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[TCM]

If were are going to set up a general 'Epic-Length' Sub-Forum, what would the requirements be to get in?

[DarkArtemisFowl]

What Yoink said. Also, not being able to make new threads in the subforum would defeat the purpose of it, which is that PW would be free to make new threads as needed to better organize ER. Having to get them moved would just create work for Toady since every time PW needed a new thread, he'd have to make it in the regular RTD forum and then request to get it moved.

Being able to create freely, however, again brings the problem of people who might think that they can justify that their game is going to be of proportions rivaling ER or MG, and then not going through with that justification. And anyways, Toady can just assign a trustworthy person as the subforum moderator.

If were are going to set up a general 'Epic-Length' Sub-Forum, what would the requirements be to get in?

Well, first we have to see if the general forum thing even goes through with the poll. Then, PW can authorize the discussion of the rules.

[GreatWyrmGold]

((You can sort the forum by # of replies.  Since we're only talking two boards here (Mafia, by its nature, is fine where it is) it's not too hard to look at them that way.))

Huh. Never knew that.
Also, why the OOC quotes?

As discussion goes by, I become more and more concerned that some serious moderation of that new something is going to be required.

Moderation? How so?

Having an open sub-forum for 'epic' RTDs is just a bad idea on the face of it- that would end up seeming like a class of 'superior' RTDs.
I think, right now, the issue is that one RTD has grown to the point of requiring so many threads that it clogs up the RTD forum quite noticeably. We want to free up the board a bit, not turn it into a ghost town as everyone and their dog rushes off to make multi-thread "epic" RTDs in the new subforum.

Slippery Slope fallacies are the new black.
I highly doubt that many would actually do something like that. Especially if the new board couldn't have new topics started in it, which one board clearly demonstrates is possible...but even without that, epic takes a lot of work.

Also, not being able to make new threads in the subforum would defeat the purpose of it, which is that PW would be free to make new threads as needed to better organize ER. Having to get them moved would just create work for Toady since every time PW needed a new thread, he'd have to make it in the regular RTD forum and then request to get it moved.

That is a bit of a problem, but couldn't piecewise make all the new threads at once (he is, after all, more or less aware of what he needs) and have them all moved at once? A bit of a pain for Toady, but less so than considering this whole thing.

If were are going to set up a general 'Epic-Length' Sub-Forum, what would the requirements be to get in?

We're working on that.

And anyways, Toady can just assign a trustworthy person as the subforum moderator.

I volunteer as--actually, that sounds like a lot of work.
...I'd still be willing, if Toady chose me for some reason.

Well, first we have to see if the general forum thing even goes through with the poll.

That reminds me...think we should post the poll elsewhere? GD, maybe?

[Yoink]

Having an open sub-forum for 'epic' RTDs is just a bad idea on the face of it- that would end up seeming like a class of 'superior' RTDs.
I think, right now, the issue is that one RTD has grown to the point of requiring so many threads that it clogs up the RTD forum quite noticeably. We want to free up the board a bit, not turn it into a ghost town as everyone and their dog rushes off to make multi-thread "epic" RTDs in the new subforum.

Slippery Slope fallacies are the new black.
I highly doubt that many would actually do something like that. Especially if the new board couldn't have new topics started in it, which one board clearly demonstrates is possible...but even without that, epic takes a lot of work.

Not actually a slippery slope. Thank you for playing. 

[DarkArtemisFowl]

Slippery Slope fallacies are the new black.
I highly doubt that many would actually do something like that. Especially if the new board couldn't have new topics started in it, which one board clearly demonstrates is possible...but even without that, epic takes a lot of work.

Even if it is a "slippery slope fallacy," you have to accept the possibility of it happening and try to do what you can to minimize the risk, because frankly, this is pretty much a forum experiment on the side. If this fails, we could see even less of a chance of these kinds of things happening in the future.

