Closing the FiM forum

[Carrehz]

Taffeta, you said exactly what I wanted to say but wasn't sure how to say it

I have to wonder if maybe rather than closing the FIM section down completely if giving it a post requirement to be seen (similar to WYP) or if it's possible that maybe being on moderation you lose the ability to use that forum would make a difference? There definitely seems to be a lot that happens over there so I can see getting rid of it due to workload. But at the same time... I've seen some really wonderful stuff over there as well. Like others I'm also a bit concerned about what will happen to the corral once the FIM section is closed. So I have to wonder if maybe there's a way to reduce the workload but still keep the space?

Hmm, I like this idea, too. The post requirement would definitely help matters, imo. I'm trying to think how to put this.. I know there's been a few people who have come here just for the FiM forum, assumed it's the same as other FiM-focused sites, and been disappointed because of that. There's nothing wrong with such people in general, but a post limit would probably help weed out the.. belligerent ones. If that makes sense.

[Dragonflitter]

I am annoyed that that action means more FIM in the Corral, because I feel like old generations already get shoved aside by the FIM stuff, but I'll deal with it because as Loa said, the community evolves. The people not evolving are the FIM people...the community has survived this far by adjusting to change and being flexible. It strikes me that not being receptive to the mod warnings has resulted in this, and the people responsible are the ones not following mod advice.

This is exactly the problem. People are so quick to divide other people into factions and point fingers. "It's you FIM people who aren't flexible, not the rest of us. You're the problem, not me."

I'm not an 'FIM person'. I don't consider myself a brony and I have been collecting ponies since the 80's. But it's obvious to me that this decision was made to drive away certain people from the Arena. That's just sad. The Arena used to be a community, but the more years I stay here the more I see "we don't want THOSE type of people around here." Now they are even saying for people to leave the Arena and go have their discussions somewhere else like facebook?

The entire reason the FiM forum was put in was so that people who wanted to discuss the cartoon wouldn't clutter up the Corral, and people who were not interested in cartoon discussion wouldn't have to wade through FiM topics to talk about toys.

The mods want less moderation to happen, but that's not going to happen. People are going to keep making FiM topics, they will be on the Corral or Fanart or whatever is most appropriate, and the mods will have to moderate those topics just like they would in the FiM forum.

You say "G4 shouldn't have its own forum, it should be equal to the other gens." But this forum ISN'T for G4. It's specifically just for the cartoon. The G4 toys, games, movie toys, other merchandise, are all still discussed in the Corral.

The cartoon wasn't given a special forum because it's so much better than all the other aspects of the MLP franchise or because it deserves special treatment. It was given its own forum because there was so much cartoon discussion going on in Corral, that it was impacting the rest of the community. Getting rid of the forum and forcing everyone to go back to the Corral isn't going to change that. Five years isn't a 'trial run.'

A media section could definitely solve the issue of too much cartoon discussion going on in the Corral. I would love to have more discussion about the FiM comics and future movies. But as it's already been said, there's only so much conversation you can have about a finite number of episodes from a cartoon in the 80's, or a few shorts from G3. FiM is constantly putting out new content and inviting new discussion, so of course that's going to be the majority of topics in a new media forum.

[Luxrayx]

Oh man, I feel terrible that the FiM forum is so hard on the mods. It didn't even occur to me that they have to deal with even more nonsense behind the scenes.
I still feel like intentionally driving away a section of the community is a sucky thing to do, but... I guess it can't be helped. Hopefully the FiM topics that remain will be as active as before, but less volatile? Is that even possible? I sure hope so.

[Taffeta]

I am annoyed that that action means more FIM in the Corral, because I feel like old generations already get shoved aside by the FIM stuff, but I'll deal with it because as Loa said, the community evolves. The people not evolving are the FIM people...the community has survived this far by adjusting to change and being flexible. It strikes me that not being receptive to the mod warnings has resulted in this, and the people responsible are the ones not following mod advice.

This is exactly the problem. People are so quick to divide other people into factions and point fingers. "It's you FIM people who aren't flexible, not the rest of us. You're the problem, not me."

