Revamping GotWoot

[enkoujin]

It's about time I gave back to the community with suggestions.

Background:

I've been lurking on the forums here since 2005 and I have started to increase my activity through posting in 2008 with the highest reputation to post count ratio as a newer member (disregarding those made in the Flame Pit), so I'd like to say that I'm a bit credible with what I have to say.

1. Restrict Forum Access to Registrants Only

I'm pretty sure this was suggested before, but with 40+ users online almost every moment, it really makes me wonder how many of those users are actually people rather than bots.

As you know, with more users comes more traffic and activity.

2. Add a Link to the IRC Chatroom in the Red Header (browser client or IRC link)

This simply adds more convenience.

Of course, the IRC frequents may find it much easier to open up mIRC and drop-down to their Favourites menu to get to GotWoot, but for those who only use the forums, encouraging IRC through this method may increase IRC activity.

Also, there needs to be a new stickied and locked IRC thread quoting the information from the FAQ page that no one seems to read.

3. Disband Blogs (for now)

Almost no one uses them.

The age demographics of 22+ year-olds aren't really into blogging due to a higher mental maturity nor are any of us willing to pioneer into new projects to share with the community that can't already be done on IRC, General Discussion threads and the Flaming Pit.

There is also less traffic and responses on blog posts than one would get through the actual forum.

4. Forum Bot to Update Threads with New Episodes (forum-tracker hybrid like Marik)

I really do appreciate Marik's hard work around here for the last few years as he constantly updates us with new episode links and whatnot (along with other people), but I think it's about time we took this burden off his/her shoulders by creating an AI bot that will update the forum with almost immediate links to trackers with very high seeding activity.

One should question why this should be done when RSS feeds are already available or that people can just go to the tracker websites and "ctrl+f" the anime they like, but like I said, this will just create more convenience for users now and newer users later in the future. By doing this, GotWoot can become a consolidated anime community with everything anime related - episode and chapter releases, high-level discussion, etc.

5. Disable the Ignoring List Feature

Maybe it's just personal bias against someone (or some people) who have blacklisted me, but to make sure everyone feels comfortable that at least their form of communication is received by a community is significant to human psychology.

And who knows, maybe there are terrible posters out there who eventually make better quality posts in the future (I'm probably a prime example). Writing is a continuous and progressive practice that no one is good at. There was a time, I'm sure, where everyone was once a terrible writer and through retrospect, look back at their writing and are flabbergasted by their spelling and grammar.

It takes time to refine mental maturity, lexicon and structures of writing so that people can get better at expressing ideas and feelings. Also, with increased writing and literature discussions, people will be able to analyze authors and directors' intentions in their work.

As for the opposition, yes, it does filter out shitty posts made by angsty and mentally-deprived posts that no one wants to read about, but you can always just read the username on the left side of the forum and skip it. If it also gets too out-of-hand, simply ban the poster's IP (but it shouldn't be too bad).

A forum is used for discussion - not to ignore posts, basically (also, it doesn't look like there are any users posting so far that need to be ignored anyway).

6. Encourage Higher-Quality Posts with a Minima Character or Line Threshold

Probably with more reputation by again an AI bot with administrative powers that can bypass the user reputation interval (allow multiple reputations given to a single person if they constantly write long posts).

I can see how the character aspect can be abused by repeating letters for trendy words like "looooooooooooooooool", "SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO", "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz", which is why I've suggested a paragraph or spacing aspect as well. Intellectual analyzation and long posts are some of the reasons why I frequent the forums and the people who post long paragraphs need to be rewarded for the amount of consideration, time and effort that they put into every post.

One can argue that the system we have is still adequate, but people are just too lazy to give out reputation sometimes and really, everyone seems to be too busy to go to a random thread to rep 15 other people before repping another person.

7. Computer/Electronics/Technological Sub-Forum

There's no doubt that the "Customized computer?" thread is very popular with over 41 pages, but I think that GotWoot has become more of a technological forum than of the past.

