Some Real-Talk: Hawkspace After Dark Problems

changing user titles in specific is a so-called "punishment" that's comically petty, even impotent, and goofy to match. it might not be isolated in its effects to just hawkspace after dark and maybe fails there, but when it's so insignificant that its very insignificance is a joke (much like my dick) it's super-super-hard to care.

if there are no penalties or consequences, no matter how impotent, that accompany any of the goofy silly rules that hawkspace after dark is meant to explore, there's no reason to even have the rules. if there's no reason to have them, there's no will to make them, and the central conceit of this joke subsubforum dissipates in a fit of apathy and we just end up with regular hawkspace mk. II. the voting is the whole dang point of the sub-sub-forum, if we were going to do it that way we might as well have just made a fake voting thread that didn't actually effect anything in regular hawkspace. in other words, being mandatory is absolutely a prerequisite for having a subforum-wide game.

sorry i'm being really bitter and argumentative

my personal inclination is that people should follow them because that's kind of the point of being here but be able to opt out when they don't want to but still want to be part of a conversation happening here, but i'm neither pants nor bowtie here

changing user titles in specific is a so-called "punishment" that's comically petty, even impotent, and goofy to match. it might not be isolated in its effects to just hawkspace after dark and maybe fails there, but when it's so insignificant that its very insignificance is a joke (much like my dick) it's super-super-hard to care.

if there are no penalties or consequences, no matter how impotent, that accompany any of the goofy silly rules that hawkspace after dark is meant to explore, there's no reason to even have the rules. if there's no reason to have them, there's no will to make them, and the central conceit of this joke subsubforum dissipates in a fit of apathy and we just end up with regular hawkspace mk. II. the voting is the whole dang point of the sub-sub-forum, if we were going to do it that way we might as well have just made a fake voting thread that didn't actually effect anything in regular hawkspace. in other words, being mandatory is absolutely a prerequisite for having a subforum-wide game.

yeah i'm feeling this

I think encouraging a degree of rule-breaking is a positive (as long as the rules are frivolous ones), but I agree that we shouldn't provide incentive only to break rules or that's going to get annoying in other ways.

Honestly we don't need the points, we could just have the "nothing" option and trust that people are good sports who will go for one of the others if they feel like it. I just thought rewards could make it a little more fun to participate in.

Really, the basic model I'm suggesting is "there's a game going on across the whole subforum with weird rules, but you don't have to take part in it if you don't want to". I feel like that addresses most of the concerns brought up here.

oh my god dragonfogel you can have all of that and more in literally any subforum that isn't this one

the whole point of this subforum is the silly rules and if there's no punishment or reward or anything you're left with literally hawkspace

like if you don't want to participate in it just shitpost in hawkspace, there is nothing stopping you from doing that. it's not like this forum is going to have big serious conversations or anything

you're arguing for people to be able to join in a game while totally ignoring the rules of that game when games are defined by rules

i'm running out of ways to describe what's bothering me here

changing user titles in specific is a so-called "punishment" that's comically petty, even impotent, and goofy to match. it might not be isolated in its effects to just hawkspace after dark and maybe fails there, but when it's so insignificant that its very insignificance is a joke (much like my dick) it's super-super-hard to care.

if there are no penalties or consequences, no matter how impotent, that accompany any of the goofy silly rules that hawkspace after dark is meant to explore, there's no reason to even have the rules. if there's no reason to have them, there's no will to make them, and the central conceit of this joke subsubforum dissipates in a fit of apathy and we just end up with regular hawkspace mk. II. the voting is the whole dang point of the sub-sub-forum, if we were going to do it that way we might as well have just made a fake voting thread that didn't actually effect anything in regular hawkspace. in other words, being mandatory is absolutely a prerequisite for having a subforum-wide game.

I disagree. I think, in the long term, it is actively harmful to the game to make it mandatory.

If the game aspect is optional, you get more people posting here, and you get people posting here at times when they don't really feel like dealing with the game aspects. That means more posts, which means more content for the game side of things to deal with.

If the game is mandatory, then if people don't feel like dealing with the game, they don't post here. Threads get less activity, and there are just fewer opportunities for the rules to be relevant.

Loather.

There are Hawkspace threads being moved here.

Some of those are threads I've posted in.

If you say those threads are off-limits to me now because they're part of the game and I don't want to deal with the game, that is interfering with my Hawkspace experience. So I think it is hardly unfair in any way for me to complain about it.

Even without that, there are threads here that are going to interest me! Yes, I could start a new thread on the same subject in Hawkspace, but there's no good reason for that either.

i'm fine with not moving hawkspace threads as a compromise

i'm not as fine with completely throwing out the entire point of this subforum though

whatever. there's maybe like three people that are even playing along at this point, fuck it

It is not "throwing it out".

It is making it something you don't have to deal with if you don't want to.

"a subforum-wide game that a lot of the people are participating in" is a significant difference from Hawkspace even if it's not mandatory. The difference only disappears if there's a general view that the game isn't fun enough to bother with any more.

I view it as more of allowing people to spectate while still contributing actively to discussions, and thus, indirectly, to the game. I don't see how this is going to be a problem unless the game stops getting participants, which is a problem for the mandatory version too.

you don't have to deal with it though

nobody is making you read or post here

you can stick to regular hawkspace and nobody would complain

do you want me to start wandering into grand battles and start posting unrelated junk there? would that be fair to the people participating in that?

again though, nobody's even participating to begin with so i don't even know why i'm arguing

like there's the thread people are voting in "rules" and shit but that's literally it, it's meaningless. it doesn't matter, Nobody Is Enforcing AnYtHiNg, we might as well be writing our signatures in fucking ketchup on a paper plate and it would accomplish just as much

nobody is even trying to be a fucking good sport about it, like people feel obligated to piss on my parade because god knows everything has to be for them

do you want me to start wandering into grand battles and start posting unrelated junk there? would that be fair to the people participating in that?

That is not a comparable situation because grand battles are not, in part, an anything-goes discussion forum.

If I go into the saxophone thread and post a saxophone, I'm participating in that thread. If I'm also opting not to care about the silly rules when I do, I'm not disrupting that thread.

I guess if there's a "No Saxophones" rule and I post a saxophone and people go "what are you doing" and I'm all "I don't want to deal with this" that may be a bit disruptive, but that's really as bad as I can see it getting and it requires a pretty specific series of events.

yeah

i know i'm being petulant about this

have your second hawkspace

if it's what people want it's what they want

You know Loather, you're a pretty influential force here-parts. I'm sure if you took the time to do some politicking you could make some funny things happen. I, mean, you already have really.

I know this is obvious stuff, but everyone is entitled to defend things that are important to them. DF and myself worry about being excluded or penalized because of the fun here, and you're worried, if I'm hearing you right, that if we get all defensive about it then there won't be any fun to be had.

There's likely a good middle ground here. It will probably take some talk to hash out, but that's what this part is about.

no yeah i was really being petulant about it