[GreatWyrmGold]

My methodology is inspirec by a snippet of a Scientific American article, where the ratio of planetary mass to mass of uncontrolled objects intersecting the orbit or something like that had two general categories: Very high for the four inner planets and four gas giants, but very much lower for Ceres, Pluto, et al. Hence, I'm going to try and find natural dividing lines, should they exist, in lengths of forum games.

Spoiler: Top 20 RtD Threads' Post Counts (click to show/hide)

23390
18448
8623
8586
7662
6512
6132
4307
3499
3469
3444
3303
2888
2369
2345
2273
2171
2079
2026

Judging by RtD's alone (and for convenience ignoring the multiple-threads problem), there are two obvious divides in the data: 10,000 and 5,000 posts. The former would basically only let ER in; the latter would let half a dozen games (ER, Life Begins at Death, Deviation-22, YAFB [only if OOC thread posts count, but given the number of OOC posts in threads without OOC threads it only seems fair], Perplexicon, and Multiworld Madness) in. Any lower number would be pretty arbitrary; by halfway down the first page, post counts are similar enough that one can't really pick a convenient dividing point.

Now, let's check the main FGaR board. I don't want to copy-paste a page of numbers again, so trust me or verify, your choice.
An even dozen threads, all games, lie above the 10k-post limit, whereas 26 threads and (if I counted right) 22 games lie above the 5k-post limit.

Now, let's consider what would happen if we had 20-40k as the minimum posts required: ER would be the sole RtD, and the only other games to make it would be LaFotM, The Land of Lost Dimensions, Twilight Academy, and Rise of the Magic Girls. (And those are for the low limit of 20k--40k would require leaving out all but TA and RotMG.)

In conclusion, while people were suggesting limits in the quintuple digits, only the very lowest possible limit of that magnitude would avoid leaving ER in a nearly isolated subforum.
There are two logical limits, which correspond to small "gaps" in reply numbers (for RtD's, at least) and which are round numbers: 10,000 and 5,000. The former would let a total of thirteen games in with ER as the only RtD, while the latter would allow ten additional games to enter said subforum.

Having an open sub-forum for 'epic' RTDs is just a bad idea on the face of it- that would end up seeming like a class of 'superior' RTDs.
I think, right now, the issue is that one RTD has grown to the point of requiring so many threads that it clogs up the RTD forum quite noticeably. We want to free up the board a bit, not turn it into a ghost town as everyone and their dog rushes off to make multi-thread "epic" RTDs in the new subforum.

Slippery Slope fallacies are the new black.
I highly doubt that many would actually do something like that. Especially if the new board couldn't have new topics started in it, which one board clearly demonstrates is possible...but even without that, epic takes a lot of work.

Not actually a slippery slope. Thank you for playing. 

"If we set up a subforum for epic games, people will start trying to make allegedly epic games!"
Sounds a heck of a lot like SSF--and it fits the spirit (Claims that things will go to an improbable and unsubstantiated extent) if nothing else.

Slippery Slope fallacies are the new black.
I highly doubt that many would actually do something like that. Especially if the new board couldn't have new topics started in it, which one board clearly demonstrates is possible...but even without that, epic takes a lot of work.

Even if it is a "slippery slope fallacy," you have to accept the possibility of it happening and try to do what you can to minimize the risk, because frankly, this is pretty much a forum experiment on the side. If this fails, we could see even less of a chance of these kinds of things happening in the future.

Yes, there is a chance, but people shouldn't talk about it like it's inevitable and people shouldn't use it as a reason not to do it.

[DarkArtemisFowl]

5,000k sounds good to me. I have no problems with that.

[Yoink]

It's not improbable. Games that are big and/or complex enough to join the exclusive subforum club would seem special, hence people would want to make them.

Also: I thought the main factor for games splitting off into the subforum was going to be the need for multiple threads?
One single thread doesn't cause any more clutter than another single thread, regardless of how long it is.
I just added subforum to my spellchecker's dictionary.

[DarkArtemisFowl]

It's not improbable. Games that are big and/or complex enough to join the exclusive subforum club would seem special, hence people would want to make them.

