Thank you WizO Paradox for your thoughtful comments. I appreciate the time you've taken to assist with understanding here.
WizO_Paradox said:
Foundations are a whole other animal seperate from the ISRP area. If you want me to address the issue, please start a thread on the D&D Meta board, thanks.
I'm not sure I'm happy about the reference to "animal" here - but I take your point. If I could revise the term to a Foundation as a "Living Entity" - I'm happy.
Absolutely not true. There was a huge thread on foundations on the Meta board, and there was even a poll. The discussion basicly broke down to "Get rid of the foundations" and "Keep the foundations."
Before moving into the Metaboards option - a brief reply to your comment:
I did respond several times in detail on that thread. As I have indicated - there were no responses to my comments
from WizOs - to those comments - where I
would have been delighted to have interacted with the Management community - to not only address other posters concerns - but to bring "Foundation Thread Keeper's" perspective to it. I didn't want to speak to other posters - directly - for fear of flame-warring.
I think the problem is that I have not received a clear answer what a foundation is. We don't want cliques (People who only post to the foundation threads), and we have a whole area for in character roleplaying. There is even an Off Topic board to "get to know" everyone.
I really appreciate this comment - it is in fact at the Heart of what we are doing at our Foundation currently. Provoked by the new Guidelines, we are involved in a "self-reflective" phase over the history of the Foundation - where we use this reflective time - to define exactly who we are, what we do, how we contribute prosocially and productively to the community, how we can give feedback about the CoC here and how we continue to bring our Social Conscience to our work, and how to move forwards without turning the Foundation into a dry-as-chips-dead-production-only-cold-clinical-misery zone.
About the CoC - yours and my above comments highlight one of my concerns about WotC policy beautifully (the ontopic/offtopic bit). Specifically: in talking about the CoC - we cannot do this without discussing the overlapping bits - that are about MetaBoards stuff. In this case: the relationship between the CoC and Foundations. Two
deeply intertwined, interlocking themes.
Thus -
This is about two things: "what a Foundation is" and also "how should we interrelate the idea about a Foundation with CoC policy - in a way that yields benefits to the WotC community.
So - at the Heart - every discussion is multiply determined - has multiple themes, components and elements - and those determining aspects, actually overlap with several Boards at WotC. Every time. PHB concepts are deeply intertwined with Roleplay. Foundation output (i.e. PHB Goods for other posters) - is deeply intertwined with Spam and (some) roleplay (see my earlier post here).
That is - the one (spam/roleplay) "provokes or inspires" the other (PHB "Goods").
that this overlap is very natural and very healthy - so the elements of the CoC - that speak to "on-topic" "off-topic" delineations - are deterrent to the Healthy proliferation of discussion, discourse, functioning and community. Any well-rounded Boards discussion needs to speak to multiple themes, draw on multiple elements and has a natural "tone" all of its own
As I've said, I'd be happy to go over it all again either on email or on the D&D Meta board.
I really appreciate this invitation. While I am actually a bit scared of you (your Avatar is SCARY) - and we all know what a post from you means on our Threads (apogies to you on one level because - I know there's a
real person behind your avatar - it all gets so confusing), I am happy to give it a go, and I would love to be able to post and be
heard -
And while I'm using lots of words here - I need to alert you to the fact that I do this - because at the heart of what I'm doing is my Heart - and my love for my community.
I love our Foundation - I love my posters - I work hard to make them happy, and we are a fine Foundation with a compassionate social conscience.
So - the CoC is actually terrifying - it threatens our firmament, and our Foundation, our community and my peace. But - to be clear, this isn't mud-slinging - I'm doing my best to summon the necessary courage it takes to speak to WizO's - who are a BIG presence here at WotC.
My Well Wishes to you and Regards - I really appreciate your assistance and comments.
Stavros
