Interesting, well if other people think like that, I guess we should forget about a strategy forum. The wiki is not a discussion, though.
SpawN don't get all emo about a strategy forum. Strategy discussion can always and historically has taken place in General alongside other discussions. We haven't been holding threads back for lack of a dedicated forum. Ok, how about this: We open up a forum for everything that gets at least 3 people in favour of it. After a month, we close down the forums that didn't work and merge the posts into General. "Work" in this case meaning they get daily or near daily activity as well as reasonably broad participation from our members. For everything that gets shut down, nobody gets to complain about not having such forums for 2 years. --- The alternative that I prefer is to create forums for areas that seem to be outgrowing General. Which only tournaments/gamertags etc remotely qualify for at the moment.
In my opinion, there are lots of topics that can be discussed in such a forum.If you take for example Spindizzy's articles, out of them, I can create at least 10 different topics that will create a discussion. The strategy is fundamental for the gameplay of tetris. As I said, if the majority shares your opinion, then there won't be such a forum. But I cannot take your previous post seriously.
I just find it hard to take you seriously because you speak as if we've never had strategy discussion in the General forum. Here's 3 topics alone on Spindizzy's articles: http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/showthread.html?t=410 http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/showthread.html?t=627 http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/showthread.html?t=168
colour_thief, just because we've had the occasional bit of strategy discussion in General in the past, doesn't mean that we won't have a lot more if we were to create a specific place for it. Similarly, just because we get the occasional new member registering and making a post to say hello and introduce themselves, doesn't mean we won't get a whole lot more if we were to create a specific place for introductions. I honestly believe that potential new members are being turned away because there isn't really a place for them to post "hi" and make themselves feel at home. And because everything is just a disorganised jumble in General at the moment, people will be less inclined to post useful topics such as strategy guides because they know they'll be forgotten as soon as they fall off the front page. PetitPrince has written a number of very useful posts, like his guide on changing the VSHG to 4 way, and his guide on recording things with VirtualDub; but new people visiting the site will not know that they exist; we only know they are there and know to specifically search for them because we saw them when they were first written. colour_thief, I really think you need to start looking at this from the perspective of a potential new member, and not someone who has been here since the beginning.
Could we go back to the idea I think someone suggested a couple of years ago of having some sort of site index for the threads deemed worthy?
I just think that most stuff worth re-reading should be polished and wikified, and not left to rot on a forum. You're basically proposing we steal the shmups forum formula, but honestly I don't really like their setup. They're behind the times. For sharing information: wiki > forum > irc Honestly I find their community inaccessible. I don't want to have to scavenge for useful posts in a hacked together spagetti-guide. I think we've got a good formula: our wiki draws people in because it presents practical information to a broader audience, many of whom then join us. People come for the t-spin setups/zangimoves/etc, and stay for the awesome. The reality is that we have about 100 active members and far fewer active posters. No forum reorganization is likely to change this or our rate of growth. The shmups forum is large enough to bump inactive threads off the first page of their general discussion in a single day. It takes us a month or more. You guys say the current format is disorganised, but what you're proposing is to me like alphabetizing a personal "library" of 7 books. I'm not convinced there's any benefit at all to imposing extra rules on our members. Would you require a friend learn Dewey Decimal Classification before you lent him one of your 7 books? That's why I vote to keep things simple. General. Talk about anything you like, preferably Tetris related. Hell I'd be cool with every new active member starting their own introduction thread. We'd get 2-3 a month tops for the foreseeable future. Talk strategy talk anything. It'll give us something to talk about that isn't the forum's organization.
But most don't start their own thread because it'd feel out of place with the rest of the board. There's no obvious welcoming place to post one. Though I think an introductions thread would currently be far more suitable than an entire board. I think the wiki feels far too impersonal and technical. I feel that, especially for people starting out, it's far too daunting. Sure, they have comments pages and whatever, but discussion isn't as easy, and I think far more people are familiar with how forum code works (not that you even need to be) over how Wiki code works. I definitely prefer a forum format. Yes, threads get lost over time, but it's far more user-friendly and nicer on new users.
If we changed the forum's description to more explicitly approve of all sorts of discussion do you think that would be good enough? Learning never comes without effort... Wikis are still the best way to present it. You'd be crazy to substitute, say, a physics textbook for a collection of letters written by/to Isaac Newton. If someone is really in over their head, they can ask further questions on the forum. In fact there are many historical examples of this.
Wikis are the best way to collect cold, hard data and factual writing. I don't think they lend themselves as well to stuff like strategy discussion. There's a bit more of a subjective element to it. Plenty of kids get bored at school because all the information is presented in textbooks. It can be useful to get people to stick around a little more if the information is presented in a more user-friendly way. I also think Wikis are far less common for finding out things like changing the restrictor on a Sanwa. I'd be far more likely to search forums for something like that anyway.
