Starting a project

[Dovahn]

So here's my question: Up till this point, in order to start a "project", you had to PM the admin and he (or she) would set up a forum for you (if you could prove there was interest, I guess).

However, this won't work forever. How should we decide what ages are worth starting a forum over? How do we decide what ages are "official"? Do we need to?

I leave it open to discussion.

Dovahn

[Lehm]

Here's my thought. I think there should be a small set of 'official' projects, that get there own forum. How we go about deciding what those are...??? Others would be free to do their own projects with teams they came up with. But they wouldn't be official or get their own forum. If every idea/project got it's own forum...I think there would be far too many, and would be unmanagalbe.

[Pryftan]

I don't think this will be necessary for most Ages.. we should be able to build smaller projects right in the sections that have been provided for us. I think we should just do work on ideas until we feel like we're taking up too much room in the main forums, at which point we'll ask for a new section. Otherwise it makes sense to try and continue in the main areas.

[Lehm]

From a logistics stand-point, okay I get you. But I was thinking more from a standpoint of surprise. Even though I plan on being around. It'd be nice to not know everything about every age released. So when a new one is released I'd be exploring it for the first time, rather than knowing everything about it. I had kind of thought of the existing sections as places of mentorship and how to, rather the specific age planning.

[Pryftan]

Yeah, that's a complex issue. I don't really know how to resolve the following:
a) Projects should be open so that anybody who can contribute will.
b) Projects should be private so that puzzle solutions and Age design isn't spoiled for people who don't want them spoiled.

Maybe we can just mark threads with Spoiler Alerts in the title..? Will that work? What do you think?

[Jennifer_P]

Well, I know that if I were making a project, I would want my project to be a nearly complete surprise. I might release a few screenshots for enticement or "Coming soon" purposes, like Cyan does, but otherwise I would want total secrecy. That's just how I would prefer it...

[Pryftan]

I think I would be too aware of the fact that my project might be missing out on random touches by other talented people. The value of an image to inspire a song, or vice versa, or an image an image, or an image an idea.. it's that sort of thing that keeps a project going. Too much secrecy can kill a project when the ideas dry up.. I would be happy with surprising non-Writers, personally. Or if I did a private project I'd want to make sure I recruited the very best..

[theclam]

I'm not sure why privacy is needed for all projects. It's not thrusting spoilers in people's faces; the assumption is that anyone reading through a project-specific forum here is intending to help out.

[Lehm]

I'm not sure why privacy is needed for all projects. It's not thrusting spoilers in people's faces; the assumption is that anyone reading through a project-specific forum here is intending to help out.

I think the question Clam is should there be project specific forums.

I'm thinking the best route may be to have seperate, non-passworded forums for larger semi official ages, like the two that exist now So that those wanting to avoid spoilers can, but is still open for everyone to comment on it. For smaller projects or those wanting total secrecy, they can always use PM's. That would leave the remaining forums to discuss elements of the various crafts.

[Dovahn]

But we can't have fifty different hidden sub-forums; it's just impractical. How do we decide what groups get a subforum. If someone just wanted to make a small age that wasn't going to be finished, how would the administrator creating the subforum know that?

Should there be some sort of "council" that decides what ages the guild wants to be "official"?