Forum:Neatening War Room forums

hi

With the retirement of our policy on voting and since we operate on consensus, I'm proposing that we start to format our forums in a more straightforward way.

(see Forum:Removing themes for article templates) The main issue with our forums is that, for the first few days, all we do is say what we're already going to say in a voting section when somebody decides to call a vote. If we have to bring up another issue, we need to start a new vote entirely - which pretty much lengthens the amount of time the forum is open by around another week. So I propose that we change our system for forums to:
 * 1) make it so that right after the forum is open, we have users begin to support/oppose/comment as if they were already voting. This would make it so that we don't need to waste time by having users just say "I agree"/"I disagree" (or whatever they would already say during the voting process) in order for somebody to "call a vote" after a few days, which would shorten the typical number of days a forum is open by around half.
 * 2) get rid of the Support and Oppose templates to let us use Support / Oppose / Comment as well as other things, such as Solution (#x), which would make it easier for people to provide their input/solutions (as well as vote on specific solutions defined in the forum) and, if users agree with what somebody proposes, they can say  's solution so that we don't need to create another vote if somebody throws out a new solution to a problem.

How an ideal forum would look (roughly :3): User:Azuris/forums

If you think there should be more stuff to add to make our forums 10x cooler, feel free to say so.

-- 03:54, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
To be honest, I see that number one is good, however number two is unnecessary, we should have a straight up vote each time and not get rid of or modify the voting templates. However, I think voting right away and moving on to the next forum is logical. War room forum decisions should be nearly exact to request's for adminships and the articles for deletion. 04:03, July 19, 2012 (UTC)


 * Except they shouldn't. The difference between forums and AfDs/RfAs is that they are based pretty much only off of Oppose/Support votes. Forums, on the other hand, should have more than "Oppose/Support" that somebody can say if they wish to get a point across. -- 04:05, July 19, 2012 (UTC)


 * What I am saying is that the templates should stay the way they are, and of course they should have more options, I am disagreeing with changing the templates from Support to . 04:11, July 19, 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not changing the templates that way. I'm suggesting we remove the use in templates like that (so we'd basically just be using Support, etc) so that whatever points a user is trying to make can be outlined more easily (such as Solution ). -- 04:20, July 19, 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh ok, I didn't realize that. Well anyway, I see no other problem. 04:24, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

I agree an ideal forum should end in Azuris losing rights. Anyway, I agree some forums can get pretty out of hand, such as the templates forum, which eventually ended on a compromise due to lack of consensus and anything that can be put forward to help aid this would be greatly beneficial. To a degree the first discussion phase has minor voting as it gauges where everyone stands, and with any luck that's where solutions crop up for the voting. The only issue is with the templates is there were no solutions as of such, it was just "We don't need themes" or "There's nothing wrong with them", the only 'solution' that came out of that forum was Kat's templates. With option 2, I reckon with COD:CON we can gauge where people stand based on comments, rather than a support/oppose vote, which is only majorly used in RfAs. (I knew it was smart to C+P for edit conflicts 04:19, July 19, 2012 (UTC)


 * That sounds good to me. 04:24, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Support - I didn't see much purpose in having separate discussions and votes in the first place, especially as many voters blatantly ignore prior discussion. As decisions are based on consensus, it only makes sense to move the frivolous voting phase and focus on the discussion. --Scottie theNerd (talk) 07:56, July 19, 2012 (UTC)


 * I see what you did there. 08:39, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Option #1 sounds good to me. Sgt. S.S. (talk) 09:48, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

I may be in favor of #2 simply for aesthetic purposes, but I do not believe #1 is a rational change to make. Our consensus depends on discussion: The first discussion phase of any forum is to get a basic feel for the community's decision so that any better ideas may be brought up. One of the problems with the Article Themes forum was that one or two of the votes had more than 2 options, which disrupted the balance for a particular bias. If we resort simply to voting without any prior discussion, we will get many votes that stray from the main idea of the forum, suggesting different things and unintentionally derailing and lengthening the forum. Joe Copp 10:17, July 19, 2012 (UTC)
 * The support/oppose comments would be our discussion. And our "prior discussion" is just what we'd say when somebody calls a vote anyways - we're basically saying the same thing twice on a forum. As we operate by consensus, it would only make sense to remove "votes" and replace them with comment-like opinions that would actually determine the outcome. -- 12:04, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Support both - This change is essential if the Call of Duty Wiki is to hold true to the consensus policy. Currently, based on what I've seen, editors spend a week posting paragraphs and paragraphs of well-reasoned opinions for discussion. This is all fantastic, but it nearly all goes to waste when a "vote" is called. For true consensus, the habit of tallying up supports and opposes in separate sections should also be eliminated, as this is essentially a vote. During the vote, editors simply repeat Per above, all, w/e. All of the previous discussion is eliminated. Editors only just entering the discussion will likely only see a dozen supports and a dozen opposes with little or no reasoning next to them. This reduces the quality of decision-making. The solution is clear, the consensus process must occur concurrently with a discussion, so the group opinion is allowed to meander around issues and change. Editors' opinions can be amended by the facts established during the discussion, instead of every user for themselves posting a support or oppose based only on skimming the proposal and the number of supports/opposes.

I can see that this change will be difficult for some users as the status quo here has been the same for a long period of time. However, change is good in this case, as the proposed system is evidently superior in its efficiency and effectiveness at determining consensus than the current system in use. Also, this is exactly the way we do things on the RuneScape Wiki, and it has been working well for years. One final point of aesthetics: having bolded words at the start of opinions helps separate paragraphs and makes the discussion easier to follow as well. 13:09, July 20, 2012 (UTC)

Support - A little bit of streamlining never hurts. For more reasoning, Per Scottie and thebrains. 23:34, July 20, 2012 (UTC)