There is a lot to weigh in on, so to respect Those who would prefer to not read my WOT, I will include a TL;DR at the end.
1) RE: New Game thread- I must echo every other person in that the current system works very well (live games get special placement, non-live games have a designated thread) and I’d like it to stay.
2a) I find it odd that you singled out Poltical threads, since in my tenure they have been many of the most well behaved discussion (nothing compared to the vitriol the “WTA v PPSC” debate conjures), and, while I know I am in the minority on this, the reason I use this site and not one of the many others is the Community. The discussions about politics or history of world perspective are why I keep coming back to this site. Please don’t take that away.
2b) I think a designated “Workshop” thread for New Variant announcements/discussions is a great idea. I greatly appreciate Enriador’s work and can’t wait to play many of the things he has coming up. Having all of that info in one place (rather than digging through forum history) would be an incredible benefit to me. If someone would like to mute it, that is their loss.
3) We should all be reminded of the rules and responsibilities of the site, particularly the need to be respectful to each other, but topics drifting should not be reason for Moderator action. I appreciate the amount of freedom that we are afforded here, and I greatly appreciate the hands off approach the Mods currently have (also all of the Mods have done a wonderful job of addressing difficult issues and they have my utmost gratitude.) I assume we can report thread conversations that we consider to be disrespectful to the Mods, and, if they consider it appropriate, can issue a cautionary warning or pursue disciplinary action (silence/freeze). I bring this up because this is what I consider to be the best process (with emphasis on the warnings) and it is already in place. This is (essentially) what happened here: a perfectly legitimate conversation got out of hand, warnings were issued, and the conversation was halted until a later date.
Overall
I love this community, and despite a great many minor issues we may have, we handle them very well. Thank you to everyone for usually making this a great place to frequent.
TL;DR
- Everything is great.
- The Game Forum works perfect. Change nothing.
- Political Threads aren’t a problem (currently).
- I think adding a “Workshop” thread is a good idea so that it is easier to keep up to date with new additions.
- Don’t kill threads for being off topic.
- Warn people that they are being disrespectful.
- Mods: keep up the great work!