With the onslaught of revolutionizing technology to mass market consumers and different computer builds every time, it would increase the organization of this proposed sub-forum by allowing posters to quickly find the threads they were responding to and it is easier to look-up threads rather than go to one consolidated topic and not remember the exact page your build was before.

As for the "General Support" sub-forum, maybe that can be devoted to other support other people need in their life. Maybe it's help with personal problems, taking care of dogs, etc.

8. Consider Wiping the Forum and Start Anew

Or instead of wiping, the forums should be archived and everything should be started "fresh" again.

It is true that there have been many good posts on the forum that I've read, but for every good post, there must have been two other terrible posts to go along with it. While wiping away the archives won't stop people from making bad posts, I feel that it will finally get rid of the clutter we've had in the last six years or so like posts by mage, SK, etc.

I understand that this is an established community where we all know each other on a personal level separated by a thin LCD monitor than the past of vast geographical barriers, but from a newbie's perspective, I'd imagine it hard to integrate into such a community easily with such a long history especially if it's not for a need, but rather a leisure activity.

In the meanwhile, I'll try to think of more suggestions.

[Kraco]

Suggestions are always welcome, so I'll address a few of yours.

1. Restrict Forum Access to Registrants Only

Personally I hate this. Sometimes you need to check fansubbers'/scanlators' forums for random info and I absolutely abhor the requirement to register to see anything but the forum rules stating you need to register to see anything but the forum rules. So, to follow the ancient axiom, I'd rather not subject others to something I don't like being subjected to myself.

3. Disband Blogs (for now)

Blogs were a new feature brought by the recent engine upgrade. Thus there was no tradition with blogs. We are hardly living our heydays anymore, so it unfortunately makes sense there aren't much going on there. Still, I don't think they especially distract from anything. Kind of like an extra feature in your car you never use but that's impact on the price was so insignificant there was no reason to get another model because of it.

4. Forum Bot to Update Threads with New Episodes

Forgetting the fact it would break Marik's heart, that would actually be quite cool. However, I don't know who would/could code one. It would take some programming after all, plus it would need someone to fix a list every season (and update it a few times during a season) to match the release with the thread. And to select which releases are worthy to post in the thread. Finding such a somebody is always a tough job.

5. Disable the Ignoring List Feature

I can't say that much about this. I have never used the feature anywhere. The only time I'd have liked to, was at the Megatokyo webcomic forum where I'd have liked to ignore one fucking annoying and idiotic moderator that never had anything remotely intelligent to say and only pestered everybody. But the lousy forum engine didn't have an ignore function despite being commercial. Fortunately he got kicked out eventually. Seriously, the dude was more obnoxious than krb. So, I think anybody gross enough to really be worth ignoring should be bannable already.

The real use for the ignore function, thus, is by immature, emo people, who lost an argument and afterwards think it's cool to ignore the winner. However, there's no legit reason for us to discriminate against immature people as long as they behave otherwise. So, it's their own choice.

6. Encourage Higher-Quality Posts with a Minima Character or Line Threshold

There's already the minimum length requirement you mentioned. Otherwise moderators are supposed to delete useless posts as those are forbidden by the rules. I personally think this work well enough.

7. Computer/Electronics/Technological Sub-Forum

There's no doubt that the "Customized computer?" thread is very popular with over 41 pages, but I think that GotWoot has become more of a technological forum than of the past.

As for the "General Support" sub-forum, maybe that can be devoted to other support other people need in their life. Maybe it's help with personal problems, taking care of dogs, etc.

Seems like the General Support is that technological forum since there's little of anything else going on there. It's anybody's question why that megathread (and the "PC Problem..." as well) accumulated nearly all computer build related stuff and questions, but that's just how it happened. There's really no reason to keep doing it. You see a few separate threads every now and then.

The somber fact is that Gotwoot isn't active enough to divide discussion into many subforums and still try to look like active. You sometimes see new forums out there that have 50 categories each having one or two posts. That's more sad than neat.

8. Consider Wiping the Forum and Start Anew

Absolutely not! Request denied!

