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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Shik: [QB] Ladies & gentlemen, I come before you to discuss a grievous error perpetrated on the members of Flare Sci-Fi Forums & by the members of Flare Sci-Fi Forums. Flare is dying. We who comprise it are the cause of its death. I have been a member here for 6 years & 1 month. In that time, I have seen very little change here. There has been 1 layout redesign, a few bells & whistles added. I have seen the folding of 2 forums--DS9 & Voyager--& the creation & folding of a third, Enterprise. I have taken part in the UP3 project & watched that fall asunder as well. And I have seen the same names & faces for the past 6 years. The same people, the same elite little club. In 6 years, I have been personally responsible for bringing in a total of TWO new members, Snay & Jason. TWO, in SIX YEARS. This board has become like a big convention of Jews. No joke; Judaism is like a country club. While other religions actively encourage conversions, Judaism actively DIScourages conversion. "You want to be a Jew? Well, we don't want you!" They make your life HELLISH when you convert, & if you still make it, you're scrutinized EXTRA closely. I'm a Jew-by-heritage, but if it was Yom Kippur, I could pull the whole Jon Stewart "Fuck it, it's 2 PM, it's cloudy, I'm having a sammich" & get away with it. If my friend Julia--who converted--did it, she'd have to go before a rabbinical council or something. And that's how Flare is. We're not the fucking Masons; we're a goddamned sci-fi board! Flare needs to change. It needs to change with the times or it will die. There needs to be changes in the way the board is managed & changes in the actions & attitudes of the members. I have discussed this with an unnamed moderator & he agrees greatly with me. In terms of the structure of the site itself & the forums, a severe transformation is needed. For quite sometime, many have been clamoring for new forums. The general opposing argument has been that because there is no discussion on it now, a forum is pointless. But I am of the opinion�as are many--that if a forum exists for something, it will invite discussion. General design is nice, but sometimes it's like genreing all your music as "Music"...or books by hardcover & paperback. My proposed restructuring is as follows: <ul> [*]General Sci-fi, Star Wars, & Trek should all be one category. Not one forum, but one category. Call it "Discussion" or something similar that implies that these are the areas for discussion of shows. [*]Reset & perhaps rename General Sci-Fi so that's it's more inviting. Imply more SG:1, DW, & the like if these are not to get their own forums (also filed under �Discussion�). [*]A separate forum for anime, perfect for Mark Nguyen. Perhaps another forum for supers & gamers. [*]DAC and S&T go into another category. This will be our "Category of Production," whatever the name is. Artwork, webstuff, meshes. [*]A possible forum for this section could be an RPG element. Remember when Mark ran the �You�re The Admiral� threads? They were fun & so many of us participated. I recently found my own scenes for the Driian campaign & fondly remembered the week of planning I did to come up with my invasion. Although I prefer playing those, I would enjoy running it just as much. Perhaps a round-robin system where the �winner� of one writes the next one could be instituted. On the same level, variants could be introduced for Star Wars, SG:1 (�You�re The Colonel/General�) & maybe even Firefly (�You�re The Smuggler�). These �games would be contained in this forum. [*]A separate forum for �forum projects.� I've got a lot of idea that would be fucking AWESOME to get people in on�designing a viable Federation Charter, histories of Starfleet, that sort of thing. Yes, this smacks of the floundering of UP3, but in the case of UP3, there was too much nebulosity, a lack of set goals, & no interior synchronicity. (In fact, I think I�m the only one who made sure that his article meshed with others) I know that personally, I'd run a far tighter ship than anyone else did with UP3. I would like to see more collaborative member projects. [*]After that comes the Community category. Keep the Officers� Lounge & the Flameboard, perhaps renaming that the Poli Sci Tavern or something to more accurately reflect its partisan nature. Hell, call it Congress. [*]Dispose of the Forum Competitions forum. Turn it into a comedy forum & we can redirect all the funny to there. </ul> With this site restructuring, there needs to be better management. We have moderators but they don�t really spur anything, do they? Look through the regulars & get people to moderate who will DO IT. Get people who will be respected & don't just assign willy-nilly. Make the mods people who fit the areas. For example, I would move Krenim to Comedy & put Irishman in DAC. I