Community event discussion

[Tennyo]

Is there a reason why we can't do both?

 

[Flintlock]

I already try to look at things form both sides, so I still find the suggested format limiting and potentially unpleasant. I'd rather just let people write what they feel like writing without being restricted to a particular side. I had to do something like that for class once and didn't enjoy it at all.

On the other hand, I used to take part in a debating club at university, and we always had to do exactly what Claymore is proposing: argue one side of a debate, even if we didn't agree with it. It was designed to improve our debating skills, and I thought it was fun.

Speaking of debates, not many people have expressed a preference for either a community playthrough or relay, and some who have expressed an opinion have said they'd be up for either or both, so I guess we'll do both. A playthrough starting soon and a relay in, say, April. I'll put up a nomination thread shortly.

 

[Starling]

That kind of debate is an exercise in debating as a skill more than it is about having fun talking about what you want to talk about, the way you want to do it. Might as well present a list of topics, see how many people sign up as wanting to be for or against a particular subject and randomly pick the person who gets it from the list of people wanting it. You could set it up so different people get the chance to have a go at it in each subject while still letting them sign up for more than one. To make that work, you could have people specify which ones they want in order of preference and if someone would win more than one, it goes to the next person or something. Rather than pick a winner out of the two, maybe choose subjects where both sides have relatively equal footing in making sensible arguments and present them as a pair. The guidelines would probably be something around the lines of avoiding logical fallacies and keeping things civil. Whoever's posting it could write up opening and closing paragraphs to the article while staying objective about the subject.

 

[fancy]

PHOENIX DOWN!!!!!!

Flarancy will be also be taking suggestions n' shit here so go ahead and post away.

 

[Flintlock]

What a coincidence, I have a suggestion!

Tres once ran an event called 30 Days of Final Fantasy. Inspired by one of those copypasta quizzes, each day he would ask the community to nominate something in a particular FF-related topic, like "favourite Final Fantasy mini game". Or, maybe he wouldn't ask, but people would look at the list and answer anyway. It generated some interesting discussion around each topic.

Since the Final Fantasy series recently the age of 30 (years), I thought it might be a good opportunity to run it again. I know we're in the middle of the awards and that we usually have a Community Playthrough in January/February – I dunno if you plan to keep that tradition going – but at some point.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

I feel like there's a few old polls/discussions/etc. that could be redone since (a) our active user-base has changed a bit since they were done and (b) enough new Final Fantasy games have come out or been developed enough to warrant redoing them.

Ones I'm thinking of in particular was the music poll Flint did. And the 30 Days of FF Themes [Music] that Force Stealer did all the way back in 2011.

 

[Flintlock]

The music ranking event (I really should have given it an "official" name but I couldn't think of one I liked) concluded two years ago on Christmas Day. A few people have asked for it to make a comeback. Maybe next summer? I'd be happy to run it or help run it with the Community Managers, though if they want to run it themselves that's cool too. Last time I took it over from Aaron during the nominations phase so there are a few things I'd do differently this time.

 

[Flare]

What a coincidence because I mentioned the 30 days of FF to Fancy several days ago as a possible idea to bring back!

And I also have been wanting to do the music thing again that Flint took over from Aaron back in 2015 (another thing I mentioned to Fancy!). I was still pretty new at the time but I remember having so much fun with that event. So yeah!

 

[ForceStealer]

And the 30 Days of FF Themes [Music] that Force Stealer did all the way back in 2011.

That was fun

 

[Channy]

I wanted to throw something out into the void at one point but wasn't sure when would be an appropriate time but I guess this is the thread for it. Ami and I met on another forum years ago (after I initially left TLS/before she came here). There was a yearly event, usually in the summer if people were in school called Survivor.

Survivor was basically just like the TV show. People are split into tribes, must compete challenges to try and earn immunity for their team otherwise after a week or two they then must vote someone off 'the island'. Challenges usually had a time limit, depending on the challenge, of about 5-7 days for people to get it together, and mini challenges were interspersed to keep people entertained that lasted about 24-48 hours.

Spoiler: How it works (forum technicalities)

A whole sub forum was made for this. Inside that, 2-4 sub-sub forums for each tribe. Depending on number of applications, tribes consisted of about 5-7 people. Tribe members can only view their own tribe sub forum and the main subforum for Survivor. They can't view the rest of the forum at all (unless logged out). You can't PM other people outside of Survivor.

Mods usually didn't participate or if one really wanted to, stripped of momentary mod powers so they couldn't view the other huts, etc.. Usually the whole thing was run by two or so mods to keep things organized, tally points up, oversee that people were behaving (usually rules were cut loose on trolling for Survivor to stir up competition but it all depends on the community) but I'd be happy to assist on the first go if it's explored.

Spoiler: Why it's fun

It really gets people's competitive spirits up but in a fun way. Usually members were split evenly according to time zones so you'd get 2/3 from UK, 2 from US/EST and then one from US/PST if available... that way no one is all in at the same time and your "huts" were usually attended to in case a Challenge was released at an odd time or mini challenges made an appearance. Which, again, stirred competition because all of a sudden a mini challenge worth 50 pts might have gone up and the most of another team slept through it while their other person didn't know the answer/had no camera atm...

This made challenges like Photo Relay (wherein there are 5 items listed and everyone has to post a pick but in a certain order... ball, stuffed animal, FF game, etc... one posts one item, next person posts that item and the next item, next person posts those two items and the next, and so on...) hilariously aggravating as you could have your whole team organized in their private forum discussing what items they have and what order they can go, but one person who might be in another timezone asleep and unaware....

Challenges included Chubby Bunny videos, post coordination threads, photo relay threads, a dare scavenger hunt with photos (in which I stood next to a highway with a sign saying "Honk if I'm Cute" (spoiler alert: nobody honked ) and then mini challenges including Emoticon Selfie threads, Most View Count Thread, and other embarrassing videos and pictures.

And then the final challenge usually involved some elaborate scheme of a dozen riddles that all somehow interconnected with coding riddles to make a final answer.

Spoiler: Other pertinents to try and convince you

Oh look, Kate Upton's boobies... how did those get here....

I think... I think that's about the jist of it? Ami and I discussed pitching this to you guys at some point, waiting until the other events were currently done. This could be done at any time, as years have gone by since and not too many people are in school anymore, usually working or not. Waiting until the forum upgrade/move with forums restablished is perfectly fine too, again, just sorta whenever. Activity has been getting up lately with the news and we've been getting newer and newer members so thought soonish would be a good time for it.

edit: I spent about half hr typing all that up... I also agree to Lex's idea and Jason's revival of Hang-Man