What the heck is BAD talking about?

[Trylon]

I've got the perfect solution:
We start the "Guild of non-aligned explorers" - that way everyone is in a Guild

[andylegate]

ROFL!!!

How about "Guild Of Everyone Else" !!!!

hehehe.

GoEE:

Leaders: Everyone!

[Nalates]

There are a few things I see.

The guilds have been accused of many things and actions unjustly and without evidence. People project their personalities and fears on the guilds. No matter how you try to change, it does not change those that make the accusations. Being careful and aware of the phenomenon is about all anyone can do. Knock the accusations down when you can and move on. GoW and GoMa are doing good work and have good people. I think the majority of the community knows that. Let the minority go their own way.

Another forum... neutral forum... a non-guild forum... ‘More forums’ is not an idea I like. Basically I oppose more forums. If groups want to form them, ok. But, I belong to more than enough now.

I don't care for the MOUL forum as a neutral place. I do not believe it is all that neutral. I think the two historical places that deserve consideration for a neutral meeting place is UO or COBBS. We have a lot of history with UO. As often as I have had problems with UO I have also have had a good support from UO. COBBS has always been open and supportive and while I have never had problems on that forum, it does have a bit more of an …adult… nature.

The GoC has their main forum on UO. But I do not see that as preventing a new subsection for Inter-Guild or a Shard Operator Fans from being opened. After all the GoC does not operate or moderate the forum. I do see it as more convenient for the community. It will have a significant opening population. I also think UO deserves support, as does COBBS.

COBBS is where much of the Uru hacking and UU build effort happened. So, historically it may be a better place for shard developers. It has crashed and its database of postings lost a couple of times. SO, there are some considerations.

My main point is using an existing forum for a neutral meeting place may be the best choice. UO is already the ‘everyone else forum’ alternative to the MOUL forum.

Voting… electing officials… setting up decision processes… that all sounds like a lot of bureaucratic work. I think it will certainly slow down the process of getting Uru online. I suggest we avoid the whole bureaucracy thing. Let’s go the free people route. Those in the guilds are likely going to be the fans that put up a server or some coalition of core fans will. I think that will happen on the guild forums or the Neutral Forum. I’m against more bureaucracy. Those that distrust Cyan and the guilds will distrust a new coalition too. Save the time.

[Trylon]

The guilds have been accused of many things and actions unjustly and without evidence. People project their personalities and fears on the guilds. No matter how you try to change, it does not change those that make the accusations. Being careful and aware of the phenomenon is about all anyone can do. Knock the accusations down when you can and move on. GoW and GoMa are doing good work and have good people. I think the majority of the community knows that. Let the minority go their own way.

Another forum... neutral forum... a non-guild forum... ‘More forums’ is not an idea I like. Basically I oppose more forums. If groups want to form them, ok. But, I belong to more than enough now.

I don't care for the MOUL forum as a neutral place. I do not believe it is all that neutral. I think the two historical places that deserve consideration for a neutral meeting place is UO or COBBS. We have a lot of history with UO. As often as I have had problems with UO I have also have had a good support from UO. COBBS has always been open and supportive and while I have never had problems on that forum, it does have a bit more of an …adult… nature.

Voting… electing officials… setting up decision processes… that all sounds like a lot of bureaucratic work. I think it will certainly slow down the process of getting Uru online. I suggest we avoid the whole bureaucracy thing. Let’s go the free people route. Those in the guilds are likely going to be the fans that put up a server or some coalition of core fans will. I think that will happen on the guild forums or the Neutral Forum. I’m against more bureaucracy. Those that distrust Cyan and the guilds will distrust a new coalition too. Save the time.

Hear Hear

[BAD]

I also think Natales hits it on the head.

I think UO would be good, if they are willing to do it. Cobbs would be a great place too, but again I don't know if we could get a family friendly atmosphere going there.

Perhaps this is something we should decide later, by a vote or by simply asking around to see who would be willing to support such a big movement.

The more I think about it, the more I feel opposed to setting up a new forum, yet, if the community uses an existing forum, that forum will have to make very drastic changes to accommodate everyone. Not to mention server space, Wiki, and any other detail this will demand.

[Chacal]

I think Nalates is right in principle, I'm not sure about UO and COBBS though.

