Decisions, Decisions

[frogspawner]

How should we make decisions about the form and content of the SharedWorld?

Polls? What about time limits? Who says what/when decisions are needed? Or are decisions a Bad Thing?

I propose we suggest whatever methods seem best to us, and Mr Trifletraxor chooses one.

[soltakss]

I'd have two Shared Worlds, one for Fantasy and one for Sci Fi as the two are very hard to mix at anything but a cursory level.

Or, because you can never have too many choices, have a number of world templates in the Wiki and people can choose which to play with.

[frogspawner]

Well, there's a case in point - how do we decide what to make decisions about?

(Multiple world templates is the GateWorlds, I think...)

[AikiGhost]

Originally Posted by soltakss

I'd have two Shared Worlds, one for Fantasy and one for Sci Fi as the two are very hard to mix at anything but a cursory level.

Id submit Fading Suns as an example of Sci fantasy done right.

[frogspawner]

Does no-one have any suggestions for a process of taking decisions?

[Puck]

Well one idea could be that someone could make a proposal. Someone else would need to second the idea. At that point it gets placed on one of those voting or poling dodad threads. options could be: 1. works fine for me. 2. works but may need minor adjustments. 3. Willing to work with it but does not fit well with my ideas. 4. Veto. 2, 3, 4 would probably require a little explaination. Leave the idea open for a certain amount of time to discuss it, a week maybe, and then it is either adopted, or drafted as cannon. It would be nice if people could change their votes so the idea could be edited to make it more palitable for those who are not sure.

[soltakss]

Veto won't work as Fantasy lovers will veto hard Sci Fi stuff and vice versa.

A single Controller/Editor would be better, but who would do it?

Voting on most things by Poll might be an idea, but you'd have to ensure that the vote couldn't be skewed by multiple votes by the same person.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by soltakss

Veto won't work as Fantasy lovers will veto hard Sci Fi stuff and vice versa.

A single Controller/Editor would be better, but who would do it?

Voting on most things by Poll might be an idea, but you'd have to ensure that the vote couldn't be skewed by multiple votes by the same person.

I'd think Triff would be the one to make the final decision, and be "Supervising Editor" or some such.

Polls can be helpful, but can be flawed, both in terms of "skewed" results, and in skewed options.

With so many contributors we a re bound to go off in 20 different directions. Just as long as we can disagree, accept the final decision and continue on, we should be able to get some sort of result.

[tedopon]

This is why I haven't submitted anything in the last few weeks. I've noticed a tendency of some individuals to complain more about what they dislike about x idea than contribute anything of use.

I want to be clear that I am not flaming, just making an observation.
The whole idea of a shared project is to _share_ it. You take the good with the bad. The good and bad in this case are subjective terms, as this is a cooperative effort, and each participant has their own personal tastes.

I and others have suggested every item in this thread at one point or another in other threads from the last month. I quit contributing to these threads because it has turned into a Friendly Complaints Forum.

There is not going to be any format to this for a while. No one seems to want to come to a middle ground on either of the two core ideas A) Fantasy World and B) Sci Fi Place.

I want to emphasize yet again that this is not an attack or trolling, I am just stating the obvious. Whether you choose to admit this is the case or not, it is.

I would advise each individual on this forum to do as I and a few others have done:

Begin to create Content.

After a bunch of us begin submitting content, we will be able to come to a consensus with regards to formatting. There is nothing to be gained from idle speculation and/or disparagement of another's ideas. This is a _shared_ project. If you don't like someone's ideas, don't use them. That is the bottom line. We are (or at least I'd like to think we are) a community of like minded individuals who are undertaking this project for the advancement of the system it will use (or not use in some cases).

So, in closing, I submit to all of you that we should spend less time:

A) Saying how much we like or dislike another person's ideas
B) Endlessly discussing the structure of the thing
C) Saying _anything_ negative about Fantasy/Sci Fi
D) Bombarding Triff with nonsensical conflicting requests.
E) Suggesting Polling
F) Giving Our Opinion on "What Really Matters" in a write up

and spend more time:

A) Generating and Submitting Content

I think that we will find the latter option will be just what we need to get the ball rolling. We can worry about formatting and organization once we have real content to format and organize.

I want to say one last time that this post is not meant to discourage anyone from the process, anger or upset anyone, or identify the behavior of one or more people as being counterproductive. I just want this thing to work.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by soltakss

Veto won't work as Fantasy lovers will veto hard Sci Fi stuff and vice versa.

Well, one of the first votes might very well be whether to have a separate SharedWorld (galaxy?) for Sci-Fi, like someone suggested. And if we do, that shouldn't be a problem. But maybe just Yes/No's would be simpler. After all, what if a "sort of" option won the poll?

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

I'd think Triff would be the one to make the final decision, and be "Supervising Editor" or some such.
Polls can be helpful, but can be flawed, both in terms of "skewed" results, and in skewed options.

Yes, I hope Mr T will volunteer as supervisor of this sort of thing: deciding how to phrase polls, checking they're properly proposed, spotting multiple voters...

With so many contributors we a re bound to go off in 20 different directions. Just as long as we can disagree, accept the final decision and continue on, we should be able to get some sort of result.

I also hope that we will get lots of different ideas (even conflicting ones) - and can build up a rich background/mythology to reconcile them all...