Heya... so something I've noticed about this website is that you guys are really up tight when it comes to forums.

I think I've been yelled at for like 5 different offenses now?


It's your website, I'm not here to tell you you should act any differently. You've been strong for 3 years now (Congrats again by the way :D) and you certainly don't need a newcomer telling you how to run things.

BUT


I was wondering if you guys were planning a more relaxed forum for people? So no one could get yelled at for misquoting, double posting, or multiple threads. Just a general, anything goes, place to talk. Perhaps by cutting the gold gained in half, or out completely? You guys seem really deadset on not letting anyone find ways to get a few decimals worth of gold out of a forum sometimes.

There are alot of times I want to respond to a forum somewhere, but I have been talked to by a GM on 3 different occasions for something I did wrong, and so I just don't talk much anymore, and it's just sort of disheartening. I would like to have fun in a forum without so many restrictions :D

For someone to come here, used to other websites with absolutely no restrictions (for the most part, almost every forum board I've been to at least) the plethora of rules almost pushed me away. If my girlfriend who plays didn't enjoy you guys so much, I probably would have found some place else to go.

Again, I want to emphasis I don't think you guys are doing anything wrong, I would just appreciate some place where I could sit back, relax, and talk to someone. Who knows? Perhaps I'm not the first person to have this problem and just leave automatically, and this idea could save a bunch of members :D (Wishful thinking much?)


Anyway, just an idea is all :]

I second this as well, as much as that helps. I would like a place where I don't have to worry about the crazy rules over posting (not including rules about profanity, ect. Those are fine), even if it means no gold for posting. I've stayed completely out of the forums except to post in my own art thread (which is pretty much dead, for lack of posts and my not being able to post two times in a row and so forth).


I know you guys are trying to keep a hand on all the users and what they post to keep menewsha enjoyable for everyone, but sometimes it comes off as a little much, just to save people from earning gold from spamming. Perhaps enforce a flat rate for posts, a decent average no matter what the word count is? Of course, then the RP'ers will be fuming mad....I'm just trying to see a different way to help a community based web site support it's community, rather than hinder it. While it's nice to play the good clean fun way, people are people. And if you tell them "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO" all of the time, they're bound to just leave and find a place that says yes.

This is the thing that makes Menewsha different from other websites. Its standards are what form it. Asking people to quote not written by themselves I think is a great thing. This sets that quote aside and makes it stand out. I like the rule against multiple postings in a row. I think it is outlandishly ridiculous the extents people go to just to get their post count up by posting after themselves over, and over, and over again.

Most people here I would assume came from the same boards I did myself. The rules, or better to say lack-thereof, on the boards let you do as you please. Coming to a place with a little bit of law-and-order I think is what everyone needs. A place where it will not be over-run with 1337 'skilled' kids who bump, hack, scam, and cyber-sex it up. I believe the goal here is to try to obtain and keep a certain type of user. The type who is literate, well-behaved, and thoughtful. Not so much the ones who contribute nothing but "Domo! OMG!1 lol!1 ur a homo" type of posts.

The only reason I'm going to disagree with you in what you're asking for, is because the site has multiple places where you can just sit around and chat with people. The reason for all of these rules is to keep the site clean from spam and users wanting to post just to get gold. If that's what you're here to do (not saying that you are, just a general consensus), then you're visiting the wrong site.

I think for what your problems are, is that you've just not found the right place to post in. For those places where hangouts are accepted, you can try any of the following forums:

The Menewsha Nations - This forum is a dedicated hangout forum for users to chat with each other in either their own hangout threads, or threads created by other users. The rules are very lax here, aside from the general no spam/double posts, and you can talk about pretty much whatever you want. If you're worried about hopping into someone else's hangout thread, feel free to start your own and invite your friends to chat with you as well as make new friends. Like I said, this forum is pretty much open game for whatever it is you want to talk about. It can be school, work, stuff you see online, etc.

The Menewshan Exchange - Even though this forum is specifically used for buying and selling, users will use their shops as hangout threads as well while they're trying to buy/sell. So pretty much so long as you're trying to buy/sell you can talk about whatever you want. If you create a thread in this forum, just know that you're limited to one thread, so make it count. And remember double posting is okay if your thread drops off of the first page.

Quests - Quests is another really good hangout forum. Everyone wants at least one item on this site, and if you really think about it, what's not there to quest for. Even if you're not as active as other members, you can start up a quest thread and use it for a general chat thread while you use it to track your progress for your quest. I know a lot of great people who hang out in the Quests forum and have made many great friends there. And you wouldn't believe how busy that forum can get sometimes. There are a lot of people hanging out in there.

I would also recommend browsing the Art Shops forum and subforums, as well as the Avatar Chat forum for some good chats. There are really nice people in both places, and I know from experience that we're always trying to get more people to venture into the Avatar Chat forum. There are some good threads in there where discussion is pretty open, like Project Mene and User's Pick for example. Both are avatar contest threads, but there's a great bit of discussion going on there : )

Really, there are a lot of places to just chat on Menewsha. You just have to stop limiting yourself to where it is you go to chat, and remember the rules. No double posting (if you do it on accident, report it yourself and any of the staff will be more than happy to fix it for you), no spam, no flaming.

