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Poll: Library Merger


fishers64

Recent Merger Proposals (see ticket below)  

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Comedies, short stories, and epics are all so different, they really need to be kept separate. Merging them would cause clutter and definitely confusion as the the format of the works and their genres, and having the three separate subforums as they are now isn't like, out of hand or anything. Three is a good number. It's very neat.

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I like things the way they are. I don't want to be looking through the epics forum and find something that sounds interesting only to find it's just a nonsensical comedy (I'm not all that big of a fan of the comedies, though there are a few good ones). I do see the sense in combining the comedies forum, but leave epics and short story separate.

Edited by Click
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I like things the way they are. I don't want to be looking through the epics forum and find something that sounds interesting only to find it's just a nonsensical comedy (I'm not all that big of a fan of the comedies, though there are a few good ones). I do see the sense in combining the comedies forum, but leave epics and short story separate.

I suppose we could mention what type of fics they are in the tags.

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I wouldn't want all three of them merged together, but I do think that the Comedy Forum merging with the other two would be a great idea. Last time I checked it, the Comedy Forum didn't look very active at all. Which is a shame because it used to have some great stories in it. Merging it with the SS and Epic Forums could bring more attention to the comedies currently being posted.

Everyone is one choice away from being the bad guy in another person's story.


 


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Fact #1: Comedies is literally on life support.

 

Fact #2: I don't need any others, because Fact #1 is proof enough that the Comedies forum should no longer exist. I dislike the idea of merging the entire library (that would induce far too much clutter), but I'm all for merging Comedies in Epics/SS and keeping the latter two separate. In this day and age, I do not believe that humor is quite what it was when this website began, and the need for it to have its own forum is, at this point, nothing more than an archaic tradition.

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Fact #1: Comedies is literally on life support.

 

Fact #2: I don't need any others, because Fact #1 is proof enough that the Comedies forum should no longer exist. I dislike the idea of merging the entire library (that would induce far too much clutter), but I'm all for merging Comedies in Epics/SS and keeping the latter two separate. In this day and age, I do not believe that humor is quite what it was when this website began, and the need for it to have its own forum is, at this point, nothing more than an archaic tradition.

 

With that being said, while Fact #1 is obvious, I can't imagine how merging it with short stories would help (or hinder) its activity. To use a BIONICLE analogy, it's like if you're keeping all your broken and cracked pieces in a container of their own and you're sick of looking at it because you never use them anymore. You still have the ability to use the parts for some things, but you choose not to because... well, IDK why people don't write comedies anymore. Too difficult? Lack of interest? Whatever. So you decide to stick them in a closet or something...

 

...but they're still broken. We need to use some proverbial super-glue to fix the problem instead of getting the comedies forum out of our sight. That's not really going to do much. I say that more contests, similar to The Lego Movie contest earlier this year, could possibly do something to help. At the very least, it would get the Comedies forum into the forefront of peoples' minds again. Merging it with SS would do the opposite.

 

THAT BEING SAID, I do understand the concerns some people have expressed in regards to the tone of stories being a problem over the years due to feeling the need to filter out jokes from their serious works. Perhaps having Comedies merge with SS would open the doors to more creative freedom around here; I'm speaking more from the perspective of a reader than an author, myself, so I acknowledge different groups have different ideas on how this could benefit activity. I'm just not sure I share them. :P

 

-Mesonak

Edited by Mesonak

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Seeing as the Comedies forum is being singled out as the worst sufferer, why not transfer all the short comedy topics into Short Stories and all the long ones into Epics, then remove the empty Comedies forum? All subsequent works of comedic nature written thereafter can be posted in either of the remaining two forums (depending on their length).

 

I know the transferring of topics will be a bit of work, but if their forum is as stagnant as is made out it shouldn't take that long.

Edited by Sir Kohran
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I don't like the idea of merging everything into one forum. Epics and Short Stories are structured in completely different ways, and combining the three would just be ... no.

I've been more and more of a convert to the idea of eliminating Comedies and making humorous stories a part of the existing two. Multi-chapter comedies are hard to navigate, and applying the two-topic rule to those would be great. I used to think that the Comedies culture would make this a bad idea, and that might have been true years ago, but with activity now, that's not the case.

