[Formendacil]

Okay, we seem to be degenerating a little bit into unintentional ad hominems, and perhaps a little bit away from consideration of the rules. If I may play the nosey peacemaker, we seem to be getting a little off-course, and for all that Mithalwen is interpreting Bêthberry as advocating that inn players "stumble around in the dark," I think it's otherwise clear that neither is calling for the removal of character bios entirely. Rather, Mith is emphasizing the importance of the structure that bios provide to new players, and I think she's quite right that new players (and I mean people who haven't RPed before rather than people new to the Inn or providing new characters) want structure. Structure and rules make things make sense, and its usually when understanding the structure of something that newcomers feel safe to join in.

At the same time, however, Bêthberry is highlighting an important aspect of the Inns, which is contingent on their very nature as never-ending inns--namely the intentionally transient nature of those who are not innkeepers and the improvisational character this lends to any "story/plot" that might actually take place there. If I may play on her point that Inns are a horse of a different colour from RPs here generally, we need to be careful to keep the Inns and other RPs distinct when speaking about them--even if we decide on new/different rules for RPs generally, we still need to consider the Inns separately, since they provide a different function. However, taking Mithalwen's point, they ARE major points of entry for new players dipping their feet in the world of Downsian RPing, and I think her (their) concern for structure is important.

Okay, having possibly misrepresented everyone's point of view, may I ask the community to direct their ire towards me, and meanwhile get back to the (highly pertinent) question of structure that Mithadan is pushing us towards.

I've already given a fairly extensive proposal about how the RP forums could be revised, and there was some debate about that. While I hardly think my proposal is without flaws, I'd like to think that the response from those who engaged with it directly suggested that it had some merit. In particular, pretty much everyone seemed to agree that two gaming forums would be better than the current three, and that two would be preferable to consolidating them into one. My suggestion was to divide them between highly structured/strong owner control on the one hand and looser structure/less owner control on the other, which required some clarification. Still, once clarified it doesn't seem too hated, but the big question is: if you want two forums, how is one to distinguish between them? Is it to be acknowledged skill, as between the current forums (a system that most of us seem to feel has passed its time)? Is it to be along game-structure lines, as I'm proposing? Or what?

Or, if you think we just need one forum... well, you should speak up. While I like talking, I don't think mine's the only opinion that needs hearing.

Perhaps people could respond yea or nay (with explanations! Please! Think of it as a chance to use that finely honed WWian rhetoric) to the following questions:

1. Do you think the Downs should move to having 2 forums?
(If no, how many?)

2. Should game proposals be run by the Mods first?
If yes, to what extent?

3. Should we have (a)sub-forum(s) for brainstorming/discussion?



These are the biggest structural questions I'm seeing at the moment... there are probably more (if so, add them to list when you reply!). In addition to these yes/no questions, I can think of the following discussion questions:

Should the Inns continue in the future in their current form?

Should games be deleted/moved/closed after inactivity? After how much inactivity?