouse mods to reconsider, taking into account the implications of this for both The Roundtable and The Treehouse. There is very clearly a lot of confusion regarding what changes this move brings on, a lack of consideration for the existing D&D community and the impacts on The Treehouse, and further internal ambiguity evidenced by a number of threads moved to The Roundtable earlier having been put back to The Treehouse. I'll leave this alone now since I think I've made my point.

I loooove the idea but I agree with others that right now, there's very little/vague differentiation that's probably going to result in The Treehouse being posted in a ton less, or becoming more of a forum games type atmosphere. however, I am in agreement that the pizza toppings/.gifwar/etc threads kinda need to be separated from ones like are you happy, are you vain, abortion, etc. bit of a weird contrast. so I'm intrigued to see how this is gonna work out and I'd like to see better guidelines incorporated as to just what's exactly going to be allowed/not allowed in each section. yeah. I agree with shenanigans on a lot of his points.

Live answered what we're trying to do with The Roundtable fairly well.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we will continue to shape and work on the new area. Is it perfect now? No, but it's also the first day of trying something new. As time goes on, we will keep working on the area to find a balance for each section and make them both even better. Thanks for your suggestions and concerns! :)

shenanigans said:

This in itself is a contradiction, though. You can't have an "academic" discussion without backing up your arguments academically. When no-one puts any credibility to what they're saying the discussion stops being academic / objective / factual and starts being anecdotal. This is why I feel like sourcing should be at least encouraged. Also removing sourcing won't change the environment; the requirement for a "collective chill pill" isn't down to people backing up their arguments, it's just due to people being aggressive and inflammatory. The sources had nothing to do with it; we need an attitude change, not removal of evidence from arguments. All this'll lead to is the same people acting the same way but without evidence to actually conclude discussions. If anything this'll just exacerbate the situation.

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Notice how I said they don't have to be. RT will still house debates and the like, but I don't want debating to be the sole focal point, because the debates that we did have were poor quality or too few in number to justify having the entire forum revolve around them. Obviously we want to encourage people to know what they're talking about, but when people start posting demanding sources from other people instead of even beginning to talk about the topic, that's a huge problem in my book and a sign that it's not working as intended. And I thought the physical requirements (emphasis on requirements) for sourcing and highly structured debating turned people off to the entire concept and nerfed activity forum-wide. If you're going to debate, you should bring some kind of evidence with you, and I will still encourage that.

Sure @ those two examples but don't you remember how that was something that caused us an issue that we had to work away from re: crossover between OC&D and OVP? I remember when we were modding together / shortly after I was smodded we were having issues with people not knowing what goes where and we only finally moved away from that when D&D was born. We finally had a real, active debate forum with a clear-cut distinction between itself and OVP (or whatever it was at the time) and this change now feels like it's just gone back on that totally. It's torn one forum in half and dumped an unwanted, unwarranted load on another and... why? As I'll talk about in a second, The Treehouse was fine as it was too.

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Right, but it's become clear now that the focus on "debating" hasn't been working for some time, and we needed to try some things to re-invigorate the place, and a way to do that was to take what we learned rebranding General Chat into the Treehouse and apply it to D&D, but not literally, which I think is the source of the confusion here. My intent, at least, was to try and get a similar, more relaxed atmosphere towards posting in D&D, by easing up on the regulations a bit and by taking it away from hard debating, and focusing more on the news, and more relaxed discussions. Note, I say the topics themselves aren't what's being relaxed here, the topics in RT are still supposed to be the same as what was in D&D. The attitude and rhetoric towards talking about them is what needs to change here.

So if I'm understanding correctly, the point of The Treehouse now is to kinda... state things and not much else? I'm not trying to sound overly defeatist here or anything like that but I genuinely don't see what the point is if that's all it's been reduced to - especially when there was absolutely no need to take the "why" discussions away. It feels like this has just totally reversed the atmosphere we've been gunning for since probably a short while before I posted this thread; when you take the "why" away from anything and lock conversations into purely answering the question presented you revert straight back to the post-and-go that we've been trying to get away from for quite a while now.

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Yes, the point of the Treehouse was to move away from "post-and-go", but you can still talk about the "why" threads there, just not A) in depth to the point it would infringe on RT, provided it's a topic that would work in the Roundtable to begin with. The demarcation line between the two forum needs to remain the casual vs the academic, when it comes to topic, not tone.

I see two forums here well on their way to establishing identities of their own that have just been bunched together at the detriment to the both of them, and I know this is probably done now but I really urge the hstaff and Treehouse mods to reconsider, taking into account the implications of this for both The Roundtable and The Treehouse. There is very clearly a lot of confusion regarding what changes this move brings on, a lack of consideration for the existing D&D community and the impacts on The Treehouse, and further internal ambiguity evidenced by a number of threads moved to The Roundtable earlier having been put back to The Treehouse. I'll leave this alone now since I think I've made my point.