If we had to go with something, I'd go for merging Comedies. Epics and Short Stories might have their own problems with activity, but the structure of their forums more or less rules out a possible merge.

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avatar by Lady Kopaka


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Change confuses and frightens me.

YOU CHANGING CONFuSEs and frightens ME mmmboy

 

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I am all for the complete dissolving of social segregation, communism, the great melting pot, etc etc, also I feel that merging comedies will help dissolve the "script format" stigma surrounding the forum that causes a disproportionate amount of bias from people who haven't visited in years

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「どこに行けばいいんだ・・・」「タ・コロ村はもうおしまいだ・・・」タ・コロ村の村人達
hey it's Studio Comic

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The lack of activity makes a big ol' merge sound like a good idea, but I feel like it might cause some confusion/clutter. I think merging the three but keeping Epics/Short Stories separate might be an idea worth exploring.

 

Not like I'm in there often enough to make a truly informed decision, unfortunately.

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Fact #1: Comedies is literally on life support.

 

Fact #2: I don't need any others, because Fact #1 is proof enough that the Comedies forum should no longer exist. I dislike the idea of merging the entire library (that would induce far too much clutter), but I'm all for merging Comedies in Epics/SS and keeping the latter two separate. In this day and age, I do not believe that humor is quite what it was when this website began, and the need for it to have its own forum is, at this point, nothing more than an archaic tradition.

 

With that being said, while Fact #1 is obvious, I can't imagine how merging it with short stories would help (or hinder) its activity. To use a BIONICLE analogy, it's like if you're keeping all your broken and cracked pieces in a container of their own and you're sick of looking at it because you never use them anymore. You still have the ability to use the parts for some things, but you choose not to because... well, IDK why people don't write comedies anymore. Too difficult? Lack of interest? Whatever. So you decide to stick them in a closet or something...

 

...but they're still broken. We need to use some proverbial super-glue to fix the problem instead of getting the comedies forum out of our sight. That's not really going to do much. I say that more contests, similar to The Lego Movie contest earlier this year, could possibly do something to help. At the very least, it would get the Comedies forum into the forefront of peoples' minds again. Merging it with SS would do the opposite.

 

THAT BEING SAID, I do understand the concerns some people have expressed in regards to the tone of stories being a problem over the years due to feeling the need to filter out jokes from their serious works. Perhaps having Comedies merge with SS would open the doors to more creative freedom around here; I'm speaking more from the perspective of a reader than an author, myself, so I acknowledge different groups have different ideas on how this could benefit activity. I'm just not sure I share them. :P

 

-Mesonak

 

 

Your final paragraph highlights a very important benefit to merging Comedies into Epics & Short Stories (and, to touch on his post briefly, I believe Sumiki explained why we should still keep Epics & Short Stories separate very well).

 

That said, the contest earlier this year was negligible in the activity it raised. Out of the... four (?) entries that were entered, none of the authors of said comedies have visited the forum since, and it did nothing to increase the activity of the forum afterwards. In order for contests to boost the activity, we would need to start hosting contests one after the other with no break in between. Which, while theoretically it would work, it would involve a lot of work on part of the staff that might not be necessary.

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Here's the thing, though: I'm not entirely sure contests equal activity. In fact, at this rate, I'd be more inclined to say that they do nothing for a given forum's overall activity rate.

 

You might get a few members in the forum who otherwise wouldn't normally post there, but those members don't usually stay around. I can't really ever recall anyone who joined just to participate in a contest.

 

The contests are there to get the regulars of a given forum to participate, but in as far as attracting new patrons, they're really not that effective.

 

I wish I could offer an alternative solution, or the germ of an idea that would serve to inject some activity back into BZPower, but I don't have that. All I see is the fact that contests really aren't effective in this sense.

Edited by Sumiki
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avatar by Lady Kopaka


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in the interest of fair and unbiased polling i voted to merge the forums

 

now that i have completed this fair and unbiased poll i am staring in glee at marlon brando and his lovely face and body

 

mmmdemocracymmm

 

-Tyler

SAY IT ONE MORE TIME 

TELL ME WHAT IS ON YOUR MIND

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So this is an issue that's been getting kicked around for a few months now, and it's good to see some solid responses/numbers on it. Thanks for making the poll, fishers.