What on Earth, man?! Erase all of our history? That would make us look like nothing but a wannabe new forum with a limited bunch of members (some of which would leave to boot after such a deed) and hardly any posts even after another year. Either brilliant or terrible, all the threads and posts and posters are a part of the glorious Gotwoot history. The most dreadful time of Gotwoot history actually was when the infamous krb suddenly decided to eradicate one of the more popular members and ended up deleting all his numerous threads as well, thus wiping a significant part of Gotwoot history away. A forum is its members and the members' posting history, nothing more. To remove that history is to kill half of what a forum is. Even bad history is still history.

In the meanwhile, I'll try to think of more suggestions.

They are always welcome, even if it looked like I did nothing but use my time to shoot them down.

[Ryllharu]

I can't say that much about this. I have never used the feature anywhere. The only time I'd have liked to, was at the Megatokyo webcomic forum where I'd have liked to ignore one fucking annoying and idiotic moderator that never had anything remotely intelligent to say and only pestered everybody. But the lousy forum engine didn't have an ignore function despite being commercial. Fortunately he got kicked out eventually. Seriously, the dude was more obnoxious than krb. So, I think anybody gross enough to really be worth ignoring should be bannable already.

Having actually attempted to use it to ignore a user I felt never added anything useful to the discussion, it's actually worse to turn it on than to simply ignore the user the old fashion way. It's that disruptive. It replaces their posts with a large dark grey box (at least the size of the text box I just quoted) that reminds you that you have put this user on your ignore list. Due to the forum color scheme, you can't ignore the fact that they posted. I turned it off about 5 minutes later.

It's already useless. If someone is that determined to ignore a particular user's posts enough to not only turn it on, but deal with the constant, obnoxious, and style-breaking reminder that they are in fact, ignoring a particular user, more power to them. Just leave it as is.

[Animeniax]

I think they should remove the ban on nudity of women.

[dragonrage]

I think they should remove the ban on nudity of women.

If you want porn, I suggest you visit a porn site.


I do agree that there should be an IRC extension on the forum menu, it leads to easier access to IRC webchat. For the rest I basically agree with Kraco. Nice thoughts though.

[Y]

Bad, Good, Bad, Bad, Bad, Laughable, Meh, Bad.

[Assertn]

Tbh I think IRC is more suitable for the size of active members, as it's more engaging, and we don't need a larger breadth of multiple simultaneous topics that a forum would provide as much anymore. I'm all for encouraging a migration of preferred medium

[Buffalobiian]

Regarding restricting forum view to registered people, I disagree with the idea. Ever been turned off the idea of trying a product because you can't try before you buy? Same idea. If they like it, they'll stay. Forcing people to sign up doesn't increase contributing members, only the member count.

Wiping the forum is also one that I'm not really with. It only works when you have a dedicated crowd that will stick with the new system and learn it until it feels right. Otherwise, people just shun it and end up leaving. That's why with things like law, incremental updates are more accepted compared to complete revamps, even if they're less effective.

As for the computer threads, I subjectively like the mega-thread. It keeps subscribers in the loop of sorts, as well as giving us a more timely "bump" when others are in trouble, or have found some sort of solution to something. Having a tech forum and subscribing to that entire forum would do the same thing though, so either way works.

Gotwoot just doesn't really have anything to "pull" people into joining our discussions... besides our discussions. It was one of the intentions of the fansub/scanlation groups, but since one's inactive and the other one's moved to another site altogether, it doesn't really help - especially when many of those members aren't active forum members here - so signing up to the forum to ask the staff questions just doesn't work. Half the time I redirect them or answer them myself :P.

Unless Gotwoot turned into a speedsub group (because that's bound to attract traffic, especially if they're fast and reliable like Eclipse was), then on their release posts provided a "Discuss the episode here" link that goes back to the Series thread on GW, that might be another thing...

People tend to archive "good standard" releases these days without giving too much thought, so that model would work with the above suggestion. Subbing old niche shows slowly that no one else does isn't as effective for "generating traffic" in that not that many people are interested in them, or into discussing them - but I'm sure they exist somewhere. Not that it's my place to give suggestions for that group, heh.