The Big Remodeling Hiatus is NOW

(sorry for any and all spelling mistakes. I'm typing from the 3DS)

Since everyone agreed to do this, the hiatus to expand our audience has begun!
This thread is being made so that you, wonderful mafia player, can help me out with the remodeling of the boards.
As you can see from the temporary banner change, we're gonna be busy in the next few weeks, so any new members that have joined in this time period will be held off from admission until we are done with this mess.
Another thing you might have noticed is the fact that your rank is gone. You, yes you, dind't need 'em. New rank? It's blue and pretty. It has 6 stars. Brag in front of the new guys.
The Vintage Guy rank will be given to all active and formerly active members of this communuty, as a way of saying thanks for helping around.
Now, let me set a lil' baseline as to what needs fixing, what needs to be added, etc.

Basic Posting Rules & Guidelines
Because we need order up in this bitch, and I don't like non-established arbitriary rules. Stuff like "No porn", or "No intense RL violence."
Which reminds me, NO INSANITY THREADS ALLOWED.
I want you to think of good rules for this place and elaborate on them so we don't hafta write multiple revisions.

Forum Division and Board Content
Since the plan was to have a General Board (and its subsidiaries) and a Mafia board (like the one right now), I want you to help me out. How many divisions do we need? What kind of discussions do these divisions contain? Stuff like that.

3rd Mod Assignment
Let's face it. I'm mostly about the administrativa and such. Link and Leo make excellent mods, but what happens when 1 of them is unavailable? I'm almost ALWAYS unavailable (specially right now), and Link is busy with Uni, so we're gonna need a 3rd Mod here. Suggest ideas as to who do you think has enough mettle and dedication to help out Leo, Link and I.

Advertising
or How the Hell are we Supposed to get to the Masses.
DO NOT ADVERTISE THOS BOARD JUST YET
We must first think of HOW we're gonna do that. Drop your ideas about that here, too.

Miscellaneous ideas and suggestions
Ideas, you have some? Good. Great. Wonderful. Bang. Share 'em here and let's see what we think of that. Don't be shy! Even if your idea of a Pony-only board wwould sound stupid at first, it's not a TERRIBLE idea! In fact, it might even work!


Anyways, lady and gentlemen. Let the idea storm sound off with the fury of a tidal storm! Let loose the cannons of co-opperation! Unleash the hounds of imagination!!

*raises hand*
I nominate Zink and/or Alpar for one of the new admins.

I'm the least vintage vintage! :D Like one of those 2009 wines that my uncle claims are vintage, but are really just something he forgot to drink that's been lingering in the cupboard for a few years. ^__^

For advertising, aside from the obvious, posting on or Reddit or game related boards informing people of the forums existence, I can't think of other ways. I've noticed Mafia threads being played on a few of the manga website forums, so I guess that trying to recruit on forums without their own forums already wouldn't be a bad idea.

Hmm, well for a third mod, I would say Mentle but lately he's been rather busy as well and probably wouldn't be able to help at this time.

So my second recommendation for the third mod would have to be Stalin. He's pretty level headed and I'd say he's on enough to watch over the place. Third recommendation would be either Alpar or Zyq.


As for advertising, I vote we go to popular wikis and edit entries to include a link to our wonderful website. And there's always the direct method where we make a huge show in the latest entry of Halolz to advertise the the forums and show people that yes, we have some good ones now.*

*Note: Please disregard this paragraph because it was me mostly joking. Still maybe if Alpar were to advertise it on Halolz, we'd probably start getting some people in. Last I checked he still is quite popular on the site.


As for rules, honestly, most people are old enough to be mature and know what to post and what not to post in this place. But seeing how chances are that SOMEONE is going to go full retard on us if we don't make things clear, perhaps we should take precautions.

We could stop at "no porn" but just to be on the safe side, let's make it so that no one can post anything too lewd in here. Anything that shows too much skin or overly sexual. Sure things are more lax in the skype chat but that's also why we have skype chat, most people already know the proper limits and it's our place to relax and have fun. inb4 >having fun

In my experience, I don't thing anyone has posted something that contained too much violence or anything of that nature between Halolz and here. Of course I could be mistaken, but just to be on the safe side, I'd recommend that we have a rule for images or videos only not have excessive violence and gore.

It's hard to really think of much else, but this website is probably an example of 'normal' rules to set. http://www.gaiaonline.com/info/legal/rules


As for board divisions, I would suggest having admin stuff in it's own board but DA could always contact via skype in order to get in touch with his mods for anything. It's a long shot but maybe we should divide the mafia games into two sections. One would be for the normal mafia games we have, another section would be for 'quick' mafia games. The quick mafia games would be casual, no story, little to no special roles and would be more similar to the mafia games we'd do over skype. Instead of taking place over 24 hours, each 'day' would be approximately be an hour or less. I'd be something to do and could help newcomers understand basic mafia.