 

It seems like quite a few people are in favor of some sort of merge. At present, I'm most inclined towards merging comedies into Epics/SS, but leaving that distinction. That said, there are comedies that rely on things like reader feedback, and so work much better as a single story/discussion topic, which doesn't really gel with Epics rules. So why not tweak those a bit as well?

 

How do people feel about the following setup:

  • One-off stories go in Short Stories; discussion and feedback is posted in that topic, same as now. If someone really wants to continue an SS due to reader feedback, they can PM me or a global mod/admin to move it to Epics, where...
  • Multi-chapter stories go in Epics. The current rule in Epics is that all stories have a story topic and review topic. Instead of that, people would have a choice: if they prefer to stick to that style, that's totally fine, and they should just make/link to a review topic. If they prefer to have discussion, reviews, and feedback in the topic itself - like Comedies or Comics - they can do that as well, they should just state in the first post that discussion/reviews will be in this topic as well. (It also might not be a bad idea to make a table of contents so people can easily jump to actual story posts, but that's more a recommendation than a hard rule.)
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Hey: I'm not very active around BZP right now.  However, you can always contact me through PM (I have email notifications set up) and I will reply as soon as I can.


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*growl* Right now the poll results seem to be rather inconsistent. In the top question, Yes [strong & weak] has 14 votes, No [strong & weak] has 17 votes.

 

The second question: Yes - 11 votes. No - 14 votes.

 

Then the third question has 15 votes for the first, 10 for the second, and 9 for the third.

 

I think this is caused by cross voting between the first two options - if I just ran the top question, it would look like both of the options are rejected and we should do nothing, and if I just ran the bottom question, it looks like we should merge everything.

 

Someone with a better knowledge of stats please help.

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Personally, I like how it's separated now since - in the past, when I actively used the forums - the separation made it easier to find specific styles of stories one wanted to read.

 

But if those forums have become this quiet since I've last been in them (which has been a loooong while, really), then I could see a merger working -- but maybe putting distinctions in the thread title? Like [Epic] or [Comedy] or [short Story] just to make it organized for people who might feel more in the mood for one over the other and then have less topics to sift through while browsing. Plus, then, people could put in poetry (which generally went into the Short Story forum) and title/tag it [Poetry] __________ (the blank being the title). I don't really know if people really post poetry anymore, but I remember it being a thing (that and Song Fics, which were generally Short Stories).

 

I dunno, I'm kinda just tossing an idea out for organizational purposes. Sort of lifted from RP sites (Y'know, like labeling the type of thread before joining it, e.g: [Combat], [social], [Private], [Group], [Closed], etc... just with the type of story someone wrote up, instead of RP lingo).

 

 

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How do people feel about the following setup:

  • One-off stories go in Short Stories; discussion and feedback is posted in that topic, same as now. If someone really wants to continue an SS due to reader feedback, they can PM me or a global mod/admin to move it to Epics, where...
  • Multi-chapter stories go in Epics. The current rule in Epics is that all stories have a story topic and review topic. Instead of that, people would have a choice: if they prefer to stick to that style, that's totally fine, and they should just make/link to a review topic. If they prefer to have discussion, reviews, and feedback in the topic itself - like Comedies or Comics - they can do that as well, they should just state in the first post that discussion/reviews will be in this topic as well. (It also might not be a bad idea to make a table of contents so people can easily jump to actual story posts, but that's more a recommendation than a hard rule.)

 

1. I agree with this.

 

2. This, however, I feel should be one way or another, not both. Having the option to make a review topic or not could confuse some people unaware of the rule, even if the member who posted the story stated in the first post that he had a review topic for his story. Honestly, if comedies were to merge into the other two forums, I would want the comedies in the Epics Forum to have a review topic, just like the stories there do now. That would help keep the story topics a lot neater IMO.

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Everyone is one choice away from being the bad guy in another person's story.


 


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