to be honest, SoW is a noble effort to educate new players.
that way, playing against them will be more fun than playing against a complete newbie, raising the overall average of the players on this site.

I approve of this.

As a newcomer to this site I approve this message or product.

I agree with The Dingle

agree dingle

sorry guys... we don't want this to become a group of elite dip players... we want to RAISE AWARENESS of the greatness of the game, get more people involved so we have more games playing and more opponents and styles to play against. This is a good thing.

If there was a way to categorize forums, though, like a BBoard system, that way we can keep the SoW threads seperate so you guys didn't have to read them, I think we'd have the best of both worlds...

I love the school of war idea both in theory and in practice, but I think it is annoying in the forum as well. And for it to work, it has to stay on the page which means it has to be bumped frequently.

This is yet another reason why we need NORMAL forums...please?????

not saying its not a good idea but do you have to have so many

sorry dingle, figle, trim, ag7433 - if yall see a better way for us to do the school of war project without having to create the various threads, please share them.

and i agree about forum sorting - i don't really care about any of the threads not related to dip on here, so i would rather not have to see them, and they often push other, better threads, off =P so i don't mind seeing SoW push them off lol

No, the problem is I don't see a better method. And it was a problem before SoW started, with multiple public press games going at the same time. They are exclusive threads.

yeah, i wish there was a better solution.

but i don't think they are exclusive threads, the school of war ones at least. tho they might not help an expert player like you, the idea is that maybe newer players follow along and learn from them, even if they're not in the game.

but fair enough, you don't want to read them, i don't want to read the threads about socialised health or who believes in god. maybe there's a common solution coming in the long-await update! or maybe the next one after that... =D

". tho they might not help an expert player like you, "

LOL, thanks for the chuckle. I'm sure I have a lot to learn and those threads would be helpful for me. I commend the effort (though I fear we will create robotic players who all think exactly the same). No, I barely have enough time to play my own games, I don't have time to analyze games I'm NOT involved in.

you could just have one at a time :p awww doesnt matter anyway it doesnt bother me that much and i love the way this forum is set out so im going to stop complaining as it might end up being counterproductive

actually trim101, that's a fine idea, or at least have fewer at a time. i think that's likely to happen now - after the initial rush of interest, we can hold off on new ones for a bit.

Re: non-Diplomacy related threads...
As much as socialized health care and god have nothing to do with the game of Diplomacy... there is still a certain logic to those sorts of threads existing here. Two reasons that I can think of: 1) It creates community beyond Diplomacy itself... when you talk at the water cooler at your work, you don't necessarily talk only about work, do you? It is pleasant and allows for a convenient way to pass a few minutes of time here and there while you await an in-game response to a message regarding a proposed move, 2) Talk here at this site is surprisingly civilized and educated... due presumably to the nature of the game, it seems to filter out most of the idiots that you might encounter in other forums elsewhere. Some high quality discussions sometimes result - and these might not happen many other place.

Na, as people say I don't mind. As I'm on here more than almost anyone it doesn't even affect me. However, I have to say I would be horrified if we got a rule banning non-dip threads!
As many know I've long been in support of improving the forum system. Not replacing, improving. It is one of a number of things i would like to look into changing when we move up a version.

Dingle: "I fear we will create robotic players who all think exactly the same."

In all honesty, if I played robotically and, as a result, died less often or less quickly, I would be pretty happy. Not that it's going to happen (me playing like a robot), but I'd take the trade-off.

Figle: "...when we move up a version."

When?

Sorry, but I don't know when. Kestas has given estimates recently and people have taken them as deadlines which isn't how this sort of software develops - inevitably it has to take the background when any real work comes along. Still, I hear he's getting there

well figle you told me it was happening tomorow :p

and it was a big secret

Two things:

Aren't there free forum resources out there? I know it might not be part of this web domain.. but with this website's membership growing it seems like it wouldn't be that hard to sustain another forum somewhere else (one with better features/more traditional layout).
I've never done such things myself, but every little online organization has one, and must've them are just a default pHp/whatever template on some site (with maybe some banner ads, unfortunately).

Also:
I really think the SoW stuff should be moved to free blog space. The one on Ghostmaker's blog was a start(though it's not being updated). The point is, all this hard work and clever advice is going to disappear into the internet ether if you keep it on this forum. If you put it somewhere more permaneant then it would be *much* more useful because you'd slowly build a library of games with commentary for public consumption.

Sure the advice is going to disappear, but its individual game relevant. If you want diplomacy strategy articles just read up at diplomacy-archive.com.

I think improving players is very important. If it scorns your eyes to look upon it while searching for diplomat-related-flame-wars, then I advise you to scroll faster.

Yes ther are Mr. Pin, and many of them can be quite easily hacked into a site, but they never truely belong and there is something about this forum many players really like. I would like to see 1 set of categories (Mod/Help/Meeting Room/General/Tactics maybe?), but apart from that the forum is lovely as it is

well - i'm going to keep my comment short.

you dont like it? tough! =P

seriously though - look at the 50 threads up there... you tell me which ones are more relevant than the SoW threads? as has been said - to help raise the level of play in the community which results in better games... now I could understand if some ofour vets enjoy having newbies without the skills, after all, makes for easier wins no? hehehe...

@Figle:
Well I don't mean to complain.. indeed I'm not at all..
But from my own experience with forums I feel like the ability to keep many old threads available for a long period of time is rather essential as communties grow.

I understand what you're saying about the style and everything else.. but surely you must agree that there's a need for archives or a much larger max-thread limit if the forum is to be used as anything more than a bulletin board for daily messages.. no?

I guess Centurian/Babak aren't worried about their SoW threads dieing, and maybe this is because I come from a different sort of forum environment-background.. But it seems like a tragic waste to me for meaningful community-building discussion to be lost amidst people asking (for the 10,000th time) about simple game rule dynamics and other items (which, incidentally, would be neatly handled by a simple, clean, user driven FAQ post stickied at the top of a list on any other forum site).

I don't know anything about the hacking issues or any other considerations.. but I feel pretty strongly that internet communities benefit immensely from systems which record their works for more than a few short weeks. That's one of the fundamental revolutions of the digital age with its near-endless hard drive storage space, after all.

^I consider this a philosophical debate. I'm really not trying to demand/request work from anyone. (But I do think more permaneant forums make it much easier for devoted community members, like Cent/Babak, as well as the mods, to contribute).

well said Mr. Pinguin... cant say I disagree.

Haha. Yes, with the recent crunch the SoW threads and various other Public Press and Meta Diplomacy threads going on, I feel like the forum is getting a little crowded. The SoW threads are probably the most effective threads on the forum in terms of being diplomacy related and raising awareness and whatnot. Though, to be honest, I only really come to the forum to fight people. =)

I'd prefer those involved in SoW to have a " <profile name> - SoW" so I know not to be involved in a guild game when I join.

(ooooh, i feel the flames coming)

i think this is a reference to old fights on here, but i can't remember...