Linking to the thread "Find the real TI3 Community at Wiki" as I can no longer reply in the thread

By MOther, in Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition

Posted at

It's one thread. All he's doing is ensuring it stays on the front page, so new members can get directed to the wiki if they want to.
No one is forcing anyone to go to the wiki, but keeping one thread on the front page isn't that big of a deal.

I find your incessant complaining about the wiki "advertising" here more annoying than a thread directing people there. We already know you don't like it.

The only reason the wiki holds anything over these forums at all, is because there is no PM feature, making PBeM's impossible. Otherwise I would be in the same position you are in 4lterego. I was a holdout, and only checked my PBeM on the wiki because that's where it happened to be until recently.

I am a member of both forums and am checking both and contributing to both when I can.

Posted at

4lterego said:

What I do object to is the abject attempts at poaching new members with claims that this forum sucks and the wiki is clearly superior. While I freely concede that this forum software is abominable and the wiki has a far greater activity level and number of members, none of that makes it any more of the "the real TI community" than here - positioning that I find snide and arrogant.

"Poaching" implies that it's somehow bad for a user to be informed of another website, and that trying to get new users to check it out is somehow detrimental to this one.

The claims that "this forum sucks and the wiki is clearly superior" are pretty well based in fact, at least in terms of functionality. FFG's web staff seems to have continually refused to rectify the most basic functionality problems this forum has, or put in crappy hacks (such as the so-called "private messaging" they use here now).

I agree that the use of the term "the real TI community" can sound arrogant, but in terms of what the MEETING PLACE (ie, the forum) offers overall, the wiki forum is far superior than this one. The "real TI community" is, in fact, the PEOPLE who play the game, regardless of where they congregate online, but I think the term being used to describe the wiki is meant more in the sense of "a more condusive meeting place", which it is.

4lterego said:

For my own reasons I have no need of the wiki and don't care for it. I keep that to myself and don't bash the wiki, here or elsewhere. But when you come in here and tromp your dirty hobnails all over the place, I take issue. For just as the wiki derives from the old FFG forums, these forums in their new incarnation have the potential to gestate a new community wholly separate from the wiki - something that is far less likely to transpire if you keep trying to assimilate every new member, borg-like, that wanders in here. Otherwise we are left with these threadbare forums and the same old bloated wiki which, as popular as you seem to find it, is not to everyone's taste. It's the big picture that I am looking at here.

You may not bash it, but you seem to get all up in arms anytime someone even MENTIONS it, as if it's very existence should be ignored here. Yes, some attempts at promoting it are more blatant than others, but again, it IS a superior site for having true, community-based discussion. That doesn't mean this forum is useless (though in my opinion, it's pretty close), but just that there is a better alternative.

The wiki forum may have derived from the old FFG forums, but to be realistic, it wasn't until this piece-of-garbage forum software was released on the FFG site that the wiki forum really started taking off. Instead of it being an alternative to the functional FFG forums, it has now become the superior beast. It wasn't until this forum software was released that the "push" to get people over there was ramped up - and while some of it was probably from personal desire to see more people, a lot of it is also a desire to help new users from feeling that they are trapped in a sub-par forum which hardly does the awesomeness of the TI3 game any justice.

4lterego said:

So please, lay off the outright advertising. If one googles 'twilight imperium forums' the wiki's the 2nd hit - interested parties can find it just find without having to see it in every other thread here, nor does this one need to constantly stay on the front page. Thanks.

And how many people do you think are going to have "twilight imperium FORUMS" in their search. Sure, I guess I COULD do that when I'm searching, but usually if I'm looking for forums for this or that, I don't always type "forums". If you do a straight search for "Twilight Imperium", the wiki page is near the bottom of the page, and I think it's fair to say many people don't look past the first couple hits.

In short, in what way does having active references to the wiki forum detriment the game? How does it detriment this forum, other than pointing out it's flaws (which are many)? What real purpose would hiding the wiki forum do to benefit the game as a whole? If you don't like it, don't go there, but to make it harder for newer players to find a more active, more vibrant, and more functional forum to participate in simply to appease you, I don't see how that's going to help anyone.