Again, I don't make policy around here. I just enforce it. And maybe offer my opinion on it. So take this with a grain of salt...
To me, ENWorld has always been a "big tent" sort of site. I came here because I picked up 3e after about a dozen years of hardly playing D&D at all in favor of other RPG's. But since joining the site I've certainly not been a faithful player of 3e. I've dabbled in lots of other games and played almost two full years of WFRP2. I've been a member and participated in discussions here that entire time. I think that ENW can and has accomodated a wide variety of games and styles. I don't see that ending any time soon.
That said, the site also has had and will continue to have some kind of "focus". Heretofore, that focus has been 3.x. Now that focus is probably shifting more towards 4e.
Pause and consider for a moment before you fly into a rage because you love 3.x and don't wish to switch: Before 4e came out, some of the 3.x discussion was getting a bit stale, wasn't it? You may disagree, but it was for me. I'm not talking about the ideas that could be applied to various game systems or the threads about trying to come up with an interesting encounter for your Eberron campaign. Just that there was a lot of threads that I'd seen variants on many times. It kinda kept me from coming here all that much except to moderate.
Ever since the 4e announcement there has been a lot of new activity on the boards. Not all of it has been good, to be sure. The pace of Reported Posts has gone up by an order of magnitude compared to before GenCon last year. But, from where I'm sitting, it has certainly breathed some new life into the boards and defininately brought in some new people.
All of that sounds pretty cool if you're a 4e fan. If you are more of a 3.x person then I can understand some trepidation. But I also think that we're going to see some exciting stuff coming out that continues to support 3.x edition. I'm looking forward to the angles that the publishers out there come up with to add new and exciting content for the 3e fans too. And since those fans and publishers have long been members of this site, I think it's pretty safe to assume that they'll always have a home here.
Finally, to address the point that Mark makes upthread, I generally agree that we could be using the tools at hand to smooth out the running of the site a bit. EN2 is new to all of us however so we moderators are still getting the feel for some of the controls. Also, this is happening at a busy time for many of us, what with summer vacations and the like. I think that, as time goes on, you'll see some more of those options put into effect for purposes of managing discussions that get problematic.
Meanwhile I urge everybody to try their very best to treat your fellow ENWorlders with respect. Argue less and discuss more. Look for common ground rather than differences. When you start feeling angry and irritated then leave the thread or the site altogether. This is a hobby and it's supposed to be fun. We moderators do our best to keep this a fun place but, ultimately, we can't do that without cooperation from the members here.
So thanks to all of you for helping out as much as you can. We appreciate it!
