Subeta subeta EVERYWHERE

[thelonetiel]

Temporarily, if you don't like seeing all the posts in the New Posts section, go to the Offsite Games board and click the "Mark All Topics Read". I know I've trained myself to ignore boards that I have already read, so it might help some.

It won't help the amount of posts about Subeta, but at least you are less likely to click one in hopes of an interesting Neopian topic.


I'm divided on the issue myself... I play Subeta sporadically, but it is a bit discouraging when there are more Subeta topics than Neopets.

I'd guess that as more people get familiar with the site, there will be fewer "Questions from a newbie!" posts, but I can sympathise with those that don't play until then.

[Gibblywibbly]

If I see one more thing about Sebeta, I'm going to blast me head in. D:

[Kamil]

Well then, you're undoubtedly going to blast your head in, Gibby. Sorry to lose you.

That snarked, I've never used the read all posts since last visit feature just because it does toss up lots of stuff I don't want to see - and so I browse the forum from the main page, instead of suggesting that others conform their interests to mine by only posting things I'm interested in reading.

Not that that's what you're doing, Cheese, but the point remains. As several have said, if you (universal) want to continue to use the all posts since last visit link all you have to do is make one quick trip to the Offsite Games forum and use the "mark all topics read" link and then you're good to go.

Given that we have, what, close to 80 people listed in the "NC on Subeta" thread, I'd say the forum at large has shown significant interest, and some of us, at least, are also in it for the long haul. So far as making a separate forum goes - I don't think I have that available in my hosting options. I think I just get the one.

[sureq]

At the time of me writing this, nearlly all of the posts in the Offsite Game forum is about Subeta. I think I counted three that werent. If you cant create a new forum for the subeta posts due to hosting issues, could you make a sub-forum? It would help tidy things up a bit.

sorry, I've never worked on a forum before, so excuse my ignorance :/

[Huggles]

I think you're thinking much too big, Kamil. A subforum like Other Games is what I think he's asking for.

Personally, I haven't played at all since the plot started, and I'll probably play only sporatically once it ends. But, as mentioned, moving it to its own forum wouldn't solve the New Posts link problem. You'd still have to mark the forum as read or just suffer the indignity of slogging through the forum index like most people do. The horror!

I don't think Subeta is crowding out other games in so much as it dominates the board because that's the only "other game" people are really playing. Once you take away all the people who primarily play Neopets, then the ones who play Subeta Pets, you're not left with too many people. Puzzle Pirates and Kingdom of Loathing are both in competition with Neo and Subeta for internet games, and losing, and there simply aren't any hardcore pc/console gamers around. We couldn't give away free trial accounts of World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, or Guild Wars. Or even just find enough people already playing to meet up.

So yeah. There's not much talk about anything else because I don't *think* there's much else being played.

[Joey]

I'd try and drown Other Games with MapleStory threads, but not enough of you doods play

[AngharadTy]

Yeah, and I'd be happy to babble about YPP, but no one else plays quite as much as I do--excepting Will and I babble to him over MSN. ^_~

[EofS]

I think the problem with having Subeta as a usergroup is that it's quite possible that people not already members of the board may want to read the Subeta threads. This is a different case than Werewolf, since I doubt many non-members read the Werewolf threads.

And what would stop people from reading the Subeta threads if they wanted to? They can just become members of the usergroup like the rest of you.

There are about 34 members of the WW usergroup. Last game had 21 players. So that's about 50% again opting to be able to see the posts but not participate. And of course that's just from one month's game. I believe that some people didn't even know the game took place - the only mention it got outside the WW board was a single post in Games. I don't believe I'm the only person who ignores that board completely.

I must admit, I don't understand why WW got split and made 'private' but people seem to not want to do that to Subeta. I don't have the energy to do the calculations right now, but I believe Subeta is getting more posts a day than WW was. When I go in to mark all as read throughout the day I'll regularly see 6-9 different threads have new replies to them.