Menewsha wouldn't be the way it is now without the rules you're proposing to remove. Most of its users like those rules.

The only one I don't like (but, I completely understand why it is in place and would not suggest removing it) is not being able to post after your mule. I can't always use two browsers, and this site isn't very friendly about quickly switching accounts (it takes way more clicks than it should).

Originally Posted by Keyori

Menewsha wouldn't be the way it is now without the rules you're proposing to remove. Most of its users like those rules.
.

I don't propose removing anything.

To the contrary, I tried to make it clear that that was NOT what I was trying to say. I don't like the rules, but I don't want you to change them at all.

I just wanted a thread to have stupid fun. If anyone ever played Gaia (Not a huge fan :/) they had a forum called Chatterbox, and you could just do whatever you wanted in there. I liked that. I liked being able to double post, and just use "s to quote people, and not have to worry about people getting all butthurt about it. That's why I proposed removing gold gained from that thread.

I would probably spend several hours a night in there, arguing and debating with people.


For those of you familiar with Gaia, I say Argue and Debate, not Troll and Humiliate like they did on the GD.


When someone states an opinion I don't like, I like to point out why I think they are wrong, and the following war that ensues. Several people take my side, where as others take theirs. At the end of the day, the only thing you gain is a few friends and a few enemies, but it was always fun to me as long as no one got out of hand or offensively rude :]




@Shoplifter, what you said makes perfect sense, but I think just because other websites host these children, doesn't necessarily mean Menewsha will be flooded with them at this suggestion. I think if left to their own device, perhaps; perhaps the Menewsha boards could be taken over, but with a good level of oversight, this would calm any "uprising". And who better to have that oversight then Menewsha? As much as having every post of mine edited in some way, I am impressed by their attention to individual posts. More of a community feel. The, what I call "Loose fascism" that I get from posting breaks that sense of community to me, and has me hold my tongue on multiple occasions. I'm a very intelligent man, and I would NOT want this to be set up like phuggin Gaia does. They made the GD and Chatterbox, and then just left the forums alone, so every single channel more or less is full of that trash. If someone says something stupid, as long as I don't cross the line to "trolling" I don't mind telling them reasons why they are incorrect. I try to stay out of opinionated areas, and more along the lines of lets say A high school dropout saying he could run the county better than the president. Perhaps not ENTIRELY impossible no? but improbable to the highest degree, and I wouldn't mind enlightening some fools :]

But I digress.

I think with complete freedom in a certain channel, and then strict oversight on anything leaving the channel would make both parties happy no?



Also, @Nova: I don't agree with what you say, I've ran into my problems in those channels, but I wanted to thank you wholeheartedly for taking the time to write up such a lengthy response, and a potential solution :]

I honestly expected a bunch of white knight to come riding in here and giving me a million and a half reasons why I was wrong, and Menewsha is awesome, and I'm a scrub and what not; the fact that you actually took the time out to propose alternatives is really cool :]

Anyway, just looking at the set up, I doubt my idea will be given life, but hey, it's the feedback section. The best I can do :D

I've got in trouble for *cough* triple posting on my first day here -nods- I find the forum rules a lot stricter but I've seen worse D: Either way I've been told there was a reason. It makes sense due to you get gold for posting and how much you post so i suppose that the logic. They wouldn't and we wouldn't want spammers ^^;;

So I'm confused. You say that you want a place where you can go to chat about whatever you want with users and when I list the most chat-friendly forums on the site you tell me that's not what you want.

If I took what you were asking for out of context, then my other interpretation of what you were asking for is you basically want Menewsha to add a forum that doesn't grant gold and lets you post whatever you want however many times you want without consequences because it doesn't give you gold. You're asking for a place to spam and waste the site's bandwidth, where users who already feel that the site doesn't give enough gold in the first place even though they realize that posting gives you an unlimited amount of gold daily, will not go to have chats because they won't be earning any gold there.

If you feel like having chats where you're not going to be getting any gold and want to post as many times as you want and post whatever random crap you feel like (within the reason) then go to Word Games and spam it up. The rules there are very lax.

There's also your blog. :)

I think he simply wants a forum similar to chatterbox on gaia. A nonsense forum where nothing matters and rules are lax, am I correct in assumeing this?

I have to disagree with this however. I feel that this forum would become a place to be abused, people would start posting just to earn gold there and set up a thread to abuse the gold system. There would be the option of turning gold earning off for such a forum like they did with the word games but then I dont believe too many people would use it at all and it would come to have been a fairly useless waste of time when there are alot of things they could be useing there time for.

That's still what blogs and profile comments and Social Groups are for, though. :)

Well, I just think Menewsha wants to maintain a very mature community.
Mature people follow rules, no?

It seems as though no one else agrees with me. Oh well. I don't agree, but I do understand that even (hypothetically, not being arrogant) if one man is right, and a million people don't believe him, him being right matters not. I gotta split, but I'll figure out how to delete this post when I return.

If you like, a moderator can lock the thread for you. Just say the word. :)

I was not aware I could not delete forums. Yes please :D