I know it's a long shot but it's something I think might be something to keep in mind.

Perhaps we could have a division for general topics where we could discuss games, music, or whatever normally with each other. And another division for shitposting or randomness since people here were in favor of those kinds of threads. We'd have image dumps, spiderman, and just whatever doesn't break the rules in there.

Oh, we'll definitely need a place for folks to come in and introduce themselves. Chances are that some people will want to do that before jumping in and posting. I'm not saying we need a whole section for it, just a place for everyone to drop by and welcome all the new guys if they feel like it.

And for those people that are good with their hands (no not in that way, damn pervert) we should maybe have a spot for anyone who draws or does whatever art and doesn't mind sharing it with everyone. Perhaps a creative corner of sorts. Maybe it doesn't have to be limited to drawing, it could be stories, poems (I'd love to see some drunken haikus), something built, or whatever a person has created. It'll be a good place for some good criticism, swap tips and maybe a good laugh or two.

Now I know not everyone is interested in this sort of thing but maybe a place to roleplay would be good. I'm pretty sure we have people who would know what kinds of limits to set for characters and the sort and wouldn't be too hard to maintain. I think.

Perhaps we should have some groups other than the one for the mod team. Although I never joined any in Shawns forums, they were a nice little touch and were there if you were interested and not important if you weren't.

Um, that's all I can think of for now. Can't say how helpful any of this has been but there's my two cents.

I'd say Alpar or Mentle. I hesitantly second the Mentle vote because of relations, but, so long as no bias occurs in his mod-actions, I feel he'd be a great candidate.

They both know the rules, follow them for the most part and participate often enough to know what's going on.

French COnnections wrote:Like one of those 2009 wines that my uncle claims are vintage, but are really just something he forgot to drink that's been lingering in the cupboard for a few years.

I lol'd

As far as additional admins, Mentle or Alpar would probably work. Stalin and Zink are also good choices.

For rules, the only definite one I can think of is No Porn for safety reasons. Fan service is okay (otherwise Leo might be out of luck) but Zoe-level probably wouldn't be the best.

For subdivisions, maybe move the Host Queue/Rules to it's own board for easy access and leave the administrative board for stuff like this. New members should probably have a post restriction before starting new threads (if that's even possible) to avoid shenanigans and spam. And a "New Member" thread is probably useful.

In terms of advertising, Halolz is the obvious place. I could mention it on Facebook; I have a group of people we played real world mafia with senior year. I'd suggest trying Reddit/4chan/etc., but that might attract the wrong crowd.

Ment, Stalin, or Vat. Alpar and Zink aren't here as often.

Zyquux wrote:Fan service is okay (otherwise Leo might be out of luck)

I'll die before you take away my yuri.

Zyquux wrote:I could mention it on Facebook

Good idea. I am part of a group of GOOD otakus (as in, more than just Bleach and Naruto; watching good quality animus). Perhaps they would be interested.

Also, not to sound egotistical, but I suppose I could take on the role of mod. After all, I'm on almost all the time.

I'm gonna say Vat or Mentle are good mod canidates. I'm also going to say I am. I shall treat everyone equally.


I'm also going to say Halolz is the only real place we can advertise without getting people who suck. And even then there is still going to to be people who suck. I have about 800 followers on tumblr. I could advertise there?

On the topic of advertising (DON'T GO OUT THERE JUST YET):
>Reddit and 4chan
GOOD HEAVENS, NO.
>Halolz
Sounds like the obvious place to start. Good.
>FB
Only if you know that the people who you're broadcasting that message aren't bumbling idiots, like most of the people on FB are (at least in México). Other than that, Green light.
>Tumblr
I trust the tumblr folk enough. Sounds good to me.

On the subject of the 3rd mod:
I'm seeing ereyone's picking out Mentle, Alpar and Stalin. We must first check out which one of them is more active and more dedicated IN THE RING OF HONOR.


About the rules:
Everyone's talking about common sense-type rules, which is good, but I still prefer if we actually have them laid out and explained properly.

DA wrote:but I still prefer if we actually have them laid out and explained properly.

How about, after the common-sense rules, any rules with ambiguity have an asterisk alongside them, then at the bottom of the rules list, the asterisk leads to "Any ambiguity in the rules will be decided by the moderation team if any conflict involving these rules arises" or something.

