The Org Redesign - What's wrong with the org?

[inthesto]

Okay, I'll actually offer to be productive now and write on why the Org needs a public social forum.

The quickest way to say it is that if I didn't know how to use IRC six years ago, I sure as hell wouldn't have stuck around this community for six years. I doubt I would have even made it one. People like to socialize, and there's no easy way for anyone to do it here. Yes, I know you anti-OT people are going to point me to the IRC room and the journal system. IRC isn't easy for new people to use, and just try to keep track of a conversation between journals. And even if you're going to pull the "hurr durr IRC keeps all the idiots out" argument, that ignores the point that you have to go out of your way to socialize in this community. It's hard to make friends in this place, and it's not because people are generally unfriendly (I will admit there's a list of users that are unfriendly and will drive newbies off in any case, but they are a minority), but because the structure of this site discourages it.

Case in point: you're not allowed to introduce yourself to the community. You're expected to kind of just slip in, but given how this community handles discussions (i.e. everyone parroting their opinions for the 500th time and not paying a single drop of attention to anything anyone else says), you're going to go unnoticed forever. Ever wonder why there's so few new people in this community? It's not just because we're perceived as elitist, but because our forums suck. We are literally not allowed to talk about anything that doesn't have to do with AMVs. Not that the moderators are completely senseless in this regard, but just take a gander at the list of our forums. And guess what? When every single thing you talk about has to do with the hobby, yes that's going to perpetuate the elitist stereotype.

I talked to one of the older moderators a few nights ago, and he told me the official reasoning for shutting down the old Off Topic forum. It ran along the lines of people forming cliques, and having in-jokes that were alienating new users. Allow me to rephrase, to maximize the absurdity: The Off Topic forum was shut down because people were making friends. Apparently, the solution to alienation of new users was to alienate everyone. Now nobody can make friends, and look at how well it's served us.

Now, I know somebody is going to counterpoint me with the statement that seems to be hot recently, something like "The Org is first and foremost a catalogue." I'll just say now that everyone needs to stop saying that. Catalogues are shitty, boring, inhuman, and nobody who likes interesting things wants to be part of one. I don't really care what Phade's vision was, if it even still exists, but calling this community a catalogue is nailing our feet to the ground and saying "Welp." Has anyone actually spent time in the Org's catalogue, just perusing it for fun?

Since I'm drifting off topic, I'll just close out with another pre-emptive counterpoint to the inevitable "we already have IRC" argument. Guess what? We can have both! I know, it's absolute madness, but plenty of communities do it too, and it doesn't cost us anything. Imagine that.

[Otohiko]

^This is brilliant. I fully support these arguments, and I hope other moderators and admins take note of them as well.

[Pwolf]

^This is brilliant. I fully support these arguments, and I hope other moderators and admins take note of them as well.

x2 and the #1 reason I wanted to start these threads... if we don't have these discussions, people will get pissed off. There are ways to get what everyone wants. It is possible to allow multiple layouts if that's what the community wants. It is possible to have someone opt out of getting comments or opinions. These are all things that the programmers will have to do and should be thought of BEFORE THEY DO ALL THE WORK as it seems the org staff was planning >:|

[inthesto]

. There are ways to get what everyone wants.|

This claim, of course, requires a Kionon Exception Clause.

[Pwolf]

. There are ways to get what everyone wants.|

This claim, of course, requires a Kionon Exception Clause.

if people want an ignore kionon user filter, i don't see why that cant be done. But just because you don't like someone doesn't mean they don't have anything important to say. Kio is perfectly right about his opinion on video comments. there are users out there who would rather not have any comments made public attached to their video and would much prefer to either post a topic in the forum or not post anything. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't be able to implement something of that sort. I personally would like the option to disable comments and opinions on some videos. There are just some videos I don't want comments on directly. It should be an option you would be able to edit while adding a new video or editing an existing one.

And to defend the point of these threads, NO ONE'S OPINION SHOULD EVER BE IGNORED! I don't care who it is. If I was an admin of this site i would fire Nya for making the comments he made towards Kio. As a moderator and part of the staff, you should be more open to other's ideas. We are trying to make this site better for the community and ignoring someone's valid opinion isn't forward progress, it's backwards. You don't ignore an opinion you don't like, you discuss it. As Nya said, this is for the community not just the org staff.

[JaddziaDax]

I would like a more public (youtube style) video comment section, but just like on youtube, I would like to disable comments if something starts to get out of hand, or if I have no need for farther comments on a video (have done a remake, or it's just that bad). it makes sense to be able to opt out in some cases.

Besides if Kionon wants to be anti-social then it's up to him to remember to disable comments.

[dokidoki]

if people want an ignore kionon user filter, i don't see why that cant be done.

I think that in phpBB3, you simply add a user to your "foes" list.

[Brad]

Here's a question. And keep in mind that this is coming from somebody who doesn't really use the Org the way I used to and primarily see it as a sort of conduit for a hobby that I only sort of relate to anymore.

Do we really need a hosted solution anymore? I mean, in all honesty, if we were to do away with the massive bulk of the server space and bandwidth and have it be purely a catalog for people to plug in links to YouTube or freely available download solutions like MegaUpload or personal hosted space, would we really be losing THAT much? I'm sure the first reaction for a lot of people would be "Fuck that! That would be terrible!" but if you really think about it, if the main reason for most of us to be here (aside from discussion about videos and making them) is to show our work to each other, is streaming our outside download solutions such a terrible thing?

Just an idea, and it's something that, if implemented, would MOSTLY eliminate the need for this to be a donation-driven site. Just putting that out there.

[Zarxrax]

Yes, that would kinda suck brad. Because youtube isn't really friendly to a lot of amvs, so you end up having them get deleted all the time, or not able to upload to begin with.
Other file hosting providers are a decent solution, but this only provides downloads, not streaming. Since the org can provide streaming, that wouldn't be the best alternative.

Of course, it wouldn't be the end of the world if the org did stop offering hosting, but I think that the hosting allows us much more freedom and unlimited potential (most of the potential currently unutilized) that we don't have if we rely on external hosting sources.

[Brad]

Well okay then. I guess I've just had good luck with putting stuff on YouTube. I think my main concern is getting the site away from NEEDING donations so badly that it ends up becoming a turn-off to new users. I got to thinking about it after Ying's post which I very much agree with, but then remember that the Donator's Forum already kind of fills that role, and I'd imagine that making that a more-or-less public forum may discourage people from donating and thusly hinder the site all-together.