I think that post summed up beautifully the reasons why I don't want FIM discussion in the Corral.

Also sure it was obvious that by inflexible 'FIM' people I meant the ones threatening to leave if the FIM forum didn't stay open.

Moving on to more constructive things, I also wonder whether Duenia's idea could be implemented on a trial basis. I know the mods are overworked and I understand that we are probably making their job more stressful by putting out all these ideas, but I think there is a potential solution here that benefits the majority.

I think LAW's media section idea could work if there was strict regulation - ie the area had a thread for FIM and one for EQG maybe? A thread for the new movie. A thread for G1 animation, a thread for G3 animation, and then maybe one for creative media such as fan made PMVs. It might also be possible to have discussion threads here about online pony channels on youtube and so on, vlogging, etc in that section. I know it's really rough and it would still require moderation, but it would keep that option open. Perhaps this isn't a 'right now' solution, but it could be one in the future, if and when the moderation issue calms down.

As regards that, I think that probably the on moderation issue will continue into wherever the discussion goes, so it won't necessarily resolve things for the mods. And the last thing we need are disgruntled posters from the FIM forum flaunting the new rules and posting extra threads anyway (which is how I am reading some of the comments here). Another reason I worry about it in the Corral - I dont want that becoming a battleground.

 I am not sure how many Corral mods are still active, I only tend to see a couple of mods around there so I am thinking that maybe the number of listed mods is deceptive and a lot more work is falling on the shoulders of fewer people. That makes the moderation situation really hard to deal with.

I am wondering if there is a different disciplinary process that could be trialed with this situation, because the problem with moderation is that the poster can still write what they like, and it's on the mods to check it over. Responsibility needs to go back to the people posting, because as far as I can see, absolutely everyone in this is going to take a hit - mods, members not on moderation, members who don't post about FIM - but not the people at the centre of the issue.

On which note, if the mods wanted to drive certain people out, they wouldn't have waited five years and put them on moderation. They'd have banned them. The fact that hasn't happened is evidence the mods are trying their best to keep people here, to their ultimate detriment.

[Ponyfan]

I also like the idea of a multigeneration media section where we could discuss animation, episodes, comics maybe even the books, but I understand if that's not something we can have right now. FIM has always been hit or miss for me and I do post there when I feel I have something to contribute to the discussion. I wonder if one dicussion per season that could incorporate all episodes in a season might be a solution? Also a master thread for the movie and Equestria Girls like Taffeta suggested?

Ponyfan

[lostpony]

In short, separate is not equal.   This site is all-MLP. 

Merging the forums together is a good thing, and I'm glad we're doing it.

[hathorcat]

Ok...to answer some points...

As I said before, removing the FIM forum doesn't eradicate G4, it brings G4 to the same status as all other generations which don't have their own private discussion space and which have managed to coexist in spite of that.

This...this kind of hits the situation on the head...this is an "all-gen, all-welcome" kind of board. We dont have stand alone forums for anything else and FiM (for our moderator sanity and for the good of the board) no longer needs or deserves its own unique space.

A forum for "media" discussion could eventually be a better option and, although its something we have discussed, it would most likely become a FiM foum in everything but name and therefore defeat our purpose in trying to combine things. So, right now, its probably going to be a no.

The entire reason the FiM forum was put in was so that people who wanted to discuss the cartoon wouldn't clutter up the Corral, and people who were not interested in cartoon discussion wouldn't have to wade through FiM topics to talk about toys

Yes, kind of like what we did with MH, this was the initial reason for the forum but ultimately this forum is not as topic heavy as it used to be. There are far fewer threads created in here than out on the Corral and they certainly will not drown out anything else on the board - thats what we have a whole team of moderation staff to prevent.

We understand this is not going to something that works for everyone but forums are quiter spaces than they used to be and keeping fewer boards, each with more traffic makes things easier to negotiate for members (especially those not using computers to access the forums) and drives more discussion. There are lots of reasons in the background for this rather than us just wanting "to drive people away" please be reassured we are doing it with good intent. We think and hope it will work for everyone.