Rai say,this seems like a bully idea and fully support everything...also I think stalin would make a wonderful leader for us...all hail the red nation and equality for all.








Ok stalin I said the lines now pay me damn it!



Alpar for prez 2015.

Halolz would be a good starting place to advertise for obvious reasons. I also think that you might want to post a link in your IntenseDebate accounts, since there may be other sites you come across that may use those as a means for commenting.

I'm not sure about rules,though. I personally just want people thinking this place is about mafia games fire and foremost and that the other stuff is bonus content.

I agree with Axel on an introduction thread. We'll probably have normal/general subdivisions, but I'm not particularly fond of the idea of people having to switch between boards/threads to post something relevant. Unfortunately, not everyone will have Skype so this will probably have to do. Those who do have Skype can add some of us since we have our Skype contact details listed.

I was also fond of the idea of a master gamertag/ID thread back in CoF, so we can participate in other games together.

Lastly, now this is my personal opinion, but I'm not too sure about letting Stalin be mod. Remember the last time Stalin was given a leadership role? Y'know, back in the 1940's where he killed at the least 20 million people? Now I'm not holding it against him but...

There's not enough nods from my head that agree with Axel. It's a lot of nods.
As I can't add on what everyone else had, I'll give my small 'vote' on a potential new mod.
Alpar, Stalin, and Zink... I really can't decide between them. It's all up to you guys but you have the trust and ability to be one of DA's loyal mod posse.

DA wrote:Only if you know that the people who you're broadcasting that message aren't bumbling idiots, like most of the people on FB are (at least in México). Other than that, Green light.

Don't worry, the people I'm thinking of were my Advanced Placement class so they have some modicum of intelligence.

Vattonage wrote:Lastly, now this is my personal opinion, but I'm not too sure about letting Stalin be mod. Remember the last time Stalin was given a leadership role? Y'know, back in the 1940's where he killed at the least 20 million people? Now I'm not holding it against him but...

10/10 would elect again

One rule I think we could've used on old CoF would be regarding new topics. There were times when we would berate people for starting a new thread of a topic previously discussed, when said topic was like, 10 pages back.
Depending on how we handle old threads, (deleting them, or just keeping them around) we could restrict when new topics are made. Tell people to at least look through the first 2 pages, let's say. If the topic they wish to discuss isn't in that window, they can make a new one. If someone doesn't follow this, just link them to the thread, and have a mod lock it.

Hunter Axel wrote:
And for those people that are good with their hands (no not in that way, damn pervert) we should maybe have a spot for anyone who draws or does whatever art and doesn't mind sharing it with everyone. Perhaps a creative corner of sorts. Maybe it doesn't have to be limited to drawing, it could be stories, poems (I'd love to see some drunken haikus), something built, or whatever a person has created. It'll be a good place for some good criticism, swap tips and maybe a good laugh or two.

It honestly took me about four seconds to get that innuendo.

Anyway I'm all completely for this idea. I'd love to participate in an art relevant thread whether it's actual drawing or just the art of music or good storytelling.
Also since we seem to really just have this set out since there's not too much to be controversial over, I just want to say we need a JRPG general at the least. And if it's not asking too much, a Cuhrayzee thread would be nice.
Oh so very nice...

http://0-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board/vg/image/1353/83/1353839982861.jpg
(lolbigimage)

I know I mention this too much but since Nale and DA asked on Skype...

Basically a thread where we discuss Platinum and Clover games for how CUHRAZY they are with a few exceptions like Ninja Gaiden and Sengoku Basara and whatnot.
No Phoenix, exploiting the hell out of Sonic Generations does not make the game instantly cuhrazy.

Oh yeah and we should do the Halolz Olympics thingy again or whatever. We should do one with set challenges and a much more freestyle one too, whether it's speedrunning or just showing off your skills in another manner. That's just the only thing I can mention that hasn't been said already really.

French Connections wrote:For advertising, aside from the obvious, posting on or Reddit or game related boards informing people of the forums existence

Zyquux wrote:I'd suggest trying Reddit/4chan/etc.

-Please- no.

Almost everyone in this community despises reddit and the typical users of tumblr and ye usual gaming communities, that just can't end well; 4chan is out too, even if most of us constantly use it, 4chan is not a place to advertise on or make friends.

In my opinion we should focus on inviting friends that could be interested in this place and shouldn't advertise at all, except once or twice in Halolz, as we have a relationship with it's community after all (even so, we'd have problems with many people from there).

