The Senate is splitting off

The Senate will be splitting off to have its own spot in Community on August 1st. Where under 'JC Community' there was originally just 'Community', with the subforums JCC, Senate, Amphitheatre, Arena, Census, and Games, there will now be 'Community' and 'The Senate Floor'. The rest of the subforums will stay under 'JC Community'.

Why the split? After much deliberation, that started even before the move of the boards - both in public as well as in mod squad - we realized that the tempo and the culture of the Senate is just too different to properly blend in with the rest of the forums. The way it's set up now, it's easy for people to miss the Senate tag, while the rules of the Senate are very different from the rules of the other boards. It becomes a mess too often.

We hope to see people still coming in to share their thoughts and opinions... This way, the two tempos of the Senate and the other forums aren't competing, as neither is better - they're just different.

The newly installed forum will go live on August 1st. All old Senate threads will be moved there at that date. It will be hosted by DarthBoba and yours truly; after 4.5 years of honest work, Lowbacca_1977 is passing on the torch. I'd like to thank him for his excellent modding, without which I might never have become a Senate regular in the first place. Thanks Lowie, I promise we'll keep the spirit alive!

 

Yay for the Senate getting back it's own space.

Boo for Lowie retiring. I hope he still intends to stick around and contribute at least and we haven't lost him completely.

 

Good decision.

 

Ugh. I wish the Arena's mod team cared like the Senate mod team does. Good job, guys. I'm jealous.

 

Stupid. There isn't remotely enough traffic to justify a separate forum.

People aren't missing the tags. Rather, people just don't care enough to post in said threads. It's a small group and getting smaller as the months and years go by. This isn't 2001, when there was definitely enough traffic and interest to support a forum. All it would take would be a bit of proactive, intelligent moderation to handle the few situations in the community forum that require keeping a more serious type of discussion.

Too much to ask, I suppose.

 

Traffic isn't the only factor when it comes to separating forums. Dingo summarized it pretty well in the Forum Organization thread. Every thread under Community needs to follow the same posting guidelines, the only differences being the subject/topic of those threads. Unless the MS is willing to change guidelines for Senate threads specifically it doesn't belong in Community.

 

i agree with KW.

i really think this whole different posting guidelines thing is overplayed. community threads tend to be based on (generally) more light hearted topics, and so attract more light hearted responses. the type of discussion that is usually "Senatey", is usually the type of discussion that fosters more "serious" comments; whether it has a tag or exists in a different forum or whatever is largely irrelevant. i just don't see many abortion threads being rampaged by these archetypal jccers posting lol and poop all the time. are we just dreaming up this problem in order to find a solution?

 

As I said, in the few cases where it's necessary, all it takes is a bit of moderation to make things work in the way that they're supposed to be for Senate-type discussion.

 

This decision was taken with neither evidence in support of its given rationale nor the agreement of the actual user base affected. We have a word to describe such decision-making, which is unsurprisingly identical to the likely outcome of this reorganization.

I hope you're all fully aware of exactly how much disgust I have for this.

 

The decision was taken given the input of the people that actually have to enforce the rules, and it was unanimous.

 

Perhaps those who enforce the rules are not well suited to doing just that.

There simply isn't enough activity to support a separate forum, and all it would take would be a bit of straightforward, intelligent moderating to handle Senate-type threads. If no one currently moderating is either capable of or was interested in doing that, well, I think that problem speaks for itself.

That's the last I'm going to say about this.

 

KW: Define 'enough activity'. Also, please show how this is an effective measuring tool for the quality of a forum.

 

This. There was zero dissension on the subject of unmerging and why to do so. As for there somehow being a minimum level of activity (besides "none at all")...there's forums on the boards that already see very little activity and are still autonomous beyond being part of a particular group.

 

All I can say is thanks Lowbacca_1977 for all of your hard work over the years, I hope you will stick around as a regular in the Senate and congratulations to DarthBoba! Unfortunately I don't have the time these days to dedicate to posting in Senate threads on a regular basis but I'll always be around.

 

Playing devil's advocate here: So non-mod input doesn't factor in at all, huh? Interesting.

 

That the moderating team tries to gauge the interest of the community is (or should be) a given. It could be argued that a board-wide or Community-wide poll could have been a part of the process, I'm not going to deny that, but to say that "non-mod input is not a factor" is not playing Devil's advocate, it's downright malicious.

 

I only put that in there because I'm a bit baffled about the negative response this is getting... it doesn't bother me at all that The Senate will be its own forum again. On principle it bothers me that this seems to be a mod only decision, but because I don't mind the end result, I'm not actually outraged. I know in the future that a change in a forum's structure will incorporate non-mod input... of course, obviously. As someone who was initially against The Merge, I'm very happy with how it has turned out, even with this Senate business. If that forum gets to be too slow on its own, then it's likely (and should) that it will be re-merged back into Community.

 

So just to make sure, does this mean that the political/news threads will now no longer be in the same place as/mixed in with the non-Star Wars movie/TV/literature entertainment threads? If so, that will make me very happy indeed. I'd really love to be able to participate in threads on the likes of Pacific Rim or Wolverine without having my blood pressure raised by having to pick through politics threads.

 

Are you actually reading the political threads or just seeing the thread titles?

 

The titles are enough to give me agita. A true split between the politics and entertainment would be much appreciated.

 

Traffic had nothing to do with this decision. As shown already the Senate is the slowest of the ones merged. I don't think this decision was made for the benefit of the Senate and it is very frustrating to see the responses by the moderating teams on this given how outspoken the posters who use the Senate are being.

 

Bad decision, but I don't care/have enough energy to really past arguments.

Suffice to say, the loss of virtual "foot traffic" will be bad for the Senate I will not clock on a separate forum to read Senate threads. However, I routinely click through a Senate thread in Community, and while I don't often comment myself, what I learn about other users certainly helps me feel more connection to the community. And, you know, more connection equates to more retention, something I'd assume you want.

 

With all due respect Inty, that kind of reasoning drove me bonkers in The Merge debate of last summer, and it still does now... if you currently willing to read through Senate threads, what's the issue of doing so when it's back as its own forum? Why is that even an issue for people? It's not hard to do. Despite 99% of the forum being a cesspool of ridiculousness (which will begin to dip once we get closer to 2015), the GIL thread in the Episode 7 forum has been a niiiiiiiiiice place to come in contact with & know some users a lot better... you know, getting connected with the community & such, despite it being a whole different, separated forum.

 

You can actually avoid seeing non-Amph threads by hovering over "Community" and clicking the Amph tag, if that's what you'd prefer to see.