If the argument is that non-Subeta is a lot less popular than the book club... there's been one reply to the book club since WW was moved out. Nobody has responded to it. There has still be no movement about picking November's books even, with October having been skipped over entirely.

I'll freely admit part of my opinion is partially emotional. No doubt it's influenced by what happened with Werewolf - I felt quite badly put out when it got moved, and downright angry about the fact that the signups will from now on have to go in Games. Besides - the people who argued to kick WW out in the first place were clearly doing it from an emotional standpoint, so why shouldn't those of us who are fed up with Subeta getting more posts than Neopets also argue from an emotional point of view. I suppose an emotionally inspired discussion is inevitable.

<b>Edit:</b> Might also be worth pointing out that during the WW discussion, it was suggested that people who are missing book club posts because of WW volume should <i>use the New Posts link</i>.

[Huggles]

Because there hasn't been as much if any drama that I know of that came out of Subeta unlike Werewolf? This is me as the ultimate nonplayer of Werewolf. There's plenty of other reasons I don't play, but that's number one on my list, as a mod, that didn't even really have to do much about it.

[Wingsrising]

Emotional standpoint? Why do you say that? I initially suggested giving Werewolf its own forum because I thought the book posts and other writing posts would get more attention if it weren't there. Clearly that didn't happen with the book posts, but even with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight I still think it was a reasonable idea to clear the way for a writing board people can actually use if they want.

You can argue that it should have had its own forum instead of a usergroup if you want -- I think that's perfectly reasonable -- but that's a topic completely unrelated to Subeta and should have its own thread (or in the existing Werewolf thread).

But arguing from an emotional standpoint? I'm afraid Werewolf is not even a blip on my emotional radar. I'm aware that some sort of drama took place there sometime or another but couldn't tell you when, who was involved, or what it was about.

I'm sorry that you're angry that Werewolf was moved but I frankly can't see what the problem is. Why does it matter what board the game is on, or that signups have to go in Games? What's wrong with the Games forum? Everyone in Neocolours had a chance to weigh in if they wanted and IIRC no one posted objecting at the time... but again, that's a separate topic from Subeta.

I would be perfectly happy to see Subeta have its own board if that's what people prefer so it's not crowding the other games board. However, I would object to making it a usergroup for the reason stated: I think non-members may end up being attracted to the discussion. I also think that setting up a bunch of usergroups for topics that only some people are interested in is not a good precedent in general. I doubt any part of this forum interests everyone but I'd hate to see it broken up into zillions of tiny usergroups by interest.

EDIT: Jazzy -- this is the hack that I found. Since I know absolutely nothing whatsoever about phpbb I can't tell you if it meets any of your criteria.

[AngharadTy]

It's also not a simple matter of "just becoming a member of the usergroup," since first you'd have to ask to be let in, and then someone has to let you in, which is two hassles for two people right there. It won't be as easy as it is for WW--just adding in the people that sign up for it in the Games forum. Also, as a usergroup, it might be hidden away so well that newcomers wouldn't even know it exists.

Those are all quite good reasons to keep from privatizing it as we did with WW. I'm sorry if it seems biased (because I play Subeta), but all I can offer is that I'm trying to be as impartial as any human can possibly be.

[Joey]

Well if we're looking for a non-emotional standpoint, I figure I may be as good as any. I don't care about Werewolf. I don't care about Subeta.

Werewolf was a problem for epilogue. I couldn't even get attention for my short story after stickying the dang thread. Werewolf so dominated the entirety of Epilogue that all other threads were ignored. Hence why something had to be done about it. Making a usergroup for it was the best possible solution at the time. If you can think up something better, feel free to suggest it. However I fail to see the kind of passion and anger it can ignite simply by being confined to a usergroup. The same thing is done on other forums I visit, so it's quite common to me.

