The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post

Macalaure · 10-26-2006, 07:22 AM

Those are good points you raise, Farael and Jenny. I've been thinking similar for some months already, so I think this particular problem is completely independant of the davem-incident, but not much less important to solve.

I feel there is some sort of shift in the community of the Downs. There are the scholars on the one side, and there are the people who can be found in Mirth and Quizes or RPGs mainly and rarely or never contribute to the discussions on the other. I've heard many say that they would like to post more in the Books, but nevertheless they rarely do. I think Farael and Jenny already give the reason, so I won't repeat. We have the N&N board for newbies, we have The Books for the scholars, but what about the 'apprentices'? People like Farael, Jenny, me and many, many others, who are (far) beyond 'Why didn't the eagles bring the Ring to Mordor?'-questions but who struggle to follow, let alone contribute to, the scholarly discussions. It would be a drastic measure, but why not create a fourth discussion board, for us 'Wizard Pupils'? It would be a way to drag the semi-educated back into discussing Tolkien and Middle-earth instead of leaving them to waste (

) their time in the Mirth. Of course I don't mean to exclude the scholars from that board. They would be as welcome as they're in N&N to spread their knowledge. But on 'WP' (or whatever to call it) they would be less intimidating.

We have a lot of members who are learned enough for good discussions, but not for the scholarly. We should find a way to make them discuss more - at the level of their ability. How to exactly achieve it is not important. In the long term the scholar discussions will benefit from this, too, I'm convinced.

10-26-2006, 07:22 AM	#6
Macalaure Fading Fëanorion Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: into the flood again Posts: 2,911	Those are good points you raise, Farael and Jenny. I've been thinking similar for some months already, so I think this particular problem is completely independant of the davem-incident, but not much less important to solve. I feel there is some sort of shift in the community of the Downs. There are the scholars on the one side, and there are the people who can be found in Mirth and Quizes or RPGs mainly and rarely or never contribute to the discussions on the other. I've heard many say that they would like to post more in the Books, but nevertheless they rarely do. I think Farael and Jenny already give the reason, so I won't repeat. We have the N&N board for newbies, we have The Books for the scholars, but what about the 'apprentices'? People like Farael, Jenny, me and many, many others, who are (far) beyond 'Why didn't the eagles bring the Ring to Mordor?'-questions but who struggle to follow, let alone contribute to, the scholarly discussions. It would be a drastic measure, but why not create a fourth discussion board, for us 'Wizard Pupils'? It would be a way to drag the semi-educated back into discussing Tolkien and Middle-earth instead of leaving them to waste ( ) their time in the Mirth. Of course I don't mean to exclude the scholars from that board. They would be as welcome as they're in N&N to spread their knowledge. But on 'WP' (or whatever to call it) they would be less intimidating. We have a lot of members who are learned enough for good discussions, but not for the scholarly. We should find a way to make them discuss more - at the level of their ability. How to exactly achieve it is not important. In the long term the scholar discussions will benefit from this, too, I'm convinced.