UO is an old community, I've lurked there a lot and participated a little. It was even my neighborhood on line. But it has a long history of political strife and internal unrest. It was amazingly inactive during MO:UL (apart from "the cavern today"), to the point I stopped bothering to go check. MOUL, despite its clutter, was where things happened.

COBBS is, or was, a hacker place. Undoubtedly the best place for discussion on HOW to run a shard, as opposed to WHAT content or story to run on it. The best devs and shard admins could be found there and it is the home of Alcugs. But is it still alive? Not much traffic anymore, lots of people have gone away. I have lost my account info a few years ago, and have asked for a new account months ago. Never received an answer. Also it is not clear to me what COOBS is, outside the Alcugs and H'uru sections. Who owns it and runs it?

So yeah, there's a need for both a community forum about content, story, etc, and a technical forum (which is the one I'd be interested in). But both of those should be hosted by active communities. Of course, we could still set up shop on UO and COBBS and blow the dust and the cobwebs away. I guess.

[Sophia]

Non-pragmatic people will be unhappy anyway and they tend to congregate on MOUL.

Noted I choose not to be offended

MOUL, despite its clutter, was where things happened.

Anyway, I don't wish to lure you or others to a place you don't like too much, but right now, yes there is a lot of clutter and blah blah there, but also some nice discussion going on that I think might interest the GoW members All I'm saying is don't dismiss that forum altogether yet!

[Nalates]

[...] But it has a long history of political strife and internal unrest. It was amazingly inactive during MO:UL (apart from "the cavern today"), to the point I stopped bothering to go check. MOUL, despite its clutter, was where things happened.

I certainly had my problems with UO in 03/04. UO was tight with Cyan and had UO moderators blocking anything remotely related to hacking. I went around with mod's over a post on how to back up Uru. In the end it was not allowed and that sort of info was posted at COBBS. UO felt very much like I experience MOUL now. Then our only other real choice was COBBS. Now we have GoW and GoMa. I think UO is much more relaxed now.

I think many of the new Uru players came in via GT and easily found the MOUL forum. UO was ignored by all but the earlier fans. UO has history with Uru and seems guild neutral. I see it as least effort solution.

We can try to involve the community to vote on where to setup a central place, OpenUru.org (new forum), UO, COBBS, etc etc. Or we can just create a section in each place MOUL, UO, here at GoW or pick just one, start the section (point people to it) and see where people post. After all the point of an election is to give people choice. If the guilds throw their weight behind anyone of them, that is the one likely to become dominant. In which case, we (the guilds) have effectively made the choice. If we wait to see where people post, they effectively make the choice (vote in a way). Seems we can accomplish the same goals as an election with less effort.

I've floated the idea at UO and will do so at MOUL. If we get discussion, then we may want to move toward deciding on a neutral forum. If there is no discussion, may be a section here or at MOUL or GoMa is all we need because those fearing the guilds' iron handed all controlling all omnipotent infinite power have received professional help and no longer see guilds as an issue. (serious tongue in cheek)

As to creating another wiki... that also is an idea I dislike. Wiki's are information. There is little if any opinion in Uru tech wiki's. Moderation at a wiki is about whether info is correct and that is not a matter of opinion. Plus moderation is more open as more people can edit the info there. So, I do not see the need for another wiki. GoW and GoMa wiki's have somewhat dissimilar goals and info and some overlap too. So, I see no need for a separate shard operator’s wiki. I may be wrong on that, but I think a section in the GoW wiki is the correct place for that tech info.

[Tweek]

Whilst I think a guild ran server should be operated from the guild forums (it makes sense afterall), if there is a push for it being somewhere neutral then I think openuru.org is the most logical choice in this respect.

I personally would rather not see it hosted on UO, it does have history of issues, as it stands IMO it is cluttered (to many topic sections) and feel adding to it would make the situation worse, not only that the forum software there is so damn old, and wont be upgraded, is it going to give what is needed? Are you going to need certain user groups, forum permissions etc set up?

[Dot]

Perhaps it would help to separate the issues: the server run by the guilds, and the general work that needs to be done to enable servers to be set up in the first place.

To help focus on the latter, an open project forum called 'System Concepts' has been set up on the Open Uru site, with the tagline 'Focusing On "Big Picture" Technical Practicalities To Get Open Uru Online'. Here's the link: http://forums.openuru.org/viewforum.php?f=17

If anyone would like to participate in those discussions they would be very welcome indeed.