DA, I understand it took a good deal of time and effort to make these forums, they are much better than CoF ever was, and you should be proud of it, but...you seem too eager to popularize this place, and I think you should rethink that. Even if we are not hipsters or elitists, we are different than most communities online and we were able to keep it like that and get closer to each other because we didn't have to deal with too many people. Who knows, if CoF was a particularly popular place, our main threads could have been about cowadooty and Naroto, and our skype chat would be more chaotic than Main Chat on steroids.

My opinion: let someone link this in Halolz and focus on inviting friends who will actively use these forums, and even if they are your friends, think twice before inviting: are they polite enough? Can they take a joke? Are they the type of people who misunderstand references/irony and get angry? Will we be able to discuss Rance and MGQ without a huge feminist rant on why we are bad people who trivialize rape?

We should also try to keep our old order (Halolz --> Forums (enough time to let us know the user) --> Skype), because I'm worried about people inviting any new members to the skype chat. Of course, those are simply my opinions, I'm open for new ideas.

A lot of good points here from everyone else. Even Mentle has his valid points about these new changes.

However we all have to remember the reason for this expansion of DA's mafia forums. These days, the number of people who are joining the mafia games seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Some may be busy, others may be simply taking a break or are tired of mafia games for a while. The point of getting new people in here is to have more people join our mafia games.

For example, Leo wants to do his Neptunia mafia game which will require more people than the average we have joining these games now. And while not everyone will be here focusing on the mafia games, just a place to come and hang out would be nice for the halolz crowd. I wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for CoF forums, although I still can't see how I was considered okay enough to make it into skype chat. But on a more serious note, between DA and our mods, we should be able to keep all the rabble out. Not everyone is like Soul or Zoe so while this place will be mafia games central, we'll still have more than mafia games to offer for everyone that comes here.

We're a strange community, I know, but it's also because we have people who have brought others in this community that we've become who we are today. If things stay the same, it'll become stale for everyone. If we have more good people like French, it brings a new flavor to the table in terms of ideas and behaviors to look out for in our games.

I guess that's all I have to say for now.

These are all splendid ideas. Though I'd like to make a couple of suggestions.

First, a cover page of some sort. You know, like CoF and the backup forums had. With the images of the sign outside a church and the ten Halolz commandments, respectively. You get what I'm saying, right?

Second (and I'll probably get flak for this): captcha requirements for signing in. I know this may seem like a big deal to some, and I don't know how the iftopic domain works, but hear me out: if our little sanctuary here becomes big enough, we may be noticed by scammers and people desperate for hits on their site. Such people may attempt to produce bots to slap comments advertising themselves on random threads. I'm not too keen on going into a thread and seeing a bot comment for some spam/scam site or whatever else that does not contribute to the topic at hand. Because Falcon knows we saw those on CoF. Locking the threads started by said bots or getting rid of the comment on an already-existing thread just seems like a hassle. If what I've seen on other sites is to be believed, captcha may help with keeping them out. Again, I don't know exactly how iftopic works, so this is just an idea...

New users have to be approved anyway, it's not hard to notice bots.

Also Axel, I get your point, I just think we should get these new people from the right places.

Mentle wrote:I just think we should get these new people from the right places.

Well if Zy has more cool guys like Frenchy, we shouldn't be too worried.

I thought french came from the honorable zink? Also I agree with ment-san since haveing when it comes to forums you will occasionally have try hard trolls and complete idiots....i don't know if it's been mentioned but some forums i think have a part of the sign up process where someone would put in a short reason why they want to join....might be considered or might not,up to you fine people....also maybe a animu thread thingy for da animu or tv and movies section...since people like dat stuff.

Scept wrote:Second (and I'll probably get flak for this): captcha requirements for signing in. I know this may seem like a big deal to some, and I don't know how the iftopic domain works, but hear me out: if our little sanctuary here becomes big enough, we may be noticed by scammers and people desperate for hits on their site. Such people may attempt to produce bots to slap comments advertising themselves on random threads. I'm not too keen on going into a thread and seeing a bot comment for some spam/scam site or whatever else that does not contribute to the topic at hand. Because Falcon knows we saw those on CoF. Locking the threads started by said bots or getting rid of the comment on an already-existing thread just seems like a hassle. If what I've seen on other sites is to be believed, captcha may help with keeping them out. Again, I don't know exactly how iftopic works, so this is just an idea...

Forumotion already has built in Bot Removal systems.

Also, likin' ,ost of this
curse this 3DS

Hrm.
Also, I just came up with an idea:
Everyone who is a vintage guy gets a spot on a vintage page. Like, sort of how Smash Bros. has the trophies? Contents include Steam ID, any links the subject desires, and a short description written by the mods. All this in one convenient location!