Opening Up Ideas

[John Kim]

This is split off of http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11139">Forge Hubris, Part II, as a number of people seemed concerned that constructive discussion should be separated from there.  

1) Move the official articles and reviews out of their own section, and instead have links to them and others as part of the Resource Library.

You speak as if there were some elitism involved in deciding what sort of things get posted in the articles and reviews sections here.

Absolutely not!!!  From the little bit I have seen, the process is pretty open.  But regardless of how it happened, the result is that the official Forge works are overwhelmingly dominated by Ron's writing (38 out of 48) -- and this strongly influences both outsiders' and new members' impressions of The Forge.  Whether you think it justified or not, a large number of people (including some Forge members like Jason) have concerns over Ron's dominance here.  

I suggested this as a practical step to change that reputation.  

I also think the effect may be more than token.  The Forge is fairly high-volume (like rgfa in its heyday), so threads will fairly quickly drop out of sight.  Thus, new ideas expressed will often quickly get lost, particularly if you are not one of the few very-high-volume posters (i.e. us) who frequently reiterates their position.  So even if no one deliberately intends for it to happen, interesting ideas tend to get forgotten and newer conversations go back to GNS -- because it is institutionalized.  

I'd wager that you don't submit articles here, John, because you're more comfortable putting them on your own site. I understand that. It's frustrating to be unable, for example, to tweak a link in an old article because you don't have access to it (a problem I have with articles on many sites). I would bet that just about anything you thought was worthy of inclusion on your site would pass muster here, if you chose to submit it here.

Well, among other things.  My RPG site and essays long predate my involvement with the Forge and the Forge itself by many years.  It's also arguably more prominent than the Forge (i.e search of "rpg theory" in Google, for example).  So I'm going to put them on my own site regardless.  Now I could submit them to have a duplicate hosted at the Forge, but it seems a bit odd at least.  

That said, do you think I should submit my essays?  Should we encourage other members to submit their works (i.e. Jonathan Walton's, Chris Chinn's, and Hunter Logan's RPGnet columns, for example)?

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. That's only 10 of 19 of the articles. If one wanted to reduce the proportions there, all the GNS stuff could be linked under one page. That is, the articles page would have a link to a page that discusses and links to the GNS actual GNS articles. Might be somewhere to mention their historical progression.

Mostly the disparity lies in the review section. Which is because at one point only Ron was allowed to do reviews, and even when opened up, not many people did any. I think that they've mostly forgotten that we do reviews here at all.

I know that I kinda had.

That is, I only go to the review page when I see a new review posted as being up in some other forum. Do people actually go looking for reviews here? Hmmm.

We could just put the reviews listed by name without the reviewer, and then have the reviewer's name with a page that links to their reviews. That way it wouldn't look like it at a glance. Still is there any evidence that this gives the appearance of some improriety or bias? Again, do people even know about the link?

Mike

[ethan_greer]

Yeah, John, I think that's not a bad idea at all.  The author retains the rights to the work, and it gets the work to a wider audience. Good for the author.  And the Forge Articles section becomes a more diverse venue.  Good for the Forge.

[Hunter Logan]

I know for fact, Ron is receptive to outside articles. I'm not opposed to providing material to The Forge. Old material might be revised; thinking changes over time. New material is better. It seems a lot of people have had ideas worthy of articles, but writing articles takes real time and dedication. So, I'm not surprised that articles emerge slowly, if at all.

Jonathan Walton's articles seem to me like a slam-dunk for the Forge, but he has cited quality issues.

[A.Neill]

I know that I kinda had.

That is, I only go to the review page when I see a new review posted as being up in some other forum. Do people actually go looking for reviews here? Hmmm.

Mike

I'd forgotten about them as well - until recently. I'm half thinking of doing a Pool game and went looking for the review. A lot easier to find and digest than searching the fora for actual Pool play.

While I was in the review section I got sucked into the old Wuthering Heights review - which has whetted my appetite to give it another whirl.

I've mentioned it before, but I think the Forge could do with an entry screen, similar maybe to GO of old - dipping toes in the shallow end so to speak. The intro screen could point to the glossary, reviews, news and the fora. This structure would facilitate new forgites by pointing to useful knowledge stores, while reminding folks who've been around the forge block that the forge is more than just its fora.

Alan.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmmm. The Forge used to have an intro screen, and they got rid of it because folks like me complained that it was just another click in the way of getting to the fora. Maybe too hasty?

Mike

[M. J. Young]

Hmmm. The Forge used to have an intro screen, and they got rid of it because folks like me complained that it was just another click in the way of getting to the fora. Maybe too hasty?

Mike

Oh, so you're the culprit. I wondered why they did away with it.

Seriously, why is it another click? When I leave here, I go to the Table Talk forum at Old Lutheran. I rarely ever see the Old Lutheran entry page--my bookmarks collection sends me directly to the forum itself. Simlarly, I've got separate links to the Forge forum and articles sections, and at GO I have links to the main page, the Multiverser forum, and many individual articles.

I don't know that a front page is necessary; there was talk not so long ago of designing a reference page and putting a prominent link at the top of the forums so that newcomers would know where to find introductory information. (I forwarded some content ideas on this to Ron a while back; I'm not sure whether he had any further thoughts on it.) Anyway, something would be helpful; it's just a matter of recognizing what.

--M. J. Young