Also: I thought the main factor for games splitting off into the subforum was going to be the need for multiple threads?
One single thread doesn't cause any more clutter than another single thread, regardless of how long it is.
I just added subforum to my spellchecker's dictionary.

Mmm. Forgot about that detail. How about adding a requirement of 3+ threads that need to be organized together, along with the 5,000k lower bar?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Also: I thought the main factor for games splitting off into the subforum was going to be the need for multiple threads?
One single thread doesn't cause any more clutter than another single thread, regardless of how long it is.

That's the original intent, yes, but it's far easier to make three threads for a new game than to have it reach 5,000 replies. Wouldn't that exacerbate the "People cheating their way into the Epic Games subforum" you were worried about?
Also, this would bar a great many great games from the subforum.

[Harry Baldman]

This discussion is making me feel that a separate ER subboard is the best idea, as it avoids the issue of making sweeping decisions made by ER players (some of which don't even play other games that much) about how we should categorize other people's games simply because we really need to categorize ER (as I honestly can't see how the other games bother anyone, given how RotMG, the only game of a comparable size I can currently think of, doesn't look like it might grow beyond two or three threads - there's an IC and an OOC thread, and maybe some kind of IC OOC thread, I think?).

There's two questions about an ER subboard - the more important is favoritism, and to this I answer not that piecewise is great enough to deserve honorary godhood or any hyperbole like that (even though piecewise, as is popularly known, is great indeed), but that no other game on the RTD board actually has grown to such a point where you'd attain any measurable benefit from separating it from the rest. By getting separated (and thus allowing for more thread creation, general organization and other nice things) ER would presumably improve in readability and playability, which you can't really say about, for instance, Deviation-22, the Warrens of Oric the Awesome, or any other single-thread long runner, and possibly no twin-thread game either. It's not a matter of giving piecewise accolades and such, it's an issue of making it so that people can play ER more efficiently and with fewer problems in comprehension. If it hasn't become too unwieldy to effectively play already, it likely will in the near future as the thread count and player count continues to increase. And if somebody else can make a game as immense and player-rich as ER, no matter the merits of the game itself or the GM that makes it, it should get its own subboard as well. PS: if you let other games share the subboard with ER and let piecewise go nuts with thread creation, it would cause the problem of ER cluttering up that subboard, while if you prevented piecewise going nuts with thread creation, you would rather limit the ability of ER to fragment into more easily-digestible chunks.

The second issue that was raised was 'what if piecewise can't update anymore?' In that case, I do believe Toady can move the threads back to the RTD board and dissolve the ER board. It stands to reason that if you can create subboards, you can delete them as well, right?

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I have clarified them to both myself and others in this manner. Inform me if I am not being sensible.

EDIT: Ah, yes - piecewise, one of the neutral votes in the poll is mine. If it turns out to be important, consider it to be in favor of an ER subboard.

EDIT 2: Also, if your reasoning for separating long runners (lasted a long time), wide runners (have lots of posts) and deep runners (have lots of players) into a separate subboard is to give them recognition, that is what the RTD Library and Hall of Fame and maybe the Forum Games List are for. And if you are worried about the seeming nonfunctionality of both, maybe you should consider helping out the people who are tasked with running them. Probably not the most practical or desirable suggestion, I admit, but one that could possibly work.

[GreatWyrmGold]

((The "favoritism" problem is the biggest, though. After all, it's largely what makes Toady so nervous...))

[DarkArtemisFowl]

It still would not hurt to create a general-purpose board for threads that need extensive organization not properly supplied by the regular RtD forums. So what if current games besides ER do not match the requirements for it today? A couple of months down the road, a new candidate may appear that needs organization on par with ER's level.
And it would knock the favoritism argument out of the ballpark, so there's two birds with one stone.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The one problem is that ER will most likely be alone for a good while. That kind of lets the favoritism argument back in...

[DarkArtemisFowl]

The one problem is that ER will most likely be alone for a good while. That kind of lets the favoritism argument back in...

It's better than nothing. Besides, we once again go back to the argument that no other thread currently rivals the need for ER's organization, so this is a compromise between the two sides.