understand that things are difficult & that Charles seems to be going the way of Howard Hughes. With that in mind I suggest he appoint an executive manager or council or something & then he can be emeritized to the figurehead post of Dear Leader or some such. He would retain final control, layout design, & the like, but daily & administrative operations could be passed alone to those of us who are here on a regular basis The User Agreement needs to be rewritten, severely. And it should be more accessible at all times; it took me an hour of searching to finally find the link to it. There should definitely be something like a new user entry guide forum post. This post should help the new member be aware of the environment they are entering. Simply saying "we're more tolerant of older members than newer ones" doesn't wash the change in China. Perhaps there could be short introductions to some of the regular members & their personalities. That way, the new member knows that Lee is snarky, Simon is cerebral, and Siegfried is a jokester & unofficial �Flare historian�. That they know that UM is out there on his own level, that I�m a jackass, that Timo is incredibly egalitarian. Post examples of "correct" & "incorrect" posts, thus preventing the usual schmutz we get from the intrepid types who've wandered in & were the chummy types...& I mean "chummy" in the Jaws sense. Which leads to the final change: the change of ourselves & our attitudes. We're a pretty tight-knit community and the "n00b hazing" seems to pretty much turn into "We don't want anyone new here, go away." It�s depressing. I don't tell ANYone I know about Flare anymore because there's no point. I know that others would like to bring new blood but are afraid to. I know that I could bring WOMEN into the board. WOMEN! But these people are usually casual sci-fi fans & I know they'd not feel welcome in the casual areas. There's a quote from Jason 16 months ago in the thread about the last UA change. The quote fits: [QUOTE]"I think of Flare as a 1920's gentleman's club that's full of the top minds in sci-fi jackassery. That's not to say that we don�t love our female members- though they could be meaner- I'm just drawing an elitist comparison. Or, we are the strange deep-sea fish of the internet- all glowy appendages and long sharp teeth. Older members can take the pressure while some new members are crushed to pulp and carried away by the currents...."[/QUOTE]That is the best & most accurate assessment of this board�s membership I have ever seen. I bet if we asked around...a lot of people feel the same. That they love it, but are afraid to bring in new people. I know we could pluck from Trek BBS (I've never been there). Jason is still on the Starship Modeler boards & I'm not. I have a lot of friends on Livejournal who are sci-fi & anime fans. I would like to make a Livejournal post & invite people to Flare. I would. But I can't. They'd be disgusted. Half the time, I�m disgusted, & that�s saying something. We don't have to stop being snarky. We just need to be more inviting, in design, structure, & nature. It�s difficult to do, I understand that. We're comfortable in our ways and don't want to put the effort into accepting new people. But it�s now gone beyond that. Now we're actively discouraging people from joining. We don�t need to be looking for people who have hard-ons for technology or small blurry shots of starship in the background. Most people are causal fans. I think we all have people who'd fit in on a casual level. We don't have to have people who live & campout in S&T. I mean, really�when was the last time you saw Liz there? I don't think I've EVER seen her there & she�s one of our favorites here. Of course, that might be because she also has breasts, but I�m willing to give the benefit of the doubt. We should promote but not spam. We can encourage people we know who would fit in well, who are maybe a little snarky themselves to join us. I know I can find more than a few: one girl on my LJ friends list is a massive X-files fan. Another has listed among his 150 LJ interests comic books, cyberpunk, earthships, grokking, Harry Turtledove, Neil Gaiman, Red Dwarf, Robert Heinlein, science fiction, The Fifth Element, The Matrix, & Valentine Michael Smith. That gent is exceedingly intelligent & I think he�d be a bang-up member here. I love Flare. I do. I don't go to any other board but it. But I feel like a member of the He-Man Woman-Haters Club during the FemLib movement. I feel like the guys who said to close the Patent Office because everything that could conceivably be invented had been. And...that's not shiny. I encourage you to take all of this under consideration & actively try to rejuvenate & revitalize Flare. I really don�t want to see it die, & I don�t think you do either. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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