I've always liked textbooks-- what I don't like is textbooks filled with so many photos and random drawings surrounding the text that my ADD sucks me into the images rather than the text. </tangent>
That is what I was thinking to write before I see your post . I don't think a new tetris fan who wants to learn how to play tetris will go straight to the wiki. Such a person would like to be explained.He would like to read different opinions in a discussion.Besides, the learning in a discussion is much more productive. And one more thing.I might not agree with the person who wrote the article in the wiki.Moreover, how do we know the guys are experienced enough to give their "expert" opinion on Tetris. This isn't wikipedia. People are not collecting facts and organizing it into articles. In a tetris strategy article, people speak from their own tetris perception.I`m not saying anything against the wiki, but in my opinion,this should not be the only way a person wants to learn how to play tetris better.
It's not the only way. They can just talk about it on the forum. Are you trying to troll me SpawN? I've mentioned several times that there's no reason we can't talk about strategy on the forum as is, and you always reply completely ignoring this fact.
How exactly are we going to classify strategy articles into the Wiki anyway? Most of the pieces people have written on strategy cover multiple aspects, yet none of them include everything. Are you planning to butcher up them all and then somehow piecemeal them back together into things which resemble wiki articles on individual topics? There are quite a lot of strategy articles on the forum, written by different people with different styles. Or are you just going to give each article it's own page and title them by author?
The key issue I have is that Wikis make terrible discussion forums. It's a lot more effort to make a page, start a talk for it, edit this, edit that, whathaveyou than it is to just pop on the forums, quick make a thread, and start a conversation from there. If we really want some of the strategy discussions on the wiki, we could always try to compile the information found in the threads--as it stands, though, no one has done that, and as such a lot of valuable information and interesting discussions are buried under pages of other threads in General. I think part of why the forum community has always been just the collection of frequent fliers has a lot to do with the very "closed" feel of the forums--we just have the two forums, and newcomers may feel like they shouldn't make threads because we aren't explicitly inviting different types of threads. Yes, we can make a note in the forum description saying "oh yes, feel free to discuss other things here, too" or "strategy discussion included" or whathaveyou, but that is a far weaker invitation in comparison to an explicit "Strategy Discussion" forum--the message such a forum gives to a new user is loud and clear: we want you discuss strategy, and here's a great spot to do it. I have similar feelings about off-topic discussion--even the oldbies feel that there's always been something of a stigma against off-topic posting, and as such, it's never really happened to any great extent. However, the more you break that stigma, the more off-topic discussion you get--and in a lot of cases, those are the discussions that newcomers can feel like they can get a better idea of the way the forum works, how the community is structured, a basic code of conduct, etc. I think the "Off Topic" prefixes are at least a step in the right direction for this, but I still feel that we could justify having a seperate forum for it. Lastly... I just want to wholeheartedly agree with this. Wikis really lend themselves well to "finished" information--or at least, what we can feel as "finished"--they feel slightly more static and more definitive than forum discussions, and I feel as though they should be more objective in their approach. The forums, as Rosti said, are much more suited to subjective opinion, as well as giving people a place where they feel they can help generate new information. If we want to remain adamant on trying to get it backported to the wiki, fine, designate people to do so, but I feel like the wiki is for the finished product--the forums are the main engine to create new knowledge. Hmm...I suspect I rambled a bit. Oh well, that's what I get for posting at 8:30 in the morning. One last bit that came to mind: We are where we are now (a small, tight-knit community) because the forums never seemed to be designed to welcome newcomers--if we want our active community to grow, we may need to change how we do things so new people (who may be another good competitor, or someone with valuable insights on some topic) can feel as though they can actually be a part of TC. Let me put it like this: The core community probably isn't going anywhere--so what harm will come if we just try things? Worst comes to worst the forums don't get used and we recombine back to where we are now. But I think the benefits of new blood justify the potential annoyance of moving some things around. We aren't going to change by staying the same, after all. Now I'm really rambling. I'd better stop now. =) ~EI
What are you guys thinking of when you think strategy articles? I'm thinking stuff like t-spins and downstacking and 20G play. You can give concrete, practical examples for all of these.
Ah, I think that's where we're running into issues. As far as I'd like to define things, strategy articles would be the finished products that go on the wiki for everyone to see at their leisure, whereas discussion is the conversations, revisions, cross-checking, etc. that spawns the article. In other words, I feel the article would be what we compile after a multi-page thread of discussion on a matter (such as t-spins, downstacking, 20G play), presented in a format that is easy to understand, and probably put on the wiki. Trying to do that on the wiki, however, would likely be stifling to a lot of people who would potentially participate. I know I personally have a bit of a stigma against Wiki editing (especially after seeing all the high-stakes drama on other Wikis, especially Wikipedia itself), and would much rather put in my opinions on a forum discussion where it's all a little less formal and a lot less stifling. Keeping things accessible is key--if users (new or old!) don't feel like they can get to a discussion, or if they feel that it takes a lot of effort to do so, they just won't participate. ~EI
Things like finesse, documentation of t-spin setups, useful kicks and stuff are examples of things I would put on the wiki. Anything that can be represented as a single fumen diagram wthout any real need for explanation should be on the wiki. General advice, things like spindizzy's articles should remain on the forum (and in General Discussion).