[Leave a Whisper]

In short, separate is not equal.   This site is all-MLP. 

Merging the forums together is a good thing, and I'm glad we're doing it.

Yes it does make good sense

[Dulset Tarn]

So wait, this subforum requires too much moderation because everyone's on the moderated list, that much I get. But then wouldn't moving FiM topics around to the rest of the site require even more moderation?

[Carrehz]

So wait, this subforum requires too much moderation because everyone's on the moderated list, that much I get. But then wouldn't moving FiM topics around to the rest of the site require even more moderation?

I'm not a mod, so don't take this for absolute truth (and if I'm stepping out of line by posting this at all, feel free to swat me, mods ) but my understanding is that there'll be less FiM threads in general after this board is closed - just a couple of general discussion threads instead of oodles of threads dissecting the show bit-by-bit. Less threads = less moderation = less stress for the mods.

[lostpony]

It seems to me that those who have been ruminating on everything they don't like about FiM will be better exposed to other pony topics by being in the Corral, and might find something more positive in the greater pony experience.

Placing FiM discussion in front of everyone might bring some new people into those discussions and freshen them up a bit too.

So this can be a win/win.  It's up to us.

Whether it will be less work and stress for the mods is uncertain.  But it's good they are making moves to try, because they don't get paid for their service and they could just decide the arena is too much trouble and let it die, and I think the most disgruntled of us don't want that.  It's up to us to think twice before posting and make sure what we say is respectful to the arena and other members to make this a nice place to not only be a member, but also to moderate.

[Bekuno]

So wait, this subforum requires too much moderation because everyone's on the moderated list, that much I get. But then wouldn't moving FiM topics around to the rest of the site require even more moderation?

I'm not a mod, so don't take this for absolute truth (and if I'm stepping out of line by posting this at all, feel free to swat me, mods ) but my understanding is that there'll be less FiM threads in general after this board is closed - just a couple of general discussion threads instead of oodles of threads dissecting the show bit-by-bit. Less threads = less moderation = less stress for the mods.

Yes, and mods like me have said this a few times in the thread already. If you or anyone else plans on trying to make a bunch of FIM threads out of spite, I can tell you now it won't work out well for you.

[lostpony]

Curses, Bekuno!  haha (my evil plan...). 

I hope no one does that.  ponies are supposed to be fun not mean.

[Carrehz]

Whether it will be less work and stress for the mods is uncertain.  But it's good they are making moves to try, because they don't get paid for their service and they could just decide the arena is too much trouble and let it die, and I think the most disgruntled of us don't want that.  It's up to us to think twice before posting and make sure what we say is respectful to the arena and other members to make this a nice place to not only be a member, but also to moderate.

[Taffeta]

So wait, this subforum requires too much moderation because everyone's on the moderated list, that much I get. But then wouldn't moving FiM topics around to the rest of the site require even more moderation?

I'm not a mod, so don't take this for absolute truth (and if I'm stepping out of line by posting this at all, feel free to swat me, mods ) but my understanding is that there'll be less FiM threads in general after this board is closed - just a couple of general discussion threads instead of oodles of threads dissecting the show bit-by-bit. Less threads = less moderation = less stress for the mods.

Yes, and mods like me have said this a few times in the thread already. If you or anyone else plans on trying to make a bunch of FIM threads out of spite, I can tell you now it won't work out well for you.

Thank you for saying that so strongly, Bekuno. That was how I read some of the comments in this thread and the chief reason for my worry about the Corral. I don't mind FIM chat in the corral in moderation as it's an intergenerational forum but what I don't want there is the kind of unnecessary drama that leads to people being on moderation. The Corral has occasional spats but it is a generally happy and mutually tolerant place. I want to know that we are all still going to be allowed to express our views on FIM, positive AND negative so long as we do so on-topic and make sure we do so politely and fairly with mutual respect. The kind of posts that lead to people being on moderation are the kind of posts I don't want to deal with :/

Lostpony, Fluttsi is already keeping her keen eye on you and your Pinkie mischief

I really hope it doesn't end with more work for you guys. It's a totally thankless task to be a mod.