What do you want Eagle Time to be?

A simple enough question: What do you want this forum to grow into? We're in the very early stages here, so I just thought it'd be nice to see what people are hoping to see this place be.

A simple enough question: What do you want this forum to grow into?

Batman.

That is all.

I just want a place where I can chat with my friends, and have conversations with them without spam.

I want crazy shenanigans (positive fun) to happen with all the creative people we have here.

Ok, well this is probably gonna be one of the more important posts I make, so here goes.

Eagle Time's gonna be an online hangout, pure and simple. It's going to start out for my friends, and then friends of friends. There's no exclusivity about it; I acknowledge that steady growth is a critical part of any successful forum. People are gonna leave; people will have to come in.

If that goes right, it's inevitable that the forum will grow to the point some of us won't be happy with it. That's ok too - I'm at peace with that occurring in due course, provided we can have some fun with the "right"-sized community in the interim.

In terms of content - basically, what I say goes. If your sense of humour offends me, I'll personally ban you. I'm considering instituting bans as punishment - whether it's for an hour to cool off after saying things in the heat of the moment that aren't conducive to teamfriendliness, a day or two to think about what about your attitude I don't like, to a week or more. We don't have infractions in phpBB, and I honestly wouldn't use them anyway. I'm open to other suggestions, though. The modmin team (mods to be elected/promoted with consultation as we need 'em) will keep track of individuals' ban records and take past history into account when figuring how best to deal with people.

As for what modmins enforce: Basically, it's teamfriendliness. If people think bitching and sniping at each other is acceptable conduct, we'll prove them wrong. Public attacks? Making nasty remarks about others? You all know I'm a hateful snarky bitch myself, but I keep it amongst my friends instead of airing it out in public.

I don't like sass. I do like reasoned debate. Figure out which one will make me more amenable to compromise in the event I've stopped quite seeing things eye to eye and don't manage to take the community's best interests to heart. I'll do my best not to, but if we're all civil about it smoothes things over.

We're not going to stake any claim to superiority over MSPAF. This one's important. We're not better; we're different. They're bigger, we're smaller. We've even got similar origins way back when. There are times when a splinter forum is appropriate, and I want no bad blood - especially considering I have all intention of staying on as a moderator there, now that I've got a place similar to what it's lost.

I want this place to be a group of friends. I want newcomers to feel welcome and accepted, but also have a good motivation to fit in with the norms and attitudes of the forum. A twenty-man gaggle coming in and doing their thing is going to raise my hackles so fast you won't know. This is not a disincentive to invite people; merely that it's my perception slow and steady growth is healthiest. I'd like to use this thread to discuss what norms and attitudes we want here, too. Personally, image macros, reaction gifs, and meme-spouting is out. Shenanigans, creativity, and silly in-jokes are in.

That's all I've got to say (for now). I do want to hear what everyone else is planning to get out of this. Thanks, dudes!

I want it to be my Anti-Drug.

We need a purpose. Even if it's to be GRAND BATTLE CENTRAL or whatnot, we need a purpose. Forums that lose their unique selling point die.

(On that point do we need eagle enthusiasts to pop in from time to time to legitimize our title?)

One thing that comes to mind is that this place is a gathering of creative people. We have ideas and we want to share them.

In the event that this place somehow becomes super-popular and less close-knit than it is now, I'd want us to keep emphasizing that aspect - that this is a place where creative types can get together and do cool things. Basically, like MSPAFA but without the issues that come from being attached to the MSPA site.

Not sure on the specifics of how to do that, but if we start having growing pains, I think that's what I'd want to try to focus on as we figure out what we're becoming.

I want Eagle Town (where does the name "Eagle Town" come from anyway?) to be a place where people FUCKING SWALLOW THEIR GODDAMN PEAS!

ITS EAGLE TIME NOT EAGLE TOWN!

...like MSPAFA but without the issues that come from being attached to the MSPA site.

ITS EAGLE TIME NOT EAGLE TOWN!

Say...

We could attach ourselves to a different comic...

Lets swamp this forum with eagle-ventures, or as i like to call them, woopzoopnasty derivatives.

From time to time, I have to scrounge the internet for artists and writers for various projects I'm working on, and I guess I'd like Eagle Time to be a reliable place to go to first.

So yeah if Eagle Time became a Collaboration/Commission Forum, I'd be down with that.

Naturally friendly chit chat subfora are a must as well.

I want it to be ALL IT CAN BE (the ultimate paragon of both woopiness and zoopiness).

But yes essentially what everyone above has said :D

the only rule i'd like to be added is that you must use caps every now and then and that smugness and self importance are prohibited. and also maybe the whole "i'm cute but also naughty don't be surprised if i do something naughty while you obliviously think i'm cute >:3" attitude too.

also wheat go fuck yourself 'nuff said hahaha /smugness

That should be the infraction image for every forum.

I reckon that as a general rule, exceptions to the rules will be permissible - in the event the people who would enforce them find it sufficiently amusing. Which is arbitrary, but eh. While the forums are small enough for me to have a grip on who people are and how they interact, it shouldn't be a biggie. The rules we have for a bigger forum are mostly laziness, so they won't be due for a rewrite. We'll basically police them lightly for a good while, until we've gotta follow 'em harder.

In terms of being allowed to tell people to go fuck themselves, that's tough for me to make a call on. As an admin, I'm kinda reneging my rights to tell people to not do stuff that's a personal bugbear which doesn't step into "socially unacceptable" territory (seeing as I'm forever speaking out of my Admin-branded megaphone).

Which pretty much brings it down to the community. If the community's generally ok with the one guy who bitches about everything, I'm ultimately not going to enforce it even if reading every post of theirs is like pulling teeth. What's socially acceptable's decided by the society, not the society's attack dog/modmin. You guys have to tell me, through reactions and interactions (and PMs if you're like me and don't like airing laundry in public), what's cool and what ain't. That doesn't mean you have to (or even would be applauded for) chipping in whenever you see someone doing something you find annoying, but I guess I'd be looking for things like people dodging unpleasant conversations. Once I know what most people think, I can tell people to suck it up or tell the whiner to quit his bitching. For example.

That system's only gonna work while I've got the energy/resources/mana to be able to keep tabs on most of the community, but if the logical conclusion of that is public pillory-fests as to whether haters should stay or whether haters should go now, I guess that's a possibility.


Hopefully that made sense, but I think typing that out helped me cement more of my thoughts on the matter in my own head. I might tweak the rules after this to try and reflect my preference for community enforcement.

Haters will be judged by a panel of their peers.

Haters will be judged by a panel of their peers.

Are we allowed to judge non-haters as well, or would that make us qualify as haters?

Also, as haters, aren't they gonna hate anyway?

I want this to be a place where I can just let loose and maybe say bitches now and again.

Oh also to bore people with stories from my life.

Mainly just be really irresponsible because I know you guys and it is all cool.

Like maybe I'll make a thread just cus I can press a button. I'd /never/ do that in the other thread.

Oh or maybe I can wait okay I should move on to chat times thread forum now.

I want this to be an alternative to my favorite parts of the MSPA forums (MSPAFA, Games, Genchat) that is not filled with MSPA references.

But then again, that's just me.

I'd like it if it was just a hangout.