Since there is apparently a bit disparity and difference of opinion on how this forum should work, I thought we'd better have a proper discussion about it.

In MY view, these are the interests this forum needs to serve:

1. Forming clans
2. Managing leagues
3. Manage results
4. General chat about clan stuff, serious or not


The following are my thoughts on how this could work, but they are merely an example, the idea here is for others to chime in based on your own experience and own ideas:

1. Forming a clan is not directly tied to a league. If people want to chat about a potentially new clan and just maybe, eventually choose to form one, that should be free and open to all. This can happen in new threads just fine, no sticky should be required for this kind of thing.

2. As long as clans are formed independent of any given league being run, clan leaders of newly formed clans who wants to join a league are responsible for making their presence know to the league hosts. THIS we need a sticky for.

3. Likewise for results - these need to be centralized and I think the current sticky serves this purpose just fine.

4. Any other thread that is more or less related to clans or leagues should be welcomed on this forum - serious or not. General forum rules and common sense / decent behavior obviously still apply, but I don't think the forum should be restricted to the 100% technical side of running clans and leagues. After all, this about community building as well.

Those are my thoughts, but those of the forum's users are of far more interests, so post away

I believe there needs to be a crackdown on moderation of threads.

In pool events forum if an event is not going anywhere then a mod caps it and everyone moves on. I think this should happen here primarily because these threads are getting in the way of proper matches in progress.

You state that we should be aware that some clans may not want to join the league currently hosted by yoda and pot_the_lot. The fact is they all do in the last year there has been a massive increase in intrest of clans. This is great dont get me wrong but it does mean we need to change systems.

On a different note i believe the threads "players waiting for a clan" are pointless at the moment as no one is using them.

When you say "threads related serous or not" what do you mean i think there needs to be clear boundaries between and i think moderators will have to set them this is where football goes wrong theres no referee consistency lol.

I think the results page is a good one maybe if we feel in time that there are simply too many threads we may have to take out "specific clan talk". As this is not completely neccessary but is nice and a convenience.

So yeah im leaving my thoughts open just suggesting a couple of ideas good thread though i think this is the first step forward jan

I like things the way they are now, with the series of stickies for new clans, general news, results etc. The most annoying thing on the site for me at the moment is the spam when new clans are constantly starting up with a bunch of unreliable people where the likelihood of success is zero. Still worse, its the same offenders who crop up again and again on every thread with "ca I b in ur clan like".

Now, the forums are governed by rules and guidelines, and for me they are there to post sensible stuff having read the current thread and similar threads on the discussion boards. If somebody now insists on posting a new thread with "join ma clan now" they should be given a final warning about their conduct, with future misdemeanours punished with the removal of their posting rights. The "new clans - official thread" sticky is very useful as it will minimise clutter on this particular forum topic.

I agree with Walker on this one.

To Alex's point about "Players Waiting For A Clan", I think it is useful, as it has shown a decrease in "I want to join a clan" threads, and it's easier for captains to find players wanting to compete.

Well, are those really comparable as such?

Correct me if I'm wrong, since I have a somewhat outside-in perspective on this, but the way I see it, a pool event thread is more comparable with a league thread (which we probably should have), while clan threads are all about *forming* clans.

If we have a single thread for forming clans (like we currently do), what happens when 2-3 clans are trying to form in parallel? Isn't it counter productive to have all that traffic in the same thread?

I really think we ought to better distinguish leagues (the running of games as such) from clans (the participants). But that is, again, just my own view, and a pretty in-experienced one at that.



My thought was to make people aware of the fact that we can't force clans into a single league system if they don't want to. If people want to run parallel events (leagues), that should be welcomed. And if that is not the case and a single league is able to serve all clans who want to play, that's great too :)



I meant to point out that we need a place where people also can post less serious posts related to clans and league games. I perfectly agree that jokes, side tracking and general clutter should be kept away from the constructive, technical threads, but then new threads with less serious/constructive content need to be allowed too.

Or we could of course split the whole clan forum into several parts, one that is strictly for managing leagues/clans, and another which would serve as a more loosely moderated community board for clans to toss words at each other

Are you suggesting we need an entirely different forum for the more light hearted stuff.

Moving on i think it would be good to have a tab on the same thread for the more technical and less techno.

I think if you wish to have more parallel leagues then there will need to be even more moderating staff

Nope, just that we need to have SOME kind of place for it, in this forum or otherwise. I'm merely a bit concerned about seeing some posters and posts which are of that more light-hearted nature getting heat from other players - we need to resolve that one way or another.



I don't wish anything at all really, other than asking people to be open to the idea that no one actually "owns" the concept of leagues or clans.