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Obviously, we're going to keep working at it and see what works and what doesn't, and if it becomes clear that it's not working, we will fix it. But that's something the rest of the H-staff and I will be working on in the near future.


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EDIT:


For now at least, I decided to put some of the threads placed in Roundtable from the Treehouse back to the Treehouse. I want to see if we can use the new name and the "spotlight" to spur some new activity before we full on try to change the fabric of the forum. That should assuage some concerns over the blurring between the two forums for now at least, while we tinker around with the formula. I also took the liberty of re-wording the OP to try and clarify what we want done here. As always, feedback is appreciated, especially from people who use the forum regularly, so just shoot me a PM or Skype me, I'm all ears.

I have to say I'm in agreement with shenanigans on everything he's brought up. The move is pretty confusing and although I think the intention was good, it needs a lot of smoothing around the edges.

hstaff, apologies for the... moderate outburst above. Alli and I have sorted it out in private now.

Anywho - Live/Klip I'm much happier with the first post at the minute, as I'm sure others are, so thanks for updating it to reflect concerns so far. I appreciate that this has been reeled in a little; it feels like before a massive change was being rolled out at once but I think that it'll all fall into place if it's just approached bit-by-bit. So for now this leaves us with a (hopefully!) lighter D&D and a mostly-same Treehouse, right?

....I have never been more confused over the difference between Other Voting Polls and Other Chat than I am with this rebranding....

Cool name, though.

Ok I'm usually never 'that person' but can it please be renamed The Round Table as the error in the name is gonna drive me nuts

We'll see how it goes.

Hate the concept and the name personally (I'm picky.) but if it boosts up activity then there's no real room for me to complain.

shenanigans said:

This in itself is a contradiction, though. You can't have an "academic" discussion without backing up your arguments academically. When no-one puts any credibility to what they're saying the discussion stops being academic / objective / factual and starts being anecdotal. This is why I feel like sourcing should be at least encouraged. Also removing sourcing won't change the environment; the requirement for a "collective chill pill" isn't down to people backing up their arguments, it's just due to people being aggressive and inflammatory. The sources had nothing to do with it; we need an attitude change, not removal of evidence from arguments. All this'll lead to is the same people acting the same way but without evidence to actually conclude discussions. If anything this'll just exacerbate the situation.

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Livewire said:

Right, but it's become clear now that the focus on "debating" hasn't been working for some time, and we needed to try some things to re-invigorate the place, and a way to do that was to take what we learned rebranding General Chat into the Treehouse and apply it to D&D, but not literally, which I think is the source of the confusion here. My intent, at least, was to try and get a similar, more relaxed atmosphere towards posting in D&D, by easing up on the regulations a bit and by taking it away from hard debating, and focusing more on the news, and more relaxed discussions. Note, I say the topics themselves aren't what's being relaxed here, the topics in RT are still supposed to be the same as what was in D&D. The attitude and rhetoric towards talking about them is what needs to change here.

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I'm going to be very clear here - I think providing sources is a necessary part of the discussions that tend to take place in what was then D&D. Judging the veracity and quality of evidence is important to any kind of serious discussion. Arguments cannot simply be valid, but also sound. Playing the "where are your sources" card, as discussed by Livewire, is a cop-out. But treating anecdotes uncritically is just the cop-out on the other side of the coin. What these issues have in common is the idea that you can get away with arguing something by not examining contentious points. That was antithetical to the spirit of the former D&D and hopefully continues to be frowned upon in the Roundtable. I think all of us agree that it is ultimately an attitude problem.

I disagree with the notion that the whole forum needs to take a collective chill pill. In my personal observations, 90% of the heat in D&D was caused by 10% of threads. This isn't simply a topic issue or a people issue, it's when everything comes together in a perfect storm to create 60+ post flamethreads, if they are not closed earlier.

I see this as a moderation issue. I think if you had "moderators" who would be more or less impartial, and integrate both sides, the attitude problem could be solved. You "moderate" a discussion by considering and discussing both sides of the issue, summarizing main points, highlighting key areas of agreement and disagreement, as well as pointing out areas of potential agreement. The goal is to make both sides feel acknowledged (so they don't feel pressured to flame), and provide direction to the discussion (to prevent falling back on old arguments, which is yet another reason for people to flame). I'm talking "moderate" in quotes because it's honestly just an action that everybody should be doing in that forum by default anyways, regardless of rank.

With all that being said, The Roundtable is a great name. It evokes both the former serious, academic attitude as well as introducing a new sense of collaboration, which anyone who's watched a roundtable on television or in real life can relate to. I find it's a lot less sterile than "Discussion and Debates", even if D&D was a cute abbreviation. As a rebranding, I think it's very fitting due to the emphasis on open-mindedness and tact - which I might reinforce was what we were trying to accomplish in D&D for a while now. I don't think it's revolutionary, but of course that's not a bad thing.