Here's a list of practical paths to take for the community. I don't agree with everything I'm about to say. A lot of these talking points spring from differing attitudes expressed to me by other people, individually, in private.
Actual actionable things we can DO:
- Let's give this Social thread a reset. It started over five years ago, and contains a lot of history -- great. Let's lock it and leave it to be read when you feel like reminiscing. The collective "we" who are here right now aren't "DGames", we're (for the most part) tight friends who all play mafia on the same sub-forum of SWF, and we don't need five years of clogged history to stay that way. Let's start and pin a new social thread that can be open to new people to introduce themselves, welcoming them to Decisive Games. We should encourage serious and prolonged debate to be taken to private conversation, except when it concerns the games. Or, run a DGame that somehow involves serious debate as gameplay. Point is, that debate is part of our familiarity with one another, which is great, but a social thread should not continue to be The Serious Issues Show. We can exist as friends and conversation partners as a community without it being so toxic.
Perspective: the average person clicks into this sub-forum right now. What do they see? A social thread with 1200 pages starting in 2009. That's not inviting at all. Granted, other sub-forums let their socials grow larger prior to reset, but they have people coming for Smash-related talk. We don't have that pull. Their socials also grow larger faster, so they do their resets within months to a year. Our thread started in 2009, which does not scream that we are current. That, coupled with the low number of threads compared to other subforums, does not scream that we are current. And that, coupled with the very large thread size across our sub-forum, encourages people to think we're small and exclusive. We can't change game size, but we can renew the Social thread.
- Let's write a standard ruleset. Every game mod makes their own slightly different rules in every game, but they're always based on the same set. So let's write it down, in its own pinned thread, and include every rule we all agree on (at the very least, anything dealing with player interactions like rule #1 or private conversation rules.) Then, someone running a game should specify any rules in their game that will differ from the standard set, as well as anything game-specific. There could also be a standard mafia subset of rules, but that's much less relevant at the moment.
- Let's get another moderator. Someone who is down to police the social thread, AND to read games too, taking a more active role in laying down rules. This mod should enforce things like rule #1 (in discussion with a game's mod about implementation) because that should not be left to a game's mod alone. If no one who is currently a moderator is interested, get someone modded who fits the above.
- Let's go recruit. Go talk about Smash 4 with a DGames link in your signature (I see some people already doing that, and good on you) and I am down to make banners if people want them. Let's also specifically send out envoys to other sub-forums (e.g. Gova goes to Lucina Social) to talk about that content (because it would be dickish otherwise) as well as grabbing people for mafia. X1 did that once with Mario Social, and it went well. We should also recruit from other forums, once this sub-forum is made more inviting. Smash Bros is not a hard sell; the hard part is being inviting and not crippling. We used to be extremely good at this, but now players only stay if they are inclined to put up with us.
- Let's try not to discourage people from making new threads. Is there really any reason not to run Thread X and Thread Y? Rather than shooting ideas down, just run the damn thing and see how it goes. There seems to be a pervasive attitude in DGames where new threads that aren't games are shot down before they're even made. If a thread is bad, it can fall into obscurity on its own merits or lack thereof, but it doesn't need to be torn into pieces beforehand.