Please bring back Plots & Places Forum (merged)

[LightPhoenix]

If "a lot of the threads" in General Discussion were "P&P-worthy," isn't it a moderator's job to move them to the P&P forum?

Yes, it was. The moderators hardly ever did so though, and thus it became acceptable.

The first step is to make people aware of the forum and encourage them to post in the appropriate place. The second step is to have the moderators "weed out" (using their best judgement) the P&P from the GD and move the posts if they're inappropriately located. Soon, people will start to get the idea, and P&P will gain more traffic while the thread-cow that is GD will settle to a slightly more dull roar.

Don'tcha think?

One, if people are too lazy to scroll down and see what other forums exist, that's their problem, not Morrus's, the moderators', or ours.

Two, as I said above, weeding out the P&P posts would be extremely impractical at this point, since it would have to be done by hand, and you'd have to go through an extreme number of posts (at time of writing, around 510,000). This is nigh impossible. P&P is gone, the only way it would come back to life as a forum with no posts in it.

 

[Eosin the Red]

I had asked about this earlier but will reiterate myself here to keep current on the topic, since if you don't post apparently you are no longer allowed to have an opinion about something.

P&P threads are fated to be swallowed in GD. They are typically long and involved, often not even requiring a reply. Simply something that you read and noted. I replied to a thread 2 days ago in general since I occassionaly look at it for ideas (even though I had never posted to it before because I saw no need to post to it, it was there and I knew how to get to it) now that topic is on page 7 and it took me no small amount of searching to figure that out.

P&P is generally homebrew stuff. I might not read one of the monster posts for several days becase I don't have the time to sit still and really digest the essay, that does not mean that I don't have an interest in it or that I am lazy because I can't remember every topic that I wanted to look at when it is buried nearly 200 posts deep. If the topic was FR or GH or something similar the hordes of masses would keep the topic afloat but these little gems of personal inspiration (good and bad) will just never recieve the volume of posts that is required to stay afloat in GD. Like the rogues gallery or the story hours readership does not require replies, and like many of the RG threads good posts might only contain 5-6 replies and maybe even none at all. It does not diminish value of a posters contribution just cause the thread sinks in GD...In fact, replies have no relationship to the quality of a RG or PP thread.

I can live with the loss of P&P but hearing the folks who never used it say "tough, live with it in GD you lazy bum" is galling. We could just have one great big ENworld forum for all topics but we don't....why.... to organize things and make them easier to find. Those (apparently few) of us who used P&P feel no different than the rogues gallery folks would feel if they were outed into GD or the Story Hour folks if they were forced into the big blue of GD. Voicing those feelings to the HMF's of ENworld and getting replies of...."Quit being lazy" "You should have been checking out meta before the switch" and "I never did use them so I don't see what you are complaining about" is really petty. What does it matter to you if we voice the opinion that we lost something we like? Will it hurt you if we have P&P restored because enough people liked it and voiced that opinion? Does it somehow make your experience at ENWorld less for others to have something they like that you do not? If you feel that my being lazy is somehow something you need to personally oppose why not let us all stop being lazy and just merge all of enworld into one buzy forum? Afterall, what is the difference between looking at 18 seperate forums and looking at 18 pages of the same forum?

The calls to "lump it" by other board members is downright obnoxious. Kinda like the person who goes to the "Why I love X" thread and feels that he or she JUST HAS to post "X sucks, I hate and anyone with half a brain would also hate and here is why." Some people liked P&P and they are members of ENworld and should feel that they can speak their mind to the powers that be about the loss without being told "You should have read meta months ago" or "Quit being lazy" - since I was told how I should behave reguarding this perhaps it would be appropriate of me to tell some folks what they should do? I could probably think of something but I am afraid Eric's Grandmother would not approve.

 

[stevelabny]

I think I've figured out the problem.
People don't seem to be aware that you can SUBSCRIBE to a thread without replying to it.
If you see a thread that looks interesting, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and click SUBSCIRBE TO THIS THREAD.
You can choose to get e-mail notification of replies to a thread youre interested in with every new reply, or daily or weekly.
Also if you go to your ENWorld user page (click USER CP at the top toolbar), you can see a listing of all posts you are currently subscribed to...and that also has a function that lets you further back....all the way back to the beginning of the new EN WORLD boards.

So if you like a thread SUBSCRIBE TO IT!!! It can never be lost again.

This is a standard function on ALL message boards. (although I bet most don't let you check that far back)

So I apologize for calling people lazy, it seems that maybe they just don't know how to use ENWorld.

Maybe we should hold a tutorial? Or put a sticky at the top of each page for a month that explains how to do this? and then send it out in an e-mail to all new members?

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Steve, works great if you’re logged on 24 seven and you scan GD at least once an hour.

 

[stevelabny]

if you only get on once a week and want to read every thread, why wouldnt you just scroll through all 20 pages youve missed?
Even if they were split like they used to be, you would have 2 pages of P&P and a bunch of P&P threads in GD.
GD has always been 1/3 off-topic, 1/3 P&P stuff out of place, 1/6 other stuff out of place and 1/6 "general". Now that the off-topics have been moved and the other out of place stuff is being cracked down on, MOST of GD is P&P stuff. The only other posts are book reviews/suggestions and survey/opinion type threads.

I mean really, what else would go in general?
Thats the reason why P&P was always empty. Most people considered those threads to be general discussion.

 

[Gez]

Damn.

I would have liked to see Plots & Places absorbed by Rogues Gallery rather than General Discussion.

People, Plots, and Places, PPP, it has a ring to it. Well. Maybe for the next shuffling.

I post this in a thread, and on the morrow, there's another thread with this very subject, that's already two pages long.

 

[thol]

i will reiterate what i said in another post about this same subject:

the thread topics that used to go into Plots & Places were slow moving and understandably so. that was the nature of the threads there, they developed with alot more thought, and over more time, than most threads. the problem now is that i don't see anyone posting threads of that nature in the general forum, as they will get lost quickly, and thus we will lose alot of the general creative spewing that used to reside here. the nature of the General forum is a fast paced environment, and i know alot of us don't have the time to scan endless pages of it to find useful threads.

i really think the solution is that Plots & Places should have been renamed "DM's Corner: Plots, Places, Characters, NPCs, and general DMery" or somesuch, and put in the main cluster of forums at the top, in place of, and incorporating, the Rogues Gallery.

i would bet it would get much more traffic with its spot, as well as a wider spectrum of content, while not having overwhelming overturn of threads.

this may not seem that important to alot of people, but i really think it is to the creativity and sharing of ideas that is the basis for this site and these forums.