Subeta isn't that big a deal in Other Games. While it does dominate the forums, I'd imagine that a non-Subeta thread posted there would still get a good amount of attention, provided the game had enough of a following. Say if there were some explosive pokemon news that happened right now, I'm betting a thread on that would be kept to the top. Subeta's just the most popular game at the moment. I'd imagine the masses of threads on it will die down with time.

I'm not for splitting the forums into Subeta and Non-Subeta. The last thing we need is more splitting. And really, if you're going to be using the new posts option, you're going to have to deal with threads you don't like. That's just the way of the feature.

EDIT: Wow, I think this may be the biggest post I've made on the new forums o_o

[Madge]

I, too, use new posts, and while it is a bit of a pain to see all the Subeta threads, they all say "Subeta: Stuff" so they're easy to ignore.

I'm a little upset that Subeta has more topics posted about it than neopets, but at the same time, the only way to fix that is for people to post more about Neopets, which will probably not happen easily.

I want to say that I am totally and utterly for dividing the new posts into categories, as I think that would make for a very awesome picture that many peoplpe will use, because when I read the forum by oging to the index it always winds up marking everything read before I have been to all the forums! It's like ohnoes!

[Cheese]

Werewolf so dominated the entirety of Epilogue that all other threads were ignored.

You know they wouldn't have been ignored if people used the new posts link. And the circle continues.

[My exact opinions]

I agree.

When I started this thread I had no preferred way of dealing with this issue, I still don't, I just wanted to make aware the fact that there actually is some sort of issue here.

Splitting Subeta into its own section away from Other Games would not help my problem, unless the way new posts is browsed is changed.

I could mark the other games forum read, but I might want to read about other games that are not subeta...and then I'd have to mark the Adoptions forum as read, and probably Aesthetics and AaToW, and Forum Games and Polls and all the other things I don't care abou - or else I'd be a hypocrite. Is that what you want? You want me to be a hypocrite?

Well that's just rude.

[Jazzy]

Firstly. This is an <i>inherent problem</i> with the new posts link. I am going to install bgryph's hack (assuming there are no glaring problems with the install) but beyond that, all of you using the new posts link are just going to have to deal with it. If you can't stand to see posts from a certain forum, go to that forum first and mark them all read, then come back to the link.

Secondly. Werewolf was overshadowing posts which were actually better suited to that forum than it was, so it needed to be moved. It's not dissimilar to the way games were moved out of Chit-Chat. Hiding it means that the following can happen:
- mods who do not follow the game do not feel obliged to sift through the messes of drama it can produce
- the Latest Post On Index mod, which was a complete bitch to install (I had to convert it to our version) will actually show the most recent topic those who do not play Werewolf would be interested in. I didn't need to spend a good length of time converting and installing that just to have it show "Werewolf" permanently for Chit-Chat or Epilogue.

Thirdly, I will not be hiding the Subeta forum, because I am actually hoping that Subeta people will come to this site now that we have the Subeta section up and running and linked prominently. It would not be to any of our advantage if the number of new members coming in was tapering off. If they play Neopets: great. If not, they're still allowed to come here and not jump through hoops to even see the Subeta section. I can pretty much only think of one person who joined to play WW. I am also reluctant to have someone having to approve all the new people who want to see Subeta.

Fourthly, Joey's right- the new Pokemon thread did stay at the top, and I suspect when something else big happens (like the release of Twilight Princess- less than two months away, whee!) it won't just die because of Subeta.

Fifthly, phpBB does not support subforums well: ie, I cannot install them without killing our other hacks. phpBB 3 <i>might</i> support them natively, or with a good enough mod that I can install first before I reinstall all of the others, but in the meantime, please do not suggest I install them. The other boards you've seen using them are invision boards.

And lastly, if Subeta continues to hold people's interest beyond the honeymoon period, I am going to consider creating more Subeta-specific boards. Right now, however, people simply haven't been on it long enough. I do not want to create a whole new Subeta forum on a new phpBB install, partly because a) I can't admin it, I don't play and b) because it would have to be Kamil's decision to allow it.