Oh right okay although i dont see that as a problem at the moment clan leaders arent like that.

No one has attempted this feat at the moment anyway

The best way forward was discussed by me and Nick last year in messages.
We need a hidden forum that is only viewable by people in the clan leagues for the actual clan pages and results/fixtures. That way people not in the league cant bump threads down with daft threads.
At the same time we need to keep this area as without it there will be no new clans and people will not be able to recruit except by invitation. Daft threads can eventually become proper threads.

We have all been new to the forums at some point and while some people pick up the gist of it a lot quicker than others, the majority eventually adapt.

Look at my first posts on this very forum and you will see i used text speak, had no idea what lmao and so on meant and generally wasnt much of a forum person.

Im sure some of the people considered idiots by many now will go on to become respected posters in time with the correct guidance!

I hope that nick is still planning on the hidden forum for clan users although as someone with no coding ability etc I have no idea how this works. He did seem to agree at the time that this was the way forward though

Sounds good an adaption on my "tab" idea

Not really an adaptation as this was my idea 6 months ago

I presume there would need to be some kind of coding on your profile that allowed you to view the page when in a clan, maybe similar to posting rights on your profile, there could be a clan page rights bit?

Yes but it would of been if you hadnt in this thread.

?

I so wanted to post that same thing but messaged instead in case it was degrading to him

Hopefully he will elaborate further in a minute

PMLS..

Yeah shut up its been a busy day lol

Cant word anything properly wont post anymore lol

That sounds like an attitude problem to me to be honest.

If threads getting bumped down is a huge problem, wouldn't that be solved easily enough by having two forums instead of the current one; one strictly for managing leagues and the other one for anything else more or less loosely related to clans/leagues?

Frankly, as an "outsider", I see very little content here that is, in my opinion, off topic. Threads can be in the way, sure, but still, close to all of it is clan or league play related and therefore on topic.

If it's impossible or undesirable to use the same forum for both the technical aspect of running leagues as well as more general chat around this topic, why don't we simply fork this into two sub-forums - the sooner the better?


Edit: As long as my opinion is valued what so ever on this site, there will be no forums that are semi-private, where only s sub-set of the users have access. Any such adaption implies tiering of users, which is without exception a slippery slope - particularly when it is utterly unnecessary in order to address the problem at hand

Edit2: Please keep this thread clean and on-topic. This discussion is too important to be messed up.

Edited at 18:51 Tue 3/03/09 (GMT)

I really cant be bothered reading all that and sorry if im being rude.

I think in my opinion it comes down to mods, having one to one chats and helping the user that 'struggle' (?) to use the forums correctly. Because some users do.

I totally like what jan did by making things sticky at the top, the main four also in my opinion.

I dont think it comes to this because 8/10 post are from people that know how to use the forum. So the 2/10 that dont, maybe mods of this area can maybe message them or speak when there online. I know you guys do alot. Or you say you do. But do a little bit more

Thoughts guys?

Jan- Im sorry you feel that way, I dont mean it to come across like that at all!
My suggestion isnt to scrap this section or make a two tiered system in any way. Simply put, its to keep this forum for everybody on the site to post general clan news, recruitment threads, new clans and so on.
To then create an additional forum that is strictly for clan results, clan updates that people need to see asap (ie, a change to the rules), clan tables and own clan news threads.

I guess it doesnt need to be private, it just needs to be differently moderated in some peoples opinions.

Myself, i couldnt care less when these random threads come up that are starting a new clan or asking to join a clan, when there is clearly a stickied thread at the top.

Your correct when you say very little of what is posted is off topic, its just all in the wrong place/thread, but there is no way of telling someone who has never used a forum this until they do it.
Maybe there could be a little warning box or something that comes up when creating a thread here that says something along the lines of-

If this topic is to join a clan or to create a new clan then it will be removed. Please see the following threads <link here>

As i said already, they dont bother me that much but obviously not everyone feels the same. Personally, I think if your creating a new clan you need a thread, its hard to do it on the sticky if theres a few recruting at the same time!

Not trying to be argumentative with an "attitude problem" in any way, just offering an opinion on the best way forward.
Potty and yoda are putting a lot into this, it takes up a lot of your time i know.
Maybe a seperate forum purely for the clan league is the best way forward, that way when accepted into the currently running league they can post a thread there. Forget making it private, just be harsher with removing unneccesary threads quickly....they only need moving back to this section that way.

Its vitally important to keep this section so people can create new clans and also so people learn how to post in the section correctly. Just give potty and yoda's successfully run league space to breathe around it

Hope this doesnt offend anybody, I want this section to work as much as everyone else